T's perform for the C's

The Plain White T's performed after the Celtics game against the Wizards Monday night, and during halftime the one-hit wonders met with the winners of an online contest to meet the boys in the band. In addition to greeting Tom Higgenson, De' Mar Hamilton, Mike Retondo, Dave Tirio, and Tim Lopez, Dedham duo Sheila Quinn and Jessica Dalessandro got to watch the game from a private suite and then sat in the front row for the T's postgame concert.

Looks like Katie Holmes won't be hoofing it up Heartbreak Hill after all, at least not this year. Appearing on David Letterman's show the other night, Mrs. Tom Cruise said her father and brother ran the Boston Marathon 15 years ago, and "someday" she'd like to follow in their footsteps. Holmes, who's on the talk-show circuit flacking for her new film "Mad Money," ran the New York City Marathon in November, crossing the finish line in 5:29:58.

No less a songwriter than Nick Lowe sings the praises of Eli "Paperboy" Reed . In the new issue of Mojo, Lowe says he's generally unimpressed with new music but loves Reed's tune "Take My Love With You." Lowe writes of seeing the Boston-based R&B singer audition in a bar in Britain. "He looks a bit like a young Brian Wilson - Beatles fringe, slightly chubby, in a mohair suit - and I thought, 'They'll get rid of all that, these slick British managers.' " Lowe wonders if Reed could be the male Amy Winehouse. "Why ever not?" he concludes.

The Funky Bunch - the hip-hop group that backed Mark Wahlberg in the days when he was Marky Mark - is getting ready for a 10-date tour in Canada and then a trip to the recording studio. Original member Scott Ross says the group, now 10 members strong, should consider changing its name to the Funky Conglomerate. "We've changed up the sound and have added a few women," Ross told us. "It's a whole new thing." It better be. In 1991 the band hit No. 1 with the song "Good Vibrations" but split up shortly after its second CD came out. Ross, now a music producer, says the other funky ones - Hector Barros, Duffy Culligan, Anthony Thomas, and Terry Yancey - have also been working in the entertainment industry but wanted to get the Bunch back together. Their former frontman, however, is a bigtime actor now and is not looking back. "Mark's doing his thing, and now he tells us he wants us to get back to it," Ross says. The original members visited Wahlberg on the Philadelphia set of "The Lovely Bones," and this week their original producer, Mark's big brother Donnie, listened to some cuts. "He couldn't believe we're going in such a new direction," Ross says. "But everything else has changed, so we needed to. The time seems right." We'll see.

Because he wants people to see his new movie "Honeydripper," director John Sayles is self-distributing it. "The studios have gotten lazy lately," said Sayles, who screened his 16th film at the Coolidge Corner Theatre last night. "They watch the first weekend, and if your movie doesn't go platinum, they pull it and throw another movie in there. . . . You can't make your money back that way." Sayles's new film, a fable about the birth of rock 'n' roll, features a smoking score by Marblehead's Mason Daring that's played to perfection by the likes Duke Levine and Barrence Whitfield, among others with local ties. "I've known some of these guys since they started playing," said Sayles, who lived in East Boston while making "Return of the Secaucus Seven" in 1980. "Directing musicians is like directing actors: It's all about tone and feeling, and they never play anything the same way twice."

It's as if a member of the Boston band Township has gone missing. While parked on the street in Chelsea, Township's van was burglarized the other night and a vintage Intermark Cipher bass was stolen. "The guys are devastated," says their manager Katie Puzo. "That bass - it's our sound." Also stolen was one of just two copies of the band's forthcoming CD, "Coming Home," and several notebooks belonging to Township frontman Marc Pinansky. (At the time of the break-in, Pinanski was visiting Chris McLaughlin, a member of the band Aberdeen City.) Puzo said the band is keeping an eye online to see if someone tries to sell the bass.

Paris Hilton won't just be sitting around during her brief visit to Boston. Word is the celebutante (inset), who's coming Feb. 6 to promote her new movie "The Hottie and the Nottie," has agreed to host a party at Ed Kane's club The Estate that night. Earlier in the day, Hilton will be at the World's Greatest University to pick some hardware from the Harvard Lampoon. In case you were wondering, no, she's not an alum.

Ashley Gomes's time on the new ABC reality show "Dance Wars: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann" was brief but beneficial. "I got a lot of exposure being one of the 30 finalists," the 22-year-old Lexington resident told us yesterday. "I would have liked to go on, but I guess I wasn't what they were looking for." Gomes was featured in the first part of the two-hour show that debuted Monday. "I don't think I was the 'look' they were looking for," Gomes said of judges Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba. "I think I did well in the auditions. . . . But they want to pick people who can improve on the show, and I've been singing my whole life."

BC safety Jamie Silva was in good company at the annual Walter Camp All-America Awards Dinner in New Haven the other night. Silva shared the spotlight with Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of Florida, Arkansas running back Darren McFadden, and Virginia defensive lineman Chris Long, son of Somerville's own Howie Long. Silva, who helped the Eagles to an 11-3 record this season, is the seventh BC player ever named to the venerable Walter Camp team, which began in 1889.

Al Young of the Globe staff contributed. Names can be reached at names @globe.com or at 617-929-8253.