What a whirlwhind day for rock heroes! Both past and present. The terrifying trichotillomania-inducing bad news first! Steven Tyler, in a diva-ish homage to Geri Halliwell's abrupt exit from the Spice Girls in 1998, stunned his bandmates with news/lack of further explanation of his own departure. Guitarist Joe Perry says that he knows nothing further, while bassist Tom Hamilton glibly offers how Tyler is always angry at the band. And if the parallel plotting of the Halliwell-Tyler trajectory is true, then just about now, Tyler gearing up to spread (testicular?) cancer awareness on various little-seen chat shows. Reasonable people, however, would've been right in assuming that the band split way back when, shortly either after this single or this one. But enough dwelling on the past!

Although we're still a half-day away from Taylor Swift's two-pronged Saturday Night Live assault of blandness, it wouldn't be entirely premature to assume that tonight's episode, so darn full of Swift as it is, to bring out the narcoleptic in all of us. And if the evening turns out one of those decidedly Kristen Wiig-lite episodes, we may just lapse into a coma. Which could be avoided by switching over to Fox. Once home to MADtv and occasionally, reruns of V.I.P., the scattershot network is filling its Saturday late night slot with The Wanda Sykes Show. If this variety show is even remotely as sharp as Sykes' stand-up, channel changers lingering on SNL for an elusive chuckle may find themselves with a high-spirited new option.

Like the cleaning of a house, Rihanna's press circus never ends! Although last night, her 20/20 segment finally wrapped up. The rest of the world sighed a humongous cloud of relief because this sit-down with Diane Sawyer looked promising. It was a humble, pitch-perfect way to close that part of the pop star's life before she fully immerses herself into her Rated R campaign. Face-to-face with Sawyer, Rihanna showed that she has it in her to make peace with this altercation. And despite being well-timed, in case this tabula rasa misfires, here's a considerably more palatable alternative! Regardless, in her provocative interview, Rihanna kept an admirably cool, level head. She wasn't on a mission to point fingers, assign blame, or ravage the last flecks of meat dangling from the corpse of Chris Brown's career. She simply sussed out the events of that fateful February night, picked apart the psychology leading up to those events, and shined light onto a history of domestic violence in her family.

Look. I know Mo'Nique and I didn't see eye-to-eye in the past, but that doesn't mean I think less of her as an actress. In fact, I'm still pulling for her to pick up an Oscar win, possibly as a tasteful eff you to less-deserving victors of yore. Also as a bird-flip to the Academy who probably assume that with her unique body of work, she'd never get within spitting distance to even a Best Supporting Actress nomination. In fact, she and I celebrate our birthdays within a day of each other, so I could think of no one more fitting to uncork a bottle of champagne with. Another reason to pop the champy? Today, Precious opens everywhere (well, New York and Los Angeles anyway). Many of you are probably coordinating your happy hours accordingly. But somewhere in your post-movie regiment this evening, you may need to work in a restaurant conducive to eating your emotions, as the film is set to leave salt deposits on your face. Five suggestions after the jump.

You know what's been really singeing the edges of Miley Cyrus' lone brain cell? How not to be such a tabloid magnet. The pop coquette said to a friend who told an ex-girlfriend who told a pre-op trans-centaur who inevitably told a tabloid, "People will always say that I'm overworking, overexposed and want all this attention. That's not true." Surely Cyrus realizes that her voice will always be heard around the world, like the hyper-amplified bleat of a sheep. Whether it's her take on issues like unemployment topping 10.2% or her views on flarf poetry, everyone will always wait for the Miley Moment before continuing further discussion.

Who purchases a ticket to see Britney Spears in tour and actually expects her to sing live these days? She's not Miranda Cosgrove, so let's not hold her to unrealistic expectations. Although some assy member of the Australian parliament has. And what a shocker it is, where said member tears Brit-Brit a new one for not bothering to use the god-given gift of singing when she performs in concert. She insists that concert-goers should be made aware at point of purchase, that the concert probably will not be live. Err, people who know Britney know that they're not going into hear Maria Callas or even a slightly post-crack Whitney. Spears hasn't released a tune in over five years that hasn't been autotuned and vocodered within an inch of its life.

By performing enough spells to burn mid-sized Prussian villages to the ground, flighty mogulista Madonna is now finally rid of ex-husband Guy Ritchie. Which frees her up to try her own hand at being an auteur. This works well! Because there won't be awkward bedroom exchanges that find Ritchie sulking, spouting, "Oh. I'm the filmmaker in this family, but people obviously like your crappy films better than my crappy films! Harrumph," and Madonna groaning and offering, "No, no sweetheart, you're a special person," as she applies witch hazel to her chapped cheeks and swigs a half bottle of Maalox before nodding off. Oh, those olds and their Maalox. Projects that will suffer premature ends then: the album campaign for her umpteenth greatest hits and some finishing school for Malawi girls that she was heading up she was heading up. The barge is already headed for another port, and so on.

Somewhere in a bedroom wallpapered with tulip-pink ponies, Carrie Prejean sits defeated on the floor, cotillion dresses strewn about, stuffed animals torn apart, their cottony insides spilling out. Her cheeks are stained with mascara, and all around her, there's a sea of newspaper clippings from her brief time as Miss California. With her fame arc reaching its final nadir, it makes sense to learn that no one wanted to cough up the cash to buy her sex tape. You may be asking, "Carrie who?" And I'd remark something about the only person in this entire universe more odious than Perez Hilton.

So the folks responsible for the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises are now attempting to revive Jem & the Holograms. Oh there will be blood (but also glitter)! Hollywood has a lousy history manufacturing girly franchises (see Catwoman.) But it's all baby steps. Toy giants Hasbro are issuing a new line of Jem dolls to test the commercial waters. And if those dolls sink into oblivion, then we can all heave a collective sigh of relief. But if those dolls float, even butter-side down, then we're in for a world of trouble.

"Old hag!", "Wigged, wailing walrus!", "Shriveled she-beast!", "Miserable old cow!" and "Are you still upset that someone prettier replaced you on X-Factor?" are among a litany of barbs that come promptly to mind when considering the unnecessarily sharp words Sharon Osbourne had to offer in a radio interview recently, on Susan Boyle, pop star for the everyperson. I mean sure, Osbourne could neatly dust her shrill outbursts under a make-believe category of "blunt observations." But if someone were to approach the Osbourne matriarch on the street and say, "Excuse me miss, I'd appreciate it if you could collect your dead skin after shedding it on the pavement. I have nothing against snake ladies, but that discarded snakeskin really is a blight on our quaint street," would that also fly as a "blunt observation"?