The pair are said to have enjoyed an intimate dinner last night at Hollywood's Little Red Door restaurant, where they arrived and left separately in an apparent effort to avoid being photographed together.

...Just hours before their romantic dinner last night, Russell told reporters he was back on the prowl after a three-month relationship with Australian Teresa Palmer, describing himself as 'footloose and fancy free'.

We can't decide: does dating Brand augur trouble for the disaster-prone Spears, or is it a decided case of trading up? Time will tell if their union is meant to be, but if it means that Britney will replace her Cheetos with bangers and mash, then right-o, guv!

• Just as Britney Spears is getting her life together... she goes on a date with ex-drug and sex addict Russell Brand [Daily Mail]

"I had John McCain gags pulled. And they asked me to tone down the gags about Sarah Palin. I wanted to say she was forcing her teenage daughter to have a baby because she is so anti-abortion.

"But also, as a Republican she is pro-execution so she is going to give her the electric chair for being a little slut.

"They weren't keen on that one."

Finally, something Jordin Sparks and her archenemy Brand can agree on: if Bristol Palin had simply eschewed "slutdom" and worn a promise ring like good girls do, she would never have gotten pregnant at age 17, forcing Sarah Palin to consider executing her own daughter while firing all the dinosaurs in Alaska. At last, some change we can all believe in!

• Russell Brand pulled Sarah Palin electric chair jokes at VMA [Telegraph]

"It’s something I feel strongly about,” she tells EW.com. “I wish I would’ve worded it differently — that somebody who doesn’t wear a promise ring isn’t necessarily a slut — but I can’t take it back now. It was a split-second thing, and it came out kind of wrong. Still, I don’t regret it.” Neither do the Jonas sibs, who complimented Sparks moments after the rant. As for Brand, he and Sparks shared a laugh after the show. “I have nothing against him at all,” says the singer, who insists she’s not turned off by the experience. In fact, she’d happily go back. That is, “If I get an invite.”

Of course you will, Jordin; after all, your impromptu diatribe gifted the ceremony with some desperately needed sparks (excuse the pun). We look forward to the brand-new MTV special Jordin Sparks's Wagging Finger, where MTV replays the awards show with picture-in-picture commentary from the Idol winner as she shakes her head at Katy Perry's provocative banana peeling and mutters at the tarty Miley Cyrus, "Such licentiousness!"

• Jordin Sparks 'doesn't regret' promise ring outburst at VMAs [EW]

Band member Nick Jonas told Newsbeat: "For us it's cool to see that he recognises we are gentlemen."

...The question is, did Brand misjudge the audience?

Kevin Jonas replied: "I think he focussed on certain things and didn't move off of them. People's attention spans in America need more than that."

We'd crack a joke about Kevin's low estimation of our attention spans, but we already forgot what we were going to say. No matter, as Brand seems to have taken the criticism to heart, according to Rolling Stone's backstage account:

“And I’d like to take this opportunity to say, ‘No one ever have sex again. It’s a mad idea. What a crazy way to spend an evening.’ ” Brand said he had a “lovely time” hosting the awards. “I do think it was a comeback for Britney,” he said. “This is the resurrection of Britney Spears. I saw stigmata. And, I liked when Lil Wayne leaned over and touched my legs. I think he might be from another world and he has a message for us all.” Brand also called Republicans “evil” and suggested “we need to return to socialism.”

While we can't imagine why Brand saved his Socialist jokes until the ceremony was concluded, we feel moved to defend the comedian; without his bluntly political jokes and sexual mockery, the show might as well have aired on the Disney channel. If MTV has to make stars out of clean-cut teens, we'd prefer them to be "not that innocent" and prone to writhing around with big, phallic snakes.

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Jonas Brothers react to Brand [BBC]
• Backstage at the VMAs: Britney Basks in Her Wins, Brand Condemns Sex, Linkin Park Rate the Night [Rolling Stone]

i didnt go to the "VMAS" as we used to call them but theyve gotten so fucking Urban i dont know i guess Van Toffler thought ( hes an exec at MTV ) he was being edgy and he WAS by letting my darkling prince Brand host the mtv awards- but theyre not the "VMAS" and they never will be again - i had ZERO desire to watch let alone go and thats one of my very favourite people ive ever known or had the honour of being friends and fiends with hosting it so i feel horribly rude that my desire not to watch assholes with chastity rings- oh for fucks sake ive had some great conversations but not ONE has ever ended in an Orgasm, y'all need some pussy and some cock and shut the hell up-

..but fuck it, its irrelevant, i am DAMMIT CELEBRATORY- i love when a friend does well and Russell appears to have done quite well- ist not exactltya fucking rock fest at mtv its...... "date my mom" remember- and it will never revert back to reliably rock n roll- its just the economiclevel of thier decision marketing wise to "grow with thier audience"" aka save mass money on shows by just predating on peoples insane desire and frenzy to be on insanely dysfunction al reality shows for free.

Translation: Courtney Love has some quibbles with MTV (just like us!), though they're nothing that couldn't be fixed by a night at the downtown Standard, two of the three Jonases, a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, and a vial of ground rhino tusk. Should such a thing ever come to pass, we exhort you, MTV: play that video.

[Photo Credit: X17]

• How was Russell? [Myspace]

· Rob Giles at Molly Malones.
· Warner Drive at the Key Club.
· The Art of War at the Norton Simon Museum.
· Jedi Training at Disneyland.

Boomp3.com

To help generate further internet excitement and mainstream media buzz, tween superstar Miley Cyrus and potential one hit wonder Katy Perry air kissed their way down the red carpet at the VMAs on Sunday afternoon. Cyrus' mother, Tricia, made sure that she oversaw the air kissing and light hand holding. Mrs. Cyrus said, "I'm just here to make sure she doesn't run into that Ronson chick or get too buck wild. She's already had two Rock Stars, I think that's where it's going to stop today. "

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

• WATCH VIDEO

• Previously: Live! From Paramount Studios! The 2008 MTV Britney Meltdown Awards! [Defamer]

Sure, Brooke Hogan's political ignorance may be easy to pillory (though her dark horse candidate would certainly win endorsements from the bulk of last night's Moonman-accepting crowd). After all, this is the same reality star who came under fire for her belief that female menstruation should be an instant DQ for the presidency (so get cracking on that change of life, ladies!). Still, after the events of the past ten days, we can't help but see in Brooke the sort of happy optimism that remains unchanged by frightening new political polls. Sometimes, after reading about the new person Palin had fired or the books she wanted banned from the public library, all we want to do is don a low-cut dress, toss our hair from side to side, and shimmy, shimmy down the red carpet until political doom is just a bad dream on a channel far, far away from VH1. [MTV]

Katy Perry is apparently working on finding a female celeb to kiss during this year's live telecast of the awards show on Sept. 7.

Who does MTV want to match her up with?

Lindsay Lohan!

"Producers are really working hard on it," a source exclusively reveals to me. "They'd love it to be Lindsay, and they're actually going to ask."

And, should the "gone gay" Lohan demur, who else can producers hope to pair with Perry (a latter-day Jane Child, who, it must be noted, has never actually kissed a girl)? Why, how about Scarlett Johansson, whose infamous Vicky Cristina Barcelona kiss with Penelope Cruz has already sparked a cottage industry of salacious blog entries and website promotions? Sure, she's a little busy with Obama right now, but can Scar-Jo really deny the public — and Kanye — what they want?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Wanted: Female Celebrity to Kiss Katy Perry! [E!]

DEFAMER: Russell, since American audiences are still becoming familiar with you, we wanted to see how familiar you are with the tastes of the American audience.
RUSSELL: Right.
DEFAMER: So we're going to give you the Defamer American Pop Culture Literacy Test. I'm just going to throw out famous names and you tell me whether you know them and what your take is on each.
RUSSELL: OK!

DEFAMER: We'll start out easy before we get a little more obscure. Here's a gimme: Lindsay Lohan.
RUSSELL: Lindsay Lohan is an actress. I believe she was in a Herbie film? She's become notorious for her off-stage and -screen exploits and her tabloid lifestyle. I believe she has been connected to drugs, sauciness, and sexiness in equal measure, though she seems like a nice girl to me.
DEFAMER: She does love the Brits. She had a British boyfriend, and now she's got a British girlfriend.
RUSSELL: Her girlfriend is British?!
DEFAMER: Yeah, Samantha Ronson.
RUSSELL: That's fantastic! I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Lindsay Lohan for her promotion of English sex.
DEFAMER: Here's another easy one: Amy Winehouse.
RUSSELL: Amy has been on several of my television shows in the United Kingdom. She's a very talented and beautiful girl and in my house, to this day, I have a Mexican doll that for a while lived in her hair.
DEFAMER: [laughs]
RUSSELL: You know those Mexican worry dolls? Or maybe they're Colombian. You sort of tell it your worries. She took it out of her hair once, gave it to me, and I treasure that little worry doll.
DEFAMER: Who wouldn't? OK, we're going to get a little harder. Zac Efron.
RUSSELL: Zac Efron is from High School Musical. Now whilst I've not seen this, because I don't think I belong to its target demographic, I recognize that it's a significant thing. It's sort of like this generation's Grease.
DEFAMER: Lil' Wayne.
RUSSELL: Lil' Wayne is a hip-hop artist and rapper, dreadlocked, with teardrops tattooed on his face. He is also known as "Weezy," and this is not because he is asthmatic. He seems to me to be a terrific poet.
DEFAMER: Somebody's been studying his Wikipedia!
RUSSELL: Good, wasn't it?
DEFAMER: Yeah, not bad!
RUSSELL: I haven't done any Wikipedia studies. I just happen to have an interest in Lil' Wayne, because I think he ignores a lot of copyright stuff to sort of rap over it. I think he's a pioneer.
DEFAMER: Miley Cyrus.
RUSSELL: Miley Cyrus is the teenager daughter of "Achy Breaky Heart" singer Billy Ray Cyrus. She is confusingly attractive, and to people under the age of eighteen, she is probably the biggest star in the world. She is the Madonna of tweenies.
DEFAMER: Speaking of tweenies: The Jonas Brothers.
RUSSELL: The Jonas Brothers is a band. They're all actual brothers and they all came out of the same womb, where many have said they studiously rehearsed their instruments. How the Jonas Mother was able to keep an amp in her uterus is one of the greatest mysteries, because them boys were born already possessing an incredible talent.
DEFAMER: How about your familiarity with MTV shows? Do you know of The Hills?
RUSSELL: I believe it's about some girls that go around and get off with people and wear nice dresses. They have the general air of louche attractiveness and easy availability.
DEFAMER: Pretty accurate. Let's move on to some of the news stories that Americans are talking about. Right now, we're all wondering what was up with this Christian Bale assault case, and maybe you can explain it to me. Apparently in the UK, you can go to jail for verbal assault? What's up with that?
RUSSELL: In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved. Christian Bale, I believe whilst in a restaurant, rolled his eyes at the lighting. That is an offense punishable by five years in prison in the United Kingdom. I admire Christian Bale and I think he's one of the greatest living actors on the planet currently, but we cannot shirk when it comes to good manners. If it's true that he also dropped a napkin on his way to the lavatory, then I think that he should possibly receive the death penalty.
DEFAMER: How about the U.S. presidential election? Do you follow it at all?
RUSSELL: I think that the idea of democracy is an illusion and regardless of who becomes president, the status quo will maintain power. It's irrelevant who you select as the totem of power in the country, because the country will be run in the same way — but I would rather have a black president than a white one. I would have ideally liked a hermaphrodite president, if it was up to me entirely, but until a hermaphrodite stands, I'll support Obama.
DEFAMER: Maybe we'll get there someday.
RUSSELL: Well, one can only hope that the rights of hermaphrodites will be recognized! Yeah, a hermaphrodite president — I just haven't found a hermaphrodite whose policies I agree with, even though I do like the idea of having mutual, opposed genitals.
DEFAMER: Lastly, I want to know your thoughts on the most important issue of our time...
RUSSELL: Yes.
DEFAMER: ...Brad and Angelina just had the twins.
RUSSELL: Thank God. The thing is that they're both so stupidly beautiful and good-looking and attractive that their children are born looking gorgeous! It's unsettling. That first one they had, she had sort of a Marilyn Monroe mouth. I don't think they should breed, those two people. I think their adoption policy is probably better because when their genes come together, it creates a storm of attractiveness so potent that it could one day bring down the planet.
DEFAMER: And no one needs all that on a baby.
RUSSELL: No one needs that on a baby! No one needs a baby with eight-inch-long eyelashes.
DEFAMER: All right, Russell. Congratulations on passing your quiz!
RUSSELL: Pretty good, wasn't it? Didn't I do well?

1. Britney looks good.
2. Britney isn't chewing gum.
3. Britney is relaxed.
4. Britney doesn't appear to be pregnant.
5. Britney is good at covering up signs of fear and/or repulsion.
6. We're amazed she didn't say, "What's a surname?"
7. That hairstyle is atrocious. (You decide which.)
8. We believe she truly has no idea who Brown/Brand is.
9. She notices a passing resemblance to K-Fed at the :39 mark.
10. The elephant appears to be fantasizing about scraping saucy-British-comic out of his toes.

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

• VMAs [MTV]

While most will remember the '07 Awards for the Spears trainwreck, it's also worth noting that Kanye West stated after last year's VMAs that he would "never return to MTV" because he felt slighted by having to perform in a hotel suite rather than the main stage. So it appears this decision was not only made to placate the talent, but also because holding this event at a property that they already own represents a significant cost-savings for the penny pinchers at Viacom. As they say, developing...

To make matters worse, when she arrived in Vegas, Spears didn't go straight to rehearsals.

"She went to her hotel room and ordered a bunch of food and some frozen margaritas," the spy said. "She came down, like, an hour later with a frozen margarita in her hand." [...]

"The dance number was spectacular - without her," said our spy at rehearsal. "When the stand-in was rehearsing with the dancers, in the hours they were all waiting for her, it was amazing. Then Britney showed up and refused to do anything. The dancers were supposed to lift and twirl her in the air a few times, and that just wasn't going to happen. The more complicated dance moves had to be erased because she couldn't do them."

Meanwhile, Spears was agitated because she didn't like the outfit MTV had selected for her. "MTV wanted her to wear a corset outfit. It would have looked great and covered a lot of things up, but she hated it and didn't think it was sexy enough." Instead, Spears changed into a spangly bra-and-underwear outfit she'd brought with her that emphasized her weight gain over the last year.

MTV execs weren't the only ones worried about Spears' impending debacle. Another spy said, "The dancers were texting pals, asking them to pray for them. They were worried."

The most moving of those text-message pleas for divine intervention would come from the background dancer whose genitals were volunteered for the routine's perilous crotch-grabbing sequence, a thumb-typed prayer he offered directly to the Creator Himself after Spears' rough treatment of his manhood during the initial runthrough left him writhing in pain on the stage: "Pls god, let her not crush my junk. if i live thru this with my balls i promise 2 give up dancing and go back 2 law school. amen."

• WHY BRITNEY COULDN'T HACK IT [Page Six]
• Previously: Hollywood Blvd. Reacts To Britney's Bad Night [Defamer]
• Compassionate 'Extra' Selflessly Offers Britney Spears a VMA Do-Over [Defamer]
• Britney Spears Gives The People What They Want: A Nationally Televised VMA Trainwreck [Defamer]

And it seems that Spears' performance didn't leave all VMA viewers with the same feeling of disgust. Weighing in on a story about Spears and her subpar routine, ABCNEWS.com commenter wheaton1006 remarked, "I'd hit it."

• Why Was Britney So Bad? [ABC News]
• Previously: Compassionate 'Extra' Selflessly Offers Britney Spears a VMA Do-Over [Defamer]

There was just Britney, looking as though a handler had narcotized her to the point where she could be convinced to put on an outfit tailored for her 2001-era body and take to the stage with only the vaguest idea of her act's choreography, telling her, "It's only three minutes, baby. Just get out there and be yourself. You don't need to 'do stuff,' you're Britney Fucking Spears, and the people love you just as you are!" Despite the overall failure of her latest comeback attempt, it wasn't completely devoid of highlights—the moment where she greedily clasped that back-up dancer's junk was a winner, demonstrating that even in the midst of a total disaster, she's retained some of the improvisational flair that once made her a must-see performer.

• 2007 Video Music Awards [MTV.com]
• Previously: Britney Spears At the VMAs: Looking Back, Looking Forward [Defamer]

• MTV Pulls Off Awards Despite Drama [AP]
• Celebs Scoop Up a Variety of Swag at VMAs [AP]
• The Video Music Awards That Never Were [Gawker]