(All photos via Flickr user Unrest Cure; one of the panels at the Economic of Social Media Conference)

Netscape recently attended the first-ever Economics of Social Media conference, held in Los Angeles last Thursday. Hosted by Rafat Ali, the editor of Paid Content, the one-day conference sold out two and half weeks in advance and drew about 500 people from around the country.

The night before the conference, the organizers threw a cocktail party at CAA's spacious new headquarters in Century City. CAA wasn't a sponsor, but Ali told me that the super agency was eager to donate the space--a sure sign that CAA agents are watching what's going on in social media.

After chatting with Ali (with whom I worked at the now defunct Silicon Alley Reporter), I ran into Los Angeles blogger Sarah Gim and Nicholas Butterworth, founder of Travelistic.com. (Butterworth was also my old boss at SonicNet.) We also met Jason Shellen, who does business development for Google, sizing up new companies for potential acquisition. Yes, Shellen was popular at the party--everyone wanted to talk to him.

The conference proper, held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, drew a wide range of attendees. Carson Daly (who is working on a new media venture called DotTV) participated in the "Social Media and Hollywood" panel. At one point he was asked whether YouTube was a viable venue for budding actors to gain exposure. Most unknown actresses still think of the Web as a second-rate alternative to television, argued one audience member. Daly took the opposite tack. For those without powerful Hollywood connections, he insisted, the Web is a great option. Daly went so far to give some advice to post-"The View" Rosie O'Donnell: Go do a show online.

Another interesting tidbit came out of the the same panel. According to David Eun, Vice President for Content Partnerships at Google Media, YouTube is already looking ahead to the 2008 elections. The company has created areas where candidates can upload videos and users can discuss election issues. The result, says Eun, should be a "global town hall."

More media talk continued in the "Journalism and Social Media" panel. With the newspaper business in transition, asked one panelist, is there still an economic payoff for high quality journalism? Yes, replied Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal, but newspapers need to accept the reality of a multi-platform world. "We focus too much on the [print] product," added Swisher. (And indeed, consumers can increasingly get their WSJ fix from a Palm Pilot or any mobile device.) Meanwhile Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix.net, made his own pitch for mixing national news with locally produced journalism. He touched briefly on the topic of citizen journalism--clearly less of a hot-button issue than it was last year--and raised the question: "Does it matter who delivers the news?"

The highlight of the afternoon was a discussion about how deals get funded. All the panelists, including Internet pioneer Esther Dyson and Sling Media president Jason Hirschhorn, agreed the rules have changed as huge companies (News Corp, AOL) acquire smaller ones. But the panelists agreed that News Corp's purchase of YouTube was a good example of an acquisition gone right. The network has kept the original founding team, and simply let the brand grow within the larger corporation.

Additionally, CBS's Quincy Smith offered this advice to companies looking to be acquired: Position yourself 3-5 years down the road, rather than simply focusing on the present. Often companies aren't thinking about their growth strategy, said Smith. The panelists also touched on how it may be essential for an acquiring company to shift around management. (Example: the CEO of an acquired company may really be a better business product manager than a CEO.) Finally, Esther Dyson noted that social networking is currently doing very well in Brazil. Why? Dyson, who's been operating on Internet time since approximately 1997, was too rushed to elaborate.



Here's the Flickr pool of photos from the whole conference. For anyone who wished they'd attended, Ali says he is having another conference this fall in New York. Judging by number of high-profile attendees at EconSM, Netscape predicts Paid Content will do very well in the conference space!

Heather Kullorn in an undated photo; her fifth-grade school picture; age-progressed to age 19

As previously reported at Netscape, the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis will soon reopen the cold case of Heather Kullorn. According to Bill Baker, who leads the squad, the police have a longtime suspect. Yet no one has ever been charged in since Heather disappeared from a Richmond Heights, Missouri apartment on July 15, 1999.

At the time she vanished, the 12-year-old was babysitting the infant daughter of family friends Christopher Herbert and Dana Madden. Police believe she was abducted sometime during the night or early morning hours. There was no forced entry and Heather's blood was found on the couch in the apartment. The only witness was a neighbor --who was legally blind without his glasses--who saw a child being carried out of the apartment in the early morning hours.

Police detectives will go back and interview everyone who was originally questioned. Meanwhile, the lack of an arrest has given those close to the case plenty of time to ruminate on what might have happened to Heather.

"I have had years to think about this," says Mike Mason. Back in July 1999, he was living across the street from the apartment complex from which Heather disappeared. Today, he sits in federal prison in Marion, Illinois, serving a six-year sentence on federal drug charges.

In an interview at the prison, Mason recounts being awakened by a knock at the door the morning after Heather was discovered missing. When he answered, he found Christopher Herbert, accompanied by a police officer. "Is she in there?" the police officer asked, before searching Mason's apartment.

According to Mason, he was one of the few people in the building who knew Heather. In his view, that explains the visit and the search. Mason adds that he was given a lie detector test soon afterwards, and that he passed it. (Police refuse to comment on the results of any lie detector tests.)

Still, the police had another reason to be interested in Mason: his drug dealings with Herbert. At the time, both men were doing heavy amounts of methamphetamine. Police also found drug paraphernalia in a garage shared by the two men.

Heather, who was close with Dana Madden, frequently hung around Herbert's apartment. She was quite aware of the drug use going on, says Mason. "That girl had seen a lifetime of stuff," he notes.

For his part, Mason believes that Heather knew her abductor. Major Case Squad Commander Baker agrees that the culprit probably wasn't a stranger. This judgment is partly based on the proximity of the apartments in the complex. "Usually when you have a stranger abduction," says Baker, "you would have someone hearing screams." No such noise was reported.

Shortly after Heather's disappearance, Mason discovered that his tow chains were missing. Today, he still think it's possible someone used the chains to weigh down Heather's body and throw her in the Mississippi River.

"I Want Her To Come Back Home"

What happened to Heather also weighs on the mind of Dana Madden, 31, who shared the apartment with Herbert. She and Heather were buddies, she says. One of their favorite things to do was to go to the Dollar Store together. Now living in Illinois, Madden says she scans the Internet once a month, looking for news stories about Kullorn.

"I am scared for Heather and I want to know where she is at," says Madden in a phone interview. "I want her to come home."

Madden was also friendly with the girl's mother, Christine Kullorn, but today the two no longer talk. In 2000, Kullorn was arrested for trying to attack Madden with a baseball bat. To this day, Kullorn believes her former friend knows something about what happened to her daughter. Madden denies the charge.

What does she think happened that night? "I can only account for myself," says Madden, who was working the overnight shift at a convenience store when Heather disappeared. After the police searched Mason's apartment, they sent him to pick up Madden at work and bring her home.

Madden says it wasn't common for a friend or acquaintance to randomly drop by her apartment. She is at least willing to consider the possibility of a stranger abduction. Heather used to play at a nearby park, she recalls. Perhaps somebody followed her back to the apartment complex.

"You Don't Think About Things"

In the weeks and months that followed Heather's disappearance, the group continued their heavy substance abuse, even as the police kept a close eye on the apartment. Both Mason and Madden agree that the drugs affected their reaction to the girl's disappearance.

"When you are high, you don't think about things," says Madden. "And you wake up in the morning, and you think, 'I am going to have to deal with this stuff.' So then you get more high.'"

And what about Christopher Herbert, who will be released from federal prison later this year? He had actually dated Christine Kullorn on and off before he met Madden. Some people close to the case recall that he treated Heather like an uncle. (Others recall no particular warmth to the relationship.)

The night of the disappearance, he told police he was out with friends. Later, he admitted that he was trying to manufacture meth with a friend along a bank of the Mississippi River. That area of the river would eventually be dragged by police, as would a lake on a nearby property frequented by Herbert. Their search yielded nothing.

Herbert, who has repeatedly told police he doesn't know what happened to Heather, declined Netscape's request for an in-person interview. But in a letter to this reporter, he writes that he has "nothing to hide." "I don't think I can tell you any more than you already know," he adds.

"Maybe Someone Will Come Forward"

The original investigators interviewed some additional parties. These included Herbert's companion at the river that night and a couple from Sikeston, Missouri, who stopped by Herbert's apartment earlier that same afternoon to recover some meth-manufacturing equipment (which police say was stolen by Herbert in the first place).

Now the Cold Case Sqaud will take a second shot at the whole process. Commander Baker is hopeful about the new interviews. "Maybe this will trigger something for someone," says Baker. "Maybe someone will come forward."

For Christine Kullorn, who is currently trying to raise funds to start a foundation in her daughter's name, the reopening of the case is bittersweet. "I just wish they'd done this a long time ago," she says, speaking by phone from her Saint Clair, Missouri apartment.

As for Mike Mason, he's eager to see the case move forward. "I would love to see this go to trial," he says. "I would love to be able to talk to someone about this."

Previously on Netscape:
Heather Kullorn Case Update
The Disappearance of Heather Kullorn

Earlier this year, Netscape's Dakota Smith wrote about Heather Kullorn, a missing girl from Richmond Heights, Missouri. Here's an exclusive update to that story. In addition, Smith spent last week in St. Louis interviewing people connected to the case, so look for more in-depth reporting on the Kullorn kidnapping over the next few weeks.

Exclusive:

The Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis plans to review the Heather Kullorn case as part of its new Cold Case division, according to Commander Bill Baker.

The 12-year-old girl disappeared from a Richmond Heights, Missouri apartment in July 1999. No one has ever been charged in her disappearance, but police continue to have a strong suspect, said Baker. "Reopening the case will give a fresh set of eyes to a homicide detective," he noted. "The detective will re-interview everyone, because there may have been something that someone missed."

Back in 1999, the Major Case Squad worked the Kullorn case for about six weeks, and then handed it back over to Richmond Heights Police.

Like a Broadway show in the midst of an endless run, The Price Is Right has changed little in the last 35 years. The three female models collectively known as Barker's Beauties still introduce dining room sets, trips to Fiji, and new cars. Specific games have come and gone, but longtime favorites like Plinko, Cliff Hanger, and In the Bag remain. And while Rich Fields may be the third announcer in the show's history, he still issues the classic invitation: "Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Price is Right!"

A shake-up, however, is on the way. This coming June, host Bob Barker will retire. And on the Los Angeles set-Stage 33 at CBS Television City-there's some trepidation about the future. As the network auditions such potential replacements as George Hamilton and George Lopez, even executive producer Roger Dobkowitz, who started working at the show in 1972, is in the dark about what's next.

"After 35 years, what's CBS going to do now?" says Dobkowitz. "No one wants the show to change."

Indeed, tinkering with the Price is Right formula seems sacrilegious. The top-rated and longest-running game show in America, and the top-rated daily show in the world, its fan base includes everyone from grandparents to college students (a demographic Barker secured during his beat down of Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore).

Barker's impending departure has made the show more popular than ever. In previous seasons, ticket holders would line up in the early morning hours along Fairfax Avenue, the main drag outside Television City. Now the fans hit the sidewalk at 9:00 PM the night before, just for a chance to see Barker in his final run.

"It's the saddest thing, because it's end of an era," says Ken Ratliff, 52-year-old resident of Cle Elum, Washington. Having spent the night on the street, Ratliff and his 24-year-old son Adam were ensured two spots in the 330-seat theater. Yet they still had to wait outside in a concrete holding area until the taping began. Also waiting outside: Donna Devault and Christine Perenich, former college roommates who had flown in from Maryland and spent the night playing Scrabble and knitting in a tent on Fairfax Avenue.

Hopped up on lattes, these sleep-deprived and giddy women were hoping to be picked as contestants. Should they be so lucky, what pricing games did they intend to play? "Roll in the Die!" Perenich shouts. "Golden Road!" says Devault, who was wearing a t-shirt that read, Kiss My Mommy, Bob.

In fact the producers do pick the show's nine contestants from this concrete holding pen. They begin by asking people where they're from and what do they for a living. A simple process, perhaps. But as Dobkowitz explains, no other show selects its contestants on such short notice-and most vet and coach them beforehand. "We really are reality television," he says.

What they are looking for, says the producer, is contestants "who are happy, who are just themselves." Avoided are people who ham it up for the camera. "We've been doing this long enough so we know when people are faking it," Dobkowitz notes. And although 90 percent of the crowd shows up wearing some sort of homemade t-shirt paying homage to the show or its host, apparel is not a factor.

As for Barker himself, he looks older, but certainly not frail. During commercial breaks at the taping, he chats with the audience, accepts gifts (ties, t-shirts), and autographs a woman's arm, which bears a large tattooed image of Barker's face. When the audience begs him to repeat the notorious line from Happy Gilmore, he feigns innocence. "Oh, I don't know if I can say that," Barker tells them, turning to one of his producers. "Can I say, The price is wrong, bitch?" The audience goes nuts. The producer nods; obviously, she's heard this shtick before.

The most surprising thing about a visit to the set is the sheer noise. From the very start of the taping to the Showcase Showdown, the crowd screams, yells, and shrieks out numbers and prices, making it nearly impossible to hear the interaction onstage between Barker and the contestants.

According to Jeruschka White and Caryn Capotosto, who have interviewed hundreds of contestants for a documentary-in-progress called Come On Down!, about half the winners sell off their prizes immediately, unable to afford the tax bite. Others hang on at any cost. "Even if people don't like the car," says White, "they keep it for sentimental reasons."

Across the Web, countless fan sites track minute details about the show's history, such as the date that Barker's hair went gray (October 15, 1987). YouTube boasts a decent library of clips, including one episode with a major wardrobe malfunction-a contestant's tube top slipped down when she ran toward the stage. ("She came down, and out they came," exclaimed Barker at the time.)

Additionally, the show's official website maintains an encyclopedic Q-and-A section, recording such factoids as the biggest winnings to date ($147,517, won on September 19, 2006) and explaining why only American-made cars are given away. (Too many complaints from viewers, says the site, noting that the decision was made after the first Gulf War.) Diehard fans can also look forward to the publication this September of Come On Down! Behind the Big Doors at The Price Is Right, a memoir penned by longtime producer Stan Blits.

According to Dobkowitz, the show's amazing longevity is due to several factors, including Barker's popularity and its relatively simple premise: knowing how much an item--be it a bottle of Aspercreme or a Ford Fiesta-costs. "What's happened now is that we're like comfort food," he says. "It reminds people of when they were seven years old and watching the show."

And what's his favorite part of the job? Dobkowitz says it's shepherding contestants offstage after they've played one of the pricing games. "It doesn't matter whether they've won or lost, they're so happy," he says. "They tell me they've been waiting to get on the show for the last 25 years."

Targeted at upscale travelers, Area-Daily.com, a Daily Candy-like email site, launched this week. Offering tips on hotels, restaurants, and shopping, the site will also offer discounts (at New York's Gramercy Park Hotel, for instance) and video reports from Area-Daily's far-flung correspondents. This week's recommendations included a safari in Kenya; a wine-tasting festival in Park City, Utah; and a cheese school in San Francisco.

Jody Raida, one of the site's six full-time staffers, characterizes Area-Daily as an insider-y guidebook for affluent travelers who prefer boutique hotels to large chains and bistros to all-you-can-eat buffets. "The site is like your cool, connected friend," says Raida, adding that there's no other competition like Area-Daily in the email- travel space.

Heather Kullorn in an undated photo; her fifth-grade school picture; age-progressed to age 19


The recent rescue of 15-year-old kidnap victim Shawn Hornbeck provided many Americans with an increasingly rare commodity: good news. For Christine Kullorn of St. Clair, Missouri, the massive press coverage had an additional effect. Since January 12, when Hornbeck was reunited with his family, a stream of television news crews and photographers have been showing up at Kullorn's apartment.

Kullorn's 12-year-old daughter Heather disappeared in July 1999, while she was babysitting for family friends in Richmond Heights (a community about 10 miles from Kirkwood, where Hornbeck was discovered). "I'm glad they found Shawn because it keeps Heather in the public eye," says Kullorn, who just received 500 new missing posters of her daughter. She will put them up in the St. Louis area--and again, she will wait.

The Hornbeck and Kullorn cases are markedly different. When Hornbeck disappeared on a bike ride home in 2002, police had no clues or witnesses. In Heather Kullorn's case, there are clues, a witness, and plausible motives. And those close to the case believe that someone in this suburban pocket of Missouri knows what happened to Heather.

Heather Vanishes

Heather had just recently started babysitting in 1999. Her aunt, Debbie Kullorn, would pay the outgoing sixth-grader to push around her baby cousin in a stroller. Heather also loved watching the two-month-old infant of family friends Christopher Herbert and Dana Madden.

Herbert and Madden lived on Yale Avenue, a residential side street on the eastern edge of Richmond Heights. In the early morning of July 15, when Heather is believed to have disappeared, Madden was working the overnight shift at a convenience store, and Herbert told police he was out with friends. He returned home at 6 A.M. At that point he found Heather gone and his infant daughter crying but unharmed. Significant traces of Heather's blood were on the couch.



The apartment complex on Yale Avenue where Heather was babysitting

A massive search for Heather was launched by more than 60 police officers from the St. Louis area. In any abduction, the early hours of the search are crucial, but in Heather's case, the missing girl was a diabetic who required daily insulin injections. Eventually the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime would also join the investigation.

At first there were promising leads. A neighbor in the apartment building told police that when he went out to walk his dog at 2 A.M., he saw someone carrying a child's body out of Herbert's apartment. Without his glasses, the witness was legally blind. Still, he reported that the child's upper body was wrapped in a blanket, with her legs exposed. A white comforter was subsequently discovered missing from the couple's apartment.

According to Richmond Heights Police Detective Mike Brown, it quickly became clear that Herbert was involved in the local drug scene. During his initial conversation with the police, Herbert claimed to have been out with friends all night. Later he confessed that he had been manufacturing methamphetamine with a friend down by the river.

Additionally, meth paraphernalia was found in the garage used by Herbert and Mike Mason. Mason, a neighbor who lived across the street, was responsible for rehabbing apartments in the development, and often hired Herbert for handyman jobs. And on the same day that Heather disappeared, a man and a woman from Sikeston, Missouri (a city about 180 miles south of Richmond Heights) stopped by Herbert's apartment and left him a note. Brown speculates that there may have been a drug deal in the offing. But when the couple's BMW was impounded and searched by the FBI, no evidence connected them to Heather's disappearance.



Richmond Heights Police Detective Mike Brown

Looking for Motives

Did police believe that Heather was killed because she witnessed a drug deal that night? The local media were quick to pounce on that possibility. Brown says his investigation produced no solid evidence to support that theory. But it was certainly never disproved, either. "Can I say it was drug-related?" he asks rhetorically. "Well, everyone involved here was doing drugs."

Meanwhile, Christopher Herbert was arrested on federal drug charges in 2004. He is currently serving a four-year sentence in a Florence, Colorado prison. Mike Mason, who was also interviewed extensively by police, was convicted of federal drug charges in 2005, and is serving a six-year sentence in Marion, Illinois.

Christine Kullorn has written to Herbert in prison. He responded to one of her letters, she says, but hasn't replied to a subsequent one. Still, she believes that at least half a dozen people know what happened to her daughter--starting with Herbert. "Maybe someone else was there that night and just freaked out," says Kullorn.

But Herbert has repeatedly told police he knows nothing, according to Brown. "He continues to deny any involvement in Heather's disappearance," says Brown. Netscape News wrote to Herbert in prison, requesting an interview, but did not hear back.

Other theories-Heather's abduction was an act of revenge against Christine or Herbert, for instance-never panned out, he says.

Still on the Trail

Back in 1999, two local businessmen offered a reward of $25,000 for any information that would help to solve the crime. Given the lack of viable leads, the offer was recently suspended. Yet the tips keep coming in: every month, Brown gets phone calls from people claiming they saw Heather or know where she is buried.

He characterizes most of these leads as "third-hand and fourth-hand rumors. It's someone calling and saying that Heather's body is in southeast Missouri, leading me to go there for four days."



Christine Kullorn with a picture of Heather



Meanwhile, Christine Kullorn is hoping to discuss her daughter's case on America's Most Wanted, having met host John Walsh during a recent Larry King Live taping. And she stays in constant touch with Brown. "He wants to find justice for Heather," she says. "He is doing all that he can."

"Christine deserves to have closure and to know what happened to her child," says Marc Klaas, a California-based child-rights advocate whose own daughter Polly was abducted and murdered in 1993. According to Klaas, it's rare for a case with so many clues to remain unsolved.

A few years ago, Kullorn's sister Beth gave her a framed mural with a large photo of Heather, surrounded by pictures of other missing children. One of these was Shawn Hornbeck. Now his safe return home has given Kullorn some renewed hope. "I believe in my heart and soul that I will find her," she says. "Even if it's not good news, I know I will find her."

UPDATES:
Heather Kullorn Case Update
Questions Persist in Heather Kullorn Case

Anyone with information about Heather Kullorn can call Detective Mike Brown at the Richmond Heights Police Dept.: (314) 645-3000 or the Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (1-800-843-5678)

Last night, Netscape News stopped by the opening reception for Photo LA, the three-day international photo fair held in Santa Monica, California. Although it lacks the prestige of New York's AIPAD, the West Coast annual does have the distinction of being the biggest photo expo in the U.S. More than 60 galleries, the majority of them located in California, have booths at this year's show. "For galleries, it's really about showing off the artists that you represent," said Justen Daly, of the Los Angeles-based Jan Kesner Gallery.

About 800 people--a mix of collectors, artists, photographers, and curators from museums like the Getty--attended last night's opening party. Sales were brisk: a rare Andy Warhol print sold for $9,000 in the first hour, while an Irving Penn photograph priced at $45,000 drew gawkers. (Kathryn Hennon, a Los Angeles resident who attended the show with her husband, sounded nonplussed by the numbers. "The prices are expensive," she noted. "But market.") Other items on sale included rare works by Gyorgy Kepes, Harry Callahan, Walker Evans, and Diane Arbus. Yet the show also paid the contemporary scene its due, with Los Angeles favorite John Humble and the Chicago-based Ben Gest getting plenty of attention. (The shot above is by Gest.)

Photo LA runs through Sunday, January 21, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditiorium in Santa Monica, CA. (Thanks to Marla Aufmuth for photos of last night's party!)

For more than 20 years, Michael Musto has mused on topics light (Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt) and dark (AIDS, gender politics) for his weekly Village Voice column "La Dolce Musto." Now the author has gathered his greatest hits in book form. La Dolce Musto: Writings by the World's Most Outrageous Columnist (Avon) chronicles the last two decades of celebrity culture with wit, aplomb, and pure naughtiness. Yet the collection is much more than a parade of bold-faced names. Musto is himself a formidable and flamboyant entertainer--possibly the only essayist able to evoke Sophie's Choice in a story about New York sex clubs, and certainly the only one bold enough to ask Cameron Diaz if she'd actually wear semen in her hair. Dakota Smith of Netscape News recently spoke with the columnist.


Can you talk a little about the evolution of your column over the years?

In the beginning, I thought the way to make a splash was by hating everyone, throwing mud in everyone's face. But I quickly found out that I was denied access to all the big names, because people were terrified of me.

Then came the first big wave of AIDS. For better or worse, that turned me into an activist, a screaming PC nightmare. In the process, I also became a bit restricted in my thinking. No one could say anything about the gay community without invoking my ire. Anything--Silence of the Lambs, Basic Instinct--would set me off, since I was on the warpath and the palette of representation was so small back then. Now I'm a little calmer. And as I've gotten more access over the years, the column has evolved. Celebrities are now more willing to talk to me.

One of your essays is about appearing on VH-1 and E!, and you mention that these networks don't pay any of the guests for their appearances. Is that still the case?

Nobody gets paid. They tell you that it's because you're talking about the news, but how the Olsen Twins are news is beyond me.

What's been the biggest change in the gossip world since you started writing for the Voice?

The blogs pushed everything forward. They scared the print media, and made the print columnists realize that they could be obsolete. It's a kind of Wild West situation, especially when it comes to outing celebrities. The blogs forced the print columnists to say, okay, we're going to have to go there, too. I was already doing that, so it made me feel validated for outing Rosie and Ellen.

Speaking of which, whose side do you take in the Rosie O'Donnell-Donald Trump spat?

Totally Rosie. He went below the belt, he made it into a mud fight, and he did it just to get attention for the new season of "The Apprentice." He started a fight with Martha Stewart last year, just before that season of "The Apprentice." These fights are always right before his show starts.

Have you ever had any offers to turn your column into an HBO series--or a movie? Who would play you?

That would be one hell of a mini-series! I'd love Sarah Jessica Parker to play me, but they'd more likely get Joe Pesci. It's a moot point, since nobody has approached me to adapt the columns. But maybe this book will be a springboard for La Dolce Musto--the series, the talk show, the cooking show, the video game!

How is gossip covered differently in New York than in Los Angeles? Here in LA, we have TMZ.com waiting outside the nightclubs.

In Los Angeles, they're more concerned with the gorgeous and superficial (which I adore, mind you). In New York, we're more interested in power brokers, people with access to privilege, from chefs to doormen to editors. But I like TMZ.com. They don't miss a trick!

Why does blogger Perez Hilton draw all over his pictures? Is it something to do with photo rights, or is he a budding artist?

I think he's trying to make the photos his own, and to add some ironic touch that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Or maybe he didn't add anything and all those stars are really dribbling.

Magazines like the Star certainly have their place, but your columns often tie celebrity news to larger cultural issues. Is that deliberate?

I feel that all gossip is innately political. It exposes hypocrisy, even when it's not doing so deliberately, and shows how everybody has something in his or her closet--so we should all just relax and be ourselves.

And are there other columnists out there doing the same thing?

To me, Page Six is the most readable, Cindy Adams has real zest, and Ben Widdicombe [at the Daily News] knows the value of gay visibility and a point of view.

Have you watched that show "Dirt" yet?

I thought it was horrendous. It was just full of boring, ancient stereotypes about gossip columnists. It was like Sweet Smell of Success without the wit.

Personally, I'm amazed at how much disdain celebrity reporters have for celebrities. They're more than happy to go to these parties every night and cover the stories, but they don't seem to like their subjects.

Part of it is jealousy, and part of it is that we love to knock these people down to our own level. Also, it's the flashy and trashy celebrities that tend to go out every night. I mean, you're not running into Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep at these parties.

Still, I do get tired of reading everything negative. I do say positive things. In my book, I say, "Lindsay, I value you as an actor, just stay in for a night."

Given the changes underway in the gossip world, is the role of the favor-trading publicist ever going to disappear?

That's never going to go away. The gossip world is a morass of conflicts. But I deal with it this way: I'm always prepared to knife people in the back if they think they can get carte blanche with me after I write about them.

You wrote about club kid Michael Alig. Are you still in touch with him, and do you think he'll come back and reinvent himself?

I stopped answering his letters. As for him coming back, it's not that outlandish. New York is a place where as long as you're famous, it doesn't matter why you're famous.

You're notorious for going out every single night. When was the last time you took a night off?

Well, to give you an idea, I had a deadly brain seizure 25 years ago, but I was still walking around the city, giving offices my copy. Another time, I got hit by a car. I refused to get help and went out and covered an event.

What percentage of people correctly figure out your blind items?

People send me their guesses and some of them are shockingly off base, while others are spot on--sometimes for the most obscure, hard to guess ones. So there's no predicting. But there have been entire sites built up to answer the blind items written by me, Ted Casablanca, and Page Six, and some of them have been pretty on target about 70% of the time. When people send me their guesses, I usually say, "You got some right--but I can't tell you which ones." That drives them even crazier.

Has the Voice legal department ever killed items that turned out to be true?

They did kill one back when Tom Cruise was suing the porn guy. I was going to report that the porn guy was going around giving interviews. It turned out to be true, but we killed it in part because Tom Cruise is so litigious.

Please tell us the truth about Tom Cruise.

I really don't know. He's married to that woman Katie now.

Now for some dumb questions. If you had to be in a Saddam-Hussein-style spider hole with one celebrity, who would it be and why?

Tom Cruise. But I'd find out [the truth] in five minutes. And then be bored for eternity.

If you could throw a drink in one celebrity's face, who would it be and why?

Mel Gibson. To see if the hair plugs move.

Last question: Can you tell us what Britney was thinking when she flashed us her private parts last year?

What other part is she going to flash? Her brain? You only flash what you've got.

Editor's note: We're going to start featuring some original reporting here on the blog, such as this piece by Dakota Smith. If you have suggestions for stories you'd like to see, please let us know.

Palm Springs! Sun, desert, golf courses - and lots of modern architecture. I recently headed out to the Dwell on Design-Palm Springs Conference, a three-day conference on modern architecture in Palm Springs that featured homes by architects like Donald Wexler (the pool from a 1962-designed house designed by Wexler is pictured above.)

How did Palm Springs, a city in the middle of the California desert, become such a mecca for modernist architects? Hollywood money and a climate perfectly suited to indoor/outdoor living, for starters.

Over the course of the weekend, the panelists--a mix of architects, professors, and historians--talked about the rise in modernism in Palm Springs. Building the Oasis Hotel in 1923, Lloyd Wright was the first pioneer to enter the city, while in 1934 Swiss architect Albert Frey built the Kocher-Sampson office building. In 1937, Austrian architect Richard Neutra's Grace Miller house was first modernist residential home to go up in Palm Springs.

Following WWII, there was a big explosion in modernism, according to Peter Moruzzi, founding president of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, fueled in part by the elite industrialists and Hollywood movie stars who came to the desert to build second homes.

"They were more willing to have a less cluttered, more contemporary design compared to their main homes, which were more traditional," said Moruzzi. "And they were coming to the desert and wanted to enjoy the weather, so they wanted an indoor/outdoor design."

Notable post-war architects included William F. Cody, Donald Wexler, E. Stewart Williams, and John Lautner, while the Alexander Construction Company built thousands of modern-style homes--known as Alexanders--in Palm Springs. An example of an Alexander home is below.



And here is a shot of the guest house from the same home:

Two of the more famous homes that we learned about over the weekend: Richard Neutra's 1946 Kaufman home and John Lautner's 1968 space age-looking house for decorator Arthur Elrod. The Elrod house was famously featured in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever and currently is available for rent (three nights for $10,000).

And while we didn't see it, another famous Palm Springs residence is Frank Sinatra's E. Stewart Williams estate. Dubbed Twin Palms, the four-bedroom home has a piano-shaped pool.

Unfortunately, many modernist commercial buildings in Palm Springs, like Fred Monhoff's Biltmore Hotel, and the Chi Chi Club (which was designed by various architects), have been demolished. When Palm Springs went into an economic decline in the 80s, many commercial buildings were torn down, but since people either didn't have the incentive, or the money, to tear down residential homes, many of these modern-style residences were left intact.

Today, there's been a resurgence of interest in the Palm Springs architecture, while architecture firms like Modern Homes and Marmol Radziner are building pre-fab homes in the area.

Here are some shots of these new homes.



More photos after the jump: