Ice, ice, baby: Levi Johnston strikes risque pose

Until Sarah Palin’s book comes out next week, it's Bristol’s ex-boyfriend, Levi Johnston, who remains firmly planted at center stage of the Palin family spotlight. Or maybe we should say center ice.

Johnston, in New York this week to collect a sex award and pose for Playgirl, has been coy about whether he’d bare all for the shoot. But according to a source at the photo shoot, Johnston is wearing nothing but a hockey stick.

“We have confirmation from the set of Levi’s Playgirl shoot that he has just posed naked with a hockey stick,” Gawker reported. (They also included an additional personal detail, but it’s not something I want to be responsible for searing into your brain.)

The topic of Johnston came up during Palin’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, which airs next Tuesday. Winfrey asked the former Alaska governor whether the father of her baby grandson would be invited to Thanksgiving dinner.

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“You know, that's a great question,” Palin answered. “And it's lovely to think that he would ever even consider such a thing. Because of course you want — he is a part of the family and you want to bring him in the fold and kind of under your wing. And he needs that, too, Oprah.”

Wheelchair an Aerosmith dealbreaker
The future of Aerosmith remains uncertain, but the band is talking openly about touring with a new singer replacing injured frontman Steven Tyler.

“If somebody was willing to do it and the chemistry was right — why not?” guitarist Brad Whitford told a British reporter after a Nov. 1 gig sans Tyler in Abu Dhabi.

Rolling Stone reports that Tyler is working on a solo album and that his disgruntlement goes back at least as far as the summer, when he was injured when he fell off a stage.

The band’s management reportedly asked Tyler to perform in a wheelchair.

“I just wouldn’t do it,” Tyler told Rolling Stone.

Caviezel beats self with chair for new role
If you're among those who'll be undergoing “Mad Men” withdrawal this Sunday, consider tuning in to AMC’s new miniseries, “The Prisoner.” The series is a reinterpretation of the 1960s cult classic. James Caviezel stars as Number Six, and you can’t claim he wasn’t committed to his role. Slideshow: Celebrity Sightings

“I remember going to the set and you’re so mentally exhausted,” he told Women’s Wear Daily. “Sometimes to get myself ramped up, I would take a chair and ram it into my head, going, ‘Wake up now!’”

He also compares his role in “The Passion of the Christ” to Superman, saying it typecast him.

“It was to me as Christopher Reeve was to Superman — I can tell you that much,” Caviezel told WWD. “This business has a tendency to stigmatize you. Once you do ‘The Thin Red Line’ [his critically acclaimed breakout], you can no longer do comedies, and that’s one of those things I used to do. When I’m committed to something, what I do is I get so involved in it that people will say, ‘That’s all he does.’ It’s just not so.”

“The Prisoner” premieres Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. on AMC.

Box-office apocalypse?
Last week, the box office caught some Christmas spirit as "A Christmas Carol" won the weekend. This week you’ll find a less cheery topic: apocalypse.

“2012” is the only new wide release, and the action drama about an end-of-world scenario is opening in 3,404 theaters. It would have to be really, really bad for it to not beat the other moderately not-tiny release, “Pirate Radio.” Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy, the quirky comedy about free speech could do well but in only 882 theaters, it won’t best “2012.”

And “2012” needs a big weekend before “New Moon,” the “Twilight” sequel, hits theaters.

Courtney Hazlett delivers the Scoop Monday through Friday on msnbc.com. Follow Scoop on Twitter @courtneyatmsnbc