Calling it the "Obama Effect," Common claims the Commander-in-Chief has helped guide rappers away from bombastic consumerism and "gangsta talk," which we thought went out the window ages ago.

I also don't find as much gangsta talk. You see the whole chain-shining-and-rim era is gone. That's like super-played out. Just to have that, I think, is part of the Obama effect.

This hypothesis, of course, supports Common's previous claims to CNN that Obama's election would bring a more positive attitude to the genre. So it's all very convenient, although it seems to us that the crippled economy and a pervasive exhaustion for ostentatious displays had more to do with this trend than Obama himself. But, still, let's all sing his praises, anyway!

By the way, Common was speaking at an arts event sponsored by Hennessy, a drink that was emblematic of the attitudes Common claims are fading away.

The fact that D.L. Hughley got a CNN talk show was just mystifying from day one. And he didn't surprise the world with his hidden news acumen. The fact that David Alan Grier got to host what was billed as the black Daily Show was...at least enough to make everyone feel a vague sense of hope, for a few minutes, until the show aired. Turns out it was unoriginal and unfunny. Oh well! David Alan Grier was pretty funny on In Living Color but not so much since, so maybe they should have picked someone actually funny to host this show, Chocolate News, and perhaps CNN could have searched far and wide and eventually located a black person with slightly more journalistic chops than standup comedian D.L. Hughley. They are rumored to exist in the far-flung corners of our land!

Giving shows to people who aren't good is the real conspiracy.

Today Condoleezza Rice signed a three-book deal worth $2.5 million. Okay, maybe a bit more than you want to hear from Condi, but she was Secretary of State and all that, and presumably saw George Bush drunk and naked dozens of times, so she could conceivably sell a few books.

Earlier this month, Diane Keaton got a book deal reported to be worth more than $2 million. Does she have that many fans, really? I don't know, I doubt it, but maybe, who knows? She was in some good movies!

But this?

The comedian Kathy Griffin is writing a memoir, and according to three sources with knowledge of the deal, her literary agent at Endeavor, former Dutton editor-in-chief Trena Keating, sold it at auction last week to an editor at Random House's Ballantine imprint for more than $2 million.

Unless this is titled "Knocking the Dicks Out of My Mouth: 100 Celebrities I Have Slept With Who Would Do Anything For That Fact to Remain Secret," by Kathy Griffin, we fear that the book industry may be losing its grip on reality. [NYO]

• George Michael, 75-minute concert on New Year's eve, 2007, for nickel billionaire Vladimir Potanin. Price: $3.5 million
• Rihanna, 40-minute show for billionaire Oleg Deripaska on New Year's eve, 2008. Price: $500,000.
• Jennifer Lopez, 40-minute birthday party show for billionaire Andrei Melnichenko in April, 2007. Price: $1.2 million.
• Christina Aguilera, three songs at Andrei Melnichenko's wedding in September, 2005. Price: $3.6 million.
• And to put it all over the top, Madonna is reportedly considering an offer from "an unnamed Dubai-based tycoon" for a one-night private performance. Price: $10 million.

Fortunately, you can still hire Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens to play in your living room for $2,000.

JON Peters was the star when he got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Monday - but his ex-wife, Christine, stole the show when she had a process server hand him court papers the second he got out of his limo.

Jon and Christine are in a bitter legal battle. She claims Jon owes her child support for their two daughters. Jon claims that Christine has been living rent free in a mansion he owns and that the daughters are grown and not legally his. A pal of Jon's said, "I found the fact that she did it [have the papers served] in front of their children very classless."

Things, of course, could always have been worse, as Christine could have marred the proceedings more profoundly by having the server wait until Peters had fallen down on all fours to kiss his star before sneaking up behind him to deliver the papers, foreshadowing the legal buggering she hopes to inflict upon him at a later date. And, given the video and voicemail-leaking humiliations that certain ex-wives have recently been accused of causing their former husbands lately, Peters probably feels lucky that no embarrassing multimedia presentation accompanied her legal action.

• RAINY PARADE [Page Six]
• Previously: Suck-Up Ads Letting Jon Peters Know Who His Real Hollywood Friends Are [Defamer]
• Jon Peters Thinking 19 Years Enough Time For Ex-Wife To Find New Place [Defamer]

• 'PRIVATE' REHAB FOR METCALFE [Page Six]

• Senior Sex Symbols Steal the Screen [ABC News]
• Mirren hottest Oscar favorite [Reuters]

Flavored cocaine is nothing new, we're told. Law enforcement sources tell us that since the 80s people have been buying coke in all sorts of flavors, including rum and cherry, and now it appears strawberry is back and all the rage.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ that strawberry flavoring is added to the drug to give it its fruity flavor. Years ago just adding food coloring was a big thing— brown and red cocaine were the talk of the town. Theoretically, you could make or add any flavor you'd like to the drug.

Hollywood insiders tell TMZ that this drug has exploded in the club scene, and not only has cocaine made a huge comeback, the strawberry version is definitely rearing its ugly head again. Like leggings and skinny jeans, this dangerous pastime is back full force.

Sadly, we have no firsthand experience with strawberry-tinged booger sugar, as our dealer stubbornly refuses to offer anything but the traditional Cocaine Classic™ flavor. But we're intrigued by TMZ's bold piece on retro-blow, and invite our readers to pass along their encounters with it (either through e-mail or in our comments section) so that we can stay current on this explosive, fruity trend.

• Hollywood's New Fruit Addiction [TMZ.com]

"Celebrities," Mr. Musto said, "have added a glamorous patina to it." And to themselves, he said, especially if they need a little good press, like Lindsay Lohan, who has suffered through a year of rough tabloid treatment for her party-girl ways and has vowed to visit Kenya in support of the One Campaign. [...]

But, said Morgan Binswanger, a former liaison between performers and philanthropies for Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles: "There's self-interest and there's enlightened self-interest, and the fringe between the two is gray. I think those that step forward and really carry out enlightened self-interest move an agenda."

Alyssa Milano certainly hopes that is true. The actress, who toured civil-war-torn Angola in 2003 (and strayed into an active minefield, without incident), said Africa is one way celebrities can transform an unprecedented level of scrutiny into their lives into something productive.

Given the PR problems that have dogged Lohan ever since she became famous enough to bypass the celebrity-optional age requirements of Hollywood drinking establishments, she might be the perfect person to take this fascinating idea of "enlightened self-interest" to the next level. The good she might do simultaneously for her image as a spoiled party girl and for the plight of Africa when she emerges from an extended bathroom break on a UNICEF photo shoot, staggers into a Kenyan orphanage, then tries to teach a roomful of starving children the technique involved in a well-executed body shot.

• Into Africa [NY Times]
• Hollywood Trendwatch: Africa's Days As Hottest Charity-Continent Are Over [Defamer]

Africa's recent run as the hottest continent for Hollywood's charity-minded tastemakers to embrace finally comes to an end with this Gwyneth Paltrow ad, in which the Sliding Doors and Bounce star one-ups good works icon Angelina Jolie by symbolically adopting all of Africa, not just a single, too-trendy nation willing to host a publicity-attracting celebrity birth. However, the trendsetting Jolie knows that public awareness campaigns consist of more than just having one's stylist dig up some beads and smear some eyeshadow on one's face, and will prove that she'll always be ahead of the fashionable do-gooder curve by leaving Africa to move her family into an abandoned well in rural Bangladesh, then turning down all movie projects that refuse to shoot on location in her new homeland.

• Right Gwynnie. And I'm Martian. [Copyranter]
• Previously: Brad And Angelina Save Africa, One Country At A Time [Defamer]
• Madonna Unveils Longterm Plan To Share Headline Space With Angelina Jolie [Defamer]