Madonna continued her promotional tour for her new album “Hard Candy” by regurgitating last week’s performance in Paris yesterday. But wait… what’s this? It appears that she’s kissing another woman! Egad! And all the while holding bottle of champagne, from which she will no doubt drink directly! Such scandal! Such debauchery! Always pushing the envelope, that Madonna! Next, she will do something even more shocking, like make light of the crucifixion or publish a (NSFW) book of nude and sexually ambiguous black and white photos! 2003 also promises to be a year of aeronautical disasters and Eastern Asia SARS outbreaks! Stay tuned!

Britney Spears met up with ex-husband Kevin Federline in court yesterday for her first custody hearing in over three months. This one went decidedly better than the last one, in that she didn’t show up five hours late and talking in a British accent. TMZ says

Brit will get three days of supervised visitation per week… [and] she will also have overnight visitation within a month. The goal is to ramp it up over the next few months so that Brit gets 50/50 custody [again].

Good for her. It looks like she’s finally learned her lesson. Like she said on the way out of the courthouse, “Making the decision to have a child - it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.” No, wait — that’s not right… I think it was Elizabeth Stone who said that. My mistake. Britney actually said, “Dammit, SP, I dun tole ya ta quit touchin’ Mama’s smokes with them grubby little fingers a yers. I sed QUIT!” Ah, the mother-child bond! It brings a tear to the eye.

At Bally Total Fitness yesterday:

Big sis Britney Spears flew home to Louisiana to attend a baby shower for Jamie Lynn Spears on Saturday. It was — as expected — a high-falutin, super-classy affair, with lots of clouds of carbon monoxide and chemical additives courtesy of Britney. People Magazine reports

About 30 guests were invited to Kentwood for a ladies-only, catered celebration for the 17-year-old at the family’s Serenity mansion. Mom Lynne and fiancé Casey Aldridge’s mother lent a hand. “We all sat in a circle and she opened gifts and thanked every person. It was just a good old fashioned baby shower.

The talk of the shower, though, was Britney’s gift. Her gift came without boxes or bows. It was a gift of the heart, handwritten on notebook paper held together with Scotch tape. I proudly present to you “Britney Spears’ Top Ten New Mama Tips For Jamie Lynn.” Enjoy.

10. Don’t titty-feed or your nipples’ll get as big as fuckin dinner plates

9. If’n you lay ‘em on their bellies, you don’t have ta hear ‘em holler so much

8. Formula ain’t the same as heavy whippin cream, so don’t never use it on pie

7. Ya can smoke while you’re feedin ‘em as long as ya point yer cigarette the other way

6. Tin foil makes a good toy cuz it’s cheap an shiny and the little ‘uns like shiny

5. Don’t NEVER micrawave babies. Just use a towel.

4. If’n it shits in the crib, you can put them in a dog carrier until the housekeepers git there

3. Babies can’t breathe underwater like they do in the movies

2. Only drive with ‘em in yer lap if’n there’s no one around to take yer pitcher

and the number one piece of advice from big sis Britney:

1. Don’t never hold ‘em hostage when it’s time to hand ‘em over to your ex-husband

Although it seems impossible without the aid of bonfires, Britney Spears has somehow managed to lose nearly $61 million dollars in the last year. According to In Touch Magazine

In addition to the enormous tab for legal bills, rehab and psychiatric care, Britney’s inability to work has cost her a fortune. “By not touring for her last album [Blackout], she lost out on $50 million,” estimates an LA-based CPA. ““It’s staggering how much money has been used up.”

Britney Spears has spent the last six months and the same pair of raggedy-ass boots and covered in stains, so I doubt she’s blowing her money on clothes. I’m thinking more along the lines of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Phillip Morris. Not the actual companies, of course. I’m talking buckets of chicken and smokes. Merrill-Lynch might have tried to point her along the lines of long-term growth, but last time I checked, you couldn’t deep-fry dividends. Plus their pie model of capital structure doesn’t even come with whipped cream! Who are they trying to kid? It’s Britney, bitch!

Working off her return:

Britney Spears was photographed meandering around a hotel gym yesterday barefoot and in nothing but a towel. Let’s hear it for ring worm and athlete’s foot! The Daily Mail says

After her shower in the spa at a Marina del Rey hotel, she wandered out to the gym in just a towel, giving gym-goers an eyeful as she helped herself to some cold water. Thankfully, the Gimme More singer wasn’t having another chaotic episode - she was just relaxing after a grueling workout at the hotel [gym].

Boy, I don’t know about you, but all of the sudden I have this craving for pigs in a blanket. I sure hope I’m not pregnant!

I woke up ten minutes ago fairly sure that I had been a victim of a hate crime and amoebic dysentary. Turns out that I just drank a lot of something called “Absinthe” last night. If you’ve never indulged, let me save you the mystery and suggest you down a quart of kerosene and light a match near your anus, then let a friend work you over with a baseball bat. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Almost as fun as Britney Spears returning to the set of “How I Met Your Mother” yesterday! Really? Well, fuck you. I’m hungover. OK! Magazine says

The episode finds Britney (Abby) and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) still dating and hoping to use the relationship to anger their mutual nemesis, Ted. Word is Barney will even a pop a question to Abby.

Britney’s episode will air on May 12.

I tried to think of something I cared about less than Britney’s return to sitcomery. The effect of entrepreneurial agriculture on the economy of the Midwest? The mating habits of the boll weevil? Poor people? Then I decided “enough with the thinking” because it was making my head hurt and went back to spray-painting the toilet. You’re welcome.

Thanks to the success of her first time guest-starring on the show, Britney Spears will be reprising the role of Abby on CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother.” According People

“The show is ecstatic and so is Britney,” a source said. “She had so much fun the first time around she really wanted to come back. It was a mutual decision to work together more.”

The singer/actress will do one episode, the source says.

Funny thing, success. To you or me, success might translate to “dollars earned” or “accolades attained.” To Britney Spears, it’s anything that doesn’t end with her bald and strapped to a gurney while the cops take her kids away. So, according to Britney’s standards, I’m practically Bill fucking Gates. Not a thrice-divorced single mother with bad credit and glandular issues. Perspective, baby! Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps me from killing myself.

Arriving at recording studio April 17th:

Britney Spears is currently in negotiation with Bally Total Fitness to be their company spokesmodel. That’s Bally Total Fitness, not Bally Total Fritters. According to TMZ

It all happened because Larry Rudolph, who is coming back to manage the Britster, has a close friendship with… the Chief Marketing Officer of Bally. Brit has been going to the club… as many as three times a day. She’s training with two of the company’s top personal trainers [and] working with the company’s nutritionist. As of now, there is no deal — just negotiations. She isn’t getting any money yet, but she’s working out for free.

Insiders revealed that Britney was actually their third choice, but the Marlboro Man and the elephant from “Everyone Poops” already had prior commitments.

Britney working out at Bally:

Britney Spears has reportedly been filming herself for the past six months in the hopes that the footage will help the public understand “what she’s been through” in the last half year. Or maybe make her look even more batshit insane than already does. Can’t hurt, right? A source told Britain’s Daily Mirror

“Justin Timberlake and her ex-husband Kevin Federline are terrified the material will end up on the internet. Or, even worse, Britney will agree to another MTV documentary and release some of the footage through official channels.”

The source [added]: “Although some of the footage is really sad to watch, especially the parts where she is close to breakdown - others are dynamite. If she does decide to go public with the footage, it will be explosive.”

Unfortunately, pairing the name “Britney Spears” with the word “explosive” might be a mistake. Before 2003, the words “Britney Spears” and “explosive” might have meant “super sexy ratings lock,” but since her divorce from Federline, the only thing that comes to mind is “American Standard Champion” and “shopping bag fulll of laxatives.” Marketing execs might want to consider a less forcefully descriptive adjective if they decide to go public with the footage.

Vintage Britney video footage:

Britney Spears was involved in a minor car accident on the 101 Freeway in L.A. Saturday night. The California Highway Patrol report says that Britney “attempted to brake but failed to stop her vehicle,” rear-ending the Nissan in front of her and pushing it into a third “older model vehicle.” Britney later passed the field sobriety test, so if she wasn’t drunk or high at the time of the crash, what exactly went wrong? According to TMZ

Minutes before Britney Spears caused a three car crash on an Saturday night, she was… putting on her makeup behind the wheel!

The [man she hit] says before the accident, he was admiring the white Mercedes and the woman putting on makeup while driving it. It wasn’t until after she hit him at an estimated 10-15 MPH that he realized the woman was Britney.

The Cleburne County Fair later got hold of the accident pics and set them up in a booth under a banner that read “You done heard of lipstick on a pig. Now watch as the pig puts on its own lipstick — while drivin a car!” Fair attendance reported record highs and sales of Mary Kay and pork products in Herber Springs are rumored to have tripled.

Britney Spears is bound and determined to get rid of all the crap in her life. Literally. The Mirror reports

The 26-year-old wants to look good on the inside too and is having regular colon cleansing sessions at a clinic in Beverly Hills. Our source at the clinic said: “Cleansing a few times a week gets rid of lingering stuff in the colon. Britney’s had the treatment before and says it makes her feel great.”

Nothing like the thought of a team of professionals Selma-Alabamaing Britney’s pooper to make you wish you hadn’t gotten up this morning. It makes those two bottles of Early Times and the face first trip down the stairs last night seem like nothing but a wonderful dream.

More of Brit heading to the dentist:

Britney Spears hasn’t been photographed driving aimlessly between L.A. gas stations in the weeks since dad Jamie took over her estate — instead, she’s cleaned up her act, making regular visits with her sons, showing up for work and wearing underpants again. There are even rumors that she may make a surprise appearance at the Kids’ Choice Awards on Friday. With all this good behavior under her elastic waist band, Daddy has finally eased up a little on his strict no-driving policy and let her back behind the wheel. A source tells OK! Magazine

“Britney is addicted to driving,” an insider tells OK!. “Initially, her father wouldn’t let her drive at all, but he knows how much she loves it and it calms her, so he’s softened the restriction. He now lets her toodle around the block in her gated community.”

When asked for comment, Britney rocked back and forth in her seat and said “I’m an excellent driver. Dad lets me drive slow on the driveway every Saturday. Dad lets me drive slow on the driveway. But not on Monday, definitely not on Monday. Uh oh, fifteen minutes to Judge Wapner.”

Leaving the dentist yesterday: