Ego

SATURDAY, 8 a.m. My head throbbed. "What did you do last night? What did you do last night? What did you do last night?," chanted the hamsters running on the wheel in my brain. You guessed it. A hangover. But this wasn't your average too-many-Chardonnays-at-the-Joneses hangover. This was an ego hangover. Ego hangover? You know, that yucky feeling that comes after you get blind drunk on the sound of your own voice. Well, maybe you don't know. So let me tell you how I came to be in this pickle.

In statements following his dismissal from the Statue of Liberty restoration commission, Lee Iacocca showed himself to be possessed of an ego without bounds. He obviously believes that schoolchildren who send their nickels to restore Miss Liberty did so because of his involvement. The love expressed for the statue by millions of Americans who contributed to this grand effort should not be sullied by the involvement of carnival barkers and pitch men. Lee Iacocca is expendable - the love is not. Stanley M. Najdzin Bensalem.

Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave in "Sweet Sue," a new play by A. R. Gurney Jr. Directed by John Tillinger, set by Santo Loquasto, costumes by Jess Goldstein, lighting by Ken Billington. Presented by Arthur Whitelaw, Dick Button and Byron Goldman at the Music Box Theater, 239 W. 45th St., New York. Forty years ago, the subject matter of "Sweet Sue" would have been scandalous. Today, who cares? The shock value of an older woman lusting after a post-pubescent youth - in the case at hand, her son's college roommate - was blunted for all time by "The Graduate" and buried subsequently in the tomb of The Old Morality.

Luckily for 76ers power forward Elton Brand, he said he doesn't have an ego. He said he did in his younger playing days - he's 29 now - but no longer. If he did have an ego, it might have been tough watching the team he was supposed to anchor soar through the roof without him. Today, Brand says he is about winning. And, lately, Brand has watched a lot of winning: While he sat for 16 games with a dislocated right shoulder, the Sixers, after a 1-4 West Coast swing, went on a seven-game winning streak and finished 9-7. Brand, who signed in July for $80 million over five years, hasn't played in a game since Dec. 17. Before his injury, the Sixers were 11-14; Brand was averaging 15.9 points and 9.8 rebounds a game.

Greg Norman's ego got the best of him, and it might have cost him the Masters championship. The Australian, known as the "Great White Shark," got hungry at a crucial point yesterday and opened the way for Jack Nicklaus. Norman was the leader when the day began, stumbled midway through, but came on strong in the pressure-packed finish with four straight birdies to grab a share of the lead. All he needed on the final hole was a par to face Nicklaus in a sudden-death playoff.

The constant pats on the back, the endless attention, the pile of awards - Cherrise Graham could live a happy life without them. Really. Which makes Archbishop Carroll's Graham, The Inquirer's Main Line and Delaware County girls' basketball player of the year, somewhat of an athletic rarity. She is the star athlete without the attitude; the athlete with the type of personality that makes friends, coaches and acquaintances gush over her. "That's the last thing [a big ego]

"What we need now is someone who will really discipline us, someone to show us who's boss. " This remark was made a few days ago by a member of a West Coast orchestra in a conversation about the merits of the group's new music director. It's not the kind of statement that many orchestra players would admit making, nor the sort of thought that many listeners might expect musicians to have. The concert stage isn't generally regarded as an arena for power struggles. Musicians look like a fairly genial lot, after all, especially when they're performing.

More years ago than I like to admit, I worked on Capitol Hill, thus gaining the opportunity for a close look at the U.S. House of Representatives. It was a fascinating study in diversity. There were huge people like Tip O'Neill and Rogers Morton and petite people like Carl Albert and Shirley Chisholm. There were theatrical people like Dan Flood and Roger Zion and shy people like Bill Barrett and Bob Nix. There were patricians like Peter Frelinghuysen, blue-collar guys like Earl Landgrebe and country boys like Carl Perkins.

THE WORLD is full of people whose egos are bigger than their accomplishments, but we don't know of a city with a higher per capital number of puffed-up chests than Washington, D.C. - especially at 545 Seventh Street SE, otherwise known as the U.S. Capitol. Yet, what inflates must also deflate, and this week we're witnessing the air going out of two of the biggest gas-bags in Washington. First, on the Republican side, is the retreat and surrender of former House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.

Like last year's album, I Am . . . Sasha Fierce, Beyonc? Knowles' current tour is devoted to the idea of dual personalities. There's sweet, vulnerable Beyonc?, and then there's her take-no-prisoners alter ego Sasha, who sports a titanium "roboglove" on one hand to signify her strength and machine-like precision. Even the musicians in her all-female band, Suga Mama, come in multiples: two keyboard players, two drummers, three apiece of horns and backing singers. The only trouble with Sasha Fierce's duality is that two sides are hardly enough to contain all of Beyonc?'s personae, which may be why the title of her I Am . . . tour leaves the sentence provocatively unfinished.

Brace yourself. OK, now unbrace yourself. Unnamed Source, who gets around, tells Us Weekly that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, who revealed their romancelet only a scant month ago, are getting "serious. " Ego plus ego equals eek! They're talking "getting rings," it says here. (What, we're on a merry-go-round now?) This is not really a story, not a sniff of evidence there's anything at all here, but the faux(?) couple(?) are said to be "talking marriage. " Dizzying, ain't it? A romance that may not be, escalating to an engagement that might be, for a wedding that shouldn't be. Whatever the heck is going on, if KK really wants to become Mrs. KW, first she needs to get her gorgeous, talent-free self divorced from basketballer Kim Humphreys.

The rich stories involving a golem - a fictional Jewish guardian imbued with the dangerous power to protect at all costs - make perfect sense in light of Jewish history. A golem is like a security blanket, but much scarier: It provides comfort but also must fight oppression. The most famous golem story - they are all tales, with golem springing from an ancient Hebrew word that means a shapeless form - is set in 16th-century Prague. In the world-premiere play called The Golem, which Ego Po Classic Theater opened Thursday night with an experienced cast and unwavering sincerity - there's a neat twist.

A federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania Health Secretary Eli Avila alleges that, in a cafe snit over an egg sandwich, he barked, "You don't know who I am. " For my money, Avila's greater offense is presuming a fry cook - or anyone - would care. That's because Avila, a supremely qualified doctor, lawyer, and celebrity look-alike (see Gru, from the animated movie Despicable Me ), toils in state government. In star-blind Pennsylvania, of all places. Avila may fancy himself a public-health rock star, but he's a bureaucrat.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Your daring mood will be amplified by the opportunities of the day. Your Halloween alter ego: a risk-taker extraordinaire. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You have a connection to the land and the spirit of the Old West. Your Halloween alter ego: an American Indian, a cowboy or cowgirl, or a country-music star. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). You'll be in an expressive if not rambunctious mood. Your Halloween alter ego: a reality-TV star. CANCER (June 22-July 22)

Former head coach Ray Rhodes called it the "Pro Bowl glide," interspersing the phrase in several places with his favorite adjectival emphasis. Rhodes wasn't right about very much as the Eagles came apart under his guidance, but he could sniff out a team that thought more of its abilities than the evidence on the scoreboard would support. After three straight losses in which the Eagles played well enough to build a lead, then poorly enough to lose it each time, this suddenly looks like that kind of team.

Question: One of my dearest friends has been living abroad for the past three years teaching English. I am so proud of her for all she's accomplished, and so thrilled she's been able to see the world. The problem is, every time she's returned home for summer vacations, I've noticed she thinks a lot more highly of herself, and it's not a healthy sort of confidence so much as a big fat ego. It's "her way or the highway," and I always used to think of her as so easygoing and understanding.

CANASTOTA, N.Y. - Aspiring authors are always urged to "write what you know. " It thus probably made sense for a struggling actor and screenwriter named Sylvester Stallone to crank out a story about a down-on-his-luck boxer who caught lightning in a bottle and proved to the world he wasn't just another bum from the neighborhood. Not that Stallone - who will be inducted here tomorrow afternoon into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (non-participant category) - ever actually boxed, but just like Rocky Balboa, the South Philadelphia pug he created, he was from the wrong side of the SEPTA tracks, so to speak, and on an express line to nowhere.

In 1971, Henry Kissinger said: "Power is the great aphrodisiac. " Two years later, he pumped it up: "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. " Since David first set eyes on Bathsheba, powerful men have been doing foolish sexual things in a sybaritic salsa across the world's pages. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger admits to having a child, by housekeeper Mildred Baena, threatening his marriage. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned Wednesday as head of the International Monetary Fund, is indicted on charges of sexual assault and attempted rape.

IT SOMETIMES seems you can't swing a Fender Telecaster guitar without hitting a casino lounge "cover" band. But of all the groups that supply sounds for gaming hall patrons by performing the music of recording artists, none is quite like Almost Angels , since 2008 the attraction at Ego Lounge inside Trump Taj Mahal. Not just another collection of musicians playing rock and pop hits, Almost Angels is unlike anything Atlantic City has ever seen. "We're a really hot cover band.

The intense theater philosopher and poet Antonin Artaud lived in France during the first half of the last century and created a concept for a "theater of cruelty" that would mimic a chaotic natural order. EgoPo Classic Theater is into that concept this season, and through the weekend is presenting its take on Artaud himself. Audiences know little about Artaud (pronounced art-OH), but he fascinates some theater artists - among them, four directors including Lane Savadove, the artistic chief of EgoPo.