BEE READY: How could we possibly make our third straight year of live National Spelling Bee coverage even better, beginning today with the first four rounds (not televised)?

We do what any show does: bring in the Very Special Guest.

This year, the ALOTT5MA team is thrilled that we will be joined for live commentary tomorrow on the televised rounds by the ultracool Shonda Rhimes, longtime fan of this site and creator of the hit ABC medical show Grey's Anatomy, an hour of television so smart and fun that we long ago dropped any and all complaints about her depriving us of Dennycrane until fall.

Oh: and she is, in her own words, "a crazed Spelling Bee fan and proud of it."

Here's how today's rounds work: first round, occurring as we speak, is a 25 word written round, one point each. Then every competitor has one chance, in round two, to rock the mic in front of his or her parents, all 273 of them. Spell that word right, and it's three points. The 90+ kids with the highest combined scores (including ties at the lowest score needed to produce at least 90) move on to the remaining rounds (two today), while the other 180 will start looking at the IMAX schedules.

Bottom line: if you've got a severe case of logorrhea, we're the cure. Please welcome Shonda kindly, and let the coverage begin.

ALOTT5MA FOLLOWS THE WAMPUM TO BREAKING SUMMER CAMP NEWS: As I mentioned below, eight years ago Carl Bernstein's son Jacob tried to climb the summer-camp social ladder by telling the much, much cooler Chase Culeman-Beckman who "Deep Throat" was. Salon's Amy Reiter has the whole story. Basically, as everybody knows, there's no better way for a maladjusted son of a career journalist forever known as "not the cute one" to rocket to summer-camp superstardom than, say, dishing the Pentagon Papers or revealing Bob Novak's secret source. So I dug a bit deeper, and with my own confidential informant -- we'll call him "The Hedgehog," to borrow a theme -- I unearthed a tape of the fateful reveal, transcribed below:

JB: Hey, can I hang out with you guys?
CC-B: No.
JB: Please?
CC-B: Get lost, I'm trying to get to second base with [redacted].
JB: I'll tell you a big secret.
CC-B: Pipsqueak, I'm working here. Besides, what secret could you possibly have?
JB: My father is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative journalist.
CC-B: Oh, all right. Spill it and we'll see if it's worth it.
JB: I know who Deep Throat is.
CC-B: Who?
JB: W. Mark Felt.
CC-B: No, I mean who's Deep Throat?
JB: You know, the guy who told my dad to follow the money?
CC-B: Follow who?
JB: The money. Because it led to CREEP.
CC-B: To what?
JB: That's how they got to Stans.
CC-B: You know, I have boobs to fondle, and I don't even know what you're talking about.
JB: About Watergate. You know, bringing down Nixon.
CC-B: Oh, you mean those guys from the Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young songs.
JB: Leonard who?
CC-B: Don't you know anything? Ignorant.
JB: Uh, so anyway, I know who Deep Throat is.
CC-B: And?
JB: It's W. Mark Felt.
CC-B: Who's he?
JB: A former high-ranking FBI official.
CC-B: Is he in any songs?
JB: I never heard of him before my mother, Nora Ephron, who is thinking about doing a movie with Meg Ryan, told me he was Deep Throat.
CC-B: Your mom knows Meg Ryan?
[extended silence, possibly erasure]

FROM THIS TINY MALAYSIAN FISHING VILLAGE, THESE SIXTEEN AMERICANS ARE BEGINNING THE VOYAGE OF A LIFETIME: With those words, five years ago tonight, Jeff Probst opened the first episode of the first season of Survivor. Newsday's Verne Gay tries to explain What It All Means.

Relive the day with Tim Goodman's 6/1/00 prescient, gushing review of that debut or the six-page (that's it?) TWoP recap ("The narrator, who looks like The Professor, appears again and shows us the teams' treemail. I feel inferior in light of such crafty wordplay. His name, we are told, is Jeff Probst, as if we care.")

Seriously, folks, hasn't Mark Burnett made your life better?

edited to add: Lisa de Moraes' original review, where, for once, she erred, calling it a "voyeur show" ("think "Gilligan's Island" produced by George Orwell") and underestimating it as "merely means to an end -- hawking new fall shows to younger crowds."

THIS IS BANANAS, B-A-N-A-N-A-S: A question--If Gwen Stefani is so desperate to proclaim that she "ain't no Hollaback Girl," why does she spend much of the video driving around in a car with her face on it and the words "Hollaback Girl" above it?

IT'S LIKE A THOUSAND TINY FINGERS MASSAGING YOUR GUMS, ASSUMING THAT WERE SOMETHING YOU THINK WOULD BE APPEALING: In this month's Fametracker Celebrity vs. Thing (spoiler alert!) not-socks defeats Chris Rock. This reminds me of something that Spacewoman wishes I would quit saying: my Gap athletic not-socks (no link because you can't buy them online; make sure you get the ones with the grey heel patch) are the greatest things I've ever put on my feet. The first time I put them on, I literally exclaimed, "oh, my God." I then spoke for about ten minutes about how much sock technology has improved in the last few years. These things are warm, snug, efficiently wicking, and damned plush. It's like wrapping your feet in labrador puppies. I don't care if Spacewoman says that they should have little pom-poms on them. If, when tooling around in shorts, you wear Pumas (parental advisory for this fake ad, by the way), Adidas Rod Lavers, turf shoes, or anything else that hits below your ankle and is supposed to look like you're not wearing socks, you can do no better than these.

WILL JOAN BAEZ TELL THE CROWD THAT THIS IS OUR GENERATION'S "WOODSTOCK '94"? Artists and venues now announced for Live 8:

In London's Hyde Park, those performing include Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Dido, Keane, Sir Elton John, Annie Lennox, Madonna, Muse, the Scissor Sisters, Sir Paul McCartney, Joss Stone, Stereophonics, Sting, Snoop, Robbie Williams, U2 and REM.

In Philadelphia, acts performing will include Will Smith (hosting), Bon Jovi, Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, Sarah McLachlan, Rob Thomas, Keith Urban, Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder, 50 Cent, Kaiser Chiefs and P Diddy.

Among artists scheduled for Berlin are A-Ha, Bap, Crosby Stills and Nash, Lauryn Hill, Die Toten Hosen, Peter Maffay and Brian Wilson.

The concert in Rome will feature musicians including Irene Grandi, Faith Hill, Jovanotti, Tim McGraw, Nek, Laura Pausini, Duran Duran, Vasco Rossi and Zucchero.

In Paris, Andrea Bocelli, Craig David, Calogero, Jamiroquai, Kyo, Yannick Noah, Youssou N'Dour, Placebo, Axelle Red, Johnny Halliday, Manu Chao and Renaud will be among those taking part.

Yes -- yet again, the UK gets a much better show than Philadelphia.

And, yes, it's that Yannick Noah.

STILL UNANSWERED: WHO DID DALLAS? In an upcoming article in Vanity Fair, former FBI agent W. Mark Felt -- who Carl Bernstein's 11-year old son already dimed, so nice job keeping the secret, dude -- says that he was "Deep Throat." This confirms Nixon's own suspicions.