First of all, Levi doesn't seem like the kind of guy who isn't in on his own joke. We're surprised that he didn't go on The Tonight Show himself to do the bit—and if Conan didn't ask him to, well, then he's stupider than NBC for putting Leno on every night at 10. Anyway, TMZ reports that Levi's lawyer, Rex Jones, has asked for a retraction because of the skit (full video below) where William Shatner, in patented hip cat poetry reading persona, reads supposedly real dispatches from Levi Johnston's dubious Twitter account.

We've believed for some time that the account is fake, and now Butler is claiming that we were right all along and is demanding NBC apologize for claiming there were the real tweets of Sarah Palin's nemesis. To NBC we say, first of all the account wasn't verified, so it was going out on a limb to say it was real. Second of all, duh! Levi may be a little daft, but he's not the asshole who sent those tweets.

As far as his infamous Playgirl shoot goes, we learned from the online publication that they finally got a signed contract delivered today. Now they only have a week to plan all the details of the shoot, which is supposedly going down on the 13th. Playgirl spokesperson Daniel Nardicio says that they're in talks with longtime staff photographer Greg Weiner—the latest to join the porn-named squad of Levi Johnston, Tank Jones, and Rex Butler—to be the lensman. They'll most likely be shooting at a well-known gym as well as a famous hotel and in a studio. Levi gets into town this Friday, so keep your eyes open for him around town. As for what Page Six had to say about the size of Levi's hockey stick, Nardicio isn't too worried. "We've never spoken to Levi about the size of his penis and trust me, we have no concerns as to whether it's big enough and if we did, we wouldn't be telling Page Six about it."

When talking to Page Six, Levi's svengali Tank Jones might have gone back on his previous statement that Levi would definitely be naked for the shoot, but we're ignoring that. Now that there has been so much chatter about the size of the rifle he's hunting with, he has to show to save face. If he doesn't everyone will say that the claims about it being small were right. We can't wait to judge for ourselves.

[Illustration by Steven Dressler]

Take Houston, Texas' anonymous "Bloggess;" the Houston Chronicle columnist just can't understand why Shatner blocked her account, following posts like these:

• "Dear @ WilliamShatner: I need you to come to my house to save my marriage. No sex involved."
  
• "Unless you *want* to have sex. Which is totally fine."
  
• "But not with me though because I'm married. Please bring your own hooker."
  
• "Oh my God, what am I saying? I am the worst hostess ever. I will totally provide the hooker if you just come to dinner."
  
• "I need to know your preferences though or else I'll just default to hot Asian cheerleader."
  
• "Fuck. Dear @WilliamShatner. Please ignore my last several tweets. I'm a little drunk. And dangerously close to paying too much for travel."
  
• "Please come to my house and save me from myself."
  
• "Please give me a sign."
  
• "Victor: GET OFF TWITTER. I'VE BEEN STABBED." (Not addressed directly to Shatner)

Actually, we don't get it either: We'd rather read about hookers, Robert Scoble murdering rabbits and some crazy lady's husband getting stabbed than about 95% of what's on Twitter already. Then again, we don't have a wholesome Christmas song to pimp, and no one's going to write a tabloid story about us if we ignore a fan who writes "save me from myself" and then does something stupid.

(PIc via Bloggess)

Now, as anyone who has followed Sarah Palin's Twitter can attest, any attempt to make sense of her brain droppings is an exercise in utter futility, so any attempt to go beyond that and recite any Palin 140-character word soup dramatically, as William Shatner did with the tweet below, is, well, quite admirable. Awe-inspiring really.





Behold, a master thespian at work ladies and gentlemen.

And where is this new, no holds barred, politically incorrect Twitter account Sarah Palin promised us all? She's such a tease.

At first, we couldn't believe Palin actually said, "north to the future," but then we looked it up and saw that it's Alaska's state motto. North to the future? So Australia is living in the past? What happens when you reach the North Pole? That state is a fucking disaster.

Here's the video, followed by the text that O'Brien recognized as Ginsbergian poetry:

soaring through nature's finest show.
Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun.
And then the extremes. In the winter time it's the frozen road
that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty,
the cold though, doesn't it split
the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?
And then in the summertime such extreme
summertime
about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter
than just some months ago, than
just some months from now,
with fireweed blooming
along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing
and carving
and reminding us that here,
Mother Nature wins.
It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild
good life teeming along the road that is
north to the future.

• Today's big Rush and Malloy scoop: Brad and Angelina are looking to get a pad in the Upper West Side. I know what you're thinking: we've been through this before, and we did not like the results. The sacrificial real estate envy of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick cost so much emotionally to only have some computer nerd show up in their place. But Rush and Malloy are careful not to get your hopes up: the agents for the building is having problems selling the units, and they need to do so in order for the owner's offering plan to operate for another year. Anyway, I kind of don't want them here. Not that I'd prefer one celebrity over another, but at a certain point in New York, paparazzi nonsense begins to get in your way. Like, I'm sorry, but I don't want Brad and Angie Plus Three Imported Children And A Few Others Plus A Cabal Of Photogs pushing their way through Zabars while I try to get a bagel and not trip over the old bubbies who go there. Like, when you're in your neighborhood in New York, that kind of insane bullshit's the last thing you need. You're already paranoid and skittish and hungry enough as is. Also, can you imagine waiting in line at Gray's Papaya behind them? There are only two kinds of hot dogs, but seven kinds of juice, and you know they'd just take FOREVER to decide that they all want Coke and Angelina would make them drink Papaya juice and they'd all be crying and you'd just be like, for fuck's sake, I came to get a hot dog and now this? And then some vaguely European paparazzo would take a picture of you shoving a hotdog in your face and it would ruin Gray's Papaya for you. Just, like, ruin it. [Rush and Malloy]
  
  
• What? Partridge Family star Shirley Jones somehow made today's roundup. What did it take? The promise of nudity, of course. Jones was going to do a playboy spread until Hef saw the test shoot results and wanted to see more skin. So, Playboy subscribers, it's nice to know that the Hef is using your magazine as his own octogenarian porn vehicle, right? Okay, so, Jones is only 75. But still: Calendar Girls, ahoy. [Page Six]
  
  
• Paul McCartney couldn't reunite the Beatles, even with blow and Stevie Wonder. Paul McCartney came close to reuniting the Beatles on a coked-out night with Wonder and John Lennon. Now, take a deep breath, and one wild, insane guess as to why it didn't happen. Okay. Done guessing? If your answer doesn't rhyme with Foko Bono, it's wrong. What, you thought there was a problem with George Harrison or something? Honestly, the Walrus might've been Paul, but the blackbird of death was Yoko. [R & M]
  
  
• Also, Robert Plant is awesome and is being knighted for being awesome. [E!]
  
  
• Jeremy Piven was skeezing on Hayden Panettiere at the Entourage premiere on Thursday night. Away, old man. Seriously. Also, like every other Entourage-related item that's appeared anywhere, Jerry Ferrara (Turtle) was seen "cuddling" or something with Jamie Lynn-Sigler. If you don't watch the show, well, they're together on the show and in real life. And it is ridiculous-cute and gives hope to rotund, hat-wearing underachievers with bad nicknames that stick forever everywhere that one day they, too, may date Meadow Soprano. [Page Six]
  
  
• William Shatner couldn't get in on the Star Trek franchise revival feature, but he is wanted for the TJ Hooker version of this. Go figure. To be the Shat is a life lived curiously examined. [Page Six]
  
  
• Ah, yes: the lame sequel to yesterday's item about Jennifer Aniston shooting at the Daily News. You get to hear about how exciting and not contrived it was to work in a "real newsroom" and be issues "fake Daily News ID cards" and how Jennifer Aniston snacked on string cheese. Seriously. Way to bring the hurt, Daily News. Gossip fail. Oh, and really sad for the lack of crossover between the Rush and Malloy UWS scoop and this. Something like "Jennifer's sad and slaving it away with the rest of us hacks while her ex-mans, lady, and twelve kids are checking out a slick UWS pad and noshing on some Gray's Papaya." [Daily News]
  
  
• Brody Jenner's girlfriend, some Jayde Nicole person whose name or existence I don't understand, was trying to convince someone, somewhere that The Hills is real. This is like that time someone tried to convince you that visits to the proctologist are a blast, and you were like, no, but, you know, maybe? And then you were like, WTF, NO. [E!]
  
  
• Debbie Rowe is going to the custody hearing of Michael Jackson's children, and this somehow constitutes a People item. Then again, it's People. And here I am, linking to them. Is there an over-under on how long this thing's going to dominate the gossip newscycle? There's got to be a lottery somewhere. I'm going to take two years, to be replaced by the revelation that Ron Burkle is actually a Clinton stepbrother. Longshot, I know, but I think it'd do the trick. Who's got $10 to throw down? Oh, and also, Michael Jackson didn't want his Dad to come even remotely close to his children. God, wonder why. [People and Celebrity Spy]
  
  
• Ryan Reynolds has been cast as the Green Lantern, and I haven't. Reminder: he's also married to Scarlett Johannsen and used to be with Alanis Morisette. How good is your life? [D-Listed]
  
  
• Page Six Gossip Cindy Adams hates The Hamptons. Now, normally, I'd tell you to avoid reading Cray-Cray Aunt Cindy's column because it's totally batshit old lady nonsense, but this is quite wonderful: she talks about going to garage sales in the Hamptons and explains how she acquired a pair of white fur Yak boots, among other things. Also, this: "I hate country and ants and air and the need to attend another art-gallery opening every weekend or some do-gooder esoteric charity event like, maybe, The Care and Feeding of The Endangered White Rhino of Tanzania." Today, you're Mama Cindy. Truth, Mama. Truth. [Page Six]

Shatner's dirty old man act started when he used hand gestures to demonstrate how he has to pee in the woods, hand gestures that sort of insinuated he's packing a big dong. Then he moved on to a story about seeing a pretty girl on a train, a pretty girl he remembers so fondly that he moved his hand back and forth in front of his crotch in a masturbatory motion for emphasis. And then at the end of the interview Shatner, playfully agitated at Conan making fun of him for his inability to make the Vulcan "live long and prosper" salute, gave Conan the finger and the whole place just erupted.

All told, the entire segment is amazing. Definitely the most memorable moment to come out of the new Tonight Show so far, and something that may be remembered for a long time to come.

Video via The Tonight Show/NBC

But now that Shatner has a real show—Raw Nerve, on the Biography Channel—his bluster has been turned up a notch, as he insists former Star Trek co-star and snub-happy Gay Bridezilla George Takei needs to be "vetted" before being invited onto his show. Does Takei even want to be on his show? Apparently he does! Could someone bring in Christian Bale to smack the last wheezes of this never-ending cutesy feud out of both of them? ("Ohhhh gooood!!! Dah dah dah dah I didn't get invited to the gay wedd—SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LITTLE PRICKS! IT'S FUCKING DISTRACTING!!") [YouTube]

We can't be sure if Shatner's professed annoyance with his onetime co-star stems more from his recent accusations on Entertainment Tonight or simply that ET syndicated Takei's grievance while Shatner's crack psychoanalysis episodes wither on YouTube, but in any case, there can be no mistaking the tentative olive branch extended herein. We hope Takei accepts and that together, they may reach the final frontier of detente. Or at least that Shatner can just get a copy of Takei's wedding video and call it good. [YouTube]

• George Takei Calls William Shatner's YouTube Rant 'Silliness' [ET]

While he enters the conversation with almost Vulcan-like logic (his former Star Trek co-star, whom he "barely knows" but desperately wishes he could have tossed fistfuls of rice at, suffers from acute psychosis-induced jealousy), things quickly start to devolve around the two-minute mark. It's at that point that Shatner begins to drift off to the outer realms, where not even the most up-to-date Universal Translators would be able to untangle his meandering theories on what might have been eating at the bridge's furtively Redshirt-lusting lieutenant all these years.

• Shatner on Sulu Wedding Snub [YouTube]

"It was very tricky," Abrams told the L.A. Times. "We actually had written a scene with him in it that was a flashback kind of thing, but the truth is, it didn't quite feel right. The bigger thing was that he was very vocal that he didn't want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves."

The director was responding to an earlier comment Shatner had made about the newest Star Trek offering: "There is no need for me to know anything because I'm not a part of it." [UPI]

• William Shatner Responds to Star Trek Director JJ Abrams [YouTube]

The monologue, by guest host and Olympic swimming champ Michael Phelps, was to have been built around Obama and would have included an additional cameo by action star Chuck Norris. But Norris, too, canceled because of the hurricane, and William Shatner was enlisted as his replacement. Shatner was already en route from Los Angeles via chartered airplane when Obama dropped out; the monologue was reworked so that it would still include a Shatner cameo.

"It was great of him to do it," Michaels said of Shatner. Michaels said Obama was to have returned briefly for a second appearance, during the "Weekend Update" segment, but that was obviously scuttled, too.

..."His people called and said they felt they had to shut it down because of the storm," meaning Hurricane Ike, Michaels said yesterday by phone from New York. "I pleaded with them to wait and make the decision on Saturday morning, but they felt they had to do it then. There was a sensitivity to how it would be perceived — whether he would be criticized for doing it while disaster struck."

Did he make the right decision? "It was certainly the wrong decision for me," Michaels said. "Do I think there's an oversensitivity in this area? Yes." But Michaels said he would be happy to have Obama appear on a future show, provided a good sketch can be devised. "It was an enormous disappointment," Michaels said, "but they were very pleasant about it — 'Please have us back again' and all that."

Michaels went on to reply, "Oh, we will — and can you bring your wife? We kind of need her!" No word yet on whether Obama will reschedule or whether Fey will be lured back for repeat performances, but at least one thing is known: Palin herself watched the skit while on her campaign plane. Her spokesperson Tracey Schmidt said she found the sketch "quite funny" (though McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina begged to differ), adding that Palin once dressed up as Fey for Halloween. Meta madness!

• Fey-as-Palin Wins the Early Vote On 'SNL' [Washington Post]

They were working out in a running club and he couldn't take his eyes off Altman, who had a "lean, tightly muscled" body, the 71-year-old actor told AP Radio in an interview.

Takei said he asked Altman to help him train for a marathon, they fell in love, and now they've been living together for 21 years.

Altman said he proposed by getting down on one knee in their kitchen while Takei was eating a sandwich after seeing on TV that the California Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriage. It surprised Takei, who thought he would be the one who popped the question.

They bought each other turquoise and silver wedding rings.

Takei and Altman plan to marry Sept. 14 in the Democracy Forum at the Japanese National Museum in Los Angeles.

Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in "Star Trek," will be the best man and Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, will be the matron of honor. Castmate Leonard Nimoy will be among the 200 guests, but probably not William Shatner. Takei has said Shatner didn't treat him and most of the cast very well.

As happy as this news is, it saddens us that Shatner can't drum up for his co-star's wedding the same kinds of enthusiasm he musters for his heterosexual pursuits, and boldly join Takei on his journey to where no man-loving-man (who doesn't hail from Massachusetts and certain Benolux countries) has gone before.

• George Takei and Partner Plan to Wed in September [ABCNews.com/AP]

For one shocked moment, Jim could see no external genitalia at all—only dense black hair. Then Spock took his hand, guiding it to where the testes would be in a human male, and Jim felt the soft pressure of the sac descending against his palm.

"During moments of stress or environmental extremes the organs are drawn up almost entirely into the body," Spock said. "With practice, the response can also be initiated intentionally. The process of reversal is less easily controlled, however." He hesitated. "Any degree of tension tends to prolong the retraction of the phallus."

He moved Jim's hand up ten centimeters or so. Jim could just make out a dimpled area under the hair, and behind that, a firm mass. He massaged the place gently, feeling it move under the skin. Spock's fingers, where they still rested against the back of his hand, tensed and Jim stopped, unable to tell whether the stroking was pleasant or not.

From "Patterns".

Oh hai. Click me.