Ooh, grrrrl. We've been waiting all baited like for gossip drip like this. We knew our girl had some home-girl tendencies and this latest, reporting a Lindsay Lohan-and-Samantha Ronson hookup, albeit dysfunctional hookup, is enough for us.

And if it's gonna be anybody in the current crop of bratzpakerz, we vote: Li-Lo! Now as far as the sellout angle of shit-stirrer Perez Hilton's tell-all piece, we say just give it a few, and they'll be all Paris and Nicole in no time.

A gay day on the town, jaunting from haunt to gay haunt, K8 and Kate did Austin. Or … Austin did us?

First, a sammich from the very lady- and family-friendly Lavaca Street Deli. The dee-lish French bread's big enough for leftovers, and the mood is peaceful, even among a Downtown lunch rush. (Lucinda Williams on the box: always a nerve-calmer.)

Then, we went to Lobo, Austin's Planet Gay (with a capital G, as in rainbow everything, boy panties, shirts that say "Catcher," lezzie fashion, DVDs, and edumacational models) store in a strip mall on Guadalupe in the middle of Hyde Park. Just the funniest place for it, we think.

Especially after we went in, and the chick behind the counter, named Bell, a femme fatale with intricately detailed eye make-up and little inhibition, asks, "You wanna spankin'?" And that's the first thing she asks. Not, "Can I help you find something?"

Messer demurred. But I say, "Yeah. Why not?" thinking, I'll call her bluff with my bluff. No bluff.

"You got a wallet in yer back pocket? Yeah, take that out."

So there I am, with two hands on the glass case filled with rainbow jewelry, and Bell starts patting me down with her leather wand, first softly down my legs; then up, harder; then my butt, patting it, not painful but harder still; and it starts to get hot. It was only then when – and perhaps this was my imagination – the wand seemed to creep around to the tingly parts, and I realize, "Hey! I'm in the middle of a store. I'm in front of Messer, and I'm getting that feeeeeeeling down there." Better stop. [Hey, don't stop on my account. – Editor.]

But yeah, so, go to Lobo. They spank.

On Monday, June 4, the Austin Toros host the first of eight of their summer basketball camps for the kids. Camp instructors will include ex-Toros, ex-NBAers, and top-notch varsity basketball coaches from local schools. On top of the group and individual training sessions, participants will receive vouchers for use at '07-'08 Toros home games and a T-shirt. For more info call 236-8333 or visit the Toros website.

For those of you who like your folk baroque, Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch plays his only Texas show next Friday, June 8, at Houston's quirky Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. The former guitarist for British band Pentangle, Jansch was an influence on his own generation as well as ones to come. Jimmy Page admitted being "obsessed" with him, and his 2006 Drag City sleeper Black Swan featured Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, as well as some of his best guitar work to date. Dude even just played with Pete Doherty. Jana Hunter opens. Doors at 8pm.

The speaker race is now officially on, with eight state representatives having filed their paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission. Here's the confirmed scorecard to date:

Republicans: Tom Craddick, Midland; Fred Hill, Dallas; Delwin Jones, Lubbock; Jim Keffer, Eastland; Brian McCall, Plano; Jim Pitts, Waxahachie

Democrats: Senfronia Thompson, Houston; Sylvester Turner, Houston

Thompson already has a campaign Web site live, although it's actually the one from her brief run for the recently ended 80th session. Still, with a bit of polish it should do fine. It's odd that she would chose a Web site to reach this electorate (all 150 of them), but it could be that she's trying to keep the public pressure on her fellow reps, to remind them what a disaster the last session was.

That's not the only puzzler: Since the next regular session isn't until 2009, and potential candidates don't have to file with the ethics commission until basically the day of the vote, why is everyone filing so early?

Fog poured over the Berkeley hills like a waterfall as I drove through the Caldecott Tunnel last Saturday night. I took this as the best possible omen. Having grown up in the Bay area, I still get a certain … tingle from fog. You never know what’ll materialize out of it. By the time I was crossing the Bay Bridge, you could barely make out the San Francisco skyline. Ho, boy. Marianne Faithfull floated in there somewhere.

The Fillmore isn’t just another club. It’s perhaps the Great pyramid of live music venues. Save for the Beatles and Stones, the Fillmore birthed the big bang of Sixties emancipation. All of it, from Jimi Hendrix to Miles Davis. And there it still sits, on the corner of Geary and Fillmore. To walk up into the Fillmore is to enter the antechamber of Kings.

The tub of free apples remains at the top of the stairs inside, sometimes green, tonight red. Hippies got hungry back when tickets cost $8. (Tonight: $100 for two.) Pictures from rock & roll’s family album cover the walls floor to ceiling: Janis Joplin, the Who, and St. Jerry Garcia of the Second Staircase. Up another flight, the inner sanctum awaits. The Palace of the Legion of Honor, in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge further north, could house just such a hallowed room the same way the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC houses an entire Egyptian temple.

With a low, unceasing lysergic pulse, a first run of framed Fillmore posters covers every inch of the dining room’s sky-high walls. (More contemporary works finish out the back half of the hall.) The S.F. MoMa owns a series set, as should the Musée D’Orsay in Paris. These aren’t just telephone pole snags from 35, 40 years ago. The mind-expanding images of Wes Wilson, Bonnie MacLean, Lee Conklin, and the flying eyeball himself, Rick Griffin, are a singular movement in 20th century modern art, no less than the music screaming from their firework visuals. One stands in that room in humbled awe.

The Austin Lightning had a good weekend despite the rain – a 2-0 win over the El Paso Patriots Saturday, following a 1-1 draw against Laredo on Friday. Jared Chandler scored in each game, and Beto Papandrea had assists each night. Both games had to be moved to Vista Ridge in Cedar Park, due to the heavy rains on House Park's grass field. They're off this weekend and face a tough road trip next week to Baton Rouge, La., and Clinton, Miss., before coming home for three weekends in a row.

Pachuca beat Club America to win the Mexican Clausura championship on Sunday – the third major trophy in a year for the relatively small club.

Last year, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers set new all-time high records for the amount of drugs seized and the number of drug traffickers busted during routine traffic stops, the agency reports. Troopers seized nearly 48 tons of pot, three tons of cocaine, and 267 pounds of methamphetamine; in all, troopers pulled in an estimated $335.9 million worth of dope and arrested 1,975 "drug smugglers." And better yet, there's photos!

"Our troopers are highly trained in drug interdiction," DPS Highway Patrol Chief Randall K. Elliston said. The record-setting year is a "reflection of that training," he said. While we don't doubt their skill, it is worth noting that at least some of the busted traffickers appear to have made the troopers' job embarrassingly easy – like, for example, the criminally challenged saps that packed their pot into the rear of their SUV so that it pressed into and obscured the vehicle's rear window.

Leaving the Legislature behind, let's turn to the relatively saner realm of city politics. Namely, vegetarian-hot-dog-eating contests.

It seems onetime Place 5 City Council candidate, UT-Austin Amnesty International coordinator, and Ann Coulter aficionado Colin Kalmbacher has found another pursuit to take up his time: the aforementioned veggie-hot-dog-eating contest last weekend at the Scoot Inn. (Man, they flipped that place from Tejano bar to hipster watering hole quick!)

Says The Daily Texan, "UT journalism senior Colin Kalmbacher was champion of the individual contest, scarfing down 16 veggie dogs in 12 minutes."

Ah, we remember the exuberance of youth, before it jaundiced into our current bourgeois complacency. (We're not sure if that's suitably reactionary enough for Colin, but we're trying.)