Anchorage Daily News
 

Alaska Ear
The divine appendage



(06/13/09 20:58:26)

ALL SARAH, ALL THE TIME ... People running the Michael Reagan appearance here were a little nonplussed when Our Sarah showed up, prepared to speak, trailing her own "introducer," right-wing radiomouth Eddie Burke. Apparently the right-wing radiomouth already on the program, Rick Rydell, wasn't acceptable. Rick's fans say it's because he's been known to utter a disparaging word about our governess, but who knows. Earwigs say everyone acquitted themselves well, although Rick claims Sarah looked startled when he said something nice about her.

Speaking of jaws dropped in surprise, Rick tells Ear he was at that Exxon/Point Thomson thank-you event last week and personally saw Bob Bell's jaw hit the floor when Sarah said "God bless Exxon" during her remarks. That was before this past week's announcement that the oil company we all love to hate plans to honor us by making money off our gas.

OMG ... Hell has frozen over and the evidence is the following sentiments appearing in this column: Was Vic Kohring's prison hair wicked fly or what! '70s Ear totally loved it. Suddenly the guy exuded old hippy dudeness. When ADN photo editor Richard Murphy suggested it was kind of Prince Valiant, Vic said not so much -- more Samson. Ear doesn't want to think about that too much, given what happened to Samson when he got a haircut.

WAIT, WAIT ... Here's real proof that hell has frozen over. During the big Letterman-Sarah flap, Levi Johnston was in Los Angeles, a petted and pampered guest at a women's empowerment group event.

Ear is not making this up. It's called Go Girl Worldwide and is run by an actress wannabe named Jennifer Murphy, who also offered Levi a role in an unspecified upcoming movie.

P.I./bodyguard Tank Jones went with him. He got offered a movie gig too.

(See adn.com/newsreader for the tape. And if you go to www.gogirlworldwide.com and click around for a while, you'll find pictures of Levi, Tank and babes).

Meanwhile, Anchorage attorney Rex Butler, the Svengali behind this whole "Being Levi Johnston" phenom, said his client has two book offers and two reality show offers under discussion. One of them is a reality hunting show.

WELCOME STRANGERS ... What prominent Alaskan climbed aboard a parked tour bus downtown last Sunday, introduced himself to the tourists and thanked them for visiting Alaska? Lite Gov. Sean Parnell. Ear hears the tourists were thrilled. Ear also hears Sean's wife Sandy dared him to do it.

Speaking of Sean, Ear apparently got it wrong last week about which Parnell campaign Sarah's new press aide worked on. Correctional earwigs say David Murrow, who started in the governor's office this week, worked on the winning race for lieutenant governor, not the losing congressional race.

Earwigs report Murrow is working three-quarter time at the new job, which is said to include a lot of Web work. His title is unclear.

WORST EVER? ... Outsiders who can't figure out how to ship merchandise to Alaska are pretty much a thing of the past. But an earwig who compiled an order of about 30 items from some Illinois biz called Cakes N Things, then couldn't figure out how to place the order, got an e-mail saying she couldn't because Alaskans were too much trouble to ship to.

She wrote a very polite suggestion that they save people like her time by saying up front there was no shipping to Alaska. This was the response:

"From: Clarke Smith

"Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 10:11 AM

"To: (Pamela V)

"Subject: RE: shipping question

"And you just proved our point.

"Everyone from Alaska thinks we should be doing something special to accommodate them. They feel they are different from everyone else and deserving special consideration or something special should be done for them. BTW. ... copying images from our website and putting them in emails is a copyright violation. Please refrain from such usage in the future.

"Please don't bother us anymore either. Alaskans way (sic) have too much frozen space between their ears. Please be sure when you start bitching to people about this email, and I'm sure you will since you are from Alaska, that you spell our name right.

"Good day!"

Pam, who was stunned by the note, says she was just trying to buy some military emblem candy molds. Her husband is stationed here. (The site now carries the warning: We don't ship to Alaska.)

YES, BUT ... Remember that Craigslist ad for Maggie's old treadmill? Alaska Zoo boss Pat Lampry checked in to say the zoo didn't post the ad. Yes, they really want to sell the elephant exerciser, but Pat's not happy about the snippy line telling animal rights types to not bother getting in touch.

TAKEN? ... Is that an engagement ring on TV babe Megan Baldino's finger? Ear is told by people Megan has friended on Facebook that she now lists her status as engaged.

FLYING FACTOID ... Make of it what you will, but only our female Assembly members showed up at the initial work session on the gay rights/anti-discrimination ordinance.

A QUESTION ... Is there anything to rumors that Larry Crawford is just a stand-in as Mayor-elect Sullivan's chief of staff, until Dan Coffey's term on the Assembly is up?

FACTOIDS TOO ... Supreme Court Justice Morgan Christen was sworn in Friday at the PAC, followed by a nice party. She is only the second woman ever to sit on the high court. That's two in 50 years, which more or less sucks.

There have been a total of 19 Supreme Court justices since statehood, counting Morgan. Of course, there are only five justices on the court, and women are slightly less than half the Alaska population (about 35 percent of Alaska lawyers are female), so one could argue that two-point-something is women's fair share. All Ear will note is the pleasure of seeing a woman governor put a woman on the high court.

"SOON" ... In an interview with the Anchorage Press, ex-Sarah flak Bill McAllister says the governor plans to name a new attorney general soon.

In case you were wondering.

Bill presumably knows since he now works for the A.G.'s office.

NOT SO FAST ... As Ear mentioned last week, Mark Hamilton announced he is stepping down as president of the University of Alaska. However, earwigs report he's not leaving until August of next year. So don't order the cake quite yet.

KUDOS ... to Savanah Wiltfong, a young actress from Eagle River whose performance in an indie film, "Dear Lemon Lima," got a "must see" referral from the Los Angeles Times. The story is set at a Fairbanks high school and the short clip Ear saw was engaging, but, alas, the producers chose to shoot it in Seattle. Ear can't find any showings outside film festivals, but maybe.

NOW WHAT ... A new book called "The Richest Man in Town" officially proclaims anti-Pebble's Bob Gillam the richest person in Alaska. The author, W. Randall Jones, talked to 100 very rich people, at least one in every state, to find out what they had in common so you and I can do the same thing and get rich too.

Or maybe not.


Compiled by Sheila Toomey. Find Ear online at adn.com/ear. Contact Sheila at stoomey@adn.com

 


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