Afternoon Headlights (02/19)

Paint Balls: Even though he's straight, I'll always respect and cherish the young Jason West for his bold move in 2004 as the mayor of New Paltz, N.Y., to marry same-sex couples. These days having lost his re-election bid, he's painting houses to make ends meet. But something tells me he will still end up on top. (NYT)

Money Talks: If you thought the infiltration of product placement into television and movies was disturbing, you might want to think twice the next time the distraught protagonist in your favorite novel reaches for a glass of Jack Daniels. (NYT)

Jump for My Love: If "Good Morning America" hottie Chris Cuomo really wanted to conquer his fear of heights, why didn't he just jump into my arms instead of pulling all this Atlantic City bullshit? (AP)

The Wrong Target: An MSNBC pundit accuses the Clinton campaign of "pimping out" their candidate's daughter on the campaign trail and the country is in an uproar. Meanwhile, a New York City police officer and his girlfriend buy a 13-year-old girl and sell her to friends at parties for $40 for oral and $80 for intercourse and the nation yawns. (DavidBrooks)

Blond Ambition: A Las Vegas man plans to unveil what he says is a rare photo of Marilyn Monroe posing as a nude hitchhiker, believed to have been taken around the time of her last (completed) film, "The Misfits." Is Madonna so good at stealing from other artists that she somehow managed to co-opt this idea before she even new it had happened? (AP)

Secret Safe: An interesting new trove of Kennedy assassination items is unveiled. (USAToday)

Daddy's a Nut: Now we know where all the tabloids got their 10 years worth of bullshit Princess Diana conspiracy theories. (AP)

RIP: Dorothy Podber, a wild child of the New York art scene in the 1950s and ’60s who is probably best known for brandishing a pistol and putting a bullet through the forehead of Marilyn Monroe’s likenesses on a stack of Andy Warhol’s paintings, died at her apartment in Manhattan on Feb. 9. She was 75. Podber asked Warhol if she could shoot a stack of the "Marilyn" paintings; he apparently thought that she wanted to take pictures of them and consented. But she produced a pistol and fired at them, penetrating three or four. One of them, "Shot Red Marilyn," with a repaired bullet hole over the left eyebrow, sold for $4 million in 1989, at the time setting a record at auction for a Warhol work. "After she left," Factory regular Billy Name said, “Andy came over to me and said: 'Please make sure Dorothy doesn’t come over here anymore. She’s too scary.'" She sounds like a riot to me. May she continue to play such divine tricks wherever she is now. (NYT)