• Professional Jackass Johnny Knoxville didn't take out a billboard with Luke Wilson's private, unlisted phone number on it or anything. He just hired a plane to hover around some B-list party in Malibu with a flier.
• Did you hear? Lindsay is innocent of all charges and she was totally framed by the police! Like O.J.! Also, she has the excuse-making abilities of a thirteen year-old girl caught smoking ciggies in the girls' lavatory.
• Next time, Paris feels like drugging Tyler Atkins, she may want to go with something more potent.
• Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupri went from rapping together on "Money Ain't A Thing" to facing off in some bizarre mogul-to-mogul standoff over (you guessed it) money.
• Tyra Banks hopes to silence her critics with a crazy, shitshow rant, and that same yeasty one-piece bathing suit.
• Britney and K-Fed's custody arrangement to preclude Federline from spending too much time with his cash cows beloved sons.
• Johnny Knoxville's wife is finally divorcing her jackass of a husband.
• Madonna's daughter pisses off her sperm donor father by developing an affected British accent just like her mother's.
• Mary-Louise Parker and "Denny Duquette" from Grey's Anatomy are splitsville; MLP left wondering, "where's my $8.7 million check?"
• Megan Mullally's failed talk show was shunned by her Will & Grace co-stars, rest of planet.
We always thought Johnny Knoxville was a stoner and a jackass. Turns out, he's just the latter.
Smoking a laced joint with Willie Nelson qualifies as "one of the worst things" the magazine cover boy has ever experienced. Point of the story: Willie's got the hook-up … and Rush & Molly don't approve of these extra-curricular activities.
The duo also doesn't approve of whichever obnoxious word Knoxville used to describe Angie Dickinson's hoo-hoo, while explaining why he couldn't just say no.
"I'm not a weed person, but when Willie Nelson passes you a joint, you don't say no," the "Jackass" star tells Playboy. "That's like Angie Dickinson passing you her [sexual organ] and you saying, 'No, no, no.'"
Sexual organ? Uh, ew. We are a bit perplexed as to why anyone would run this pointless quote, let alone run it they had to sub out the language. But running the quote and replacing "vag" with "sexual organ?" It's actually more awkward than just coming out and saying "cooter."
Side Dish [Rush & Molloy, Daily News]
When Out editor Aaron Hicklin personally invited us to his soiree last night at Bubble Lounge, we immediately blocked out our calendar. It's not that we wanted to go to another event with gays, media types, and champagne all shoved together. Rather, we wanted to see if Hicklin would show up at his own event this time. And did he show? Yes he did, cheekbones and all.
Though it can be difficult to have a serious conversation about a magazine when pretty boys have their shirts nearly unbuttoned and Michael Musto is actually standing still, we wanted to know all about Hicklin's process. Because it's all about process, isn't it folks? For Aaron, his process begins like this: "Picking the cover is a chore." You mean, choosing the hottie your newsstand buyers are going to ogle at is the worst part of the job? For Aaron, 'tis. He's more concerned with putting content "between the covers … that you won't find in Details."
Which is a nice segue into something that's been burning a bigger hole in our heads than sophomore year's E trip: Isn't Out just a gay Details, and isn't Details just a straight Out? And, more importantly, have they ever slept with each other?
The recent attention we threw Hicklin's way had to do with his choice for the September cover — the first issue that's entirely his. An early mockup showed Johnny Knoxville with a coverline quite similar to a Genre issue from last year. The actual version now being distributed? Knoxville's still on the cover, sans mimicky coverline. But the real cause for concern among the gays was why Knoxville is even on the cover. Shouldn't a gay mag feature, you know, gay people? No, insists Hicklin, who says his cover choice was based on Knoxville approaching Out directly – we also hear Knoxville has approached HX – that caused Out's staff to swoon. You wouldn't see Brandon Routh's camp reaching out to the homos, now would you?
And how about someone like Lance Bass, whose coming out earned mixed reactions among the homos. "I don't want Lance," Hicklin says. "By November it [his coming out] will be old news. … Is a coming out story [enough reason to be on a cover]?" Well, the more important question is really "Can Lance Bass sell a magazine?," and we tend to think even his Tigerbeat years are over.
So what's next from Hickin? He wasn't exactly spilling his editorial calendar, but if his repeated insistence that he "didn't grow up with images of sexualized men" is any indication, you can expect plenty of repressed libido to be popping up. At least between the covers.
[Photo: Out editor Aaron Hicklin with Jossip's Corynne Steindler.]
Related: All Out Magazine and Aaron Hicklin coverage
We thought we'd do Aaron Hicklin the favor of noting the actual cover of the September issue of Out: It is not the "Here's Johnny" cover we previously reported two weeks ago (read: the blatant fascimile of Genre's Johnny Knoxville cover from 2005), which threatened to knock Hicklin's vision of an avant garde magazine revamp right out of his Kiehl's moisurized hands. Instead, Hicklin chose to go with "Johnny Likes It Rough (And We Mean Ruff)," an enthusiasticly different coverline — but still the same recycled and bland cover subject. Jason Statham, it turns out, was unavailable on such short notice.
Current Issue [Out]
Earlier: Aaron Hicklin Comes Out With a Copycat
Earlier: Clearly, The Gays Love Johnny Knoxville
While a Johnny Knoxville cover does not a copycat make, it's worth noting that Out's Johnny Knoxville September cover, like Genre's July 2005 Knoxville cover, was actually preceded by The Advocate October 2004 Knoxville cover. Not that plastering the 13-24-year-old box office demographic savior on the cover of your magazine means you're immediately on the level of Ann Coulter plagiarism – if that were true, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Glamour, Us Weekly, Cosmo, InStyle, and Elle should all be sitting down for a Matt Lauer interview right about – but in the realm of gay journalism, how many times can we recycle a reality TV star's V-shaped torso? Silly homos, always trying to out-gay each other.
(L to R: Genre's July 2005 issue; Out's September 2006 issue)
New Out editor Aaron Hicklin – known around Jossip Worldwide Headquarters as "that guy who skipped his own magazine's first party on his watch" – was supposedly the successful catch by publisher Joe Landry, who stole Hicklin from BlackBook after an eight month search. But many an insider are already wondering: Where's the payoff?
The "let's be David Bowie gay—not Cher gay" Hicklin isn't exactly proving himself, according to those with direct knowledge of the situation. With the September 2006 issue – the first edition fully under Hicklin's control – he's gone with Out's tradition of choosing straight coverboys who play to the gay audience, throwing Johnny Knoxville on his book. The coverline? "Is Jackass the gayest show on TV?" (Excuse our rather sloppy scan.)
Johnny Knoxville? How innovative, we know. Especially when you look back to July 2005, when competitor Genre magazine put Knoxville on its cover shortly after it launched its own revamped image, flashing its redesign alongside new editor Chris Ciompi and owner Window Media.
Meanwhile, in his March 2006 publisher's letter, Out's Landry wrote "We have many weighty requirements for this extraordinary role," and that "Out will help to uncover this voice—defining gay for a new generation. And for the United States itself." That, or copying the gay generation of last year.
Related: All Aaron Hicklin and Out coverage
• Sorry, sorry, we didn't know. OK!'s Sarah Ivens isn't a whore, she's separated. [Gatecrasher]
• Johnny Knoxville tries to write a book, but he can't lay off the sauce. Oh, Johnny, we couldn't relate more. [The Scoop]
• Broke and off coke, Courtney Love sells her rights to Kurt Cobain's music. [Page Six]
• No real actresses want to be Bond girls, so they offer the part to Jessica Simpson. [Egotastic]
• Joaquin Pheonix gives prisoners a reason to live. Sort of. [TMZ]
• In case Renee Zellweger's wedding didn't bore you enough, you can now yawn incessently over her annulment. [AP]
• After Michael Jackson's Neverland zoo animals watch VH1: Hollywood's top 10 anorexics, they decide to join Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie in the starvation craze. [Page Six]
• You know Star—always so on top of the news. Their breaking story today? The past two years of Jessica Simpson's bed-hopping escapades.[Star]
• Elton John isn't the only really gay thing in the news today—Ryan Seacrest gets yet another job. [People]
• We love when hottie celebrities get smashed all over New York! Ok, so we weren't there for the Luke Wilson/Jhonny Knoxville drunken romp. No biggie. But if any of y'all see Jake Gyllenhaal wandering around NYC, half out of his mind, you better tell us. Seriously, we'll get really pissed if you don't. [Page Six]
• Add another item to your list of why you are way tougher than George Clooney: the walk from his private limo to the front steps of NYU was too cold to handle. Try walking to work bitch! [NYO]
• Lindsay Lohan and Keanu Reeves? WTF is going on? [Liz Smith]
• American Media's Star and Celebrity Living are on David Pecker's shit list after completely missing Nick Lachey and Jessica's Simpson's split scoop, which went to Us Weekly. While Star's "Jessica finally pregnant!" and Celebrity Living's "New house and a baby!" issues hit newsstands, father Joe was issuing the separation announcement. [Page Six]
• Desperate Housewives dismissal Page Kennedy claims he wasn't ousted from the ABC set for exposing himself, but Usher's rep Tamar Juda might beg to differ. [R&M]
• Spotting Jayson Blair outside the New York Times building is right up there with spotting Lauren Weisberger outside 4 Times Square. [R&M]
• We've devoted so much ink to the breakup of Kathy Griffin and Matt Moline that we can barely muster tears of joy upon hearing the D-list duo are still a pair. Even though they've filed for the divorce, the red carpet critic and her "soul mate" are still sleeping and mugging for the camera together. [PerezHilton]
• If Pete Doherty can't have Kate Moss, at the very least he can have her rehab clinic. [Page Six]
• Sienna Miller has finally figured out how to keep an eye on beau Jude Law: have him do a cameo in her new movie Factory Girl. [Page Six]
• Paris Hilton might still be ignoring Nicole Richie, but that's not keeping her, Stavros Niarchos, Nicky Hilton and Kevin Connelly from hitting up Stereo, where Richie's fiance DJ AM was spinning. [PerezHilton]
• Lindsay Lohan's latest? Johnny Knoxville. [Lowdown]
• Looks like The Firm chief Jeff Kwatinetz blew his chance at getting a J. Lo fragrance basket for Christmas. The uber agent stood up the diva at scheduled meetings not once, but twice. [Page Six]
• Nightclub doyenne Amy Sacco will have her life story told on the small screen (or HBO, which is a slightly larger screen, should you believe their PR pitches), thanks to a new deal with Sarah Jessica Parker's Prettymatches Productions.
• Johnny Knoxville might have passed a lie detector when it came to pondering whether he had sex with Jessica Simpson, but his heart rate didn't fare so well when it came to whether they've kissed.
• Paris Hilton's identity has been stolen, not online but in the physical world. An impostor is passing herself off as Paris Latsis' fiance, thanks to her identical looks and the small yap dog she's been carrying around St. Tropez.
• American Media Inc. is rushing to clean up its Demi Moore pregnancy-slash-miscarriage mess. The National Enquirer "broke" the miscarriage first and corporate cousin Star was ready with its own story that got pulled, inexplicably, at the last minute.
• The B-list hooking up continues, as Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon and Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis split. Francis quickly recouped with the help of new flame, saggy-assed Kimberly Stewart.
(Image via NYSD)
Editorial Director
