First off, I should point out that I’ve been watching “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” loyally since it first aired. And apparently all of Scarsdale is with me, supporting native son Aaron Sorkin’s new high-priced, high-profile, high-on-speed NBC dramedy. Alas, it’s just me and Scarsdale.

According to the latest ratings, the show shed 40 percent of its audience since debuting on September 18. Though it managed to hold on to the “upscale” part of its audience, that doesn’t make up for losing 5.2 million viewers from “Heros,” its suprisingly strong lead-in.

Behold, sign 243 of the coming Apocalypse: Nyack’s Rosie O’Donnell will be starring in a spinoff of the F/X series Nip/Tuck. The show will apparently also be helmed by Ryan Murphy, and will be about O’Donnell’s N/T character, Dawn Budge, the lottery winner who got a roll in the hay (or rather, $10,000 dry hump on a zebra rug) with Dr. Troy (Julian McMahon). O’Donnell confirmed the rumor in the “Ask Ro” section of her blog, answering one reader’s question:

Helen writes: is it true ur in talks for a spinoff series starring as Dawn budge?

talks r over. i said yes

So, what’s Bill Murray been up to lately?

Well, according to our friends across the pond, Sneden’s Landing’s favorite funny man has been crashing parties in Scotland. Murray recently visited the town of St. Andrews, then showed up at a late-night shindig in a house full of students. Drinking his vodka from a coffee cup, Murray apparently was the life of the party, cracking jokes to Scandinavian blondes and even offering to cook.

The weirdest part of the whole story? He started washing dishes as things were winding down. Unlike his character in “Lost in Translation,” though, Murray made no attempt to sing karaoke.

“BILL MURRAY TURNS FICTION INTO FACT …” [London Telegraph]

Yoko Ono, onetime Scarsdale resident and the widow of John Lennon, is suing EMI and Capitol Records for $10 million, claiming they cheated her out of royalties from John Lennon’s records, according to the Associated Press. Ironic, given that Lennon once said, “Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.â€?

Meanwhile, current Scarsdale resident and the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, is at the center of a defamation lawsuit against the paper by Dr. Steven Hatfill, the man who was named as a “person of interest� in the anthrax attacks back in 2002. Kristof had written a series of columns on the investigation and, according to The New York Observer, named Hatfill as the main suspect. Kristof’s reporting was based on five unnamed sources. Hatfill has filed a motion to compel the columnist to reveal those sources. In the wake of the Judith Miller/ Valerie Plame case, there is fear that this lawsuit (which does not name Kristof personally as a defendant) could further harm the paper’s ability to shield confidential sources (or for that matter journalists throughout the country).

OK, all you Ty Pennington fans (or wanna-be beatniks, or ADD enthusiasts), get ready for some Extreme Makeover: Home Edition news. We just got word that the Arena family episode — that would be the one filmed in the Northern Westchester town of Purdys, about the family who lost their son to a brain tumor — is re-airing this Sunday, Oct. 22, at 8 p.m.

If you’ve been keeping up to date with your InTown magazines, you may remember that we published an exclusive, behind-the-scenes account of what went on during that Extreme Makeover (and our brothers at the Journal News covered the heck out of it as well). Unfortunately, our story came out in August, months after the episode aired.

But now, happily, you can read about Ty’s flubbed lines, find out who really builds the homes (it ain’t the celebrity designers), and see how they pull it off before watching the artifical, Disney-fied ABC version of events.

“EXTREME MAKEOVER: PURDYS EDITION” [InTown]

“SOMERS’ ‘EXTREME’ SUPRISE” [TJN]

MULTIMEDIA SLIDESHOW OF MAKEOVER, compiled by Mark Vergari [TJN]

We already know that Pelham native Joseph Cross, who is starring in back-to-back big budget flicks “Running With Scissors” and “Flags of Our Fathers,” is on the brink of major-league stardom. And we also know, after watching the screening of “Scissors” at the Pelham Picture House Thursday night, that this 20 year some serious acting chops, holding his own opposite co-stars Annette Benning and Gwyneth Paltrow. But can he stand a withering Q&A session with his close family and friends? We stuck around after the screening to find out. Our favorite quotes are after the jump.

Pirro tells New York Magazine: “I love to entertain.�

“And they had just the spot,� reports Steve Fishman. Their $5 million mansion was built to resemble a Venetian palazzo. “They’d toured marble factories in Italy, selecting their favorites for the floors, for the stairs. ‘It’s marble on marble,’ says one friend. Two Vietnamese potbellied pigs, Homer and Wilbur, got their own small house out back, penned by an elaborate wrought-iron grill. (One visitor figured it was the servants’ quarters. The help, though, slept downstairs, near the exercise studio where Jeanine could sometimes be found before dawn.)

The article continues: “The Pirros held lots of parties. ‘A lot of dancing. A lot of entertaining,’ says Jeanine. They hosted theme nights. Cowboy night, Mexican night. One friend remembers spotting the district attorney at the top of a marble staircase in four-inch Manolos and bustier. ‘If you’ve got ’em, flaunt ’em like diamonds,’ Jeanine explained.�

So much for New York and Hollywood, we’re debuting this film in Pelham!

Seriously.
Who do we have to thank for tonight’s advance screening at the Pelham Picture House? Noneother than Joseph Cross (right), the Pelham native and lead character in the quirky comedy, based on Augusten Burroughs’ hilarious memoir of the same name. OK, so maybe the scrawny Cross doesn’t look remotely like the bald, goateed Burroughs (as evidenced by their Entertainment Weekly photo together last week). But when you’re cast alongside Annette Benning, Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Evan Rachel Wood, and starring in a movie by Nip/Tuck creator and pretty boy Ryan Murphy — well, there’s no point in ugly-ing yourself up for a role.

After the screening, the up-and-coming Cross, who also stars in the new Clint Eastwood flick “Flags of Our Fathers,” will be doing a Q&A. Just please, spare him the “was your family as screwed up as the Finch clan in the movie?” Instead, we’d prefer that you just ask who was weirder: Burroughs or Murphy?

Screening: Running With Scissors, 7:30 p.m., $15, Pelham Picture House, 175 Wolfs Lane, Pelham. Box office opens at 4 p.m.

Rosie O’Donnell, Nyack resident and new View co-host, also writes a popular blog. Every day she responds to fans’ questions. This one caught our attention:

“Maria writes:
did you ever have sex with a man?

Rosie:
yes�

Since she’s our neighbor, and we think she’s fabulous (and just a tad crazy), we decided to ask her a few questions. We’ll let you know when she responds.

First question:

What are your favorite places in Rockland?

I know, I know. Boring! But we’re going to start out with soft questions and work our way up to the harder-hitting ones like “Who was the man?�

And if you don’t like it, then ask her some questions of your own! HERE

What is there to say about Al Pirro? Sent to jail for alleged tax fraud, fathered a child out of wedlock, received multiple speeding tickets, married to a media star whose almost comically awful run for Attorney General has thrust him into the spotlight—Al Pirro is like some tragic anti-hero from a Tolstoy novel.

In this week’s New York Magazine, Al gets surprisingly candid.

So consider today Pirro-palooza at Suburbarazzi. First, some highlights after the jump:

Alas, it appears that Russell Crowe has left Nyack. In a blurb titled “Invisible Man,” the New York Post’s Page Six reports that Crowe has finished filming “American Gangster” with Ridley Scott and Denzel Washington in New York, and has now packed up his family and returned to Britain.

As we reported in Rockland Magazine last month, Crowe spent an estimated $100,000 to rent Pretty Penny (the old Helen Hayes estate). Despite the Post’s claim that he “managed to keep such a low profile that he was nearly invisible,” Nyackers saw plenty of him. He became a regular at Pickwick Book Store, Vertigo, and a half-dozen other nearby restaurants (more on where he ate in our upcoming November dining issue). In addition to filming his gangsta flick, Crowe also shot “Tenderness” with Laura Dern in Rockland and other surrounding ‘burbs. The only time we caught sight of Crowe and Co. was in New Rochelle, while filming a scene for “Tenderness” at athe Dorchester Gardens condos (2241 Palmer Ave).

Mostly, though, we’re just sad that we won’t get to see Crowe and his band make good on their pledge to play at Vertigo. Maybe when he comes back to promote “A Good Year” Vertigo owner Leslie McGettigan can talk him into talking the stage finally.

“INVISIBLE MAN” [NYP Page Six]

“AS THE CROWE FLIES” [Rockland Magazine]

“FROM FOES TO FRIENDS,” about Crowe meeting in Nyack with Richie Roberts, the former Essex County prosecutor he plays in “American Gangster” [Star Ledger]

Jackie Mason was at the Westchester Performing Arts Center on Sunday in a nearly-sold out show—it’s a big theater Jackie, don’t worry about it.

Was he funny? I couldn’t tell you. I had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon (okay I was staring at the wall in my living room). But if anyone was there, please tell me how he was.

And for the rest of you, here are a few classic Mason lines. Add “ba-dum-bum� drum sounds yourself:

“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.�

“It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like.â€?

“Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.�

“Jews are the best dressers in the world. They buy the best clothes, the best homes, the best cars. The best of everything. The only thing is, they get it for less.�