Last Comic Standing premiered on Thursday airing the first two sets of auditions in New York City and Tempe, AZ. Comics go up in front of two celebrity judges and if they pass, they go onto a live audience showcase later that night. Only a few get past that point. "I love being a girl. I never have to pay for drinks," Chantel Rae of Redondo Beach explained on stage at the Tempe showcase. "But......

Mark Cuban is somebody sports fans can appreciate on a lot of levels. He's a self-made man, he's living his dreams, and he owns a pretty damn good NBA team. He's even parlayed that into reality TV stardom and probably gets all the tail that he wants. More power to him. Unfortunately, Cuban -- who built his empire on internet commerce -- has decided to smack technological progress in the face. Per his own blog,......

Talk shows this week are all Natalie Portman all the time if you hadn't noticed - the charming pixie is making the rounds for her new flick The Other Boleyn Girl, a period piece that looks like a yawn to me. In terms of tonight's viewing options check out the 10 o'clock slot - way too many choices and all of them are reality TV, what a shame. 7:15pm Doctor Zhivago TCM - If you......

It it 80 degrees on LAist's thermometer today | Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Shivering puppies can remove their little sweaters: it was warm today, wasn't it? 80 degree weather, when it was cold and rainy a mere 48 hours ago. We're not complaining. Naomi Campbell was hospitalized in Brazil this week...no, not for "exhaustion," but for treatment and removal of a small cyst. Man, that's so uncontroversial!......

Samantha Sidley and Alex Silverman at their Silver Lake rehearsal space | Photo via their MySpace page Alex & Sam may be a duo in title, but their fairly large band, sometimes up to twelve-members on stage, is quite a force of music that just puts a smile on your face. You can't really corner them into a jazz-blues rock or straight rock category. All we can say is that on stage, they've got......

With even more evidence of the population spending more time with programming and movies online, Lifetime, which I jokingly refer to as the most sexist network on the planet, is now launching programs on the web. If you weren't getting enough reality TV, first verify that you don't have testicles and then check out mylifetime.com and look for "That Magic Moment" which is about couples' first time in the sack and the "Clean Start Challenge”......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

If you care for "Just For Laughs", "According To Jim" and all things Tuesday ABC, they're new. We have a premiere tonight on Bravo, our new source of reality TV. This time they're launching Millionaire Matchmaker featuring Patti Stranger (right) who performs the very public service of hooking up desperate, misunderstood, and underprivileged millionaires with compatible mates - Patti, I hope someday a grateful society brings you the honors you deserve. 8:00pm American Idol FOX......

Which one of these beautiful young ladies will be named America's Next Top Model in the show's 10th go-round? I am not ashamed to admit that Wednesday nights at my house are sometimes known as "Top Model" night. (Code word: "You wanna be on top?" natch.) I didn't watch the show for its first few cycles, actually, curbing my "reality"-based curiosity about the gaggle of leggy empty-heads with the pretty faces and the ridiculous......

So most of the shows are either about to run out or have run out of new episodes (raise your hand if you're sad that there wasn't an Office Christmas show this year!) What will you do instead? I could suggest that you knit quilts for poor children, invent a plausible substitute for gasoline, start that novel you've been thinking about. But you're not going to do that. You're going to watch tv. So let's talk about what you can do to not get caught up in the increasingly noxious diet of reruns and reality tv. ...

LA Ink star and tattoo artist Kat Von D is out to set a Guinness World Record today for doing the most tattoos in a 24-hour period. She's kicking things off at noon today at her LA shop High Voltage, and word on the street is that a large crowd has already gathered. Von D will only be inking one design, a Guinness-approved "LA" logo, for anyone who wishes to have it done at......

No deal in the writer's strike before Xmas folks, so we might just have to entertain ourselves. Monday's looking sparse - oh wait, was I supposed to highlight dreck like K-Ville, Samantha Who?, and Deal or No Deal? No thanks. 6:00pm Larry King Live CNN - Relatively new Los Angelino Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham is the interviewee today. Will there be more talk about her hubbie's giant schlong? Or about how she sleeps naked with......

Because he's too shy (and way too busy) to announce it here himself, I am proud to do the honors: Zach Behrens has officially accepted the Editor position here at LAist and he'll be starting on December 17th. BloggingLA has the announcement, as well as a nice picture of the new editor's "Sexy Face." That's how you get your Canadian fanbase, Behrens!!! Rain. Please. Rain. Effects of the strike are starting to ripple out......

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sweet P has designed club wear, sleepwear, and retro inspired pieces. She sites John Galliano, Marni, Chloe, Phillip Lim, and Balenciaga as favorite designers. Combined with her childhood love of Sonny and Cher and passion for surfing and motorcycles, she represents the fun side of Southern California culture. Her first Sweet P collection will be available in February 2008. On Project Runway week one, Sweet P wowed the......

Sometimes it's great being able to lipread. Like back on Average Joe, when Jen said, "Do you think it's because I gave him a ...BLEEEEP?" She later tried to pass it off as "kiss" but she very clearly said, "Do you think it's because I gave him a blowjob?" Last night, bachelorette Hillary went all Girls Gone Wild. Even though they blurred out part of what she was saying, there was enough left to get......

We'll admit that Padma Lakshmi, host of Bravo TV's Top Chef is nice to look at, and she may have brains, too, but the model-actress-author does seem to lack a key ingredient in TV hosting: A little fire in the kitchen...salt'n'pepa in her stew...in other words -- a personality. But Salman Rushdie's ex isn't alone in this department. Blandness and the monotone delivery almost seem to be a prerequisite for female reality TV hosts.......

When Apple announced their new iPods yesterday the big winner was LAist. Why? Because the new iPods have been equipped to work with WiFi so that people can access Apple's extremely profitable iTunes store. And in the iTunes store, for free, will be all of the LAist radio shows that we are doing on NowLive.com. And, in fact you can subscribe to all of the LAist shows as we record them. Ah, technology. Last......

Phillies 15, Dodgers 3 - After loosing 10,001 games, Philadelphia took out 124 years of cheesesteak-fueled frustration on the Dodgers. Starting pitcher J.D. Durbin had three of the team's 26 hits one of 15 Phillie runs. All this from a guy who had never reached base before in his life. Heck, he'd never won a game in his life, either. Check both off his to-do list. The Dodgers actually had a respectable 14 hits (yup,......

Nude picture panic- Lindsay Lohan frets over nude pictures taken by boy toy Calum Best, she believes may have been stolen - New York Post In other Lindsay news, the newly sober 21 year old celebrated in Vegas at Pure this weekend sippin on Red Bulls only - TMZ Former Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland collapses during a concert in Nigeria from dehydration - People Now that Victoria Beckham is in Los Angeles she's looking......

If only all casting calls could be like this. Ninja Warrior (a/k/a Sasuke, airs weeknights at 6:00pm and 10:30pm on G4) is offering one lucky badass a trip to Japan and the right to attempt the show's daunting obstacle course. With all the wanna-be talent in this town -- I'm looking at you, reality TV "stars" and celebutants-- it's nice to see that somebody still values real skillz. According to the show's PR people, those......

With last night's (much anticipated) premiere of the third season of Top Chef on Bravo, there now exists a triptych of "reality" television programs each devoted to making one lucky chef a star (and the other contestants infamous). Over on the Food Network we've got The Next Food Network Star, which blends cooking and "star" quality, and on Fox we're two episodes into the blazing fires of the third season of Hell's Kitchen. And......

Sports, in my opinion, is the forebearer to "reality" TV as we know it today. We view many of our sports heroes as being close to super human. And yet with today's access to information we find ourselves readily identifying with the Clark Kent side of Superman. This is exactly the allure of the reality TV genre. Regular folks doing extraordinary stuff for our viewing pleasure. Now Chris Neil of the Ottawa Senators isn't exactly......

The premise of CBS' upcoming Kid Nation may be the BEST idea for a reality show I have ever heard in my entire life: a group of 8 to 15-year-olds are plunked in a remote locale and forced to create their own society. Awesome! So awesome that William Golding's estate ought to sue for residuals, right? Too bad spineless CBS execs already f*ed up the show by allowing kids to leave when they want and......

Remember the good old days when terms like “voyeur” and “exhibitionist” were reserved for perverts? Well nowadays people in ties are standing in front of conference rooms and using them to describe the innocent youth of today. The Millennials, as they are aptly dubbed, is the generation born from 1980-2000 that was raised on reality TV, blogging, YouTube, MySpace and countless other forums where you can watch and be watched. This past Wednesday the fine......

Britney's getting a lot of support from her celebrity "friends" now that she's locked away in rehab. Where were these friends when she was sans panties and shaving her head? - poponthepop Judge Seidlin will LOVE this - Fatbacks and Collards Little vixen Antonella Barba gets to stay on Idol. I still suspect her "BFF" Amanda (who was cut in the earlier rounds) may have been the cause of the picture leak...or maybe I've just......

Dear Anna, I know I should hate you. I know there's something despicable about a woman who represented the worst of blonde bimbo gold-digger stereotypes. It would be easy to accuse you of setting women's lib back by encouraging objectification of the worst kind, the kind that places all female worth in sex appeal and breast size. But in some ways you are an example of real feminine empowerment -- you got money and......

Kazakhstan 90, World 1 - Borat isn't the only phenom from Kazakhstan. The nation's Olympic ice hockey team has won their last two games by a combined score of 90-1. That's no typo. UCLA 4, UCLA 3, um, 4, yeah, 4 - According to a school press release, "UCLA was selected third in the Pac-10 Conference's preseason baseball coaches poll." Except they were really ranked fourth, as both the headline and complete rankings indicate in......

As the world holds its breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

- No evidence of suicide in USC kicker's death - AP - No evidence of foul play in USC kicker's death - AP - Eco-friendly stretch limos good - LA Times - Taggers bad - LA Daily News - Hilary Swank to get her Hollywood Blvd. star tomorrow - KGET - NY is POed that LA TV and film shoot NY scenes in LA - LAT - Stream the new Arcade Fire tune -......

Those beautiful geniuses at The Smoking Gun have done it again. This time they've obtained a copy of Iggy Pop's concert rider, which true to their claims, is probably the funniest rider in the history of rock and/or roll. Seriously. The document, which runs to 18 pages, was apparently written by roadie Jos Grain and among other hilarities includes this addendum (whatever that means): By the way, if there are any Reality TV executive......