Blah

NEW YORK -- This is the spin from Democratic politicians here: Republican gubernatorial candidate George Pataki may be ahead now. But when voters begin to really focus on choosing a governor, they will turn back to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.Yesterday, Mr. Cuomo's candidacy got support from an unlikely source -- Republican Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York crossed party lines to endorse the governor's bid for a fourth term.The mayor's decision was a clear embarrassment to his fellow Republican, Mr. Pataki, but not necessarily of corresponding benefit to Mr. Cuomo, since there is reason to wonder if endorsements mean anything this year.

The thing that should be stressed up front is that I don't presume to speak for all fathers here.But let me say this: On Father's Day, many of us would prefer to be remembered in ways that do not involve a Greek fisherman's cap or ceramic coffee mug bearing the inscription: "World's Greatest Dad."We have also had it up to here -- I'm holding my hand at chin level now -- with bathrobes, especially the silken kind which cause the wearer to eeriely resemble Ricky Ricardo lounging between sets at the Copa.

Let's examine your sad, empty life for a moment, shall we? You, you poor sap, are an Orioles fan. For you, their constant losing has taken on a numbing repetitiveness. It's become like that screwball Bill Murray film "Groundhog Day" -- every day somehow eerily exactly like the day before. Before every game, you watch the Orioles take the field with a bounce in their step and promise in their eyes. Then you sit back and wait. Wait for the inevitable collapse. You wait for the O's bullpen gate to swing open and for a young man with chiseled features to stride to the mound, and what that young man invariably does to the score is the equivalent of taking gasoline and a Bic lighter to dry brush.

OVER 200 YEARS Baltimore has seen a lot of changes, and in your own time you have seen some of them. Social scientists talk about demographics and the industrial base and blah, blah, blah. But if you want to measure change in Baltimore, think about what used to be delivered to your door. That is change you can connect to.For more than 100 years and until the mid-1970s, the Rice's bakery truck came to your door. This uniformed, one-man catering service brought a tray full of still-warm baked goods: Vienna bread, Parker House rolls, cherry pie -- and the big favorite year after year, according to Emory Rice Jr., Louisiana Ring cake.

THE COVER OF the current People magazine brings us sad and depressing news.It shows Princess Di and Prince Charles kissing. Unfortunately, it's a wedding picture from 10 years ago.Below it is a more recent photo of Charles looking glum and Di looking bored.The headline tells today's story: "A Decade Later, Where Has Their Love Gone?"And, "On its 10th anniversary, the storybook marriage of Charles and Diana is a painful fake. Now Britain openly asks the unthinkable: Is he fit to reign? Will they finally divorce?"

Kathleen Madigan took up comedy as a way to make money until she landed a better day job. Waiting tables and working as a journalist in St. Louis, Madigan started telling jokes for a living in her mid-20s. Now, two decades later, she looks back in disbelief at her successful comedy career. "I feel like I've skated through 20 years," Madigan said in a recent phone interview. She comes to the Recher Theatre for two shows tomorrow night. "I keep waiting for somebody to go, `OK, we've found out, and you have to get a real job now," she said.

HAVEN'T HAD a decent raise in longer than you can remember?Don't worry, nobody else has been getting one either, not unless they're part of one of the corporate hierarchies where the packages combining stock options, bonuses and salaries continue to grow with relentless generosity in curious contradiction of the trend toward downsized, layoff-driven, cost-obsessed corporations.I know, I know. It all sounds like the story line for a cheap Marxist comic book written in his off hours by a hack writer employed during the day to churn out equally facile welfare-bashing, union-busting speeches for the Reaganomics crowd.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida.-- The Christmas season has arrived, and along with it the quarreling over what decorations are appropriate for city halls and shopping malls.St. Nicholas, also known as Santa Claus and by a few other aliases, has survived the firestorm. Even though the original St. Nicholas was a 4th-century Christian holy man, his current incarnation is sufficiently secular to qualify as politically correct and suitable for public display.St. Nicholas has gone through a major transformation over the years.

Jeremy Piven ("Ellen") plays a guy in modern-day Chicago who claims to be Cupid, god of love. He says he got temporarily bounced from Olympus and needs to put 100 couples together in the Windy City before he can get back in.Paula Marshall ("Spin City") plays the lady shrink who is called in to check him out. She thinks he's a nutcase, but she's kind of attracted to him -- you know, the way Maddie was attracted to the nutcase named David on "Moonlighting."Give ABC credit: this is not your standard sitcom premise.

It's that time again. Every four years it creeps up on me like a colonoscopy: the presidential election. Campaign season produces symptoms in me that are similar to the medical examination: I can't eat, I feel as if I'm being hit from behind, and I need anesthesia to get me through it. Fear of polyps is nothing compared with fear of politics. Yes, I know - I am supposed to be grateful we are a free nation that enjoys such trappings of liberty. But I still dread it. What difference can it make who becomes president when I can't believe what any of them say?