Swap Meet: Jerry Probes Celeb Sex & Drug Secrets
Scoop of the week: Green with envy kudos to the Chron’s irrepressible Carla Marinucci for her blog disclosure that AG Jerry Brown has insinuated his office into an investigation of the role of prescription drugs in the Michael Jackson case. In revealing that General Jerry has waded into what the tabs like to call your Jacko Death Probe, Ms. Carla managed to skillfully boost her Google Juice ratings by tossing in a couple of gratuitous links to Anna Nicole Smith.
What the Whirling Dervish of Daily Journalism failed to report, however, is that the MJ Drug Deal is just one of many high profile, celeb legal matters being eyed by the once-and-future candidate for governor. Breathing the rarefied air of political PR nirvana, Brown is poised to launch investigations into a half-dozen other has-been scandals and mysteries, sources close to our imagination told Calbuzz:
Did OJ really search for the real killer? With Simpson safely on ice in Nevada, Brown’s crack celebrity investigation team is focusing on allegations the broken-down jock broke interstate commerce laws by fraudulently accepting free greens fees, after telling golf course operators in multiple states his chief suspect was playing on their back nine.
Kate Moss and the missing flatware. Everybody knows that super-model Kate Moss used coke on a fashion shoot a few years back, but only Brown’s office has doggedly pursued the possibility of filing grand theft charges against Moss for allegedly leaving the scene with a spoon belonging to the on-location caterer stuck up her nose.
Did David Hasselhoff defame Wendy’s? Brown has long believed that law enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions blundered by turning a blind eye to possible Product Disparagement civil law violations by burned-out Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, who was famously taped trying to get his choppers around a Baconator while falling down drunk, a video that may have sent sales of the once-popular Wendy’s menu item plummeting.
Was Britney’s buzz cut legal? Acting on a tip from an anonymous informant in the high-end L.A. cosmetology industry, Brown is reportedly close to filing charges against the pop princess for not reimbursing a Tarzana hair salon for the use of high speed clippers with which she whacked off all her hair a few years back. With interest, Brown investigators say, the tab by now may well be close to the mid-three figures.
David Duchovny’s sex addiction scam. Brown’s undercover agents have developed confidential information that after “X Files” star Duchovny was released from rehab for sex addiction, he plotted to fleece and seduce thousands of gullible libertines by inviting them to join him in steamy sessions of a new, scam 12-step program.
Paris Hilton, parking scofflaw. While Paris the Heiress paid her dues for her DUI, lawman Brown has developed evidence that since getting sprung from L.A. County lock-up, she’s failed to pay multiple parking tickets on her Hummer hybrid, including several violations for not curbing her wheels and, at least once, for leaving it on the wrong side on street cleaning day.
Lockyer channels Al Franken: Just when he seemed to be emerging as the only grown-up in Sacramento, Treasurer Bill Lockyer’s brain was seized by his inner adolescent and he jumped with both feet into the Capitol’s budget pie fight.
In an interview with the L.A. Times Sacramento bureau Lockyer suggested the way out of the mess was to pass two budgets – one for the enlightened libs of coastal California and one for the knuckle-draggers everywhere else:
“We’ll have the budget for the coast that has tax increases and services,” Lockyer told the Turgid Times. “And in a bunch of other areas in Central and Southern California that don’t have tax increases … their public schools are closed a month of the year – and see what happens.”
“If people in Orange County aren’t going to vote for a state budget, I don’t know why you shouldn’t sell [UC Irvine] to Google,” he said. “Why is there a DMV office in Riverside? Those folks ought to figure out how to go to L.A. at night to renew their driver’s license.”
At a time when Lockyer’s loyal fans are fanning flames of speculation about him making a late entry into the governor’s race by occupying the considerable space in the moderate middle, his sudden left turn lurch in trashing half of California’s population as a bunch of know-nothings is baffling; that Lockyer is the guy who has to go out and sell California bonds to a bunch of Wall Street suits who find the state’s fiscal crisis less than amusing makes his Alfred E. Newman act even more inexplicable.
eMeg’s Mixed Message: While Meg Whitman’s spin posse is busy trumpeting her $6.5 million fundraising haul as evidence that she’s connecting with Real Voters, her web site still tells another, very different tale: that her Megness lives in terror of sitting down to answer questions from California reporters who understand state issues.
On her home page, the “Meg in the News” feature lists these four media interviews:
— CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer: Former eBay CEO wants Arnold’s job
— The Weekly Standard: eMeg: eBay Republican Meg Whitman bids to save California
— The Wall Street Journal: Whitman lays out plan to solve California’s fiscal woes
— FORTUNE: Can Meg Whitman save California?
All Politico All the Time: Big week for Politico, the Beltway obsessive’s best online friend, which scored a trifecta of triumphs. First, Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff abandoned his normal cranky skepticism in a fluffy profile that declares the throwback journalism guys who launched Politico “may have solved the future of news.”
Next, a few days before Sarah Palin’s abrupt resignation as Alaska governor, Politico’s Jonathan Martin chronicled the cat fight of the year which broke out between always-wrong-from-the-right bloviator Bill Kristol and California consultant Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s failed presidential effort; the brawl followed publication of a 10,000 word takedown of Palin in Vanity Fair by Todd Purdum, aka Mr. Dee Dee Myers.
Then Politico scored again with a very cool story by Michael Falcone that put the recent sexcapades of Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign into political cultural context by recounting how they’re just two of a number among the Republican congressional class of 1994 to have fallen considerably short of the moral superiority values preached by that “Take Back America” crowd.
Best Calbuzz wishes for a happy 4th of July.
— By Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine
Today’s eclectic potpourri of political gossip may be the best from a slow news day, nevertheless, the content could easily qualify as a contender in the breathless reporting category…..