Looking good

Sure, Gov. Rod Blagojevich is like a 17-year-old boy with a PlayStation when it comes to spending tax dollars—he just can’t stop himself. So the report the other day by the Southern Illinoisan that the gov spent $600 related to his March budget address to the Legislature shouldn’t be a shocker, right?

Well, you know, it’s all in the details—turns out the $600 bill was for a makeup artist Blagojevich flew in from Crystal Lake to fix up his face and check the lighting.

Now, granted, since the news came out, the governor’s staff has said it was all a mistake—the makeup artist reimbursed the state, they said, and was paid for out of the governor’s campaign funds.

Still, you have to wonder what’s going on in the gov’s office. For starters, while there are people in our community who are not averse to the wonders of makeup, come on—$600? Governor, you’d be amazed what a $20 trip to Walgreens and a little skillful touch-up here and there can accomplish.

Second, when you need makeup, who thinks Crystal Lake? No offense to the fine folks there but, dude, your Chicago office is about a five-minute walk from the Magnificent Mile. If you just halfway act like you’re buying something at a dozen or so stores there, you walk out with a makeover and a bag full of samples.

To paraphrase a current TV commercial, “$600 for makeup? Ya’ll must be crazy.”

Warm and fuzzy Nixon

One thing’s for sure—long after Gov. Blagojevich and his hairdo and makeup habits are gone from the political scene, we’ll still have Richard Nixon to write about, or so it seems.

Like Freddy, even when you’re sure he’s dead, Tricky Dick just keeps finding ways to make news. Last week, it was for recordings and papers released from his days in the White House.

In one 11-page memo Nixon typed, he brooded about why people didn’t perceive him as a nice guy—“the whole warmth business” as Nixon called it. Accordingly, he filled the 11 single-spaced pages with examples of how he’d been nice to people.

The true Nixon came out elsewhere, as in one memo that explored the possibility of finding footage of Democrats discussing gay rights and distributing it in union halls. Nixon also was obsessed with finding dirt on 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern and his running mate, Sargent Shriver.

Despite a landslide win that year, the recordings revealed that Nixon was upset about how his victory compared to Lyndon Johnson’s huge reelection win in 1964.

Somehow, you just know that if there’s an afterlife, he’s still plotting a comeback…

We have met the enemy…

Down in Florida, one politician probably ended his career last week in a restroom in a park.

An undercover state policeman in Brevard County said Florida state Rep. Bob Allen went into a restroom at Veteran’s Memorial Park three times, then offered to perform oral sex on him for $20.

Well, Rep. Allen, it seems, is another poster boy for the anti-gay “obsessed with gay sex” wacko fringe. See, earlier this year Allen sponsored a bill in the Florida Legislature that would have increased penalties for people convicted of having sex in public. The bill failed, but, hey, maybe now that he’s demonstrated that there’s a problem, who knows?

At any rate, Allen is denying his guilt, saying it’s all “a very big misunderstanding.”

Um, yeah, right—he was just asking the cop if he needed “a $20 tow job.” Sure…

A comedy?

Well, who wants to bet against Allen ending up in Michael Moore’s next movie?

After all, last week the filmmaker told the Advocate that his next feature might just be about gay rights.

“I think it’s a very ripe subject for someone like me to make a movie about,” Moore said.

The possibilities are endless for the Moore treatment, you have to admit. If he focuses on anti-gay wackos, it could even be called “Sicko II” or “Bowling for Bigots.”

I’d have to urge him to be sure to talk with our state’s own gay-obsessed right-winger, Peter LaBarbera, and his fetish for photographing Chicago’s annual International Mr. Leather.

Anyway, writing this column has me convinced of one thing—Moore certainly won’t suffer from a shortage of material.