OUT AND ABOUT ... Rex Butler, lawyer to the stars, is buying the old Office Lounge across Northern Lights from the Sears Mall. Partners with Rex in the new adventure is P.I. Tank Jones, Levi Johnston's bodyguard and baby sitter. Once the cat's meow of after-work watering holes, the second-floor lounge has fallen off the radar in recent years. Rex and Tank are buffing up the interior. Ear hopes this includes the mechanism that allowed the whole top of the building to revolve back in the '80s. So tacky it was seriously cool.
TURN KEY ... Earwigs always come through. No sooner had the Omniscient Orifice mentioned that Bill Allen's Inlet View home was on the market than someone sent a copy of the Realtor.com listing. It may or may not be entirely accurate but here's the skinny: Built in 1939, it has three bedrooms and 2.5 baths, 2,705 square feet on about a third of an acre. And, it's got "RV/boat parking." Bet the neighbors love that.
Asking price reportedly is $975,000. It must be the downtown location because the house is, shall we say, not the most attractive on the block. It features odd protuberances that look like they were constructed from scraps left over after the Veco rebuild of Uncle Ted's house. Not exactly the castle of a zillionaire.
FBKS FENG SHUI ... Fairbanks zoning officials have decided: Rain ponchos cannot legally be used as gates.
In a letter to Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, the borough planning director said the ponchos Wilson hung as a gate in a plywood fence erected around property featuring a bunch of junk failed to meet code. (A neighbor complained.) Earwigs will remember Gov. Parnell recently appointed Wilson to the House seat vacated when John Coghill moved to the Senate to fill the seat Gene Therriault left to become Parnell's aide. (Yes, there will be a quiz.)
Rep. Wilson told News-Miner reporter Amanda Bohman that she will replace the ponchos with something "more decorative."
The new gate will be made of recycled aluminum cans, she said.
SHE'S BAAACK ... Management at radio station KUDO has re-established contact with reality and is bringing lefty talk show host Shannyn Moore back to the airwaves starting tomorrow. She'll be on Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at 1080 AM and streamed live on the KUDO Web site. That's in addition to her new 4 p.m. Saturday interview show on Channel 5, which is much too entertaining to be hidden in that time slot.
Ear is told the TV show gets posted to Shannyn's site on that series of tubes.
RESUME THE POSITION ... Earwigs behind the Blue Curtain report that so many retired cops have volunteered to work the investigation into the shooting of Officer Jason Allen that APD is thinking of retrofitting a bunch of patrol cars to accommodate wheelchairs.
Seriously, Derek Hsieh, head of the police union, says public support in the search for the shooter has been amazing.
KABOOOPS ... It was a decent story for a slow news day: A World War II "relic" that long sat outside a Kodiak bar and was recently donated to the Kodiak Military History Museum turned out to be a live bomb. The bomb guys from Fort Richardson checked it out, decided it contained "Explosive D" and blew it up. Big BOOM, accompanied by clever comments from the local citizenry about what would have happened if some drunk fisherman had run his car into it outside the bar.
The AP picked up the story from a local radio station, which may have gotten it from a blogger, and before you could spell v-i-r-a-l out loud, it was on Web sites nationwide.
But wait. Late in the week, the Army said never mind, it probably wasn't live at all. ADN's Newsreader posted the correction on adn.com. Now let's see how long that takes to work its way cross-country.
FRONT ROW SEAT ... It was a six-person jury for a minor civil case in Anchorage District Court, but one of the jurors last week was Wendy Lyford, head of the court system for the Third Judicial District, which includes Anchorage.
"I've been wanting to do it for years," said Wendy of her regular-person trip through the system she runs. Among her discoveries: Despite complaints over the years, the jury chairs are reasonably comfortable, she said; however, the jury rooms are way too small. "It's not my fault," she told her fellow jurors. "I wasn't involved with designing the courthouse."
And how did courthouse staff feel about their boss checking them out from the inside? It's probably just a coincidence that the in-court deputy provided the jury special, good-quality coffee, right?
A QUESTION ... What city Assemblyman pointedly snubbed Sen. Mark Begich as the two passed each other in the hall outside a Rotary Club meeting? An earwig claims to have witnessed it. So what is this? High school?
ON THE MOVE ... Frank Ameduri, media spokesman for the House Democrats for five years, is leaving next month to work with former Knowles chief of staff Jim Ayers at the Juneau office of Oceana, the international oceans conservation organization.
THE BAND PLAYS ON ... Ralph Samuels has announced his gubernatorial campaign team: Suzanne Armstrong, who ran Kevin Meyer's campaigns, is manager. She was most recently with the Port of Anchorage. Dave Dittman is his pollster and Willis Lyford political strategist and media spokesman (yes, he's Wendy's husband).
• Market researcher Jean Craciun has signed on as an adviser to the Bill Walker campaign.
• Lite Gov Craig Campbell performed like a trouper at the Chamber of Commerce lunch Thursday, handing out plaques and posing for pictures with 40 winners of the Top 40 Under 40 award. One ... at ... a ... time.
• Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, and wife Kelly Blumer hosted a fundraiser at their home Wednesday for Hollis French. Hmmmm. Aren't Les and Ethan Berkowitz partners in the Snow City restaurant?
Compiled by Sheila Toomey. Contact Sheila at 257-4341 or ear@adn.com. Find Ear online at adn.com/ear.