Note from MGMT: Our darling NYC correspondent, Skipabeet, had the opportunity to attend a Bea Arthur memorial this week, and she’s here to share her thoughts about this phenomenal woman.

A memorial was held for Bea Arthur yesterday afternoon at the Majestic Theatre in Manhattan, although the word ‘memorial’ was often not used, as many friends and family explained that Bea had specifically requested no memorial be held in her honor when becoming ill.  Bea Arthur passed away on April 25th 2009 at the age of 86.

The event was hosted by Angela Lansbury who looked as beautiful as ever in a white pant suit and heels, which didn’t keep her from opening the event with a song.  Lansbury starred with Arthur in the original Broadway production of Mame in 1955.  Other speakers at the affair included Rosie O’Donnell, Jerry Stiller and his wife Anne, Miss Coco Peru, and Rue McClanahan who played Blanche in the hit television series The Golden Girls.  Many told heart-warming stories of their time with Bea, including a short speech by each of her sons.  Bea’s love for comedy was not forgotten, however, and many stories kept the mood of the event quite light and humorous.  Rue told a story of the first time her husband introduced himself to Bea, to which Bea replied, “Rue.  Rue . . . I love Rue.  That Betty is a cunt.”  Here she was referring to Betty White, who played Rose on The Golden Girls. Betty was not in attendance.

The event included a video montage of Bea’s life long work including film, television, Broadway, off-Broadway, one woman shows, even photos from her childhood and her time spent at the New School acting with other greats such as Walter Matthau and her later husband, Gene Saks.

Donations in Bea’s name can be made to The Ali Forney Project to which she dedicated much time and money to helping LGBT adolescents find housing and other assistance.   A new residential center which is currently in the works will be named after Arthur and the 12 rooms used to house homeless LGBT individuals will be named after the various characters she played.

Additionally, Bea was a very big supporter of PETA.

Rest in peace, Bea, and thank you for being a friend.

Sigh. For the billionth time, Kanye West is out and about apologizing for his obnoxious behavior. Kanye kept his commitment to appear on the first episode of Jay Leno’s new prime-time show, and he had a few things to say about his behavior the previous night.

“Have you had a tough day?” Leno asked West, 32, as the studio audience erupted in laughter. Speaking seriously, West replied, “Yeah, it’s been extremely difficult.” He admitted to “just dealing with the fact that I hurt someone or took anything away, you know, from a talented artist or from anyone, because I only wanted to help people.”

Explaining why he was giving a shout-out to the other nominee, Beyoncé, West said, “My entire life, I’ve only wanted to give and do something that I felt was right. And I immediately knew in the situation that it was wrong, and it wasn’t a spectacle or just – you know, it’s actually someone’s emotions, you know, that I stepped on.”

Concurring with many of the sentiments expressed by critics since the incident, West said, “And it was very … rude, period. And, you know, I’d like to be able to apologize to her in person.”

West said he knew he’d erred “as soon as I gave the mic back to her and she didn’t keep going.”

Summing up what he did and how he now feels about it, West said, “I’m just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else’s hurt.”

Kanye continued to further rationalize his behavior:

“So many celebrities, they never take the time off,” he said. “I’ve never taken the time off to really — you know, just music after music and tour after tour. I’m just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else’s hurt. My dream of what awards shows are supposed to be, ’cause, and I don’t try to justify it because I was just in the wrong. That’s period. But I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I’m going to make it through the rest of this life, how I’m going to improve.”

Ya know, Kanye, you pull this shit at pretty regular intervals. And normally it’s not that big of a deal to me, because you’re not out hurting other people, you’re just making a giant ass of yourself, which is your prerogative. I think you’re a genius — I’ll say that flat-out — but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to play by the same rules of social conduct as the rest of us. You said this in your song “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”:

I feel the pressure, under more scrutiny /
and what I do? /
act more stupidly /
bought more jewelry /
more Louis V /
my momma couldn’t get through to me /
the drama, people suing me /
I’m on TV talking like it’s just you and me

I mean, the entire song is basically you talking about how you realize what an asshole you’ve been since you got famous, how you regret those decisions. I’m pretty sure the last statement is a reference to this insanity:

Even if you were correct on that point, you know you have a tendency to behave inappropriately on live television. So WTF were you doing drinking a whole damn bottle of Hennessy before the show? How could you possibly expect that to end well? You don’t need to pull shit like this — your talent speaks for itself, and you have a perfectly large platform from which to reasonably express your concerns. Stop apologizing, Kanye, and start changing your behavior.

Update: Found the embed code for the Leno spot! Thank you to all of you who sent it to me! You guys ROCK. Tell me he doesn’t look hungover. :)

Or, for most of you reading this, TODAY! We don’t go literary very often around here (unless, of course, it’s to laud the novel that Lauren Conrad wrote ALL BY HERSELF), but I just had to let you guys know that the new Dan Brown novel comes out on Tuesday. It’s his first new book in six years!! (I’ve read all his previous ones, natch.) It’s called The Lost Symbol, and it picks up with Robert Langdon after he returns from his European adventures in The Da Vinci Code. He has been summoned to Washington, D.C., and is quickly caught up in a fateful race against a murderous villain to find a hidden code that supposedly unearths an ancient secret to limitless knowledge and power.

Oooooooooooh!!!!

I’M SO EXCITED!!! I haven’t been this excited about a book since last month when my cousin Brigid released her debut novel to RAVE REVIEWS. (Yes, I’m going to keep plugging that book until you’ve all bought it.)

You can read more about it here or get the book from Amazon here.

I’ve never been more proud of a U.S. President than I am today! Even if the only reason he got elected is because of Oprah, I sure am glad I voted for him. During a CNBC interview today, President Obama, off the record, called Kanye West a “jackass” due to his asswipe, obnoxious remarks at the VMAs last night. Unfortunately, in a world with Twitter, nothing is off the record. ABC News reporter Terry Moran wrote the following on his Twitter: “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” He deleted it soon after, but he has over a million followers, so the damage had been done.

ABC News issued the following statement:

In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.

The White House had no immediate comment.

I can’t wait to see what sort of totally sober, all-caps blog response Kanye has to this shit.

(By the way, if you want to follow the EB writers on Twitter, you can catch me here, Wendie here, Molly here and Kelly here. I promise at some point one of us will call Kanye West a jackass on there too.)

I’m VERY VERY jealous right now, because my good pal Laremy Legel over at our sister site Film.com is currently at the screening of Jennifer’s Body, and he failed to invite me. (His weak response after my freak-out today: “I didn’t invite you? I thought I did.” NO LAREMY YOU DID NOT.)

I am soooo excited for the Diablo Cody-penned flick that stars Megan Fox as a high-school cheerleader who kills boys and Amanda Seyfried (the eldest daughter on Big Love) as her BFF. And today Laremy sent me a link to the “red band” trailer, which I guess in filmophile speak is the trailer that is NOT suitable for all audiences. It’s even better than the previous trailers I’ve seen for this flick. It’s not embeddable, but you can watch it here. The screen-grab of a naked Megan Fox is above. Don’t say I never do anything nice for you guys.

I just heard the terrible news that Patrick Swayze has passed away at the age of 57, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed with the cancer in January 2008, and, from what I can tell, he survived much longer than doctors initially expected. His publicist says he died with his family by his side.

Patrick was extremely proud of his final piece of work, the A&E series The Beast, in which he starred following his cancer diagnosis.

RIP, Patrick.