The story isn’t that Herman Cain is the frontrunner in the Republican reality show, but how extraordinarily terrible Rick Perry is. I mean, here’s a guy who seemed tailor-made for putting the “white” back into the White House. Texan? Check. Executioner in Chief? Check. White? Whiter than Wonder Bread or a Pepsodent smile. Christian? Shit – he’s so damn Christ-like, he’s even being persecuted (I think he’s even got a touch of the stigmata). But then a funny thing happened. He opened his yap. Hard to figure you could out-stupid and out-cray the likes of Michele Bachmann, but damned if Ricky didn’t manage it. Now he’s fallen so low, he’s polling lower than Rick Santorum in Florida – a mere 2.9%, which, even using Texas math, is pretty piss poor.

Speaking of Herman, we know Cain is Able, but is Cain also Liable? Liable to be charged with some campaign finance shenanigans, that is. Seems it isn’t technically illegal in and of itself, but the Cain Campaign has paid the for-profit “Herman Cain T.H.E. New Voice” (which is a pretty crappy name for a company, if you ask me) $100,000. Apparently his company promotes his books and “philosophy.” No word on how much the Cain Campaign has spent on Godfather’s Pizza.

West Side Story (the movie) was released 50 years ago today. In case you don’t know, it tells the tale of two of NYC’s gayest gangs – a conflict between the Jets (white people in pale makeup), and the Sharks (mostly white people in dark makeup) dancing their way through the streets, snapping their fingers in a threatening manner, and saying things like “daddy-o” as NYC “toughs” were wont to do back then.

This movie is when I fell in love with Puerto Rican women, developing a life-long crush on well-known hispanic chick Natalie “Maria” Wood. Though I always thought the movie – and musicals in general – was pretty stupid.

Big birthday day today, as Chuck Berry hits 85, Keith Jackson goes rumblin’, stumblin’, bubmblin’ to his 83rd, and everybody’s favorite castaway – Dawn Wells – is 73. And still cute as a button.