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Friday, Apr. 03, 2009

Loose Lips: Acting bug bites local politicos

It often seems like local politicians are acting. Acting as if they're different from past elected leaders. Acting as if they're awake during meetings. Acting as if they're actually reading environmental impact reports and water studies.

Now, thanks to the Lord -- well, a Catholic school -- we can watch them act as if they're actors.

Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin, Supervisor John Pedrozo, Judge Marc Garcia, Mayor Ellie Wooten, Merced College President Ben Duran, Chief Investigator Pat Lunney and others will appear in the Merced Follies variety show Friday through Sunday at Merced College. Whew. That's a mouthful.

Lips caught up with Sheriff-Coroner-Thespian Pazin who couldn't elaborate about the role he would be playing, though he ruled out a good-cop-bad-cop role.

Pazin took offense to the thespian label, though he said he'd get back to us once he looked it up in a dictionary.

The most he would say is that it's a spoof of "Dancing with the Stars."

"We're going to keep people on the edge," he said. "We don't want to tip our hand."

This isn't Pazin's first time far off Broadway. In a previous role, the media hound played a celebrity journalist. Maybe that's where he learned the value of pithy quotes.

Pazin put on a goofy grin and played John Tesh in an "Entertainment Tonight" spoof that benefited the American Heart Association a few years back.

No word on whether The New York Times, which wrote about him a couple weeks ago, will return for a review of this play.

Wooten told Lips she's playing a judge and shouted one of her lines, "That's incredible. It's a 10!"

We're not sure what that's referring to. Maybe Pedrozo does a break dance.

Boot scootin' fundraiser

Just when the sonic velocity of state Sen. Jeff Denham's media blitz seemed on the verge of peaking, it has Dopplered to a new high.

Besides the ink in the Wall Street Journal, one of his district's most-read periodicals, he got some press on CNN and in the L.A. Times.

The CNN story poked some holes in his plan to sell San Quentin, though there are still advocates of closing the most-infamous prison, home to Scott Peterson, Cary Stayner and Charles Manson.

Last night, Denham kicked off his campaign for lieutenant governor in Modesto with a concert by country singer Sara Evans. Tonight he'll be in Salinas to pad his campaign coffers.

No word on whether they'll duet on Evans' " A Real Fine Place to Start" a campaign.

Loose Lips can be reached at editor@mercedsun-star.com.