Some artists attract irrational devotion. Bill Murray is one such love object.

Sofia Coppola wrote Lost in Transaltion for Murray, and only Murray, though he played his usual hide-and-seek game in making Coppola suffer for her art. This, even though he had already starred with her cousin, Jason Schwartzman, in Wes Anderson's Rushmore, one of the most charming American movies made in the last few years, worthy of being compared to Preston Sturges.

There are many of us who will watch Murray in anything. His projects, of late, have been few. He recently showed up for a cameo in Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, which is a visual treat and drenched in deadpan.

Alas, to love an artist is not the same as to live with one. Today in the Inquirer's SideShow, Tirdad Derakshani -- the world's leading existential gossip columnist -- reports that Murray's wife of a decade, Jennifer Butler Murray, is filing for divorce. 

The reasons are not pretty, as Tirdad quotes "adultery, marijuana and alcohol addictions,...physical abuse, sexual addictions and frequent abandonment." Court papers state that in November Murray "hit his wife in the face and then told her she was 'lucky he didn't kill her.' "

Sigh. In Rushmore, Murray played a petty, alcoholic businessman who felt no affection for his sons but utter competition with a gentle, outcast teenage boy. It's a remarkable performance, one of the best. Murray will soon appear as Agent 13 in Get Smart, opening June 20.

At times, it would be nice if the old studio system were in place and such knowledge of wonderful performers wasn't known yet we feel for Jennifer Butler. It's a quandary as to how to appreciate artists who may be lesser people when they're not performing.  

Here are the sad documents from The Smoking Gun:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0529081murray1.html

While you were working, New Jersey's former Luv Guv Jim McGreevey and his not-yet-former wife Dina Matos McGreevey, four years after the Gay American speech, continued to produce sound and fury in state Superior Court in Union County.

Turns out both of them are rather bad with the money.

In that neither one of them seems to have any, which makes the whole business seem like a collossal waste of time.

McGreevey claims he is $415,863 in debt. Matos McGreevey claims she owes her attorney $250,000.

Dina wants to return to the custom in which she lived before he quit the post in August 2004 after putting his lover-or-then-again-not on his payroll. Before that she was living in the lovely governor's manse Drumthwacket -- which is Celtic for "Princeton is not New Jersey." She's asking for more than $50,000 monthly in support.

Now, her life is very different.

"Well. Obviously, I don't have the state vehicles. No driver. No security. No housekeeper. No staff. No chef," she said on the witness stand, the Newark Star Ledger reports. "Now I pay a mortgage, utilities and all the household expenses." 

Just like other citizens.

In prior testimony, McGreevey revealed that he continues to be a kept man, first by the state, and now by his beau, Mark O'Donnell, whom he owes $250,000 for rent, taxes and legal bills. They live in a Plainfield, N.J. designed by Frederic Law Olmstead. McGreevey has earlier testifed that he's had trouble finding work.

Therefore, he's attending Episcopal seminary to become a priest.

One more way to have other people pay his bills.

Matos McGreevey fought today with McGreevey's attorney, Stephen Haller, after he charged her with being a nuisance to the governor.

"Was this about the time when you began calling Mr. McGreevey 20 times a day that campaign staffers thought you were a stalker," Haller asked.

Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy asked them to stop bickering. "I am going to control this cross examination, alright," the Newark Star Ledger reports. "I will walk off this bench. I've done it before."

This thing has dragged out for almost four years. Can't they get this over and be done with it?

When we think of Atlantic City, and we do all the time, seldom do we think of Jimmy Buffett.

Clearly, we were wrong.

The Trump Marina is being sold for $316 million to a New York concern and turning into a Mrgaritaville, it was announced Thursday.

(In his typical bloviating ways, Trump announced "“It’s a great deal for both of us. They’re buying a wonderful building in a great location," not adding that it was the lowest performing of his three AC locations.)

Now Buffett always seemed too sunny, too Southern (born in Pacagoula, Miss.), too laid-back for an A.C. mindest.

Then again, the loud Hawaiian shirts and floppy hats will be right at home on the Boardwalk. And what's not to love about a drink with salt? When he puts in a personal appearance, perhaps Buffett can sing about a "Cheesesteak in Paradise." And his pirating can be in removing money from his customers' Hawaiian shirts.

A study commissioned by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute argues that race should be a factor, though not the only factor, in adoption and recommends amending laws that made it easier for families to adopt African American children.

The study study's urges changing the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and its 1996 amendment, the Interethnic Adoption Provisions, which made it illegal for federally funded agencies to address race. A third of all wards in foster care are African American.

"The status quo isn't working," the institute's Adam Pertman told the Chicago Tribune. "And if we're going to be child-centered, we need to recognize reality and not what our ideal may be." He added: "The objective is not to be colorblind but to be color-conscious."

Aren't we already color conscious, perhaps too much so?

Consider Barack Obama. Though not adopted, he was raised by a white mother, then white grandparents in Hawaii where few people looked like him. In his books and speeches, he frequently addresses adjusting to racial differences and distinctions as a child. Though exceptional, Obama is certainly not an exception. A household containing multiple races demands that the family daily consider the issues, making them all more sensitive and aware, not a bad prescription for society at large.

A mere half century after he launched his career....

Neil Diamond tops charts for first time

 

Billboard.com

So Chris Booker, the disc jockey who spawned a million gossip items, has been ousted as morning host from Q102. The Clear Channel station is aiming for a more music-intensive program,  the Inquirer's Michael Klein reports.

Hmmm, isn't radio supposed to be music intensive in the first place?

Booker and girlfriend, former anchorbabe Alycia Lane, now can spend all their time together as both are no longer clotting the airwaves.

The couple seems incapable of leaving home without letting a gossip columnist know about it. Lane, when she was at CBS 3, once texted a reporter during a station break. She spoke to Dr. Phil about her relationship woes. She manages to get into New York tabloids on a fairly regular basis. She takes a very pretty picture.

Despite gameful employment, it's a safe bet that the two will continue to bold face their way into our lives as the American Idol-version of television newsreading and radio blather. Who knows where they will surface next?

 

 

Following in the grand tradition of political investigative reporting, we ask the following: Is Cindy McCain being honest about her jeans size?

In the June issue of Vogue, currently on newsstands, Julia Reed writes of the Arizona senator's wife "she is a picture of calm vitality in her favorite size 0 Lucky jeans." A good friend thinks not.

McCain appears to be around 5-foot-5, a couple inches shorter than her husband, who is 5-foot-7. Featured in the same issue of Vogue is the pocket-sized Sarah Jessica Parker, also a size 0, and 5-foot-4. SJP looks to be a third smaller than McCain, and a quarter the size of everyone else.

Cindy McCain is the same woman who passed off Rachael Ray's recipes as her own. (Our feeling on that matter is, if you're going to filch recipes, copy from the best not a hack.) So is Cindy McCain telling the truth?

 

Thursday evening, at 7:30, a splendid rainbow appeared over Center City, arching over the Comcast Center. It was a gift, a rare appearance of a rainbow in an urban environment. Indeed, if you live in cities, you can go fyears never seeing one.

The sky was magnificent, a cover of steel with the sun blasting from the West. People stood on West River Drive and the Ben Franklin Parkway transfixed, as if in a movie, pointing at the sky. The only rub that it was a beast to drive because commuters were leaning forward over their steering wheels trying to get an optimum view. Did you see it? What a treat.

What is it with you guys?

Why is someone like Owen Wilson paying to see naked women?

Isn't the reasoning that he doesn't have to pay given that women are willing to see him naked as he was in You, Me and Dupree, which grossed $130 million globally?

Wilson, dubbed the Butterscotch Stallion by the New York tabs, spent 4.5 hours and quite a few bucks at Rick's Cabaret in South Philadelphia after last week's Flyers game, according to today's New York Post. (Also, why are Philadelphia strippers talking to New  York papers instead of us?)

"He watched the Flyers game, drank beer, and when a parade of 75 half-naked girls caught his eye, he asked for dances from several and definitely had a preference for blondes. He tipped at least one with a $100 bill," a "spy" told the Post.

Why does Owen Wilson, dater of Kate Hudson, myriad starlets and models, pay for a lap dance?

Then again, as with Brad Pitt and the guy who plays Smith in Sex and the City, we've never thought much of men whose highlights are superior to ours.

But perhaps you gentleman can explain why a famous man walks into a strip club and thinks it isn't going to make the tabloids.