My analyst has been scratching his head (at $125 an hour, mind you), trying to figure out exactly why I am so exercised over the prospect of Barry Bonds surpassing Babe Ruth. True, Bonds is a self-focused, condescending athlete who cheats by using steroids, but then again so are countless others. According to my Oxy dealer (read: Palm Beach M.D.), what particularly irks me is that Bonds is an allegory for George Bush. He lies, cheats and flagrantly disregards the rules that govern the rest of us. And continually gets away with it! Major League Baseball, in contrast to my neuroses, refuses to elevate the occasion above the customary din and clamor of the early season. Home run 715 (unlike, one presumes, 756, which will eclipse Hank Aaron’s mark) will not engender any stoppage of play or on-field ceremony. In fact, the baseballs pitched to the Giants’ slugger will carry no certifying marks (as they did when Mark McGwire broke the single-season record) — which means fans and collectors will be hard pressed to identify the “real” ball. “We don’t ever celebrate second or third place in anything,” explained a surprisingly sober commissioner Bud Selig. “We don’t… until the record is broken.”

Word Association (category: sports) Hole-in-one? Golf. Ten-four split? Bowling. Duke and Prostitutes? Lacrosse. Well, technically they were strippers. The hookers, in point of fact, were tooling around D.C. with then Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and, apparently, several of his colleagues. Cunningham is pulling an eight-year stretch for taking over $2 million in bribes from Defense contractor Mitchell Wade and lobbyist Brent Wilkes whose largesse, it is beginning to emerge, was not so narrowly focused. Inchoate sex-for-votes allegations have investigators combing the records of Shirlington Limousine and the Watergate Hotel (would that Nixon’s eavesdropping devices were still operative) as well as interviewing scores of call girls who ostensibly rendered services therein. And the noose seems to be tightening; only days before CIA director Porter Goss unexpectedly (and, for the nonce, inexplicably) resigned, Harper’s journalist Ken Silverstein disclosed, “Those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence committees — including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.” Before the party was so rudely interrupted, festivities were arranged through Shirlington, which somehow garnered a $25 million contract from Homeland Security despite the fact that the company’s CEO is a convicted felon. According to HS spokesman Larry Orluskie, only drivers were subject to criminal background checks. As for the government spending more on blowjobs than Charlie Sheen, Orluskie bristled, “We have not had any problems with this service — we don’t question whether they can deliver because they are delivering.” Indeed.

Waitresses at Hooters, according to a sexual harassment lawsuit, were encouraged to deliver more than just chicken wings and watery beer. Jarman Gray alleges he was fired from his assistant manager position for complaining to headquarters that a visiting training manager told his staff: you have “pussies and you are in control because of that. If you need the extra money, go ahead and suck a dick or fuck a customer if the money is right.” Not wishing to disrupt a successful marketing campaign, Auburn, Alabama franchise owner Darrell Spikes dismissed Gray while admonishing, “I’m top dog — you don’t call corporate.”

Spikes had no comment, however, on the prospect of offering deep fried afterbirth with the array genital warts. Not so for Tom Cruise. He vowed to don one of those flimsy seafood bibs with the lobster on it while girlfriend Katie Holmes silently delivered their child: “I’m gonna eat the placenta… that would be good. Very nutritious. I’m gonna eat the cord and placenta right there.” I’ve gotta chew softly though, added the M.i.III star, because “there are medical research papers that say when a woman’s giving birth everybody should be quiet. It is really about respecting the woman. It’s not about her screaming.” If you are of the opinion that lapping up fetal membranes should be confined to feral animals, consider that celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall served placenta on Britain’s Channel 4 to a new mother and 20 of her closest friends. It was “fried with shallots and garlic, flambéed, puréed and served… as pate on focaccia bread.” If Hugh F-W isn’t available, perhaps South Park Chef Issac Hayes could do the honors, now that he’s been released from the animated Comedy Central show. Though the series has repeatedly lampooned Blacks, Christians and Jews, a sudden distaste for “intolerance and bigotry” prompted Hayes to quit after an episode featuring cartoons of famous audit freaks Cruise and John Travolta satirizing his own religion, Scientology. A rebroadcast of the episode, Trapped in the Closet, which also alluded to Cruise’s sexual ambivalence, was hastily scrapped after Cruise reportedly threatened to boycott promoting his summer blockbuster. Both Paramount Studios and Comedy Central are members of the Viacom stable.

While critics have savagely assaulted the third installment of Mission: Impossible, the film’s sub par box office cannot be blamed on Tom’s hardcore fans. Perhaps the sorry turn of events mirrors another contemporary cinematic flop, the eminently missable Lindsey Lohan vehicle, Just My Luck, in which the fortunes of two characters are cosmically switched when their lives intertwine. Last year, you’ll recall, Cruise publicly slammed Brooke Shields’ use of Paxil to fend off post partum depression: “These drugs are dangerous. I have actually helped people come off… what you do is use vitamins. There is a hormonal thing that is going on — scientifically, you can prove that. But when you talk about emotional, chemical imbalances in people, there is no science behind that.” And Tom is an expert on the subject — as he lectured Matt Lauer, “You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.” Back to Brooke and serendipity: It turns out that Shields delivered her second child on the same day in the same hospital and on the same floor as did the soon-to-be Mrs. Lobster Bib. Could the children (or at least their umbilical cords) have been swapped in the nursery? Consider that shortly after Cruise sardonically asked where Brooke’s career had gone (FHI a hugely successful London revival of Chicago), he entered the slow and agonizing descent forged by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As for the baby, TomKat bestowed the name Suri, which their publicist claims means “princess” in Hebrew, although this is disputed by Semitic linguists. They note that “Suri” has but two meanings; one is “a Syrian” and the other is “Bitch, go away”. Speculation has raged over the genesis and purpose of the moniker, but after a little digging I found the truth. Lobsterette was named after Villanova University scientist Rominder Suri, who is studying endocrine disruption in polluted lakes and rivers around Philadelphia. He notes that chemicals flushed into the watershed — discarded medication, fertilizers and industrial waste (including that from a Merck pharmaceutical plant) — have triggered a startling population of dual-sex fish. The allure of eggs and sperm residing within one alien vessel was simply too much for Cruise to resist. And while Dr. Suri obtained a federal grant to develop systems harnessing sound waves to fragment (and render inert) these offending compounds, he also, ironically, received support from Effexor peddler Wyeth Labs to study SSRIs. Which turns out to be a blessing, because odds are, Suri will need psychiatric care as long as she lives.