Jeff Koons’ Birthday Party

We might have new shorthand for “kooky excess,” now defined as Jeff Koons’ 50th Birthday, as reported by Talk of the Town:

And then the garage doors opened, and in trooped the marching band of Burlington City High School, in Burlington, New Jersey, wearing navy-blue uniforms and feathered shakos and producing on their instruments a deafening version of “Happy Birthday.” They were followed, a few minutes later, by a pair of white ponies pulling a cart with a three-tiered white cake, out of which popped a girl in a skimpy red bathing suit. [Deitch Projects gallery owner Jeffrey] Deitch had tried to get Jeff’s friend Pamela Anderson for the cake duty, but she had to be at the Sundance Film Festival.

Those Law & Order Scripts Just Keep on Coming

Ripped out of the headlines faster than Dick Wolf spins off shows. “Cheatin’ Hearts Get Scammed”:

A pair of con artists has been shaking down wives who have illicit affairs in hot-sheet hotels around Brooklyn — threatening to tell their husbands unless they cough up thousands of dollars, The Post has learned.

The sleazy scheme was bared after one victim, a mother of three, went to cops, who staged a sting.

The duo would case short-stay hotels to identify guests who looked like they were married women there for a quickie with a secret lover, sources said.

Then they approached the cheaters and said they’d been hired by their husbands to follow them and had gathered plenty of evidence.

They said the evidence could quietly vanish for a payoff of up to $2,000 — and the women, frantic to keep their indiscretions quiet, forked over the dough.

“They looked for women coming out of motels in the middle of the day with smiles on their faces,” one law-enforcement source said.

“Chances are anybody smiling as they leave a motel in the middle of the day is not leaving with the man they’re married to.”

As many as a dozen cheating housewives may have been victimized, sources said.

Things unraveled when the two men approached a Mill Basin woman on Jan. 12.

They told her they had videotape of her going in and out of hotels and demanded money, according to the criminal complaint.

The frantic woman went to police, and 63rd Precinct detectives set up a sting at the Arch Diner, at Flatlands and Ralph avenues.

The woman met one man, Carmine Russo, 24, outside and, with cops watching, gave him $1,500, police said.

Russo, who lives on Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, is charged with grand larceny by extortion and petit larceny.

The whistleblower, who said her hubby still doesn’t know of her two-timing ways, told The Post the experience has jolted her.

“It is horrible! Everybody is out to ruin me!” she said.

Police are asking other victims to contact them at (718) 258-4401.

Did you catch the latest Life-Imitates-Briscoe line there? “Chances are anybody smiling as they leave a motel in the middle of the day is not leaving with the man they’re married to.”

PSA

For the 10,000th time, if you drop something on the subway tracks, do not go down there yourself. And being “mentally handicapped” is not an excuse: “Killed getting purse off tracks”.

For the 20,000th time, don’t smoke in bed (who still smokes in bed?): “Woman dies in Qns. fire her cig may have started”.

And finally, if you’re the MTA, think long and hard about what this tells the public about your credibility on other issues including, most importantly, supposed pending billion-dollar-plus deficits: “Straphangers cheer C train’s return”.

Bonus Point: New York Daily News Headlines Kill (Gawker).

Paroled Teen Punk

The police have apprehended a suspect in the slaying we noted the other day.

The Times sets the scene:

A 19-year-old parolee who was prowling with childhood friends on the Lower East Side early on Thursday morning has been charged with murdering a young actress who talked back to them as they robbed her companions, the police said yesterday.

The police said that the arrest of the man, Rudy Fleming, came after detectives received tips from people who had heard that he and at least four friends were involved in the shooting.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Fleming was openly weeping in the back seat of an unmarked car as detectives drove him away from the offices of the Manhattan South homicide squad.

But the Post cuts to the chase:

Police yesterday busted a paroled teen punk who allegedly shot aspiring actress Nicole duFresne — but the crybaby put on his own performance, moaning and complaining that he was sick, while taking no responsibility for the coldblooded slaying.

Rudy Fleming, 19, “was whining like a little girl,” a law-enforcement source scoffed.