Matt Moseley is having a busy month.
The Boulder-based communications strategist and two pals recently swam across Lake Pontchartrain north of New Orleans to raise money to save the salt- water lake and its lighthouse. NOLA bluesman and “Treme” TV actor Coco Robicheaux was in the support boat, making Bloody Marys with some lake water thrown in and sporting a pistol to ward off alligators and sharks. This was just before the gulf oil spill.
“I tell you, it was a beautiful morning, a magnificent swim,” says Moseley, who grew up in New Orleans. “We swam with little dolphins, the egrets were flying. But we may be the last people to swim in Lake Pontchartrain for a long, long time.”
So far, the spewing oil has not reached the lake, but Moseley and the rest of NOLA are worried sick.
Now, Moseley is off on an 11-city book tour, which started Thursday at Chateau Marmont in L.A., for his tome about Lisl Auman, “Dear Dr. Thompson: Felony Murder, Hunter S. Thompson, and the Last Gonzo Campaign.”
The book comes our right on the heels of a movie producer buying the Vanity Fair story about Thompson’s successful campaign to get Auman out of prison for a felony murder charge. She was sentenced to life in prison after a policeman was killed by another man while she was in police custody. Moseley was the spokesman for Auman and her family.
Moseley stops at the Tattered Cover LoDo on June 15 and the Denver Press Club on June 22. The book has some high-praise blurbs from Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner and Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson. And this from Vanity Fair’s Sam Kashner: “If I’m ever busted for something I never did, I want Matt Moseley’s phone number sewn into my underwear.”
Balloon’s back.
An irreverent blog from Larimer County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Eloise Campanella gives us a few more details on Balloon Boy’s parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, who recently reclaimed their craft. “He is now sporting a beard and a moustache. She is not,” writes Campanella. “Sheriff’s Office personnel had to help him lay out the balloon. He said he wanted to measure it to make sure it was HIS balloon as opposed to all the other silver, flying-saucer-type devices we have in evidence.”
Le Burger War.
Ralph Lauren has started what’s being called the “Paris burger wars.” He’s selling hamburgers, made from the Angus beef he raises on his ranch in Ridgway, the Double RL, at his super-swank, five-floor clothing store on Boulevard Saint-Germain. It goes for 27 euros (more than $33)!
Paris burger king Jonathan Goldstein is not impressed. He sold 120,000 burgers at his Coffee Parisien restaurants last year — at 14.50 euros (about $18). A. Craig Copetas of Bloomburg News reports that Lauren’s Ralphburgers are “failures in fat, taste and aroma.” Goldstein’s fatty patties are better.
City spirit.
Chris Daniels Facebooks that his chemo treatment has been delayed, so if he’s strong enough, he might be able to sit in with his band Saturday at the Little Bear. . . . Sez who: “I wouldn’t eat a hamburger for $40,000.” — late actor River Phoenix
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. You can reach him at 303-954-1486 or bhusted@denverpost.com. Take a peek at Husted’s next column at husted.
