Mr. Spitzer is moving aggressively to occupy a niche created by the credit crunch, the subprime mortgage crisis, a surge in foreclosures, and a declining real estate market. He is looking to mine for riches in projects that banks are no longer willing to finance.

Distressed real estate funds — also known as "vulture" or, more euphemistically, "opportunity" funds — typically promise returns of more than 20% and are active in Florida, Nevada, and Southern California. They rely heavily on pension and university endowment investments. Mr. Spitzer is said to be envisioning projects valued between $100 million and $500 million.

This is precisely the sort of thing Spitzer could never have gotten away with back when he had to pretend to care about Regular Folk, so really that whole hooker thing has turned out to be something of a boon! As he told the union officials, people have been surprisingly supportive of him when they stop him on the street. Especially Europeans! Sex is "no big deal," he says people tell him. And the Europeans probably say "ees no beeg deal" or "c'est la vie!" Or "way to fuck hookers, Mr. Governor! Now please pay me significantly less than I paid for this property I bought and flip it for a small profit!"

Spitzer Mulls Starting Vulture Fund [NYSun]

But while they are not advertising as Ms. Austin has done, many legal owners are marketing nonetheless, with offers such as casino-style VIP programs that "comp" frequent customers and offer barbecues for truckers and other passersby. Explained Mr. Flint: "'Get your card punched, and the 10th visit is free.' Or free buffets, so you can come and have a nice roast beef dinner with the girls."

Added Mr. Johnson: "We market Donna's as a home away from home for truckers. There's always free chili, ham and beans, and corn bread. And they respond to it. We'll hold a barbecue, and they're the ones who are flipping the burgers."

Mmmm, beans.

[Ad Age]

A club called Headquarters New York is giving you a perfect excuse to do what you've been dreaming of since this whole scandal broke:

The club, located on West 38th Street, will hold an "Ashley Dupre Look-alike Contest" tonight at 10 p.m. So, if you're feeling like a girl gone wild — or a guy gone wild for that matter — we'd like to see a drag version of the infamous call girl who felled Eliot Spitzer - anyway, the point is, show up at Headquarters tonight.

[Urbanite]

So we know what Scott Storch will be doing tonight.

She describes herself as "Andy Warhol's Number One Publicity Protege," and she has parlayed her connection with the pop artist into a successful career. She worked at Interview Magazine and CBS Records before founding her own firm, and today she's one of the city's go-to agencies for celebrities. She even helped take Usher "to another level"! So there's that. There's no doubt she's much more likely to help launch Dupre on her own career than to serve as a solid grey corporate well between her and the media, a role Eliot Spitzer's own chosen PR firm is well suited to play.

Also, as Emily Gould discovered, Susan Blond has wild hair. And she's had her web domain name snatched by incompetent rival superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian, putting her in bad company.

We have an email in to SBI to find out what they plan to do for Dupre, and we'll let you know if we hear back.

The Daily News' follow up to their own front page splash last week about Davis' client list was Saturday's front page splash about New York Rangers hockey star Sean Avery's number being present in the black book. Avery denied everything. This morning, the Post strikes back with a story purporting to debunk the NYDN's Avery connection:

"I personally spoke to her, and she confirmed that she has never had any contact with Sean Avery in any shape or form," Davis' lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, told The Post yesterday...

"It is believed that alleged black book . . . is not authentic," Heller said.

Heller also says he MAY launch a lawsuit against the NYDN. Hey, maybe he can team up with Eliot Spitzer when he decides to sue the Post for connecting him to Kristin Davis! A charge which is repeated in today's story, although it has now been reformulated slightly to read, "Davis, who was rumored to have been one of Spitzer's personal favorites, is currently jailed on charges of promoting prostitution."

Mitigating evidence in favor of the black book being real: The NYDN used it to contact several people who did admit seeing Davis' hookers. So it would be a pretty convincing and incredible forgery.

We will continue to follow this shady, unclear story until the truth comes out and we can definitively say which media outlet is most deserving of mockery.

[pic via NYP]

After getting scooped on the Davis-Spitzer story by the Post yesterday (or not?), the NYDN today strikes back with a cover story touting how they have exclusively obtained her black book with all her clients. We were offered the same black book yesterday, in an unsolicited email. The guy doing the offering was looking for a cash offer himself. I'm pretty positive it's the same black book that the NYDN ran with for their story, because the snippet we got includes some of the same info included in their story. Wonder how the paper got it? We'll let you know if we find out.

Not only that: the NYDN says in their story, "But law enforcement officials yesterday shot down a report that then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been identified as a regular client of bottle blond Davis." With no real elaboration.

Meanwhile, the Post today reports that Jessica Cutler, the whorish DC blogger "Washingtonienne," actually worked for Davis' escort service for a while. Cutler refused to say whether she did or not. More importantly, the Post refers to it as "a Manhattan call-girl ring that counted Eliot Spitzer as a client." Which would seem to indicate they're standing behind their story yesterday.

One thing is clear: If either paper had this story really nailed down and air tight, they would be giving it much more play. If the Daily News had rock-solid proof that the Post fucked up on the Spitzer connection, they would certainly make that a blowout story. Likewise for the Post—which didn't even put the Kristin Davis story on its cover today, opting instead for a piece on Yankee Hideki Matsui's wedding. And the fact that the Times, which has the most rigorous sourcing standards of all three papers, hasn't come down on either side of this tawdry but certainly newsworthy story makes us believe that hard facts are hard to come by.

So why not settle for informed speculation and inside rumors, then? If you have any insight into how this story is playing out, email us.

Apparently, the difference between a $3,000 hooker and a $50 hooker is the ruined aspirations. "Kristen's" Myspace page, as uncovered by NYT. She's got a decent voice, $50 bucks says Perez Hilton signs her to his new label deal before summer.

[www.myspace.com] And http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/nyregion/12cnd-kristen.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The "Save Spitzer!" campaign on Democrats.com is truly one for the conspiracy-addled record books:

Dear Governor Spitzer,

Don't let the Republicans and the rightwing media drive you out of office!

You made a lot of powerful enemies in your career because you took on the most powerful crooks on Wall Street. Now your enemies are trying to get even by destroying your career and your life. Don't let them!

The whole investigation by the Bush Administration stinks to high heaven. This isn't a case of "structuring" or "money laundering." The FBI never investigates johns - so why are they investigating you?

The answer is obvious. George Bush and Karl Rove turned the Justice Department into the political destruction arm of the Republican Party. They've prosecuted 5.6 Democrats for every Republican.

That's why former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is rotting in jail, and that's what they want to do to you.

As Americans, we are outraged by Bush's endless abuses of justice. If anyone should be removed from office, it's George Bush!

Governor Spitzer, please stand and fight against this outrageous and naked partisan Republican assault. We support you!

The "Save Robert Irvine!" campaign lacks the insane flair of the Democrats' grassy knoll defense of Spitzer, but it makes up for it by deploying euphemisms for "lying" that succeed only in drawing further attention to the fact that the nerdy, muscular super chef is a big fat liar:

This website was created to be the official home of the Save Robert! campaign. The goal is to have the Food Network keep Robert Irvine as the host of Dinner:Impossible, even though he might have made some mistakes in his past...

On February 17, 2008 the St. Petersburg Times reported that Robert Irvine may have mis-informed people about his past, including some of the people or projects that he worked for.

Both of these guys are toast.

Football, America's most popular form of bloodletting, is not full of genius computer geeks, let's face it. But for amusement, check out Tampa Bay monster linebacker Derrick Brooks' blog. It started out in 2005 as a clearly flack-written piece of crap, with proper punctuation and messages like "To the fans, thanks for the support. Remember to stay community-minded and support charities and volunteer your time. And never forget to keep God first in your life." But the flack obviously got too busy to mess with it, because NOW D-Brooks' blog reads like so:

WELL BIG SURPRISES THIS WEEKEND BUT THE TEAM THAT MAKES LESS MISTAKES DO WIN FINAL FOUR IS HERE ITS FUN BUT WISH WE WERE THERE LIKE 28 OTHER TEAMS NOW ITS TIME TO GET ADJUSTED TO OFFSEASON FOR COUPLE OF MONTHS WELL TALK TO YOU NEXT WEEK WITH SUPERBOWL PICK

The NBA has a shitload of blogging players, probably because they tend to spend less time in hospitals than NFL players, and they're all young video game-playing whippersnappers. The best of these is by Gilbert Arenas, the Washington Wizards' certifiably insane All Star guard who just says whatever comes into his head, like calling league executives stupid, or talking about shaving his balls. Others are much worse, though; Luol Deng from the Chicago Bulls tends to say stuff like "I am definitely sick of talking about my contract," and "I bought Bob Marley's Greatest Hits. To me he is amazing."

SHUT UP AND TELL US WHO IS GAY AND/ OR STORIES ABOUT HOOKERS AND/ OR STORIES ABOUT WHO GOES TO GAY HOOKERS.

This could be a good rule of thumb for all athlete bloggers. If you're not as smart as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (which you're not), you have to throw in some dirt to make things interesting. Otherwise you become an insufferable bore like the Bush-supporting Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who goes on and on about HIMSELF and GOD on his stupid blog, but has little scandalous dirt to report on his current teammates. Also, he is a Republican prick.

And of course, you can't talk about insufferable sports-related blogs without mentioning Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's blog, which is long and detailed and diverse, since Cuban is a billionaire tech mogul. The problem is he has fallen into the blog rabbit hole, where his sense of self importance has been warped beyond all measure, and he wastes words doing things like endorsing Bloomberg for president, instead of discussing which of his players may be seeing (gay?) hookers. Imagine if your really computer-savvy friend who is also kind of a stuck up asshole, but still nerdy, got a billion dollars, a basketball team, and a blog. There you go.

The lesson for athletes is, unless you are smarter than you think you are, you gotta drop some gossip. Otherwise you're just a less articulate rambling team spokesman. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can stay; but if newspapers want to set up any more player-bloggers, they have to get them all drunk first.

[Ricki Lake outside the Today show studios today, New York City; image via INF]

BellCounty's line beat out the original, "Ricki Lake Just Smart Enough To Get Paid For It."

SEX CASE 'VICTIMS' LINING UP [Page Six]

Julius Closed, Seized For Nonpayment of Taxes [Eater]

When it was an hourly rate hotel, "it was a dingy place, yes, but added a colorful" aspect to the neighborhood, said Lincoln Place resident Joshua Brown. Like others, Brown said he was sorry to see it transformed into condos that would help raise housing prices throughout the neighborhood.

Hot sheets yield to hot prices [Brooklyn Paper]

The Bad And The Ugly [College Call-Girl] [Barely SFW]
Q&A [One D At A Time] [Definitely NSFW]