There’s a scenario for some fetishist here somewhere:

She may be an international movie star, but this impudent pooch can’t tell the difference between Natalie Portman and a fire hydrant.

The “Star Wars” cutie was the unfortunate victim of a surprise soaking as she dropped by a downtown dog run.

Portman, who has been spotted in the West Village in recent days with her bearded boyfriend, Venezuelan-born folk singer Devendra Banhart, was walking her dog with him yesterday when the brazen piddling took place.

While she was getting a pup’s-eye view of the surroundings from ground level, another stroller’s frisky pet raised its hind leg, relieved itself right on her shoes — and then ambled on its way.

I don’t know what it means, but I don’t like it:

On Sunday, March 2, the Russian & Turkish Baths on East 10th Street in the East Village was living up to its history of hosting damp celebrities such as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Jennifer Lopez and John Belushi. . . .

. . .

. . . Sean Lennon, two topless young women and Mr. Lennon’s mother, Yoko Ono, stole the show. They were in the Russian Room, sweating it up.

“Sean was pouring water over Yoko’s head,” reported a witness, who was sitting among the packed crowd in the room, which is essentially a giant oven. “She recoiled momentarily when he poured the ice cold water, but soon began enjoying it. She was sitting down with a towel around her head. She was wearing one of the bath-issue togas.”

Mr. Lennon and his two female friends were standing in the middle of the room.

“They were massaging each other’s boobs suggestively,” the source said of the young ladies. “Sean was sweating like crazy. The two girls he was with were like 19, pretty hot, and he was making out with one of them.” Mama Ono did not seem to notice.

But then you’d be asking yourself Who is Ray Davies and why should I care? I can’t completely argue with you there:

He wore a trilby, Ray-Bans, a multicolored scarf, gray stovepipe jeans, and running shoes, and a skeptical expression that belied an affable mood. “The first time I came to New York, with the Kinks, in 1965, we stayed in the Hilton,” he said, heading north on Broadway, toward Columbus Circle. “I was too intimidated to go out. Everybody went out and partied, but I stayed in. I got my six-pack — well, they weren’t six-packs in those days — I got my crate of beer and just drank.”

The Time Warner Center was news to him — “This went up really quickly” — but of little interest. As he walked uptown he pointed out landmarks: the homes or offices of various collaborators or friends — the remastering man, the press agent, the Broadway arranger, the actress from “The Edge of Night” whose story of the cast’s singing its lines in rehearsals (out of boredom) inspired Davies to make the not-so-well-received concept album “The Kinks Present a Soap Opera.”

*Oh, OK, you really got me: “Your Mama And Your Papa And Fat Old Uncle Charlie Out Cruising With Their Friends”.

The Claire Danes PR juggernaut rolls along unabated.

Because once you’ve lost Heath, mass foreclosures can’t be far off . . . Heath Ledger as leading economic indicator:

It wasn’t supposed to matter to Brooklyn. Heath Ledger, the crown prince of the borough’s celebrity aristocracy, apparently fled his fiefdom in Boerum Hill for Manhattan after splitting up with his girlfriend, the actress Michelle Williams.

“To each his own,” said Jay Wilkinson, 29, an actor who lives in the neighborhood, speaking just blocks from the house on Dean Street where Mr. Ledger had lived since 2005 with Ms. Williams and their daughter, Matilda. He echoed a theme expressed by many on blogs and in the streets after the breakup. We barely notice the stars among us. If we lose one, no big deal.

In that, though, lies a tale of arriviste anxiety. What if Brooklyn’s recent cachet as the locus for what’s next is little more than a thin and fragile crust of chic, hiding the insecurity of people who constantly measure the social currency of their ZIP code by Manhattan standards?

The number of trendy boutiques, bistros and music clubs in Brooklyn may have spiked in the last five years, but its infrastructure of cool still represents only a fraction of that found in Manhattan. Its new identity is moored to a finite number of shops, restaurants, luxury condominiums and, yes, celebrities. If even one leaves, a void is created. Could the borough’s new status vanish as quickly as it ascended?

In recent years, Brooklyn’s pool of second-tier celebrity mascots (John Turturro, Rosie Perez, Norman Mailer, Steve Buscemi) has swollen and taken on a level of movie-star glamour, thanks to recent home buyers like Jennifer Connelly and her husband, Paul Bettany, Adrian Grenier and Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard.

These famous names, functioning as both symbols and selling points for the new Brooklyn, helped drive up property values, provided a focus for gossip in coffeehouses and dog runs, and instilled pride among the tide of newcomers who arrived — sort of by choice — from Manhattan and beyond.

It’s not so much the fact that this guy impersonated one-time Yankee Steve Karsay* as it is an indictment of the culture that affords special treatment to one-time Yankee Steve Karsay:

A waiter at a Midtown restaurant helped cops nab a con man who has been impersonating a former Yankee pitcher at eateries across the city, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.

The man, who was not immediately identified, has been pretending to be former relief pitcher Steve Karsay for at least two years, authorities said. He was arrested at the Bryant Park Grill last night after the eagle-eyed server spotted the grifter.

“[The restaurant] was a favorite place of his and it finally caught up to him,” the real Karsay told The Post. “The staff was on to him for a while.”

The con man had tarnished the ballplayer’s image by impersonating him at various hot spots in the city, such as the posh Midtown eatery Tao, and at charity events, where he got drunk and started shamelessly hitting on women.

. . .

The bogus ballplayer was spotted last winter at the Stand-up New York Comedy Club on the Upper West Side, where he interrupted the show by hopping over the bar, making out with a randomly chosen woman, and skipping out on his $100 tab, authorities said.

*Another first-round pick with so much promise that went so unfulfilled.

In a city preoccupied with buildings, this does nothing to diminish the overinflated cult of the starchitect:

Renowned architect Frank Gehry, famous for experimenting with novel building materials and exploding the boundaries of form, has signed on with the city to design a 1-acre playground near the Battery Park Ferry Terminal on the southernmost tip of Manhattan.

Mr. Gehry, whose whimsical-looking concert halls and titanium-covered art museums are cultural landmarks, has agreed to work for free on what will be his first urban playground design. “People are asking us what it’s going to look like,” the parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said in an interview. “He said he doesn’t even know what it will look like yet.”

. . .

The city hopes to begin construction on the playground late next year, Mr. Benepe said, and expects the space to be open for use in 2009.

“Given the way he has exploded the concept of what performance arts buildings will look like, it certainly will be interesting,” Mr. Benepe said.

Another renowned architect, David Rockwell, is also working pro bono to design a playground near the South Street Seaport.

“Any prominent architect that wants to volunteer their time — we’d love to do it,” Mayor Bloomberg told reporters yesterday.

If lately you have been perplexed by the concept of the “celebrity chef,” take heart — four out of five velvet ropes agree:

Mario Batali and Wylie Dufresne may be celebrities to the foodie set, but to the doorman at Downtown Cipriani, they don’t make the cut. On a recent snowy evening, Jean-Georges Vongerichten hosted an intimate dinner for his 50th birthday upstairs there. Phil Suarez, Daniel Boulud, and John McDonald were on hand to sip Cristal. But when Dufresne arrived, followed by Batali (in his trademark shorts and clogs), both were refused entry. When Vongerichten explained their credentials, the doorman merely shrugged. “I work for the Ciprianis. I do not know chefs.” Dufresne says, “It was brutal outside. Don’t underestimate my ability to dress inappropriately, so it’s no surprise I was left to stand out in the cold.

No doubt coordinated with the Post to burnish his tough-guy image:

Never say Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is afraid to do the heavy lifting.

The gray-maned magazine mogul took matters into his own hands over the weekend when workers raised a racket as they erected a 22-foot scaffold outside his tony home and near an eatery he owns on Bank Street in lower Manhattan.

Annoyed by the noise, Carter rushed out of his three-story, $5 million townhouse in frigid, 36-degree temps wearing shorts, snatched a 5-foot rail and flung it to the ground in exasperation.

“Scaffold hurling . . . It’s a venerated Canadian sport, like curling,” the Canadian-born Carter joked to The Post yesterday.

“Everybody up there does it.”

Carter then explained, “Fact is, I’ve had construction across the street from me and next door to me for four years. On Saturday morning, a flatbed pulled up and began unloading scaffolding. It blocked the street off and on all day.

“At 7:30 that night, I was home with my family and the sound — and it was loud — just continued.”

To make matters even worse, he said, “cars were by now honking.”

So, he said, “I headed out into the street in my scaffold-hurling gear to see if I could get them to stop.

“I couldn’t get their attention, so I grabbed one of the pieces of scaffolding.

“Not the most appropriate response in such a situation, but there you have it.”

Successful street musicians need nothing more than their own entrepreneurial spirit to guide them:

The intersection of 23rd St. and Seventh Ave. is arguably one of the busiest in Chelsea, a blur of auto and pedestrian traffic that would intimidate most aspiring sidewalk musicians for fear of being drowned out.

Vladimir Laksin doesn’t seem to mind. For a year and a half, the scrappy 55-year-old Polish immigrant with strawberry blond hair and raspy voice has made a second home of the intersection’s southwest corner, slapping away at his honey-colored Fender Squire Stratocaster and crooning his unique combination of blues and rock in front of the stairs to the Downtown 1 subway line, a stone’s throw away from the lively scene surrounding the nearby Hotel Chelsea.

. . .

A graphic designer and photo re-toucher by trade, Laksin fell on hard times three years ago when he was laid off and subsequently had a mild heart attack. While convalescing, he bought himself a guitar to pass the time in front of the television. Soon, he began playing outside the Lemon Lime coffee shop on Sixth Ave. between 20th and 21st Sts., which was owned by a friend.

“I didn’t play well at all, but people start giving me money. So, I says, O.K., that’s great,” said Laksin in a thick Eastern European accent. “That worked for a while, but when they sold the restaurant, I need a new spot.”

The corner nook created by the 23rd St. subway sign and DOCS health clinic appealed to him, with it’s MTV-like electronic billboard and close proximity to the famed Chelsea Guitars store. He befriended the guys at the shop, buying strings, and eventually his current guitar, from them and hanging out during breaks. That kept him coming back, and before long, he was showing up daily for “work.”

Response is generally mixed:

Actor Tim Robbins dropped a few dollars in his tip case and asked him for his telephone number a few months ago, and Laksin regularly runs into celebrity musicians who come by the guitar shop, including Carlos Santana on one occasion.

“I was playing my songs, and his bodyguards went, ‘All right, rock on, man,’ and went on and on and got all excited. Then this other guy just say very quietly, ‘Can you make it weep?’ before going around the corner. I didn’t realize it was Santana until after!” Laksin said wearing a Cheshire grin.

Other passersby are a nuisance at best and an occupational hazard at worst, however.

One man regularly puts a banana peel into Laksin’s tip case, and another came by frequently starting six months ago and tipped him in cash, only to proposition him for a threesome with him and his wife. When the guitarist told him to take his money back and bug off, the man grew hostile until another pedestrian called the police.

And even if the average music fan doesn’t “get it,” celebrities certainly know talent when they see it:

On occasion, opportunity knocks and he picks up more lucrative music gigs. Recently, a photographer snapping pictures of Laksin invited him to play at his exhibition on Varick St., netting the guitarist $150 for three hours’ work. The owner of B.B. King’s Blues Club also asked him to play in front of the famed venue last year; but New York’s Finest sent Laksin on his way for not having a permit, which the owner was subsequently unable to secure for him.

Then there’s the odd recording invitation, one of which was recently proffered by a session musician who used to play with Lou Reed.

“He wants to get together and record some of my tunes with his band,” said Laksin. “We’ll see.”

Meantime, the former bass player, who picked up a guitar for the first time just three years ago, works on his technique, entirely self-taught. He eschews standards, choosing instead to make up lyrics on the spot: “Woke up this morning. My baby’s gone. She took all my money, you know. She’s gone, and I’ve been wronged.”

When he’s feeling his mojo and picks up a head of steam, Laksin knocks his knees together in a butterfly stance like a young Elvis Costello and thrusts his head forward, his pale, gentle face scrunched up into a mean scowl like a true rock ‘n’ roll star.

Spectator Mike Fischer, a Queens resident who spends a lot of time in Chelsea, was less than impressed with Laksin’s playing on Monday, however.

“He needs some tuning up,” he said. “Maybe he can figure out where to go from here.”

Is the Landmarks Preservation Commission really swayed by a letter from Anna Wintour or Jeff Koons? God, I hope not:

Developer Aby Rosen is beseeching his rich and famous pals to write to a key city panel in support of his controversial bid to build a 30-story tower on the Upper East Side.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour was among the glitterati to respond to Rosen’s call to arms, a form letter that asked some of the wealthiest New Yorkers to show their stripes for the redevelopment of 980 Madison Ave. at 76th Street.

Rosen and architect Lord Norman Foster have pitted themselves against many of the area’s well-heeled residents, who don’t want the 355-foot elliptical glass tower to be added to the Parke-Bernet Galleries.

The residential tower would forever alter the area’s skyline by matching the height of the nearby Carlyle Hotel.

The Landmarks Preservation Council, which has the final say, received hundreds of submissions before today’s 5 p.m. deadline.

The proposal has caused so much controversy that after 150 people turned up a public meeting to testify, the deadline for submissions was extended twice.

While the majority of submissions have called for the council to ax the tower, which is much taller than most buildings in the neighborhood, Rosen has banded together a gaggle of famous supporters.

Wintour, artist Jeff Koons, Betsy Bloomingdale, businessman Ron Perelman and celebrity doctor Patricia Wexler, along with several millionaires, artists and collectors, are among those who have declared themselves in the Rosen camp.

*See, for example.

Père Lachaise, Hollywood Forever and . . . a tree planter on East 67th Street:

For the past six years, Transit Authority dispatcher Vinnie Lepani has been marking the passing of the famous and infamous with miniature headstones fashioned from tongue depressors in a smidgen of soil within a tree planter.

The makeshift cemetery has become an attraction in the upper East Side neighborhood. Tourists stop to take photos and neighborhood hospital workers occasionally add their favorite dearly departed to the display.

“We try to keep it as current as possible — depending on the weather,” Lepani said in a thick Brooklyn accent as he penciled movie star Glenn Ford’s name on a stick last week. “It makes conversation, and conversation is what makes me go.”

Lepani started the cemetery as a lark, with a trio of tombstones for three rock ‘n’ roll stars who died in a 1959 plane crash, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper.

The next day he noticed that someone had added a fourth marker — he can’t remember the name — so he answered with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. It grew from there, and now includes anyone Lepani considers boldface material.

Comedian Red Buttons, civil rights pioneer Coretta Scott King, talk-show host Mike Douglas, actor Pat Morita and musician Billy Preston are some of the recent additions.

“Tupac is in there. We don’t discriminate,” he said. “We had a big one for the King, Elvis Presley, but it’s gone. People steal them.”

. . .

Lepani has only one rule for the graveyard — anyone who wants to get in it better be famous.

Sometimes, the relatives of patients who died at Sloan-Kettering or New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell across the street ask to commemorate their loved ones. But unless they are marquee names, Lepani usually lets them down gently.

Seen on Staten Island — Dustin “Screech” Diamond:

From 5 a.m. until after sunset last night, 100-plus ABC crew members descended on the Hilton Garden Inn, Bloomfield, and a nearby office building to film parts of episode 4 of the Knights of Prosperity.

The show, due to premiere Oct. 17, mixes sitcom fare with celebrity voyeurism by following a pack of goofy characters as they plot to rob the home of Mick Jagger.

The plum-lipped, wire-thin rock icon, around whom the show has been built, makes an appearance as himself in the first episode, the production company divulged yesterday.

Otherwise, the TV people on scene at the Hilton Garden Inn yesterday guarded the set with passion equal to that of a Betty Crocker Bake-off contestant protecting a secret recipe.

They couldn’t quite hide Dustin Diamond, however. The actor, who played the uber-nerd Screech in the early-1990s sitcom Saved by the Bell, has a cameo, although a spokeswoman for the production company was characteristically mum.

He’s a little heavier and has a little more facial hair — other than that, he’s Screech, said hotel owner Richard Nicotra.

It’s amazing how much time and effort is spent on seven minutes of airtime, marveled Nicotra, as he watched the crew line up for a buffet lunch during a break in the 14-hour-plus day. We’re friendly to them. We enjoy doing this. It’s certainly good business.

With some Hollywood set-designer magic, the hotel can be transformed into Anywhere, USA, and it receives frequent visits from scouts looking for locations to shoot.

Knights of Prosperity, starring Donal Logue and a band of other actors who have yet to become household names, joins the ranks of such shows as Law and Order and The Sopranos in using the hotel as a set.

What does Donal Logue have to do to become a household name on the Island? Screech-struck ingrates . . .

New Yorkers are known for playing it cool in the face of celebrity, not caring that they just passed, say, George Hamilton while walking on the Upper East Side except that secretly they really do care — much more than you know:

As the stars swarm among us, you have to wonder: Are we now destined to become just another L.A., where fawning nobodies hound celebrities, who then escape behind gates and smoked glass? Are Soho penthouses the new Hollywood Hills, where the super-famous retreat to gaze on the milling serfs below, chuckling like feudal lords? Well, no. Heath Ledger’s house hasn’t been thronged by chanting mobs, even though everyone and his dog knows where it is. And now comes the news that Ledger’s bought a $2.3 million modernist box shrouded by trees in Los Angeles, which means there’s even less chance of spotting him on Smith Street. (Not that you care.) Even Gawker Stalker is presented partly tongue-in-cheek, a guilty pleasure that’s heavy on the guilt, its meticulous missives a halfhearted joke about how silly it is to obsess over the whereabouts of Ryan Adams. As for the rest of us, did we ever truly not care? I mean, wouldn’t you have been just as psyched to see Patti Smith in the East Village in the seventies as you are to see Jay-Z today? Or way more so, for that matter?

“I don’t think L.A. and New York are as different as some people make them out to be,” says Michael Imperioli, an oft-sighted Tribeca fixture. “I think it’s more about how people approach you and how they behave — that determines your reaction much more than any difference between L.A. versus New York.” In other words, it’s not that we in New York don’t care but that we know enough to pretend that we don’t care. Which, in essence, is almost as good. You know the drill: Ignore the star as she walks toward you, then start texting all your friends the moment she’s passed you by.

See also: New York Magazine’s Star Map.

Manhattan County Court Clerk Norman Goodman has the most celebrity sightings of anyone I know:

As county clerk, clerk of the State Supreme Court and commissioner of jurors for Manhattan, Mr. Goodman is responsible for every jury trial in every Manhattan state court, whether civil or criminal. He supervises about 180 employees who do everything from filing cases to collecting the $210 fee for the index number needed to start a civil action.

But his true talent is for sniffing out malingering jurors and prodding and cajoling Manhattan’s many prima donnas, from Hollywood stars to titans of Wall Street, to do their civic duty.

He has been honing those skills for 37 years, since May 3, 1969, when he was appointed to his job by the appellate division. He is now 82, which makes him four years younger than Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, the other well-known gray eminence in the Manhattan court system. Mr. Goodman is fairly tall, with a full head of white hair, a courtly manner and a wardrobe of conservative suits. He is cautious to a fault, the consummate clerk.

Manhattan jury pools are rich in celebrities, and Mr. Goodman can summon a deputy, Vincent Homenick, to provide a comprehensive list of those who have been called: Kevin Bacon, Roberta Flack, Henry Kissinger, Walt Frazier, Harvey Keitel, and so on, scores of them.

Naomi Campbell, the supermodel, responded to a jury summons by saying that she was willing to serve, but had a past assault conviction and, in any event, was a British citizen. (Records show she pleaded guilty to assault in Canada, but her record was expunged. She is due in Manhattan court on June 27 as a defendant, accused of throwing a cellphone at her maid.)

Celebrities are usually dismissed without being chosen, because lawyers fear they will have too much influence over other jurors. Still, Mr. Goodman asks them to return for juror appreciation day to talk to schoolchildren about the beauty of the jury system, and sometimes throw in a performance. Once he lined up Wynton Marsalis and Joel Grey on the same day. “I could have sold tickets to that,” he said, beaming.

Mr. Goodman, a strong believer in equal treatment, insisted that [Woody] Allen show up, bad memories and all. Mr. Allen arrived wearing what Mr. Goodman describes as “army fatigues and a Fidel Castro cap,” surrounded by his lawyer, his agent and a bodyguard. Mr. Goodman escorted him to the jury room, where Mr. Allen insisted on standing, rather than sitting like everybody else. The rest of the jurors gawked at him.

“We eventually offered him the opportunity to get out of there,” Mr. Goodman said. “Frankly, we were glad to get rid of him.”

Then again, it seems everyone wants to get out of serving on a jury:

Hemorrhoids are a perennial excuse, and one evidence-minded man mailed back a used box of Anusol as proof.

A Murray Hill woman wrote that regretfully, her husband could not serve because he had jumped off the Queen Elizabeth 2 and drowned. The Health Department later confirmed his death.

Another woman sent in a photograph of her battered face, with a note saying, “Thank you for understanding my chaotic situation.”

One man wrote a five-page treatise in medieval-looking script, explaining that his spiritual beliefs prevented him from sitting in judgment on the guilt or innocence of a fellow human being. He ultimately agreed to be part of the jury pool in a civil trial, where he would only have to determine liability; he was not chosen.

God help anyone who has a story about them that includes this telling detail:

It was not the first time Ms. Campbell had been accused of injuring an employee with a telephone.

Al Sharpton is on a diet:

For the longest time, the only part of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s body that got any exercise was his mouth. “I had the strongest jawbone,” Mr. Sharpton said without even a hint of a smile. Instead, his right hand mimicked someone’s lips flapping up and down.

Mr. Sharpton’s jawbone is still getting a heavy workout these days, whether in politics, entertainment or on his cellphone. But finally, at 50, so is the rest of his body.

“I am her art piece,” Mr. Sharpton said with typical modesty as he introduced his private trainer, Liz Ross, at his $300-a-month gym (not including the private trainer), Reebok Sports Club/NY, on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan one recent morning.

Ms. Ross has, in fact, helped carve out a trimmer Al Sharpton.

In the first six months of his weight loss regimen, Mr. Sharpton lost 15 pounds, 5 inches off his waist and 6 percent of his body fat. A couple of months later, he’s down a total of about 30 pounds and headed toward his goal of weighing 200 pounds, which might be considered svelte for a guy who once tipped the scales at more than 300 pounds.

The “Sharpton Plan” is simple:

Set realistic goals. Exercise three times a week at the gym. Skip breakfast. Salad for lunch (maybe some chicken, too). Salad for dinner (maybe some fish).

And to keep those hunger pains away - cookies. Boxes of cookies. He prefers Aunt Gussie’s chocolate chip and almond. To be fair, the cookies are sugar free and made with organic wheat. But his trainer, Ms. Ross, clearly isn’t pleased. “They’re not carrot sticks, Al,” she said.

The Daily News’ primer on party crashing is out — an example of lemonade?

Helpful terms describing the four types of gatecrashers:

• Slip-Ins: “They just wait at a door until someone well known appears - say DeNiro and Streisand at the “Meet the Fockers” premiere. When the cameras flash and organizers are distracted, they dodge in behind Bob ‘n’ Babs.”
• Fakers: “Rather than claiming to be Kidman or Cruise, they’re always B-listers like ‘Charlie’s Angels’ weirdo Crispin Glover or fashion icon Hamish Bowles.”
• Don’t You Knows: “Less artful,” Don’t You Knows’ “every loud sentence begins with that phrase. Always hysterical, they’ll erupt when questioned at the door as if their very honor has been insulted.”
• P.I.s (Presumed Inviteds): The rarest, “these socialites and high rollers simply presume an invitation was lost in the mail - rather than that they weren’t wanted.”

Do’s and Don’ts include:

Don’t dress to impress. It just looks like you’re trying too hard. Instead, stick with a black dress and one killer accessory, like this season’s hot bag or a great big ring. “Keep your makeup minimal - most of the fashion crowd wear very little makeup and look slightly windblown - and act bored on the outside, internally amused,” says Cutrone.

Don’t turn up in a limo. These days, real VIPs roll up in Humvees or Range Rovers.

. . .

Don’t claim to be Chris Martin. Better to say you’re a different member of Coldplay. “The really good way of doing this is saying you’re a guitarist, not the lead singer, in a hot band,” says event planner Nancy Kane. “Nobody knows what Modest Mouse’s bassist looks like.”

Do double-fist those drinks. Crashers are always by the bar. “They’re not very clever - usually you’ll see them all clustered together there,” says P.R. exec James LaForce.

Not only is Mike Piazza not gay but, as the Post reports, he’s getting married, which should settle all that nonsense, so to speak:

Mike Piazza is getting hitched.

The Mets catcher is walking down the aisle with his longtime girl friend, “Baywatch” babe and former Playmate Alicia Rickter, in Miami during the last weekend in January, sources said yesterday.

. . .

The marriage should finally put an end to those unfounded rumors that Piazza is a switch hitter. During the 2002 season, the perennial All-Star called an unprecedented news conference to explicitly state he is not gay.

“The truth is that I’m heterosexual and date women,” he said.

[Another Playmate, Darlene] Bernaola, the former Playmate of the Millennium [one of a "bevy of babes" Piazza was "known to have homered with"], knew it all along.

“Our sex life was very, very healthy,” she said at the time.

More about the bride:

The beautiful brunette was a Killian’s beer spokesmodel at the time [the two met], while Piazza was often seen around town with beautiful women.

. . .

The two are self-described homebodies — and metalheads, who love hard rock — although Piazza sometimes hits the clubs as hard as he hits baseballs.

He used to be a regular at 14th Street hotspot Lotus until Mets players started boycotting it after one of the team’s second-stringers was refused entrance.

Best wishes to Piazza!

Just to update loyal readers about the fate of Pale Male, the red-tailed hawk recently evicted from its perch on the facade of 927 Fifth Avenue, a deal has been brokered and the bird will be staying. And Mary Tyler Moore comes out looking good:

A week after it removed a red-tailed hawk’s nest from its facade and was met by a storm of protest, a Fifth Avenue co-op building agreed yesterday to requests by the Audubon Society to help the hawks rebuild.

But the agreement came on a day of heightened tension outside 927 Fifth Avenue, the sumptuous co-op where the hawks have roosted on a perch overlooking Central Park for 11 years. The co-op is also home to some of the biggest names in New York society.

This surprising turn of events comes as a Pale Male supporter was arrested for harassing Paula Zahn, whose husband, in his capacity as president of the co-op, was blamed for Pale Male’s eviction:

With negotiations taking place inside, those protesting the removal of the nest continued their vigil across Fifth Avenue in Central Park. One of them, Lincoln Karim, an engineer, was arrested on charges of aggravated harassment, stalking and endangering the welfare of a child.

Mr. Karim, who was being held last night at the 19th Precinct station house, was accused of approaching the television newscaster Paula Zahn and her family, who live in the building, on several occasions, the police said. At one point he told Ms. Zahn’s 7-year-old son, “Your parents are going to pay for this,” according to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case. Officials said that encounter occurred on Monday outside the building as the boy and his nanny were walking his dog.

Which is where Mary Tyler Moore comes in:

The arrest of Mr. Karim prompted a swift response by another of the co-op’s many celebrity residents, Mary Tyler Moore, who has publicly allied herself with the protesters. Soon after Mr. Karim was approached by four detectives and driven away, Ms. Moore and her husband, the Manhattan cardiologist Robert Levine, hailed a cab and drove to the 19th Precinct station house to assist Mr. Karim, although they were not aware of the charges against him, according to Marie Winn, a Manhattan writer, bird watcher and friend of Ms. Moore’s who joined in the cab ride. . . .

“Mary Tyler Moore was magnificent,” Ms. Winn said. When she was unable to speak with Mr. Karim and determine the charges against him, Ms. Moore returned to speak to a group of about 40 protesters who remained opposite 927 Fifth Avenue.

She was greeted by loud applause, and thanked her fellow demonstrators. “That applause is the best applause I have received in my life,” Ms. Moore said, according to two people who were present.

I can’t be the first one to wonder whether a Law & Order is coming on . . .

Bonus Point: Pale Male: Bring Back the Nest!

New details are emerging in the eviction of Pale Male, the red-tailed hawk whose nest was removed from the facade of 927 Fifth Avenue. The Post doesn’t disappoint with its turns of phrase, headlining the story, “Poultry in Motion.”

Apparently Pale Male is looking for new digs, eyeing in particular the Carlyle Hotel (oh, that it were this easy to move in New York!)

There’s been much interest in the co-op board’s decision to take down the nest. As it involves the wealthy and sometimes famous, there’s a healthy dose of Fuck-the-Rich Schadenfreude, too, which is always fun. And Mary Tyler Moore comes out looking good in the end:

A homeless hawk evicted from his posh nest at a Fifth Avenue co-op was spotted checking out even more expensive real-estate yesterday — as government officials and conservation groups tried to mediate the flap [good one!].

“Pale Male,” who built his nest at 927 Fifth Avenue back in 1993, was unceremoniously dispossessed along with his girlfriend, “Lola,” by the co-op’s board — which is headed by the real estate developer Richard Cohen, the husband of CNN anchor Paula Zahn.

A Zahn rep said she had nothing to do with the decision and “can’t speak for her husband.”

But another celebrity tenant, Mary Tyler Moore, put the blame squarely on Cohen.

Asked who was responsible for the decision, the TV legend and animal lover replied, “As you can judge from any board of directors, there is a chair. It’s not that complicated.”

Although Moore would like a see a compromise allowing the hawks to return, she said she was not going to be the one to approach Cohen.

“Quite frankly, I’m so angry, I would not want to put myself in that situation,” she said.

Other tenants in the exclusive building refused to comment.

“If they talk to the press, the wrath of Mr. Cohen will come down on them,” speculated one building worker. But some deals are under consideration.

They include welcoming the birds back to 927 Fifth and enticing them across the street to Central Park. But Pale Male may have his own ideas.

He was spotted flying above Madison Avenue, checking out the Carlyle Hotel for a new pied a terre to share with Lola.

Moore’s fellow tenants said they objected to the birds because they tried to jam twigs between the bricks, possibly weakening the building’s façade.

And more importantly, the hawks attracted gawkers with binoculars who, they feared, were looking into windows when the hawks’ activities were not exciting enough.

They also complained the hawks killed pigeons, whose bodies littered the sidewalk below.

For the last several days, though, the sidewalk has been taken over by noisy protesters, including Moore.

Several dozen of them gathered yesterday in front of the 12-story turn-of-the-century building, yelling, “Bring back the nest!” and waving signs saying, “Ebeneezer Zahn.”

Moore emerged to cheers of support before disappearing into her limo. She later came back to join the demonstration.

“Those lousy people should all drop dead except Mary Tyler Moore,” said Jennifer Anderson, who lives nearby.

“Now that winter’s coming, they take down the nest. I think these people are very much interested in themselves and don’t care about anyone or anything,” she said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials are trying to work out a solution.

They are speaking to the board’s representatives about building the birds their own “co-op” to keep them off the ledge they used.

They suggest putting up a special platform that the birds could build their nest on without damaging the bricks.

Cohen referred inquiries to the co-op’s lawyer, Aaron Shmulewitz, who insisted the board is now open to discussion.

“If one of these proposals is raised to the board, the board will consider it in due course and in good faith,” he said.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe has another idea — he’s exploring the possibility of building a nesting spot in Central Park.

That “may be a good idea,” said John Bianchi of the National Audubon Society.

“We don’t know if it will work or not. But this bird will pick where it’s going to nest,” Bianchi said. “It doesn’t matter if you necessarily create some attractive options.”

But the best solution, said E.J. McAdams of New York City Audubon, would be to allow the birds to return to their own home on the ledge.

Bonus Points: Gawker on which heartless souls (except for Mary Tyler Moore!) live at 927 Fifth Avenue; Curbed on the same.

Pale Male, the famous red-tailed hawk who nested on a building on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park, is being kicked out. The building’s residents (some of them, anyway) objected to the pigeon carcasses and hawk poop, so Pale Male’s nest has been removed:

A nest constructed a decade ago by red-tailed hawks 12 stories above Central Park, creating an unlikely wildlife habitat that has delighted bird lovers from around the world, was removed yesterday, apparently by workers for its host co-op apartment building.

City officials and naturalists reacted with anger, even though there appeared to be little legal recourse for the nest’s destruction.

Experts said that the fate of a family of uncommonly large and resilient birds, which have reproduced prolifically from the nest, had been thrown into doubt. So was that of the nest’s most famous red-tailed resident, Pale Male, who arrived at the building in 1993 and, according to detailed records kept by several bird-watchers, has sired 23 youngsters.

“I am so outraged that they would do this without so much as a by your leave,” said Mary Tyler Moore, who has lived for 15 years in the co-op at 927 Fifth Avenue, at 74th Street, where the nest was built in 1993 above a cornice in clear view of Central Park.

“These birds just kept coming back to the edge of the building, and people kept coming back to see them,” said Ms. Moore, who recalled at first craning her neck outside one of her windows to look up at the bottom of the nest. In more recent years, she said, she has strolled frequently across Fifth Avenue to Central Park for a better view.

“This was something we like to talk about: a kinder, gentler world, and now it’s gone,” Ms. Moore said last night.

Exactly why the nest was destroyed was unclear. A man who answered a call to 927 Fifth Avenue’s management office last night said no one was available for comment.

But Ms. Moore said other residents of the building had objected to large bird droppings and, occasionally, the carcasses of pigeons - which hawks prey upon - that landed on the sidewalk in front of their lobby. She said her husband had attended a recent co-op board meeting, and had been informed of its all-but-unanimous decision to remove the nest, even though he had objected to the move.

Page Six reports that Nicholas Cage has purchased an apartment in Manhattan with the intention of becoming a full-fledged part-time New Yorker:

Cage fans will soon be seeing a lot more of the Oscar-winning actor, who apparently likes to walk. “I’ve actually acquired an apartment in Manhattan and I intend to be a New Yorker part-time,” says Cage, who graces the cover of Gotham magazine’s fifth anniversary issue. “I love the foot culture in New York.”

Which of course begs the question (for me at least): What constitutes “foot culture?”

And in case you think this was some one-off Bushian flub, know that Cage has never been shy about his penchant for foot culture. For example, the Cage by Page website has him expanding on the Big Apple’s alleged foot culture:

The idea of a foot culture, that you are going to observe more people, to me is food, you know, for acting.

I don’t think he means to say “pedestrian culture,” which evokes something different, but perhaps he means “walking culture,” or “pedestrian lifestyle”? At least I think that’s what he’s talking about, but I suppose you never know . . .

A poorman’s Pat Tillman, former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth reportedly is training in New York to become an EMT:

Roth, 50, has been riding for several weeks with a New York ambulance crew in training to become a paramedic, The New York Post reported Tuesday.

“I have been on over 200 individual rides now,” said Roth. “Not once has anyone recognized me, which is perfect for me.”

The singer, who spent a decade with Van Halen before embarking on a solo career, except a collaboration with the band for two new songs on a greatest hits album, has been riding along with crews in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn several nights a week.

His training seems to be going well.

Several weeks ago, Roth saved the life of a heart attack victim in the Bronx by using a defibrillator.

He takes his work so seriously that he did not want publicity so that it would not “diminish what I am trying to do here.” He has said that he did not want the neighborhoods he was working in named so that he would not draw attention to himself or co-workers.

“You would never know you were dealing with a rock-’n'-roll guy,” said Linda Reissman, Roth’s EMS consultant and tutor. “His commitment really is touching. He wants to help people.”

[Post title borrowed from 1978's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love"]