Keith Malley and Chemda Khalili.

Last Thursday, in an unfinished production space in Dumbo, a group of about 50 people—having traveled to Brooklyn from as far as Australia—gathered to join in everyone’s favorite parlor game: bingo. But this wasn’t just any bingo game. Presided over by Chemda Khalili, a short, busty woman with a mane of black curls, it kicked off the fifth annual Keith and the Girl week, a series of events that leads up to an annual stand-up performance by Keith Malley, who, along with Ms. Khalili, hosts the daily no-holds-barred comedy podcast Keith and the Girl.

The Transom caught three of this year’s sold-out events—whose attendees wanted not just to “party” but to “super party”—most of which were held across the street at White Wave, a well-appointed dance studio. It should come as no surprise that tickets were hard to come by. While many have never heard of Keith and the Girl, the pioneering podcast—which originally broadcast from Ms. Khalili’s house in Queens—has spawned some of the most loyal listeners on the planet. (Why else would 130 audience members have gotten Keith and the Girl-themed tattoos or brandings?)

Ask fans about the appeal of the show and two words pop up: “funny” and “real.” Onetime lovers, Ms. Khalili and Mr. Malley started their show in 2005 as a forum to talk about current events and their lives, though it soon expanded to include a small circle of friends, a bit like Howard Stern’s show and its collection of otherwise-unknown regulars. Later, they would bring on guests, mostly from the comedy world.

“We tell our guests, ‘Don’t come on and do your bits,’” said Ms. Khalili. “‘Talk with us like you’re having a regular conversation with your friends.’” And the realness can get very real. Recent guest comedienne Jess Wood reminisced about smoking PCP before school with a gang of kids at age 5, and about regularly witnessing her mother’s boyfriend holding a gun to her head. “I would trade my parents for gay parents any day,” she said, adding that she has had five abortions, even after trying five different methods of birth control. “My body rejects anything that isn’t sperm,” she said.

On Saturday afternoon, the Transom attended an unofficial Keith and the Girl brunch at a Bed-Stuy basement apartment christened the “UN of Boobs,” where some out-of-town attendees were staying. The occupants were in a rather subdued mood, sprawled across a couch and several chairs, having “super partied” late into the night. As several people picked at their phones, iPads and omelettes, talk drifted to the annual “Hottest Girl Contest,” a photo-comparison event held online every fall. “It’s another way for them to get more listeners,” said a woman who introduced herself as Viola from Boston. “It’s like ‘Oh, we have pretty people you can look at on the Internet.’ We jerk off to each other.”

The forums on the show’s website are incredibly active, with more than 30,000 participants. And at Keith and the Girl events—both in NYC and beyond—identities can be fluid, with some people preferring to go by their forum handles or other made-up names. “Sparrow” from Atlanta, née Sara, has had her name legally changed to Birdie. “I never feel more myself than when I’m with these people,” she said.

Laura, from Washington, D.C., met her husband Russell on the Keith and the Girl cruise in 2008, though she declined to have sex with him on the boat—apparently an unusual decision. Anne, from Frankfurt, Germany, has attended several Keith and the Girl meetups in Europe.

In a phone interview, we asked Ms. Khalili what made listeners so loyal to the show. “It’s about community,” she said. “People interact on the forums, and they want to meet the people they’ve encountered online. We give them all kinds of ways to participate.”

As for Mr. Malley, we asked him if he thought Keith and the Girl was better than any comedy show on late-night TV. Without hesitation he said, “Yes!”

And apparently more of an aphrodisiac, too.

Lena Dunham: Good sport or BEST sport? (HBO)

Calling Lena Dunham a "little fat chick" might have been the smartest move Howard Stern's made in the last several years. Not only did his remarks get repeated by Ms. Dunham while she was on Letterman on Friday, but his very public apology on Monday gave him some extra leverage to pull the Girls creator and star (and recent two-time Golden Globe winner) onto his program today.

Here's what went down.

Stern lavished her with praise: "I realize: not only am I addicted, but I totally get you. I’m in love with you and your character."

... but refused to "apologize" for his weight comments: "It’s not about apologizing, although I want to say I’m a fan of yours ... I love you and I think you’re terrific."

Lena insisted she supported Howard, despite the negative comments: “I’m a big fan of your particular brand of free speech.”

There was a little scuffle over word choice when describing her body:

Dunham: “I’m not super thin, but I’m thin for, like, Detroit.”

Stern replied that she wasn't "obese or anything," then realized his terrible choice of words.

Dunham: (laughing) "Howard Stern says I’m ‘not obese or anything' ... I appreciate it and I appreciate your effort to rectify [this], but whether you’d done that or not, I’d have remained a [Howard Stern] enthusiast."

Now it's time to talk about Donald Glover and race!

Dunham: “Donald was an actor we always wanted to work with. On HBO, you have 10 episodes. You start with 10 episodes. And it takes you a while to set up your world, to set up your main characters ... While I understand the criticism, I felt like we had had only 10 episodes to dig in.”

As for the idea that her show was "too white"? “[Diversity on television is] a conversation that needs to happen. I’m glad to take one for the team.”

Mr. Stern admitted that he hadn't watched enough episodes of Girls when he made that initial comment. But even last week he had begun changing his mind...specifically once he started a man-crushing on Adam Driver's character in this scene from Season One:

He also said a lot of other, nasty things about he could tell Dunham had written the show "because she's such a camera hog that the other characters barely are on." He really didn't sound like the world's biggest fan.

But that was then, and now is now, and in between Mr. Stern had time to rewatch all the show's weird sex scenes. In a complete 180 yesterday he left Linda Stassi territory, publicly apologized for his comments, and asked Ms. Dunham for an interview.

Because it turns out that he didn't meant to call her talentless or fat. He meant super-talented and funny.

Original rant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q37X5GxwTXY

Yesterday Stern explained his comments: "I felt bad because I really do love the show Girls, and enjoy it, and I admire the girl who writes it. It makes me feel bad, and I think she is getting the impression that I somehow think she's just a talentless little fat chick." Wait, where ever would she get that impression, Howard?

Stern "clarifies" comments:

Taking all of this in as good form as ever, Ms. Dunham told Letterman Friday that she is a Howard Stern fan, and even found part of his riff amusing. Referencing the shock-jock's comments, "Congrats to her (Dunham). It's so hard for little fat chicks to get anything going these days," she told audiences, "I want my gravestone to say, 'She was a little fat chick and she got it going."

Lena Dunham talkin' about GIRLS and Stern on Letterman:

So...chances of Lena Dunham showing up for an interview about weird sex on Howard Stern? We're thinking like 100/1. Or 1/100, if NPR has called dibs on her radio presence for 2013.

In other news, Girls Season 2 is back after Ms. Dunhum won two Golden Globes for Best Actress in a TV Comedy or Musical and Best TV Show--Comedy or Musical. We're still not sure whether all the letters in the title need to be capped or what.

The former Howard Stern sidekick was sitting inside the new Varick Street studio that is home to The Nick & Artie Show, the sports-and-comedy talk show on Sirius Radio and DirecTV that he co-hosts with fellow comedian Nick DiPaolo. He was cradling his gut, pointing at the scars where nearly three years ago, in his Hoboken home, he took a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife and stabbed himself repeatedly: Six times with hesitation. Three times with conviction.

Artie Lange Performing at The Mandalay Bay Theatre in Las Vegas in 2008 (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

He has since been treated and released from three separate psychiatric wards. His sanity and sobriety restored—“It took me a year and a half to get right in the head”—Mr. Lange has now eased himself back into the comedy world.

His jowly face, though still porcine and scruffy, no longer bears the wear and tear of all those long weekends performing in venues across the country, followed by long weekdays witnessing porn stars bringing themselves to orgasm while taping The Howard Stern Show.

“It was like [going from] a paper route to being Hugh Hefner,” he said of those days.

The 44-year-old has sworn off the cardinal vices—particularly booze, gambling, drugs and prostitutes—that fueled his initial rise to comedy fame. He now spends the lushing hours of 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. in the sanctuary of his new show. The studio has been outfitted with bruh-friendly toys like a basketball shootout game and a pool table. The kitchen is stocked with water and snacks and not a trace of hooch (Mr. Lange was nursing a bottle of Nestle Quik during one taping). The show consists of Mr. Lange chewing the fat with Mr. DiPaolo over anything from the futility of the Boston Red Sox to the (allegedly) indiscriminate sexual tastes of Dan, their producer.

“When somebody calls up and asks about North Carolina’s defense, we go, ‘Call Dan Patrick,’” said Mr. DiPaolo. “We want to talk about A-Rod banging this broad.”

Throw in the occasional guest like Esquire writer Scott Raab and former NBA player John Salley, and the result is a sharp, funny alternative to ESPN’s eternal onslaught of pompous programming; it’s like listening to two Jersey galoots (Mr. DiPaolo is originally from Massachusetts) rip on Eli Manning from the bleachers of the old Meadowlands stadium.

While the show is on Sirius, it is also syndicated on regular radio stations, leaving the duo at the mercy of the FCC.

“For the four years I was on Howard and Sirius, I was like going 100 miles an hour,” Mr. Lange said. “You can say whatever you want, and that was fun, that kind of freedom. Here, we don’t have that.”

Mr. Lange In Unhealthier Times (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

Still, the fact that just two years ago Mr. Lange was sitting in an insane asylum, playing Scrabble with a 400-pound methadone addict and an 80-pound meth head, is not lost on him.

“I said, ‘Well this is it. I’m playing Scrabble in a psych ward, so it’s probably over,’” he said. He figured, if he got lucky, “maybe I would play the fat neighbor on a shitty sitcom and stay in show business and do my act at the Mandalay Bay once in a while,” he said in his nicotine-stained Jersey growl. “But this is crazy.”

There is always the possibility of another fuck-up in a career that’s had its share of them, along with those moments of redemption. In the 1990s, Mr. Lange got canned from Mad TV, the show that started his career, for doing enough cocaine to wipe out a small horse farm, at one point mixing the drug into his whiskey when his nose became too sore to snort it. He cleaned up his act in rehab, went on to star in the amusing but unsuccessful Dirty Work with Norm McDonald, then bounced around sitcoms and comedy clubs before landing in the one chair his oversized keister was born to sit in.

When longtime Howard Stern sidekick Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling left The Howard Stern Show over a salary dispute in 2001, Mr. Lange got the nod to join Stern’s morning crew.

“It’s a powerful show to be on,” said Mr. Lange. The gig did wonders for his stand-up career—he sold out a show at Carnegie Hall in three hours—and for his wallet. At his peak, Mr. Lange was making $800,000 a year from The Howard Stern Show and $2 million touring the road.

The schedule was brutal, however, requiring him to wake up at 4:45 a.m. each morning.

“That’s when I was always going home,” he said. Mr. Lange would try to ride out the day without sleeping, sometimes still buzzed on the previous night’s intake of Jack Daniels, pills or heroin.

“Howard’s got the most observant, like, keen eye for anything on the planet,” he said. “Like if I tried that a couple of nights, he would say ‘Robin, Artie seems drunk.’ And he was right.”

Though he lasted eight years, the schedule wore him out, leading to the occasional flare-up. In 2008, he attacked his assistant Teddy on the air after an argument over money, coming at the much smaller man like a walrus in a New York Yankees T-shirt. After being restrained by three colleagues, he offered Mr. Stern his resignation. “Howard, I love you, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m an outta control person,” he said during the show.

Mr. Lange would continue to appear on the program for a year, until 2010, when his mother, Judy, found him inside his apartment unconscious and bleeding. (It was his second unsuccessful suicide attempt. In 1995, he’d tried to overdose on Resterol, a sleeping aide, and Excedrin PM.)

In 2010, Mr. Lange found himself inside the Summit Oaks Hospital in New Jersey, where a large, intimidating fellow patient recognized the portly comedian, who was wearing a “Jimmy Kimmel Live” T-shirt.

“He looked at my shirt, and because he was a lunatic, he thought I was Jimmy Kimmel,” Mr. Lange recalled. “He starts screaming ‘you’re Jimmy Kimmel! You’re Jimmy Kimmel!’

“I said, ‘Yeah, I’m Jimmy Kimmel.’”

One day, Mr. Lange was invited by his new friend to join him in a reading of the Koran, which he promised would save the comedian’s life. He asked Mr. Lange to place his right hand on the holy book and to close his eyes. “We pray on the Koran for 30 seconds, and then he goes, ‘Thank you, Jimmy. I’ll see you in heaven,’” he remembered. “At least I got that going for me.”

Nick DiPaolo and Artie Lange at a celebrity fantasy football draft in July (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

His lowest moment, he said, was sitting inside a common area in another psych ward, watching television, when his Comedy Central stand-up special Jack and Coke came on the air. He excused himself to his bedroom and locked himself inside.

“I sat in my dark room, and I listened to 20 lunatics laughing at my jokes,” he remembered. “That symbolized what I was going through.”

Mr. Lange rejoined society just about the same time Mr. DiPaolo was putting together plans to launch his own radio show. A few months later, Mr. Lange was back on the air. And for the first time in his life, the show was named for him.

Such is the luck of Artie Lange: He can flame out on drugs, burn bridges with the biggest names in entertainment, try to kill himself twice (not exactly a comedic move) and find his way back into the spotlight. Hell, he can make a guest appearance on Joe Buck’s now-defunct HBO talk show, liven up—or sabotage—the show by suggesting his host’s favorite website is “suckingdick.com,” then get Mr. Buck to write the foreword to Mr. Lange’s upcoming book, Crash and Burn.

“A lot of people don’t get that second shot,” said Mr. DiPaolo. “But he was so popular on Howard, and he is the working-class stiff, and they love him.”

Which is not to say that Mr. Lange is entirely reformed. He spent his summer break on a trip to Paris with his 28-year-old girlfriend. At one point, an argument between them got heated. Mr. Lange said he called his girlfriend a “effing c.,” took a swing at the cops who were called over to calm him down, and found himself in a Parisian prison cell.

“There was a crazy guy in my cell and he was in my face, [saying] ‘blue fromage,’” said Mr. Lange.

“I said to the French guard, ‘I think this guy belongs in a psych ward,’ and the guard goes, ‘Monsieur, you are in the psych ward.’” He and his girlfriend are no longer dating.

Back in New York City, Mr. Lange was having bladder-control problems, a sign that he may be pre-diabetic.

“I was like a coyote. I was all over New York, I was leaving my scent,” he said. He was given medication to help fix the problem, which he was slow to take at the time.

Mr. Lange at the Paris Theater in June (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

As a result, accidents happened. Not long ago, as he was conducting an interview on-air, Mr. Lange needed to use the can. He did so literally by picking up a trash can and letting fly. Then he accidentally sloshed his bucket of piss against the wall.

He jokingly asked the Canavan girls, a pair of identical blonde stunners who work as Mr. Lange’s production assistants, to mop up his urine. They refused. Eventually the mess was cleaned up, and he was asked by DirecTV to take a day off. After threatening to quit the show on his Twitter account, Artie eventually returned to the air.

“I am taking the medicine now; it stopped,” he said of his bladder troubles.

Still, whether the pattern of ups and downs for Mr. Lange has stopped remains to be seen. Clean for two years and seeming genuinely giddy to be back on the air, Mr. Lange looks rested, as fresh as a daisy.

While he has intimated in the past that he would like to return to The Howard Stern Show, he appears content to grow what he has with Mr. DiPaolo.

“My situation got so crazy that everybody was in an awkward position that I put them in, so I don’t think that’s a possibility anymore, even if both entities wanted to,” he said of returning to Stern. “A year ago, I would have said it would be amazing, but I listen to Howard all the time, and the show is still great, and I am sure he is happy with it. But this situation is a dream situation for me.”

"The Nick & Artie Show" airs nightly from 10 p.m. - 1 a.m. on DirecTV's Audience Network

drosen@observer.com

News Corp godfather Rupert Murdoch capitalized on a weekend in which he could bury news about himself, by burying news about himself. The bejoweled Mr. Murdoch has removed one of his many hats—his directorship of News Corp's British tabloids—more likely than not because it is collectively the Von Dutch Trucker Hat of his media empire: A classically bad look, that continues to get worse by the day. Here's the Murdoch Spin. Here's a John Gapper column about it with a great drawing at the top of Murdoch cutting himself in half, ha. At this juncture, it's difficult to properly assess the significance of this news, seeing as how Michael Wolff has yet to pen a vaguely conspiratorial column explaining this as further evidence of Mr. Murdoch's enjoyment of tea sandwiches spread with Terrine of Plump Impoverished Children. Also, someone at The Daily Beast called this a "Saigon Moment" which is a little melodramatic and hyperbolic but also kind of hysterical and British of them, so it works. [Financial Times, Daily Beast]

The acerbic and brilliant Scottish-American columnist and author Alexander Cockburn died on Saturday at 71, from complications relating to cancer. Among his many achievements, he famously started The Village Voice's media column, Press Clips, and was a first-wave media critic, the likes of which this writer and many others like him do a piss-poor imitation of, to this day, in obtuse, failing tribute. Cockburn is survived by his daughter, two brothers, and several nieces and nephews, notes the Times, in a thorough obituary for the man. [NYT / Media]

In a lengthy Q & A with Talking Points Memo, MSNBC's weekend blogger anchor Chris Hayes shares the best advice he's ever received: "My mom once told me: If you’re on the fence about going to a funeral, you should always go." Honestly: Better than we'd hoped. He also tries to explain the difference between MSNBC and Fox News, which, whatever it was, Dylan Byers at Politico astutely picked apart: "The problem with Hayes' distinction is that, no matter how you get from point A to point B, you get there." [TPM, Politico]

Noted: The number of people (on paper) who contributed to Saturday's A1 NYT filing on the shooting in Colorado? Eighteen. Two bylines, with sixteen contribution credits. [NYT / National]

IAC chairman Barry Diller and New York's Worst Boss 2007 uber-producer Scott Rudin want to launch an eBook business. Match made in heaven? Some kind of match, made somewhere. [Deadline Hollywood]

And by the way, if you were wondering how Nikki Finke covered Friday night's tragedy in Colorado, you'll have to go to her site to find out. Here's the moment we stopped. [Gawker]

NPR vixen Teri Gross, on the fundamental difference in interview technique between herself and Howard Stern: "I don’t ask about [subjects'] penis size." [NYT Magazine]

Also from this weekend's Times Magazine, further kvetching about "curation" and Why It Makes People Angry, as if this isn't a third-wave debate that doesn't date back to 2005 (concerning bloggers as threatening the existence of everything sacred). Which is besides the fact this particular piece begins with the words "Years ago, in my penurious and somewhat traumatic 20s," a "GERIATRICS X-ING" traffic sign for wordage consumption, if there ever was one. [NYT Magazine]

Despite a This American Life story that was media reporting's version of a PETA video where one watches adorable baby chicks get ground up into McNuggets, the Chicago Tribune is sticking with hyperlocal journalism factory farm Journatic. But don't worry, it's okay: They hired a consultant. That always helps. [Jim Romenesko]

Scandal rocks Garden & Gun: They retouched a dog on the cover! Hilariously, in this NYT story on the old, storied, and not-at-all-new tradition of magazines retouching photos, the Garden & Gun dog was the lede. [NYT / Arts]

Buzzfeed's John Hermann gives credit where it's due: Some Kid On Reddit did an excellent job rounding up news on the shooting in Aurora, and no doubt, half the people covering it for outlets on the Internet took their cues from him, because that's how it works now. Elsewhere, someone on Reddit is still really concerned about misandry. Also, there needs to be a single-serve Tumblr for every time Buzzfeed writes about Reddit (as opposed to simply culling content sans-credit from it). It should be called IS THE BUZZFEED REDDIT MOBIUS STRIP ONRAMP OPEN TODAY? DOT TUMBLR DOT COM. [BuzzFeed]

Finally: The lovely albatross of the Observer's media desk for the last year and a half has been liberated from abdicated the position, and this writer will be filling in the interim. Please send your tips, gossip, rhetoric, legal threats, inspirational quotes, and freshman year poetry—along with, while we're at it, your nominations for Media Power Couples, Bachelors, and Bachelorettes (which, due to unpopular demand, we'll be doling out again soon)—right this way.

Happy Monday.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Security tells Mr. Boots that his "fly is open, faggot" at the 1:49 mark:

A Fox News cameraman also calls Mr. Boots a bastard, and alleges that the videographer is assaulting him:

He wouldn't discuss the terms of the agreement, but given that his first deal, in 2004, got him $500 million in cash and stock it's probably some serious Fuck-You Money.

Sirius is trading 6.5 percent higher today, which The Wall Street Journal tells us equates to $315 million added to the company's evaluation.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

"Of course I do!" said Rudolph Giuliani jovially when the Transom asked if he remembered the 1987 release of the original Wall Street. "I was the U.S. attorney when that movie was done the first time. It was about my cases! Boeski, Milken, Levine. Sure. I remember it in great detail--the accurate parts and the inaccurate parts!" He wagged his finger like a scolding yenta.

The former mayor waited to be shepherded to his seat with wife Judith at Sunday evening's Southampton Cinema screening of Wall Street II: Money Never Sleeps. The Watermill residents arrived soon before the theater dimmed and were instructed by publicist Peggy Siegel, "You have to step over Alfred Taubman!" She waved toward two vacant seats in the middle of a row at the back of the theater.

Minutes earlier, real estate mogul Aby Rosen also squeezed past Mr. Taubman into the deeper vacancies of the row, causing the shopping mall magnate to exclaim drolly, "Aby, you're a jock!"

Mr. Taubman took advantage of his coveted position on the aisle, stretching his cognac suede loafer into the walkway, a vermillion sock revealed in the extension. The retail giant splayed his knees to make way for Mrs. Giuliani, who offered an uncomfortable, "Hi, Al, how are you?" while shimmying past.

The screening assembled a convenient coterie of finance heavyweights, including Leon Black, Steve Schwartzman and Pete Peterson, as well as Martha Stewart. White Birch Paper billionaire Peter Brant, whose explosive divorce from model Stephanie Seymour made fodder for the cover of the Times Sunday Styles section that morning, attended the screening with sons Harry and Peter Jr.

Howard Stern arrived with wife Beth Otrosky, who clung sweetly to her husband in a clingy striped shift dress.

"Oh my God, I don't even remember. I just remember I loved it," said the radio personality of his first time seeing the original. "I was in New York, I was working at KROQ," he recalled, "and I don't remember anything specifically about that time--just that I loved the movie."

What does the couple do in the Hamptons on a rainy day?

"Come to the movies," Ms. Otrosky said.

"Play chess," countered her husband.

"This is my first summer out here, and this is the first time I've experienced the rain," admitted London native and Jimmy Choo creatrice Tamara Mellon. "So today I stayed in and watched DVDs with my daughter." What did they watch? "Disney movies."

Ms. Mellon, teetering in python heels, told the Transom nostalgically of her first time seeing the original film: "Oh, it was one of my favorite movies of the time, I was in London. I think I had just left school in Switzerland and I was starting my first job working at Brown's."

Asked if she knew anyone then with a job like the ones depicted in the film, the designer shrugged wistfully, "I was too young."

An A-list overflow forced latecomers and second-stringers to a second theater. Ms. Mellon opted to join the Siberia-bound in lieu of a first-row seat. The designer, who wore an haute army jacket, discovered a shortage of seats as her plus-one beckoned her to the two front-row seats he had saved.

"Is there nothing else?" she asked.

W editor Stefano Tonchi, in a black suit that glimmered with the subtlest iridescence, paced up the aisle exasperated. When approached by the Transom, he put up both hands like the victim of a holdup, "I'm sorry, I must find a seat."

Polo preeminence Nacho Figueras and wife Delfina Blacquier chatted at the back of the theater with David and Julia Koch, who were seated in the back row. Ms. Koch eagerly asked where the couple were sitting.

"We have to go to the second screening room, I think," Mr. Figueras said.

Ms. Koch then asked if the couple would be coming to the post-screening dinner held at a private Southampton residence, to which the polo couple replied deftly, "Yes, if we find someone to watch the kids."

What does Billy Joel ex and gourmet du jour Katie Lee do on rainy Hamptons days? Cook, of course!

"Today I made a barbecue brisket in my slow-cooker and had friends over and ate and lay around. It was a really good day for doing nothing," said the pale brunette, hair down and frizz-less despite the downpour.

What were you doing in the late '80s when the first Wall Street was released in theaters?

"Well, I guess I was a toddler."

"I've seen Wall Street 1 tons of times," Closing Bell co-anchor Maria Bartiromo told the Transom, "but I don't remember the first time I saw it."

Ms. Bartiromo, who has several cameos in the sequel, added, "But, you know, in this one there were some cameos with some CNBC people, so we're excited."

Have you ever seen yourself onscreen before?

"Actually I have; I mean, I'm on every day."

After the introduction of the film, Ms. Siegel notified guests, "I just want you to know there are a ton of cameos, so it's O.K. to cheer for your friends!" (The only theaterwide cheering was for Ms. Siegel's own brief appearance in the film.)

Shuffling out of the theater, author Tom Wolfe, birdlike and genteel in his Twainian white suit, told the Transom of the sequel: "I thought it was very nice that money solved everything. You know, a hundred thousand at the end and everyone lived happily ever after, you've just gotta know where to put your money."

"No, Mr. Wolfe, 100 million," the Transom pointed out.

"I mean a million," the writer amended, waving one hand to indicate how irrelevant the increment.

We weren’t planning on becoming a big Katherine Heigl defender. After all, our hatred for her character Izzie Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy reaches such apoplectic proportions that we’re surprised we haven’t thrown a glass through our television screen by now. (Oh the horror of seeing Heigl-as-Izzie in cancer patient makeup and a bald cap last season!) But the abuse the outspoken starlet has gotten in recent weeks is just too much for us to bear. Simply, we’re tired of the haters!

What really pushed us over the top was an interview that Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow did with Howard Stern (yes, he does still exist!), where the two men commented on the now-18-month-old Vanity Fair cover story where Ms. Heigl called Knocked Up a “little sexist” and said that it “paint[ed] the women as shrews.” Mr. Apatow is apparently still holding a grudge, saying, “[You think] at some point I’ll get a call saying, ‘Sorry, I was tired,’ and then the call never comes.” Meanwhile Mr. Rogen commented that Ms. Heigl is prone to saying some “batshit things” about her various acting jobs. Not to rehash an old story—like Mr. Stern happily did—but are we really still under the impression that what Ms. Heigl said about Knocked Up was inaccurate? From the perma-bitchface that Leslie Mann affects for the entire film to, oh, the entire premise, everything in that movie feels a little too boys clubby, it’s hilarious nature notwithstanding. Perhaps Messrs. Apatow and Rogen should pull an Entourage and pop the Blu-ray in at some point in the next month.

Of course, the “batshit things” that Mr. Rogen was referring to also had to do with Grey’s Anatomy, which Ms. Heigl has done nothing but bury in the press for the better part of a year. And again, isn’t the star saying what everyone has thought about that show for a long time: It sucks! The longer Ms. Heigl stays on Grey’s, the more apparent it is that she’s only doing so for the ridiculous paycheck she cashes. Yet, something tells us she isn’t the only person in America doing a job they hate for money. If anything, we should praise Ms. Heigl for her honesty. And obviously, that's her problem: People simply hate honesty. So Ms. Heigl is painted as a shrew or a bitch and someone who is prone to saying “batshit” things—y’know, like the truth—just because she speaks her mind. In reality, though, she’s more like the rest of us then we care to admit: Opinionated, judging and vindictive. Ms. Heigl might not be the America’s Sweetheart we want, but she’s the America’s Sweetheart we deserve.

The Brooklyn-born actor perhaps best known for his role as Bobby Baccalieri on HBO's The Sopranos had just arrived at the boozy grand-opening party for the newly rebranded Sapphire New York strip club on Monday, April 27, looking very "legitimate businessman" in a silky black short-sleeved shirt.

He was a long way from Satin Dolls, the real-life suburban New Jersey backdrop for the Sopranos' fictional Bada Bing Club.

But, compared to the swankly 10,000-square-foot Sapphire, located in the original Scores space at 333 East 60th Street in Manhattan, "Bada Bing is a shithole!" chirped Mr. Schirripa.

His Sopranos co-star, Vincent Pastore, agreed. "This is a little more classy than Bada Bing," said Mr. Pastore, dressed in a gold-and-blue-patterned blazer and shiny multi-colored shirt. "The girls at Bada Bing, you know, they wish they could work here."

He promptly took one of Sapphire's more beautiful blond dancers by the arm--"my next wife," Mr. Pastore said--and smiled for the cameras.

Would she really marry that guy? "I would if he asked," replied the personable pole-dancer, Constance B., sporting four-inch heels and a slinky, easily shedable shiny blue gown with the designer label Nom de Plume. The jet-setting Portland, Ore.-based stripper, a regular performer at the company's ginormous 70,000-square-foot Sapphire club in Las Vegas, was one of many sexy gals flown in specially for the splashy opening party.

Buxom Barb Wire actress Pamela Anderson soon her took her proper place among the scantily clad, appearing briefly outside in a tiny white top and even tinier Daisy Duke shorts. She posed for photographs but quickly slipped into the club without speaking to reporters along the red carpet. ("Sapphire rules!" Ms. Anderson later announced in a brief, barely amplified statement from her tightly guarded, velvet-curtained VIP booth in the back of the club.)

Actress Shannen Doherty also made an appearance, huddling with Noah Tepperberg, owner of the West Chelsea nightclub Marquee, in a big black semicircular booth by the main stage.

The newly renamed and remodeled club, acquired by Sapphire honchos David Talla, Jeffrey Wasserman, Glen Peter Bernardi and Peter Feinstein amid previous proprietors Richard Goldring and Eliot Osher's legal woes, has been open for business since January.

But, its highly touted restaurant, Prime 333, helmed by chef Jayson Margulies, formerly of Adam Perry Lang's acclaimed Robert's Steakhouse, only began serving food in March. "Steak and women go hand in hand--it's testosterone food," Mr. Margulies told the Daily Transom.

Does the chef get free lapdances? "No--I'm a married guy," Mr. Margulies said. He added, however, "If a customer feels so strongly that he wants to buy me a dance, then for the benefit of the club, I'll graciously accept it."

Still, Monday's big event was the first attempt by the new operators to reinstate some of the star-studded buzz of the old Scores days, when celebrity wrangler and longtime Howard Stern pal Lonnie Hanover was promoting the place. (Mr. Hanover now shills for rival Midtown strip club Rick's Cabaret.)

"We want everybody to know that we're here," managing partner Mr. Feinstein told the Daily Transom. "So we decided to spend, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars and have a big party."

Mr. Pastore, for one, fondly recalled the old Scores days.

"I used to come with Chuck Zito all the time," he said. "Is Chucky still allowed to come in?" Mr. Pastore asked a security guard in a pinstriped suit. "He'll be here later with Mickey Rourke!" the beefy bouncer replied.