Gray Davis Bites

Payday: Money has been a little tight around the Capital Bites offices these days. Oh sure, you probably thought that it was just one guy somewhere in the bowels of the Sacramento News & Review building cranking out this column each week, but it’s actually a fairly expensive and intensive endeavor.

Not only is there my over-inflated but well-deserved salary, but there’s also my support staff, which includes researchers, bodyguards, secretaries, masseuses (one sensual, the other deep tissue), a driver and a personal chef. So you see, the cost of producing this column is rather steep.

That’s why Bites has decided to take on a sponsor. So, henceforth, this column will be known as Re-Elect Gray Davis in 2002 Capital Bites. Other acceptable labels include Vote Gray Capital Bites, Keep the Governor in Capital Bites, and Gray Davis Bites.

The terms of the deal are, of course, confidential, but let’s just say Bites now has some serious resources at its disposal, all without compromising this column’s journalistic integrity. You can still expect the same tough but fair coverage you’ve seen of Governor Davis, the man who single-handedly solved the energy crisis and saved the state from disaster.

Amphitheatrics: The idea of padding my bottom line with a little sponsorship cash actually came from Clear Channel Entertainment, which has bought just about every radio station in the country, as well as our own Sacramento Valley Amphitheatre.

Excuse me, our own AutoWest Amphitheatre. That’s right, Clear Channel has now changed the name of our amphitheatre to advertise a string of car dealerships. Bites was initially bitter as hell over the latest example of how everything in American culture is for sale to the highest bidder, but then I figured, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Besides, Sacramento Valley Amphitheatre was never that great a name anyway. If they really wanted to name it for where it stood, Middle of Friggin’ Nowhere Amphitheatre would have been more appropriate. So, listen to their radio stations, go to their concerts, visit their advertisers, and remember, Gray Davis ain’t such a bad guy.

Seeing the Light: Meet Seymour Light, part outsider political statement, part humorous tweak of the Sacramento City Council. On buttons and flyers circulated at Willie’s Burgers and other spots around town, Light is billed as “your write-in candidate.”

A press release indicates that Light is a “mythical political candidate” who was the brainchild of preservation activist Steven Ballew. But not to destroy the spirit of this campaign, let’s just take Seymour Light at face value.

Among his planks:

• Require all leaf blowers to be no louder than an automobile.

• Allow the use of cell phones only in public places where cigarette smoking is still legal.

• Better protect our urban forest from SMUD crews.

• Question the frequency of traffic-snarling trains running through the central city.

• Submit the approval of building permits for homes with protruding garages to a vote of the neighborhood.

OK, OK, it’s not exactly the stuff of revolutions, but Seymour makes a few good points. After sending a message to the city council, Light’s handlers say he’ll run for governor next, where he’ll talk on that swell guy Gray Davis.

No insight from inside: To say that Jan Scully isn’t the most media-friendly district attorney to ever grace the Sacramento prosecutor’s office is an understatement. Even getting her spokesperson Robin Shakley on the phone is considered an accomplishment to many reporters.

But not for Gary Delsohn. The veteran Sacramento Bee reporter spent all of 2001 with inside access to Scully’s office when he won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship award for a project he proposed called “A Year Inside an Urban District Attorney’s Office.”

So why don’t we know more about why it took Scully so long to bring charges in the SLA murder case; and what Scully thinks about one of her prosecutors—John Goldthorpe—not currently helping Yuma authorities with an investigation into a mysterious death in his home 26 years ago?

Guess we’ll have to wait for the book.