The Fix

The Donald hawks the T-shirt, thieves lift gold-plated gun from Elvis museum and Kylie Minogue converses with the dead. Plus: Will Janet pull a Courtney on Dave?

Published March 18, 2004 3:05PM (EST)

Afternoon Briefing:

The Donald meets the T-shirt: Donald Trump is looking to make bucks off the phrase "You're Fired." If the U.S. Patent and Trademark office says go for it, Mr. Moneybags will get to put those two words on T-shirts and mugs and sell them. What a Trumpy idea. (The Smoking Gun)

Breaking news: George Clooney and his on-again, off-again girlfriend Krista Allen are splitting again. She reportedly said this time she wanted a "clean break" since he's going to be on location for "Ocean's Twelve" for four months. (IMDB)

At least they didn't step on them: Thieves raided the Elvis-A-Rama museum in Las Vegas this week and made off with more than $250,000 worth of baubles and bangles (including a high school ring and a gold-plated pistol) but either because of respect or lack of resale value, a pair of the King's blue suede shoes was left behind. (Rolling Stone)

Director on the verge of a nervous lawsuit: The recently ousted right-wing Popular Party in Spain has threatened to sue filmmaker Pedro Almodovar for comments he made about them. Almodovar, commenting on the allegation that the PP was planning to postpone last Sunday's election in order to stay in power, said, "We were on the point [of having] a PP coup d'etat." Supporters of the PP also rallied against the director's latest film, "Bad Education," saying it is an attack on the Catholic Church. (BBC)

Battle of the breasts: Since Courtney Love was showing it all to David Letterman last night, Janet Jackson probably felt left out, so she's going to visit Dave on March 29. Fear not, the show is taped so the suits can deal with whatever happens. (ABC)

Is that a cut? Kylie Minogue says her late boyfriend Michael Hutchence came back from beyond to talk to her and that she feels closer to him now than she did when she dated him, more than 10 years ago. (Sky News)

-- Karen Croft

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Morning Briefing:

Love's next sweetheart move: Mere hours after repeatedly flashing David Letterman on his show, Courtney Love was arrested in New York in this morning's wee hours after she hurled a microphone stand into the audience from the stage during a show at the nightclub Plaid, hitting a 24-year-old man in the head. The victim, who was able to walk through the crowd to security and request medical attention, was taken to the hospital for treatment, and Love, who was charged with reckless endangerment, was arrested as she left the stage. A club spokeswoman says the incident was "pretty bloody" and that the young fellow was "very insistent on pressing charges and arresting Love." (CNN)

At least she has a shoulder to cry on: Giving meaning to the phrase love conquers all, Courtney Love is said to be "really goo goo" over a new guy: rock-video director Chris Milk, whom she reportedly met on the set of her video for "Mono." According to a "source close to Love," "She has never, in her own words, ever felt so submissive to any man." Not even David Letterman. (Rush and Molloy)

Real organized world: Buh-bye, Philly. Buh-bye, Liberty Bell. It's tolled for "The Real World" in Philadelphia. The producers of the MTV reality series, Bunim/Murray Productions, have pulled out of the City of Brotherly Love after the city's unions demanded that they use union labor, rather than giving work only to non-union workers. The production company said it was "disappointed" to make the announcement. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Marthawrites: Martha Stewart has sent a letter to friends requesting that they write to the judge in her case in hopes that she might get a lighter sentence. "Please include your opinion of my character, my work ethic, my integrity and my probity," she asked. "If possible, include any memorable experiences you have had with me to explain the basis of any expressed opinion(s)." A Stewart said issuing such a request was "standard practice" during sentencing proceedings. (N.Y. Post)

Nick now: How does being on a reality TV show affect a young man's life? In the case of Nick Warnock, Donald Trump's "favorite" male "Apprentice" contestant, not a whole lot. Warnock, who was a copier salesman at "The Copy Doctor" in Los Angeles before appearing on the show, is apparently back to work servicing Xerox machines again. (Page Six)

Not that wacko? As a grand jury convenes in her ex-husband Michael Jackson's trial for child sex abuse, Lisa Marie Presley wants the world to know that she was "in no way referring to seeing something inappropriate with children" when she said during an interview on Australian TV that she saw "things going on that I could do nothing about" during her marriage to Jackson. Presley says she "never" saw anything inappropriate transpire between Jackson and the children with whom he surrounds himself and that her comments were "completely taken out of context and erroneously read into," adding, "In saying I saw things, I was specifically referring to things in that relationship with us that went on between us at the time as husband and wife." (The Times of London)

Money Quotes:

OutKast's Big Boi on his lame love life: "When it comes to sex, I'm pretty conservative. There's certain [bleep] I hear my homeboys do, and I'll be, like, 'Really?' I've never had a ménage à trois and I'm an entertainer!" (Blender magazine via Rush and Molloy)

Suzanne Somers on her formerly lame love life, which she says she has revived thanks to post-menopausal hormone therapy: "The sex symbol lost her sex drive. I couldn't feel anything. It's not that I didn't have desire or want the intimacy, I couldn't feel anything, [but] when my hormones became balanced, suddenly I got my sexual feeling back." (N.Y. Daily News)

-- Amy Reiter

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