Fresh Loaf

I’m sure someone in Atlanta’s media somewhere commemorated the 20th anniversary this past week of the Democratic National Convention being held in Atlanta, where the Dems chose the cerebral Michael Dukakis to take a very smart ass-pounding by George H.W. Bush. But that wasn’t the best thing to come out of the convention; it was the sex scandal surrounding then-heartthrob Rob Lowe, who videotaped himself trying to get out the vote among some of the city’s younger women. (Giving a new meaning to the term “glad-handing.”)

The scandal provided a bit of a career road bump for Lowe, but provided a helluva career boost for Emory University graduate and former Creative Loafing intern Mike Sager (pictured), who wrote an amazing chronicle of the incident for Rolling Stone magazine in 1989. The story is included in the first of three collections of Sager’s magazine works, Scary Monsters, Super Freaks (Perseus Books); his second book, Revenge of the Donut Boys, came out last year. His third and final collection, Wounded Warriors: Those For Whom the War Never Ends, will be released in October, while his debut novel, Deviant Behavior, was released this past spring. Sager will promote his new books at next month’s AJC Decatur Book Festival, where I will have the privilege of interviewing him about his work.

As for Lowe, 20 years on, most people know about his new scandal that broke this past spring involving his nanny situation — which is now in the courts. For me, I’ll always admire Lowe’s work on the multiple-Emmy-winning TV show “The West Wing,” but also for the hilariously timed (and woefully underrated) 1990 thriller, Bad Influence, which had a little sex, lies and videotape moment of its own. Enjoy …

(Sager photo courtesy Perseus Books)

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The New York Times has found Kristen, the alleged prostitute with whom New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer allegedly had alleged sex with (allegedly) on Feb. 13 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C., the alleged nation’s capital. Naturally, Kristen is not her real name:

Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added with significant understatement: “This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated.”

The Times even found her MySpace profile, which includes at least one soon-to-be-widely-reproduced bikini photo:

And one soon-to-be-widely-psychoanalyzed blog post dated August 30, 2007:

The past few months have been a roller coaster with so called friends, lovers, and family…but its something you have to deal with and confront in order to move on…

I stepped away from each situation that happened and asked myself…

1) What is this person doing to make my life better? (financial, intel, drive, networking etc.)

If, by any chance, Ms. Youmans deletes or blocks access to her profile, feel free to console yourself with my MySpace profile.

I can’t offer you bikini photos*, but I have been to the Mayflower Hotel. I went to a bat mitzvah there when I was 13.

And if that doesn’t make you want to Add Me, my senior prom was in the hotel where former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was videotaped smoking crack.

(*I prefer the comfort and coverage of a unitard)

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