Keep It In Your Pants Gov!

It was bad enough when former Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught utilizing the services of a prostitute recently in Washington, leading to his resignation and an estimate that he had spent $80,000 pursuing his extra-curriucular activities.

Then at his installation last week, former Lieutenant-Governor - now Governor David Paterson revealed that he had extra-marital affairs several years ago when his marriage was in shaky condition. I appreciated his honesty, and can even understand the impetus.

Yesterday, Paterson revealed that he used cocaine and marijuana when he was younger. That too, I can deal with (at least he didn't say he didn't inhale . . .)

Now it appears that Paterson and a woman identified as Lila Kirton - Paterson's former lover and an employee in the governor's office - went to South Carolina last October to work on Hilary Clinton's campaign and stayed in the same hotel - a trip that was billed to Paterson's state credit card, even though her job responsibilities do not apparently include such work (she is claiming that she did this on her personal time). On top of all this, an investigation has apparently uncovered that Paterson stayed in a downtown Albany hotel 13 times in the past 15 months even though he has a home 20 minutes away and Ms. Kirton used a state credit card to stay in an Albany hotel 17 times during the same period. Paterson's representative indicated that he needed to be close to the capitol for early morning meetings. See the Albany Times Union story here.

Maybe a mountain is being made out of a mole hill. Or maybe there is, in fact, a mountain there in the middle of Albany. Do I sense another change in leadership coming down the road for New York State? Perhaps before the next governor is installed, a more in-depth background check is in order to make sure this doesn't happen again. Or perhaps this is all helping the economy by providing long beleagured stand-up comics and humorists with enough fodder to keep them gainfully employed for the next several years.

Either way, David Paterson has now earned his very own gossippy news ticker on the right, joining Eliot, Britney, Lindsay and Paris. Joe Bruno - are you due up next?

UPDATE: The Albany Times Union amends its news story here.

UPDATE: Since this story seems to have disappeared from the news, I am removing our new gov from the news ticker.

Barber Shop

There is a barber shop near my office that advertises via a guy that walks up and down Sixth Avenue with a sandwich-board sign handing out leaflets.

Every time I see this guy, he tries to hand me a leaflet.

At this point it would probably help to know, if you don't already, that I have a shaved head. This is what makes this so perplexing to me. The people who hand out leaflets for nail salons generally don't hand them to men, and the guys handing out leaflets for strip clubs generally don't hand them out to women.

You would think that this guy just might make the connection that the barber shop doesn't really have anything to offer me.

Or maybe I should take the approach that my friend Avi, an Israeli artist and educator, took when he couldn't get Macy's to stop clogging his small mailbox by sending him leaflets for women's clothing and cosmetics. He finally called them up and engaged a telephone sales rep for over 20 minutes discussing which shades of rouge and eyeliner would look best on him. They stopped sending him flyers.

Maybe I'll go in, sit in the chair, and ask for just a little bit off the top.

Double Bushisms

Was away from the office for a couple of days and came back to read the following two goodies from my George W. Bushisms calendar:

"This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You gotta preserve."

-- Speaking during "Perserverance Month"

at Fairgrounds Elementary School in

Nashua, New Hampshire; as quoted in the

Los Angeles Times; January 28, 2000

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

-- Greece, New York; May 24, 2005

I should really give credit where credit is due. The calendar that I quote here was compiled by Jacob Weisberg and is co-published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC and Simon & Schuster. I am hoping that they publish again next year and suggest that you pick it up as it has guaranteed me a smile to start each of my days!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! Only 309 days left!

Eliot Spitzer

As an avid supporter and someone who voted for Eliot Spitzer for governor of New York, I truly feel f@cked.

Oh wait a minute. He's the who one got f@cked.

And as there will surely be a free for all in the press, I'm temporarily adding an Eliot Spitzer news ticker in the column to the right. He now has the dubious honor of joining the gossipy ranks of Britney, Lindsay and Paris.

Matt, Sarah, Jimmy and Ben

Just in case you're one of the 16 people who have not yet seen Sarah Silverman's video that she made for boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel, check it out here. Warning: Parental Discretion Advised!

And for the rest of you, have you seen Jimmy Kimmel's response video that he ran last week on his post-Oscar show? Check that one out here. Again - Warning: Parental Discretion Advised.

I am torn as to which one I like best. The first one certainly wins on originality and concept, but the response wins hands down on gags and cameos.

Note: While the You Tube version links above are slightly longer as they include chit-chat intros to the videos, better quality videos with better sound are available on the ABC site here.

Now that's quality television programming!

Today's Bushism - Revisionist History?

An entry from last week in my George W. Bushism's calendar. Was he asleep in history class? If we drop nukes on our friends, imagine what we do to our enemies . . .

"For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times."

-- Tokyo, Japan; February 18, 2002

Only 330 days left . . .