'HE'S NOT STUPID , though he's not intelligent. Simple, but not stupid." My friend the pet psychic wasn't talking about the Duh-bya, in the Bay Area this week for a campaign fundraiser. (And aren't your Benjamins better spent on "Anyone but Bush 2004" bumper stickers at the Bush-Cheney 2004 parody site, www.gwbush.com?) We were trying to decipher Mr. Winkle, that impossibly cute pup with huge, melting brown eyes, freakishly long forepaws, and a tongue that would make Gene Simmons proud. He's gotta be fake, we thought, perusing his "custodian," award-winning news photographer Lara Jo Regan's third children's book, A Winkle in Time: Mr. Winkle Celebrates the Underdogs of History (Random House), which features images of Mr. Winkle in quirky period garb (dressed, for example, in artist Camille Claudel, African Queen Amanirenas, and folk music archivist Alan Lomax drag). But after sitting down and talking to Ms. Regan and Mr. Winkle, I can only testify that Winkle is real. Freaky, but real.

"It's good to be a rock star," a bystander said as about 100 converts at a recent downtown bookstore appearance sighed collectively at the sight of Winkle standing, as wobbly as Billy Joel on a bender, in his leopard-print sleeper.

Earlier, the delicate-looking eight- or nine-year-old part-Pomeranian mutt struck me as the most undoggy dog ever: he's as quiet as a stone and more attentive than a small, well-behaved child. Like a pilgrim fingering the hem of a saintly garment, I reached down to touch the tip of his tongue. It was hot pink, ultrasuede soft, and protruded, as always, at a rakish angle.

"He's so cute it's painful!" raved Regan, who calls Winkle "the muse of a lifetime."

Regan found Winkle, a mangy stray with ear and mouth infections, about seven years ago in an alley in Bakersfield while on assignment photographing welfare moms for Life. "The guy I was dating at the time was scared of him, thought he was a demon," she said with a laugh. "I saw the beauty."

She started taking photos of him – dressing him as a garden gnome, a mermaid, an angel – and posting them on her Web site, www.mrwinkle.com. Thirty-six million hits and hundreds of photos later (with only a few Photoshopped beyond the standard cleanup of slobber and eye gunk, Regan swears), Mr. Winkle has five calendars, a series of greeting cards, and stuffed animals in circulation and an hour-long film in the works.

E-mails from around the world testify to his unearthly powers, Regan said. "One woman said for the first time in 30 years, she couldn't feel her arthritis. One guy said he stopped drinking when he saw Mr. Winkle," she explained. "He's a healer."

A healer with some formidable tools – or make that tool. To be blunt, Mr. Winkle is hung. Like a good-size gherkin. "People laugh so hard when they see it," Regan said conspiratorially.

Ah, nature works in mysterious comedy clubs. As my pal, the animal clairvoyant, got closer to the elfin pooch, she tried to scan his cranium for deep thoughts. "He knows more than you'd think he would," she said before racing out of the store.

Way delayed
What happened to the Justice League, you might understandably ask. In the Feb. 12 Sonic Reducer, we were assured by owner Michael O'Connor and manager-publicist Candida Martinez that the club was readying to reopen its doors. But as of last week, the venue was still shuttered. Now Martinez says the reopening has been pushed to mid September.... Blasthaus blasted off with a June 19 grand-opening party at its new Tenderloin gallery-lounge, Rx Gallery at 132 Eddy St. The first exhibit, "Warped and Wrapped," of video sculpture, will be up through July 26, and though the beer and wine license is still pending, Blasthaus's Will Linn says the group is moving ahead with programming exhibits and events with artists informed by electronic and digital technology.

Starship enterprise
Stanley Burrell, a.k.a. MC Hammer, recently assumed the role of vice prez of business and product development at Netruism Technologies for the release of BusinessIntellect 5.0, a Web-based application tailored to the music industry. The irony of appointing a dude who notoriously mismanaged his own music biz to front such a product apparently wasn't much of a stumbling block for the company. Too bad Hammer face time was impossible. According to Netruism CEO Luis Lopez, Burrell's busy working on a WB family sitcom and on a revival of the '70s TV show Dance Fever – an American Sidle, if you will.... Leave it to Mr&Mr&Mr&MrEvil, the Coachwhips, and the Double Duchess to freak your obscure holiday, Flag Day, all the way. One Mr. Evil e-mailed to say the second annual roving hoedown took the performers – including faux-preggers, vodka-swilling, and chain-smoking Double Duchesses – from Civic Center to Ocean Beach (where glances were exchanged with PBS documentarian and pro looky-loo Ken Burns) to Twin Peaks to, finally, the corner of 16th and Mission Streets.

Not dead yet
On June 18 the California Court of Appeal denied former Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra's appeal of the May 2000 ruling in the case brought against him by his former bandmates (East Bay Ray, Klaus Flouride, and D.H. Peligro). The ruling upheld the jury decision in S.F. Superior Court that convicted Biafra of committing fraudulent acts against his ex-bandmates regarding funds administered by their onetime label, Alternative Tentacles, which Biafra owns.

"Basically, things are back to the way it was the first 20 years," D.K. guitarist East Bay Ray said. "We've been operating like that since the jury judgment. All the horrible things that people predicted would come to pass, haven't – that we'd sign to a major label and do commercials."

As for Biafra, he was sticking to his suit. A.T. publicist Alison McBride said the notoriously vocal word slinger is reserving comment as his lawyers pursue further hearings. Later an A.T. press statement was released: "We are shocked that the California State Court of Appeals has denied our appeal in an unpublished opinion, and sent the dispute back to San Francisco Superior Court for further hearings. Those hearings will give us an opportunity to prove facts different from those claimed by the other ex-Dead Kennedys. So unfortunately this dispute is far from over. We are far from giving up."

Give up your tips, tawdry stories, and twisted tales.