Welcome to the Smart Set. Every morning we bring you the gossip coverage, filtered. Today: the AP's "refresh" of Steve Jobs' obituary upsets, Snoop Dogg's American Idol clone struggles to find a home, and Spike Lee speaks out against helicopter parents.

• It's standard practice for news outlets to prepare obituaries for prominent figures before their deaths, but Apple executives are still said to be "furious" with the Associated Press for reportedly "seeking quotes to refresh" their obituary on Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave since January and is scheduled to speak at the Worldwide Developers Conference today. The calls reportedly went out over the past two weeks to "honchos at Universal Studios, Warner Pictures and record labels Sony, EMI and Warner Music." [Page Six]
• Let it be known: director Spike Lee has thoughts on helicopter parents. "Parents kill more dreams than anybody," he told the crowd at D.C.'s Lincoln Theatre Saturday night, where he was being honored with an award from the Hung Tao Choy Mei Leadership Institute, "a D.C. youth leadership/martial arts program." Lee did add that his own parents pressured him to go to Morehouse College, which turned out pretty well. "[N]ow I'm on the board of trustees," he said. [The Reliable Source]
• Hollywood has already produced poorly-received, Jim Carrey-less followups to Bruce Almighty and Dumb & Dumber, but that didn't dissuade the star from doing some good old-fashioned sequel-hinting when asked about his future plans during the Mr. Popper's Penguins promotional tour "We've been talking about maybe returning to some old characters that everyone has been asking about," said Carrey. "There's Bruce Almighty and we're talking about maybe another Dumb and Dumber." The latter project will probably generate more enthusiasm than the former, though we wonder how Jeff Daniels will fit it in now that he's Aaron Sorkin's new leading man. [Coming Soon]
• Former Clinton White House aide and Sunday talk show regular Paul Begala is joining Newsweek and The Daily Beast as a columnist. In a statement, Begals praised the "consistently outstanding political coverage and commentary" from the two publications under editor Tina Brown and pledged to "do my best to inform, agitate, and analyze." [Daily Intel]
• It took nine years, but it looks like Snoop Dogg is finally pitching networks on a singing competition project that's described as "rap's answer to American Idol." Reportedly Oxygen, Bravo and NBC "aren't biting" on the concept, but  E! and MTV "have shown interest." According to sources, Snoop wants an "an old-school [hip-hop] legend" and Jay-Z to join him as judges. A Jay-Z representative has already denied any involvement in the project. [Page Six]
• Chicago Cubs fans can add a crushing debt burden to the list of curses afflicting their favorite franchise. According to baseball sources, the Ricketts family, which took on $400 million in debt to buy the team from the Tribune Company in 2009, have a crippling a "deal and debt structure" that "involves enough annual burden that fans shouldn't count on the Cubs going after any big free agents for two or three years." [Chicago Sun-Times]

• Jersey Shore's European adventure is apparently over. The fifth season of the MTV reality show will start filming in June in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, after season four had the cast in Florence, where they offended both Italians and the University of Florida. [CBS]
• And a reminder: tonight is Scott Pelley's first night anchoring the CBS Evening News.

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Ray Gustini