• Lindsay Lohan, America's favorite walking Petri dish of human social disease, has been celebrating her birthday for weeks now it seems, but this weekend is finally the official birthday party, and she's being paid $70,000 to host a party for herself at the MGM Grand in Vegas. [Page Six]
  
  
• Meghan McCain's sure to be shitty book isn't even out yet but she's already laying it down that she wants Hillary Duff to play her in the movie Hollywood makes out of the book because she's "really hot." Oh, and she wants Bradley Cooper to be in it to because he's "so hot." Meghan McCain is Paris Hilton. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Farrah Fawcett was laid to rest yesterday. Her former Charlie's Angels co-stars turned out and her son Redmond was released from jail for the funeral. [Sun]
  
  
• The photographer who took the photos of Michael Jackson on stage during his last rehearsal says that Michael felt reborn and energized to be on stage again and performed for an hour and a half without a glitch. [Mirror]
  
  
• Creepy old lizard Larry King refuses to fly on commercial planes. Instead he gets around by private jet, which is probably a good thing, because who'd want to sit next to Larry King on a cross-country flight? [Page Six]
  
  
• Courtney Love's doctors have diagnosed her with having malnutrition and basically told her that she needs to get some meat and potatoes in her or she's going to die. [Mirror]
  
  
• Fox is really desperate to hold on to Simon Cowell for the next season of American Idol. So much so that they're offering him $144 million bucks, 4 times the $36 million he made last season, to stick around. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Former New York Times head honcho Howell Raines is spending his days fishing in the creek like an old country hick. [Page Six]
  
  
• Some British billionaire's wife had to be carried out of Guy Ritchie's pub after she partied the night away with young buck Justin Timberlake. Jessica Biel was not reported to be around. [Daily Mail]

After the session, more than two dozen or so people were waiting for Ms. Crowley, Mr. Penn and Time’s Mark Halperin. Mr. Raines, who was eagerly trying to make eye contact with many of those people waiting, was mostly left alone.

“I miss New York,” he said, “but unless you’re going to work here every day, you fall out of habit of having the muscle to live here.”

A few minutes later, he was making his way through the 10th floor and heading toward the elevator banks, talking about how much he missed the food in New York and how difficult it is to find a good restaurant in his home in the woods in Pennsylvania; he was headed back there after driving in that morning.

He went down the elevator and spilled out onto 58th Street. Every media player, large and small, who walked in and out of the building that day—Dick Parsons, Glenn Beck, Lewis Black—was flanked with an entourage and had a determined spring to their step.

Mr. Raines was alone. He began to walk toward Ninth Avenue, stopped, flipped open his cell phone, shut it again. Then he started in the opposite direction down 58th Street, toward the park.

Do not think it can't happen to you, old media mogul! In fact, it surely will happen to you.

Hell, it'll happen, someday, to all of us. The question is "when." And the only way to get a clue to the answer is to go to dreadful things like panel discussions.

Maybe Howell Raines doesn't have it so bad after all.

How ya doin', folks? Great to see you all! Can we talk about this weather for a second? It was so sunny out there yesterday [pause for response] It was so sunny, even Charles Isherwood decided life was worth living! So, what's going on in the news? Iraq, wow. Last week was so deadly in Iraq that Dexter Filkins got to use his "this might be our last day on earth" line with five different women! [pause for laughter] I'll tell you, when John F. Burns was getting so agitated over there and I said "Screw it," I meant the assignment, not the female side of the press pool. Zing! So we've got some famous faces in the audience today. Is my cousin Mikey here? Michael Golden, International Herald Tribune publisher. Mikey? We can never tell if Mikey's around... maybe because I shipped him off to Paris in an internecine power struggle and ever since then he's been plotting in exile to overthrow me! Talk about family control issues! [pause for awkward, strained silence] Is Hassan here? Hassan Elmasry? He's not here? [give leering look to audience] Good. Let's talk about him! Hey, Hassan, I got a Power Point presentation right here in my pants, and it's got your name on it! [pause for laughter] But seriously, Hassan, go fuck yourself. You think you're going to come into Pinch's house and shake up a hundred years of tradition? Sit and spin, my friend. Sit. And. Spin. [sweat copiously, adjust tie] I will fucking kill you and the investment firm you rode in on. [notice you're alarming audience, go to prop material] Look who's here? [pull out plush moose toy from left suit pocket] It's Dryfoos the Moose! Dryfoos, why don't you say a few words to the audience, they're afraid to talk about you. [do moose voice] "Helllllllllllooooooo! Good to see you! Hey Morgan Stanley, lemme tell you what I told Howell Raines when the heat got to be too much: 'There's only room for one serial incompetent in this company, and you sure don't look like Janet Robinson to me! Get the fuck out of here!'" [notice people silently heading toward exits; sit on stage clutching moose and weep openly] Okay, we've got a great show for you today. Some douchebag from About.com who convinced me that a self-help version of Wikipedia would be a good investment is here! Stick around, we'll be right back! [rend garments, moan, collapse] —balk

A Difficult Annual Times Meeting for Sulzbergers [NYT]

"Why can't anybody shed just one tear for things that don't happen," Lou Reed plaintively wondered on Growing Up In Public. They aren't exactly tears, but Keach Hagey sheds 576 words (slight uptick from last week!) about the non-filling in for Don Imus that former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle didn't not do. It's mainly a recap of Barnicle's career studded with outrage over the fact that CBS almost used him to replace the disgraced DJ but in the end did not. Howell Raines is also mentioned. It's deep on history but short on anything you really need to know. Our only hope is that it somehow indicates that the Imus story is so played out that people are reaching for the dregs and soon we'll stop hearing about it. (Okay, maybe not.)

Rating: Keach, help us out! Choire says we can end this harassing feature as soon as you write three decent columns in a row. We were so sure we were almost there! Please, we don't like this any more than you do! How about next week you look at the career of Sam Sifton? The rise from the then-relevant-if-still-annoying New York Press to Talk to the big chair in culture at the Times? How'd it happen? Or like something about Maer Roshan. Or Arianna. Yes! Silicon Alley! Do that! Or something glossy! New policies in cover-testing at Conde Nast! You know, the kind of stuff fags enjoy. Please, just let us put this thing out of our misery. Thanks! —balk

Another Imus in the Mourning? [VV]
Previously: Grading Keach Hagey: We... Like!

the next night i had drinks with the GM of another "hot" restaurant here in the city and it turns out he also had dinner at aVoce not one full week before me. and he hated it too. and i mean REALLY hated it he launched into a violent twenty minute dissertation on every crappy aspect of his dining experience i am not even kidding. the end result being we both agreed frank-bruni is a big stupid clueless fuckwad. oh ! and that reminds me— a "hot" restaurant proprietor i know who also recently dined at aVoce had this to say and i quote: "... the review was so unbelievably glowing, i was thinking as i was reading it that Frank Bruni must be totally in love with this boy." don't get me wrong now. i'm actually very sorry poor little aVoce has to suffer the brunt of my disdain for frank-bruni. even though i did truly dislike aVoce intensely, it's really frank-bruni i despise about a hundred times more. because FRANK BRUNI = AMANDA HESSER + A PENIS

Well, there you have it. We've yet to dine at aVoce, so we'll refrain from judging the restaurant, but if that assertion is, in fact, the case, it explains a whole lot. Is Frank Bruni Amanda Hesser with a penis? Very possible. If you load up a primate on caffeine, gave it a microphone, and stick it in Times Sqaure, does it become David Carr? We're betting yes. To that end we've put together a brief chart of Times equations which we'd like to share with you. Please print and save for easy reference.

The Blahg [PX This.]

On this morning's Today show, former Times editor Howell Raines sat down to promote his new memoir, The One That Got Away. Naturally, much of the conversation centered on miniature fabulist Jayson Blair, who Raines refers to as a "dwarf" in his book. When asked if he was guilty of being mean-spirited, Raines does the honorable thing: he blames his son.

Clearly, he hates all of us.

Fishing With Howell [NYM]

No wonder he's moving.

A few more pics after the jump.

Earlier: Howell Raines Gives Up on New York; We Give Up on Dignity