The lunatics are officially running the asylum. But don't let their inviting exteriors hide their ruffian sensibilities. Kate Coe and Mayrav Saar know where to find you.

A hearty, and belated, welcome to both of our new (no-longer-guest) editors of FishbowlLA.

Since you've been nice enough to read my posts, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mayrav Saar, and I've been guest-blogging this week.

I'm a humor columnist with a piss-poor blog, a yippy dog and a cute kid. I like dark chocolate, giant underpants and juicy news tips. So if you have any of those things, stick them in that little Tips Box in the corner there, and send them my way!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I am headed off to bastion of vox pop, TMZ.com starting on Monday, where I'll be writing the City of Industry column - essentially, all about Hollywood's foibles in business.

After today, I am handing off the vaunted FishbowlLA to a variety of guest bloggers over the next week or two, until our vast international search comittee secures the services of a permanent media and culture business scrutinizer-in-chief.

It was great fun blogging for you here, and most of you were very patient as I learned the ropes of blogging. As a reporter, I have mixed emotions about blogs: They can be the most insightful, inventive and open areas of discussion and discoure on the web, though some are simply places that indulge the lazier, sloppier aspects of journalism. We've always tried to be the former and not the latter. Hopefully, you'll continue to check back in the coming weeks to keep the 'bowl honest with your engaged, thoughtful criticism - and, of course, your helpful tips.

So, as they say in the movie business, "That's a wrap... print it!"

With best regards,

Claude Brodesser-Akner

Yes, it's true, folks: Yours truly has sold out. I'm going to go work for The Man. Or rather, The Men: Time Warner and Telepictures' newest venture, TMZ.com, as their industry columnist.

This means that we're looking for my replacement. Might it be you?

Well...Can you, potential blogger, do 6-10 posts/day every business day? Can you write for an intelligent, professional audience and break news while also injecting clever opinion or piercing analysis? Do you have great Hollywood contacts? Do you own a Members Only jacket?

OK, forget the jacket: Do you also want to have a lot of fun, gain entree to the inner sanctum of entertainment and media, and write for a relentlessly obsessive, smart audience?

Then write 2-3 posts of up to 250 words each and send them with your qualifications (perhaps even a resume) to jobs AT mediabistro DOT com with "FishbowlLA tryout" in the subject line.

And, may the Fish be with you.

as our DayQuil just finally kicked in and we're feeling mammalian again.

We should be up to full speed within the half hour.

-CB

Note to readers: It's a slow Tuesday, thanks to the Easter / Passover break.

We're taking off now to to visit the relatives in Brooklyn for the final two days of Pasover, but you'll be in the able mitts of Ben Fritz for the next 48 hours.

Until Friday, tah!

Claude Brodesser

As you might have guessed, I am not Claude, who is apparently back east and unplugged for the holidays, though if pictures surface of him Jell-O wrestling in Lake Havasu, I for one would not be shocked.

Like yesterday's guest blogger, I also have the horrifying distinction of having shared desk time with Claude at Variety, though that was during a far off time known as the 20th Century. While I have been writing about the entertainment industry for too many outlets to for nigh on a decade, this morning is my first time bloging — as I am sure most of you can tell.

Up until Tuesday, I thought blogging was what you do with the Scientologists while you are holding tin cans on the Hollywood Blvd — though apparently I wasn't as far off as some people.

What's my name? I would tell you, but I am convinced that you would extort me for my entire collection of vintage Washington Bullets trading cards. You people have become so hard to trust ever since you all started wearing a monocle.

So call me Bones — and I shall play the cynical and overworked McCoy to Claude's chest-puffed Kirk. Only I'm slightly less hemorrhoidal.

I said slightly.

When Claude told me he needed a fill-in on this blog so he could do something called a "Seder" during which he couldn't work, I was naturally suspicious. A religious thing where a bunch of people get together to eat stale bread and wine that tastes like the bug juice they serve at camp while waiting for a mysterious stranger who never arrives? Sounded like a Scientology thing to me.

Turns out, however, it's real. And it's why nobody in Hollywood was returning my calls last night (at least that's I choose to tell myself). In fact, as Nicole LaPorte revealed in the New York Observer, it's kind of a big deal with some people in Hollywood:

Certain Hollywood Seders are the stuff of legend. When Roman Polanski was shooting Chinatown and wanted to return to his native Poland in order to celebrate Passover, the film's producer, Bob Evans, intervened and threw one of his own. The Kiddush was read by Kirk Douglas.

These days, the Passover invitation of note is issued by music mogul Guy Oseary, who lives in Beverly Hills. Guests have included Madonna (Mr. Oseary's former partner at Maverick Records), comedian Chris Rock, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and "It" director McG.

Now I don't know much about Jewism Judaism (just looked it up… who knew?!), but I have to admit I'm extremely suspicious of any religion whose sacred texts holds up McG as the "It" director.

But I do have to admire Nicole's cajones in writing this article. Now not only is she risking retribution from Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen, but every non-goy in Hollywood as well. (or should that be "every other non-goy…"?)

This blog will call me "guest editor," but I swear I am more than just my temporary position.

Filling in for Claude today, next Wednesday, and Thursday will be me.… Ben Fritz. I'm here because I sat next to Claude in the Variety newsroom for a year and he was able to see every website I surfed and thus gathered enough incriminating evidence not just to get me to be his guest blogger during made up holidays like "pass over," but to write a positive review of "The Business" podcast on iTunes every day for the next three years.

When I'm not writing about box office and animation and the Internet and video games for Variety (and scoring free video games in the process — but I swear I do it for love of reporting!), I'm writing for the satirical entertainment news site Dateline Hollywood and writing/producing video for our resident fake film critic Woody Wittman, about whom Claude recently said "[Woody] does for morning show movie critics what Borat has done for foreign correspondents."

Of course now I owe him another year's worth of iTunes reviews for that.

We're happy to introduce our new guest contributor to FishbowlLA, Claude Brodesser:

Claude started at mediabistro in September 2005, after an eight year stint as a film reporter at Daily Variety and Variety. He continues to serve as the host of KCRW's "The Business," the National Public Radio show about the business of entertainment that's carried in Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C., among other markets. Claude's freelance work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Premiere, Entertainment Weekly and US Weekly. In his spare time, he is the lucky fiance of mediabistro.com West Coast Director of Education Taffy Akner.

Claude will be blogging about film and entertainment.