Free Roger!

Join in the Roger Toussaint jail vigil starting Monday:

The Transport Workers Union boss has planned daily vigils by workers outside the Manhattan House of Detention beginning Monday, when his 10-day sentence for leading last year’s illegal strike begins.

“Take a stand,” proclaim fliers passed out by the union yesterday, urging workers to accompany Toussaint when he surrenders at Brooklyn Supreme Court Monday, and then protest his incarceration throughout the week.

Jailhouse block parties are planned outside the jail from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. the rest of the week.

Train operators, conductors and some bus operators are told to come Tuesday; the car-equipment division Wednesday; the rest of the bus drivers and mechanics Thursday; and station agents and track workers Friday.

“We have to support our leader,” one bus driver said. “I will not miss it.”

Don’t Forget The Children!

Queens City Council Members will lead a march protesting Met stinginess:

Hundreds of irate Queens residents — including kids in Little League uniforms — will march to Shea Stadium today to demand the Mets become better corporate citizens.

“The kids in our community deserve better from the Mets,” said City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, who, along with Councilman Tony Avella, will lead the protest.

As part of negotiations with the Council over the financing of the Mets’ proposed stadium, the team offered last week to spend $200,000 annually on sports programs for local kids.

The offer sparked outrage from some Queens lawmakers who sought a $1 million annual payout, as the Daily News first reported.

Luis Paladines, head of the Asopec Little League in Queens, who plans to be in the march, said his league needs money for equipment and bleachers. The league serves 500 kids in the neighborhood.

“We need help from the Mets and we never get it,” Paladines said.

This Is Getting Scary . . . I’m Gonna Shoot Somebody

This Post thing seems to be getting more complicated:

Mr. Stern, 34, an admirer of Walter Winchell who is fond of fedoras and three-piece suits, had been working for The Post since 1997.

. . .

On the tapes, Mr. Stern asks Mr. Burkle to invest in his clothing line at one point, according to a person who said he knew what was on the tapes. He lives in a house in the Catskills which he bought in 2002, with his wife, Ruth Gutman, who Mr. Stern referred to as Snoodles, the nickname of a character from the 1942 movie The Palm Beach Story.

Actually, that’s just the ridiculous part. The complicated part follows:

But while the accusations against Mr. Stern were serious, it was the specter — raised by at least three people who said they knew what was on the tapes — that Mr. Stern implicated several celebrities and New York power figures in an undisclosed, symbiotic relationship with Page Six that prompted an extraordinary day of full-throated and at times gleeful gossip among those who love, hate and avidly read it.

Those who said they know what is on the tape said Mr. Stern named Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax films, and Ronald O. Perelman, the chairman of Revlon Inc., as among those who had finessed their coverage on the page. Through a spokesman, Mr. Weinstein flatly denied any improper relationship with the page and its main editor, Richard Johnson.

Mr. Perelman’s company had once hired Mr. Johnson’s finance, Sessa von Richthofen, to whom he is getting married Saturday, as an administrative assistant. The executive who hired her said today that she had not been pressured into hiring her.

. . .

In their meetings, Mr. Stern described three levels of “protection” he could offer to Mr. Burkle, according to those with knowledge of what is captured on the tapes.

When Mr. Burkle pressed Mr. Stern to explain how this would work, Mr. Stern at first cited a few examples involving his boss, Mr. Johnson. He said, for example, that Mr. Johnson, his boss, had a “script deal” with Mr. Weinstein — something Mr. Weinstein denied today. “The New York Post and Page Six have always been above board with our company,” said a Weinstein company spokesman. “There was never any script deal.”

He also said that Ms. von Richthofen was employed by Mr. Perelman, the financier.

(R. Kelly reference meant to underscore the faux gangsterism of the situation and a sense of disbelief about the incomprehensible turn of events, not to mention the fact that fedoras and three-piece suits are rather fey . . .)

(I suppose at this point it’s not a bad idea to reacquaint yourself with Sweet Smell of Success, in which case alternate titles for this post could include “The Hunsecker Proxy” or “Sweet Smell Of ‘Finesse'”.)

Ooh, Page Six Freelancer, I’m So Scared!

The worst thing about all these mafia stories is that it creates a culture in which Page Six freelancers shake down their subjects for either favorable or no coverage:

A freelancer for The Post’s Page Six gossip column is under investigation by the FBI on suspicion of making “extortionate demands” in return for not writing any damaging stories about Beverly Hills billionaire Ron Burkle.

Jared Paul Stern, who worked two days per week on Page Six, allegedly demanded $100,000 from Burkle, who made his fortune in supermarkets, plus an annual stipend of $10,000.

Sources close to the investigation say the FBI has been investigating for two weeks under the direction of Mark Weinstein, the chief of the economic-crimes division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and has Stern on video and audiotapes.

In exchange for money from Burkle, Stern allegedly would “refrain from writing damaging, negative stories and write puff pieces” flattering to Burkle.

Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Cindy Fucking Adams?

The High Powered And Those Working For Vanity Fair Lose Views; Conde Nast Publications Stock Falls On Fears Of Potential James Wolcott Writer’s Block

Or, how a Times beat writer talks his way into the offices of the New Yorker. Don’t worry, the ulterior motives behind a sympathetic puff piece about how influential players at the New Yorker and Vanity Fair are losing their views of Bryant Park went completely unnoticed:

Day by dispiriting day, senior writers and editors at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and other Condé Nast magazines and top lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom are watching one of the perks of their Manhattan careers getting slowly gobbled up — the view.

A 54-story tower for the Bank of America is rising floor by inexorable floor next to their daytime home — the 48-story Condé Nast Building, at 42nd Street and Broadway. Right now the bank structure is just a monkey-bars of steel beams,a half-dozen floors at best. But over the next year or two, employees on the eastern side of Condé Nast will find themselves staring right into the face of a glass and aluminum office building and its honeycomb of worker bees.

“I’m on the 21st floor, and I have a beautiful view of Bryant Park and the library and a little corner of the Chrysler Building and the Pan Am Building, now the MetLife, and I get tons of sun,” said Jeffrey Toobin, a staff writer for The New Yorker. “Soon it’s going to be a view of some law firm associate doing his work. My view will be entirely swallowed.”

Bruce Handy, a senior articles editor at Vanity Fair, who grew up among the sweeping vistas of California, had been delighted with the cinemascopic views out of his 22nd-floor office. “There’ll be a little less uplift for the soul,” he lamented.

. . .

That perspective was echoed by David Friend, the editor of creative development at Vanity Fair, whose office is on the 22nd floor. “We’re so busy that we take the view for granted sometimes, and it’s like the old Joni Mitchell song, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,'” he said. [Emph. added to underscore what a whore writer Joseph Berger is being!]