Malibu

Most of the snickering about Martin Sheen, the honorary mayor of Malibu, Calif., has washed out to sea. Past titular mayors of unincorporated Malibu have been required to do little more than preside over the annual charity chili cook-off. Sheen had more in mind. He assumed "office" by announcing, "I hereby declare Malibu a nuclear- free zone, a sanctuary for all aliens and homeless, and a protected environment for all life, wild and tame!" It could have been the exclamation point, or the two alls, but Malibu hasn't had as momentous a day since Johnny Carson, a local, met his fourth wife while strolling there on the beach.

This week's cinematic setback to race relations, "Malibu's Most Wanted," features Jamie Kennedy's incredibly irritating Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character - a privileged white kid who thinks and acts like a ghetto gangsta rapper - from the young comedian's WB network show, "JKX: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. " To say that B-Rad is hardly tolerable for more than the length of a TV comedy skit is to state what should have been obvious to everyone responsible for this full-length feature.

It's autumn. The leaves are turning crisp, and it's time for Malibu to catch on fire. Again. You know the scenario: TV crews rush from one smoke-filled house to another, interviewing the owners of $3.5 million, ocean-view, hideaways. "How do you decide what to take with you and what to leave behind?" a newscaster asks a famous self-help book author. "I take the things that can't be replaced and that coordinate with my new color scheme," says Melanie Feelgood. She gazes tearfully at her 30-foot leather sofa, her grand piano and her teenage sons, Flip and Buster.

She may talk like a hoarse Sylvester the Cat, but Barbara Walters rules the airways. And now, she's set to pounce on the publishing world. The ABC-TV celeb interviewer, who's chatted with the rich and famous for more than 40 years, has reportedly signed a $5 million deal to write her memoirs for Miramax Books. The deal eclipses the $2.7 million advance that Miramax paid former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "It's an extraordinary deal for an extraordinary book," said Walters' literary agent, Morton Janklow, who did not disclose specific terms.

Hours before he was going to enter the favored entry in Saturday's $3 million Breeders' Cup Classic, trainer Bobby Frankel couldn't sleep. Every few minutes, he'd get up to stare out his window. But he wasn't thinking about his horses. "It was like a big orange ball out there," Frankel said yesterday. "It lit up the sky. It was an inferno. " "It" was the brush fire-turned-firestorm that lit up Malibu Tuesday night. Frankel lives in a house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, just a few miles south of Malibu in Pacific Palisades.

A young man is stripping on the dance floor. His hips are gyrating fiercely, as if trying to keep an invisible hula-hoop aloft. Slowly, he starts to unbutton his shirt. In the audience, 100 middle-class women cheer, whistling and standing in their seats. They are mostly young, mostly married, thoroughly lustful. "Now don't you think he's been with his clothes too long?" the emcee asks. A deliciously naughty, "YEAH!" Tuesday nights starting at 9, five muscular, tanned men take turns stripping down to their G-strings at Carney's City Line, the otherwise staid bar at 4190 City Ave., under the College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Thousands of Californians fled to higher ground yesterday as the latest in a series of violent winter storms battered the state, flooding homes, stranding motorists and sending rivers overflowing their banks from Los Angeles north to the Oregon border. At least five deaths were blamed on the storm, which dumped up to 17 inches of rain in 48 hours in some places and spawned 60 m.p.h. winds that toppled redwood trees north of San Francisco. "Somebody help us! We're losing everything!"

Rising star Anne Heche is out and about and grooving on her lesbian poster-gal role. The 27-year-old actress is eager to talk about her romantic relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres. It's the rest of us who get tongue-tied, she says. On a press tour to chat up her latest work, Wag the Dog, she's noticed that "not one person will actually mention Ellen's name in a question. " Heche, who won an Emmy in 1991 for her role in the soap opera Another World, says she enjoys carrying the rainbow banner: "It's pretty cool for me to be able to stand up for being whatever you want to be. That's quite an honor, actually, and I love that people say that I'm a person who stands up for being open and truthful.

ESTHER ROLLE IS ON A ROLL 'It's nice for a change to be working - there was quite a drought for a while," says Esther Rolle, currently in previews for "A Member of The Wedding" in New York. The former star of TV's "Good Times" series can be seen on film (with Denzel Washington in "The Mighty Quinn") and cable TV (co-starring with Hume Cronyn and Vincent Gardenia in HBO's upcoming "A Month of Sundays"). She just completed a stage run in a revival of "A Raisin in the Sun. " "I hope all this work is going to pay off with people trusting me to do other things," said Rolle, who is currently developing a one-woman show she hopes to have ready by next year.

A reverse-Cinderella confection in which the princess is turned into a maid and not the other way around, Maid to Order takes a pumpkin of a fairy tale and merrily turns it into . . . pumpkin pie. The "princess" bound for defunct royalty is one Jessie Montgomery (Ally Sheedy), a Beverly Hills brat and pioneer who has broken the plastic barrier - that is, exceeded her father's credit limit on one charge-card purchase. Jessie would seem to eat C-notes for breakfast. When her father (Tom Skerritt)

  BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Brandon Graham can buy a couple of beach houses in Malibu with his new contract. The Eagles' top draft pick, who signed a five-year deal on Thursday, will make $22 million in base salary with just under $14 million guaranteed, according to league sources. Graham, the first defensive end chosen with the 13th overall selection, said that he wants to wait until his second contract, however, before he buys his dream home. "I rented a house in Malibu just before I came here and I was just like, 'This is unreal,' " Graham said Tuesday.

When the 2008 Philadelphia International Auto Show opens its doors in about a year, General Motors will likely have lost its status as the number-one automaker worldwide, and Ford its status as the number-two automaker in the U.S. market. The 2007 show opened yesterday, and new cars on display at the Pennsylvania Convention Center through next Sunday will be the chips that decide which company is the king of the automotive world. The experts are betting on Toyota. "Ten years ago, that may have been unthinkable," Jesse Toprak, an analyst with Edmunds Inc., said of the idea of Toyota's surpassing Ford Motor Co. in the domestic market.

Photographs of The Child Suri, whose countenance has yet to be beheld by noncelebs, will be revealed "shortly," more than three months after her April 18 birth. So vows Tom Cruise rep Arnold Robinson, who tells MSNBC.com the Mission: Impossible star "hasn't been reluctant" in the least about showing off his celeb baby to rabid fans and grubby gossipmongers. "They will be making a decision to release the photographs shortly," says Robinson, who adds that the Cruise Team still has to decide (negotiate?

EVEN THOUGH they haven't yet admitted to even a peck on the cheek, it seems that lying no-goodnik Brad Pitt is now shacking up with temptress Angelina Jolie. Both the Star and Us Weekly are reporting Angelina and her two children have moved into Brad's Malibu home. The Star says the couple will split their time between his $8 million California hut and her English estate outside London. "Brad couldn't be happier," a source tells the Star. "I think he considers Angelina's moving in a sign of commitment.

A NUMBER of big-time Hollywood types live on Broad Beach in Malibu. Tattle understands why. They're moments from the Pacific Coast Highway with a view of the Santa Monica Mountains in one direction and a mile-long stretch of California surf outside their doors. This ain't cheap real estate. Alan Latteri can't afford a home on Broad Beach but he figures he has as much right to the sand, surf and sun as any movie mogul, and he's taken his case to the California Coastal Commission.

ROSIE THE Riveter has given way to Sally the Sniveler. During World War II, young Rose Will Monroe was the face of American women in adversity: strong, supportive and resolute against the enemy that threatened our existence. Tens of thousands of Rosies rolled up their sleeves, gritted their teeth and flexed their muscles in factories and shipyards across the land. They made rockets and rifles and bombs and boats. They painted and drilled and welded. When they got home to their kids, they cooked and cleaned and collapsed in bed after praying for their husbands and brothers and uncles on the battlefield.

She may talk like a hoarse Sylvester the Cat, but Barbara Walters rules the airways. And now, she's set to pounce on the publishing world. The ABC-TV celeb interviewer, who's chatted with the rich and famous for more than 40 years, has reportedly signed a $5 million deal to write her memoirs for Miramax Books. The deal eclipses the $2.7 million advance that Miramax paid former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "It's an extraordinary deal for an extraordinary book," said Walters' literary agent, Morton Janklow, who did not disclose specific terms.

ONE MINUTE Britney Spears threatens legal action against the Star for saying she's snorting coke in Miami, the next she gives the mag an exclusive interview. We don't pretend to understand. But here are highlights. On Justin: "He totally made me laugh. " Hey, us too. On booze: Brit's drinks are pineapple flavor Malibu and Amaretto sours. She says she gets drunk after just two drinks. Hey, us too. Unless it's pineapple flavor Malibu at which point we get sick after two sips.

PEOPLE who live in 10,000- square-foot oceanfront mansions shouldn't throw stones. That hasn't stopped Barbra Streisand from lecturing fellow Californians about energy use ("We must make concrete changes in our lifestyles to help solve this energy crisis . . . try to line dry [clothes] . . . only run your dishwasher when it is fully loaded") and lambasting President Bush's environmental policies ("Bush has discouraged energy conservation every step of the way - suing California for passing a law requiring more fuel-efficient vehicles and even proposing a tax cut for SUV owners!"

This week's cinematic setback to race relations, "Malibu's Most Wanted," features Jamie Kennedy's incredibly irritating Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character - a privileged white kid who thinks and acts like a ghetto gangsta rapper - from the young comedian's WB network show, "JKX: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. " To say that B-Rad is hardly tolerable for more than the length of a TV comedy skit is to state what should have been obvious to everyone responsible for this full-length feature.