Scientology refugee Marc Headley has written a book called Blown For Good—featuring a dramatic, action-scene-type cover—detailing his 15 years of work inside Scientology. The Village Voice interviewed him about his 1990 "auditing" session performed by Days of Thunder-era Tom Cruise himself.

"You do a lot of things with a book and a bottle," Headley says. "It's known as the book-and-bottle routine." Cruise, he says, would instruct Headley to speak to a book, telling it to stand up, or to sit down, or otherwise to move somewhere.

"You do the same with the bottle. You talk to it. You do it with an ashtray too," he says. "You tell the ashtray, 'Sit in that chair.' Then you actually go over and put the ashtray on the chair. Then you tell the ashtray, 'Thank you.' Then you do the same thing with the bottle, and the book. And you do this for hours and hours."

This was supposed " to get your intention over to the bottle...to rehabilitate your ability to control things." Well then. Tom Cruise can control books and bottles with his mind and don't ever let anyone tell you different.

Headley also says that there are only about 10,000 Scientologists in the whole world. They could be whupped by the Unitarians!
[Village Voice. Pic by Richard Blakeley]

Justin Timberlake's stalker—surprisingly, not Brittney Spears—one Ms. Karen McNeil, was busted on Timberlake's property last week. When asked to leave, she wouldn't. So Timberlake danced out a restraining order on this psycho, who'd also tried to follow Axl Rose. Which is sad for Justin Timberlake's publicist. So is the fact that, instead of just loving Justin, she's apparently being possessed by witches. Witches? Witches!

In the nonsensical ramblings, Karen states that she has been targeted by "Babylon witches" who seek to cast their "evil" on her.

Babylon witches? WTF? Has Robert Moses State Park really gotten that bad?

But Timberlake isn't the only one. Ryan Seacrest has a creepy leprechaun who thinks he's been made in Seacrest's image, or something. No, but seriously, this guy's scary, and he has a knife, and now Seacrest has a restraining order against him:

Lawyers for Seacrest got the order from a Los Angeles judge on Friday after Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr. was detained at the E! Entertainment Television headquarters the same day. Records show the 25-year-old man is already on probation for a previous incident involving Seacrest. Last month, Uzomah pleaded guilty to three misdemeanours, including carrying a switchblade knife as well as assault and battery. That was after he attacked one of Seacrest's bodyguards outside an event.

Who else? Miley Cyrus has had a ghoulish, pervy, 53 year-old stalker. Who just went free today. This was the guy who thought he was getting secret messages from Miley through the television a la Videodrome. Whereas we all hear "this music sucks, listen to something else," this creep hears, well, someone telling him to do creepy things. Which makes him crazy.

So what's there to understand about these people? Why do they think famous people give a shit about them, you know, besides the fact that they're mentally ill? What causes it? If the Stalker button on the top of this page is blatantly evident voyeurism, among other things, what goes beyond it? I'm sure it's still being studied, somewhere. In the mean time, Bret Easton Ellis plans on showing us the answer. Who else? Ellis is adapting a book for TV about Young Hollywood as seen through the eyes of a stalker. Wonder if he did his research on subjects close to him. Then again, considering his definition of "scary," he might be trying to teach us something. The stalked are scarier than the stalker, maybe?

Nah. Despite the fact that Hollywood's full of scary people, the people they spawn and inspire are even scarier.

Celebrities: they're nothing like us.

[Photo via Bauer-Griffin]

Broadcasting & Cable brings the joyous news: Our long national nightmare may be drawing to a close. If only we can re-open this investigation.

"The evidence in this case strongly suggests that CBS had access to video delay technology at the time of the 2004 Super Bowl," the commission said Tuesday in a brief to the Third Circuit Appeals Court in the Janet Jackson Super Bowl Reveal case. The FCC asked the court to remand the decision back to the FCC so it could investigate further its assertion that the violation was "willful."

If a TV network can fudge answers to a governmental body about the availability of time delay technology in a Super Bowl halftime show and get away with it after just a five year investigation, are we really a nation, at all?

Obama may be about to throw Van Jones overboard, but in somewhere out there, in an alternative universe, Charlie Sheen is striking back for the Truthers. In a breathtaking piece of fantasy journalism just posted on the web by the Two and a Half Men star, Sheen fleshes out his dream interview with the leader of the Free World in which he makes him confront the government's lies about the attack.

Sheen begins with an admirable piece of verisimilitude, in keeping with the mores of great fan fiction. Truly putting himself in the role of crusading journalist, Sheen swallows deep and reckons with the shackles placed on his imaginary profession:

I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I could have 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation's history. The following is a transcript of our remarkable discussion.

The stage is set. The odds against Sheen are a bazillion-trillion to one. How in a mere 20 minutes will a sitcom star break down the most eloquent speaker and glibbest debater the world has ever seen. At first, it looks like Sheen's imaginary editors have sent him out on Interview Impossible.

The President attempts to charm Sheen with flattery, and then after conceding, of the 9/11 Commission that he was "aware of certain "in fighting" during the course of their very thorough and tireless investigative process," the slippery Obama attempts to swat Sheen away with snide air-quoted references to the "facts" contained in the volumes of research the star has brought along for their encounter.

On the ropes, Sheen gets up, stands on his feet and charges ahead into the lion's den, speaking shame to power.

PBO – Mistakes were clearly made but we as a people and as a country need to move forward. It is obviously in our best interest as a democratic society to focus our efforts and our resources on the future of this great nation and our ability to protect the American people and our allies from this type of terrorism in the coming years.

CS – Sir, how can we focus on the future when THE COMMISSION ITSELF is on record stating that they still do not know the truth??

PBO – Even if what you state, might in some capacity, begin to approach an open discussion or balanced debate, I can't speak for, or about the decisions certain commission members made during an extremely difficult period. Perhaps you should be interviewing them instead of me. Wait, don't tell me; I was easier to track down than they were?

CS - Not exactly sir, but let's be honest. You're the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the buck stops with you. 9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on America through documented secrecy and deception.

From then on, there is no turning back as Charlie Sheen, hero fantasy reporter, parries the President with one fact after another, eventually withering him with his remorseless logic, presenting him with folder after folder of damning evidence, such as

Number 14; The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125ft in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no more than 16ft in diameter. The engines of the 757 would have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner, especially when contrasted with other images showing airplane crashes into buildings.

By then end, the President is virtually speechless, unable to respond to Sheen's incontestable evidence, he falls back on glib platitudes and limps out saying, "Well Charlie I can't say this hasn't been interesting. As I said earlier you've showed up today focused and organized. Regardless how I feel about the material you've presented, I must commend your dedication and zeal. However, our time here is up."

Truth has been told to power. But the walls of an empire will not come crashing down after just one imaginary interview. It will take thousands of imaginary interviews by celebrities, tens of thousands even, before power will look truth in the face and say, "Wow, Dude consider me skooled."

First it was that huge knife he pulled out, at random, on a video posted to his Twitter stream. Now he's admitted to keeping his sword from the Conan the Barbarian movies in his office, as well, and even uploaded a picture of the thing. We thought we'd seen it all in California politics but, honestly, who does this? Is it supposed to frighten his political opponents? Awe fans of 1980s muscle flicks?

We shudder to think what other implements of death the governor might be keeping in that office. This is the guy who starred in Predator, after all. We've let our imaginations run wild in the photo gallery below, showing a logical progression in gubernatorial arms.

The knife Schwarzenegger brandished in July. It CUTS fat from the budget, like education funding. Ha ha, get it??

The Conan sword Schwarzenegger just disclosed. He can really take a WHACK at spending with that thing!

Why not a grenade launcher mounted under an assault rifle? The governor could blow holes in the status quo with that thing. "Today, I am here to LAUNCH a new initiative. I think you'll find its potential is EXPLOSIVE."

A Gatling gun would be great for mowing down the naysayers in the press, right Arnold? "I've put a few new issues into the ROTATION, guys. I hope you don't mind if my answers sound a little CANNON-ED."

1. Went on date with Cheers actor; issued press release that went viral while on date. Not many publicists can claim that.

2. January 14, 2009: handled publicity for "Birthday Bash for Hollywood Publicist Charmaine Blake."

3. "First Publicist to ever put 'ED HARDY WATER' ON THE MAP"

4. May 10, 2008: "Launch of a personal underwater aircraft"

5. Domination of mindspace: "Charmaine Blake – What is she doing today? That is the question that Hollywood, Californians have in their minds from time to time."

6. Not being held back by her given name: "Fun is her middle name, but business is her fortay."

7. November 10, 2006: "the 1st Annual Read to succeed literacy gala. Honoring congress woman maxine waters and Lu Var Burton"

8. Diversity of skills: "Charmaine Blake is a famous publicist, who works hard for her clients and then plays hard."

9. Not a liar: "Charmaine Blake is getting famous from what she does and that is why we say that she is the publicist in the spotlight. She really is!"

10. "Professionalism"

Ominously named The Intelligence Group, CAA's market research subsidiary "builds creative solutions for (their) clients." But their "best known division" is Youth Intelligence. According to their language they're the "premier research group focused on Gen X and Gen Y (ages 14 to 39)," to all of which I say: nice demos.

But: do the higher ups at CAA know that the swarmy pollsters Youth Intelligence put a poll out in the field only a day after Michael Jackson's death, looking to do focus group work on Jackson's demise? The email:

From: YI PANEL
Subject: the passing of michael jackson
To: [Redacted]
Date: Friday, June 26, 2009, 9:05 PM

Hello friends-

The passing of Michael Jackson was a crazy surprise, and has left many of us truly saddened. He was a pretty incredible artist whose influence on pop culture is immeasurable. Because the impact of his music, his fashion, and his talents was felt by so many around the world, we're very much interested in your reaction to his passing.

What does Michael Jackson mean to you?
What kind of impact did he have on your life?
Are you doing anything to memorialize him? If so, what?

It would be awesome if you could send us your thoughts by Sunday night - and thank you for sharing.

The Intelligence Group

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Awesome, indeed. We received this email late Friday night; I contacted The Intelligence Group for comment, they have yet to get back to me.

On that note, we've got three questions for The Intelligence Group:

1. Aren't the results of this research ultimately going to be swayed and too varied due to the intense newsdump that's taken place over the weekend to be of any substantial use?

2. Market research one day after Jackson died, with the body still warm, and someone's looking for answers that will eventually lead them to build a "creative solution" somewhere?

3. Won't the gigantic celebrities CAA represents - among them, friends and cohorts of Jackson's, surely - find this a little, uh, callous?

You can reach us here with whatever answers you've got for us. It would be awesome if you could send us your thoughts by the time your CAA overlords read this. And thanks for sharing.

- Gawker Weekend

He was a gay equality advocate on Miss USA, but then he was calling Will.I.Am "gay" like it was an insult in a nightclub. He did so to get under the singer's skin, but then when he did, successfully, get under his skin he got very upset at the results, even though he had thought the man a "thug" before pushing his buttons so he had to imagine it might get physical.

Now Hilton's trying to figure out if he's sorry or not. At the moment, the answer is, "Um, sort of:"

I wanted to hurt him with the word I chose, not anyone else. Unfortunately, the one who got hurt was me and, subsequently, a lot of other people. I wish none of it had happened.

I can't take it back. I did what I thought was best at the moment to stand up for myself in a non-violent yet still assertive way. Clearly, I am not homophobic... I will continue to say things that upset both gay people and straight people... I've come to terms with all my incongruities and am proud of who I am and what I do.

In closing, words can hurt. But words should not provoke someone to violence.

Hilton goes on, since the words "in closing" came less than halfway through his post. In closing, Perez Hilton makes no sense, and all efforts to make sense of him are futile.

It was always somewhat unclear what exactly went down in this case, and it seemed to boil down to a tabloid's word versus the word of the father, Rafiq Qureshi. So it's good to know the authorities WENT ALL OUT to get the testimony of every witness:

Police questioned Qureshi but were unable to track down the three journalists who carried out the alleged sting.

Officers looked for them at the Leela, a five-star hotel where the report said they met Qureshi but they had already left, Shaikh said.

Police traced two mobile phone numbers the trio gave the hotel to local Vodafone SIM cards, which were activated on April 16 and deactivated on April 19.

Indian police made no further efforts to contact the journalists or News of the World in England, Shaikh added.

Yep, they closed this case—which made headlines around the world—because they just couldn't get in touch with those News of the World reporters. Uh, did they try looking here?
[Pic via]

If Chuck had better writers they may have been able to craft this one into something that was self-referential and funny, but as it is it's just crazy awkward. Ben Silverman's product-placing path to economic success continues!

Subway's "Chuck" appearance goes beyond the usual trappings of product placement, in which an on-air appearance or even a reference from a character is considered a boffo execution. Getting a character to repeat the company's ad slogan is tantamount to turning "Chuck" for even the briefest of moments into a bona fide Subway commercial.

[Ad Age]

The music video they appear in is the Hype Williams-directed "Blame It" by Jamie Foxx, who is now firmly at the "Waiting for Tonight" phase of his Jennifer Lopez-emulating career (and now you know why he was so determined to appear on In Living Color). Sure, we can understand the cameos from Forest Whitaker, Samuel L. Jackson, and even the dapper Gyllenhaal. But Ron Howard, raising a glass of champers amidst video hos? Somewhere at Imagine, a jealous Brian Grazer is frantically dialing Lil' Wayne while assuring Howard, "No, it's OK. I got next." The clip is below.

• Jamie Foxx (Feat. T-Pain) - Blame It [World Star Hip-Hop]

I had the good fortune to mistakenly watch this show last night, so let me just describe for you two instances of drama and intrigue, accompanied by copious dramatic music and editing, that went down in this one episode, and which were broadcast out to the world, by choice, to illustrate the dramatic perils the Homeland Security department faces while keeping us safe:

• A dude coming into America claimed to be an American. Turned out to be true.
• Somebody attempted to bring a sandwich into the USA.

No, the strangely warm conversation between the liberal comic and the conservative shouting head was most confrontational on the topic of Helen Thomas, whom O'Reilly had compared on his Fox News Channel show to the "Wicked Witch of the East" from Wizard of Oz. "If you're going to do a little humor, learn how to do it," Goldberg said. Zing!

Goldberg may have devised the most realistic strategy yet for effectively arguing with O'Reilly on his notoriously hostile show: hold your tongue. She endured absurd, delusional O'Reillyisms like the "bottom rung" comment and the assertion that O'Reilly understands "the Barack Obama phenomenon better than anyone else in this country." Her reward for ignoring this bait was the chance to make the point she was prepared to make, and the one that would most effectively rebut her host.

[via HuffPo]

Visitors would be able to visit a replica slave ship and walk the route their shackled ancestors walked before playing a round of golf or relaxing by a pool.

There's also Jackson Five tie-in, obviously, including a collection of band memorabilia. There are also holograms, robots and probably some kind of horribly ill-advised Captain EO-meets-Roots laser movie thing. The idea is to attract African Americans who want to trace back their roots, and white people looking for the money they were promised on email.

Historians are aghast, and one critic said the proposed development is "like dancing on the graves of dead people," which totally isn't true. It's like building a pricey, zombie-themed nightclub on the graves of dead people, complete with bottle service, and making relatives of the deceased pay an exorbitant cover charge to come visit. Then you get in and Michael Jackson is dancing with the skeleton of the Elephant Man. (Except that's something we'd actually pay to experience. Otherwise, same thing.)

This occurred to us after a top lawyer at TMZ's owner sent out an all-caps email screaming about the online tabloid's exclusive rights to photos of Nadya Suleman's distended octuplet-carrying belly.

Until now, we hadn't run said pics. Uh, WTF? So we called up the nice folks at TMZ and asked them what was going on. They say a photo agency called Polaris Images had been selling the Octo-mom pictures, even though TMZ had an exclusive license.

The unconfirmed scuttlebutt is that Suleman's own publicist may have given the photo to Polaris. To what end? Generating more publicity for her widely hated client? The motive isn't clear (if that's even how it happened). Peter Bolioli, Polaris's general manager for news, did not return a phone call, but a TMZ representative said Polaris stopped selling the photo after the site's request.

What's even odder: TMZ generally doesn't charge money to license its pictures to other sites; it just asks for credit and a link, in exchange for the publicity. (We get emails from TMZ all the time promoting stories in this fashion.) So what you have here seems to be a lawyer sending out an ANGRY, ANGRY email to enforce TMZ's rights to give away photos. Don't you love the Internet?

NOTICE OF TMZ'S EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO NADYA SULEMAN'S PREGNANCY PHOTOS

THIS IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT TMZ IS THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OF TWO PHOTOGRAPHS OF NADYA SULEMAN (THE "PHOTOGRAPHS") ATTACHED HERETO AS EXHIBIT "A" THAT TMZ FEATURED ON ITS WEBSITE AT www.tmz.com/2009/02/12/octomom-it-was-a-very-goodyear. IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO OUR ATTENTION THAT A THIRD PARTY HAS BEEN WRONGFULLY DISTRIBUTING THE PHOTOS WITHOUT TMZ'S CONSENT.

ANY TELEVISION BROADCAST OR INTERNET USE OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS RECEIVED FROM PARTIES OTHER THAN TMZ WILL BE CONSIDERED AN INFRINGEMENT AND VIOLATION OF TMZ'S VALUABLE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS AND WILL EXPOSE THE INFRINGER TO SUBSTANTIAL MONETARY DAMAGES.

WITHOUT TMZ'S LICENSE OR PERMISSION, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO USE ANY PORTIONS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS ON TELEVISION, IN ANY PRINT MEDIA, ON THE INTERNET, OR OTHER ONLINE SERVICE OR INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA TRANSMISSION, OR IN ANY OTHER MEDIUM.

________________________________

David J. Decker
EVP, Business & Legal Affairs
Telepictures Productions Inc.

(Exclusive photo exclusively via TMZ.com, exclusively)

As you see, it's eggs. With Disney characters stamped on the shells. Possibly selling at a markup. Is this some kind of tie-in to a movie, or further proof of the evils of agribusiness and the coming apocalypse? And while marketers obviously want to trick kids into believing that the plain old eggs are going to come out magically Mickey-shaped, we want to know: 1. Do the eggs come with the mold? 2. How much does said mold cost? 3. Does egg actually seep out from under edges of said mold, rendering shape unrecognizable, as has been the case in all our experiments with whimsical egg-shapery? The only way I can see this strangely low-fi "new product" swaying any egg-hater is if you give them something shell-on, ie hard-boiled or soft-cooked. Even then, any kid is quickly going to get wise to the fact that it's just a plain old egg, but a prancing Donald Duck might buy you a reluctant bite or two.

It's certainly laudable that Van Dien has thrown his weight behind Childhelp (less laudable: his hopelessly wooden acting), but we're not sure how exactly the rated-R, bug-killing character of Johnny Rico is supposed to tie in to this sensitive topic. Still, at least there's one silver lining: a studio's legal rights to a character apparently mean nothing anymore! Whee! Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to get back to Final Cut Pro to finish our PSA on the dangers of crystal meth-addled intercourse (starring Mickey Mouse!).

• 'Starship Troopers' gets serious [Pop Candy]

In the show's season finale, the final tribal council voted to give nerdy Bob a million dollars, but not before insane jury member Corinne had her turn. Corinne laid into finalist "Sugar" (who the show's chyrons helpfully identified as a "pin-up model") for the deeply egregious, untenable habit of weeping over her dead father who just died of lung cancer. The nerve! While it's not quite up there with Sue Hawk's famous, first-season "rats and snakes" monologue as far as sheer hillbilly eloquence goes, we admire Corinne's adherence to one of reality TV's key tenets: if you find someone terrible, you must point it out in a manner so incredibly cruel that it eclipses the original offense. Corinne, your self-awareness had to die so that this CBS franchise could live. [CBS]

boomp3.com

Ethan Hawke was spotted meeting a future version of himself in the meatpacking district of New York City. Future Ethan Hawke, who has travelled back in time seven years, asks present Hawke to stop losing parts to Josh Brolin. He also reassures him that it's okay to do a big studio picture every now and then. Before returning back to 2015, Future Ethan Hawke tells him that our work would one day be appreciated, especially their literary efforts, then quickly added to seriously think about it the next time an offer to do a cable TV series comes in.

[Photo Credit: INF]