Party Animal

The Phillie Phanatic dances with 3-year-old Erin Kronenbitter during the annual No Greater Love holiday party at the Stadium Holiday Inn. Phillies shortstop Kevin Stocker and several Eagles were among those giving out gifts to children of servicemen and police officers slain in the line of duty.

As Kevin Costner was called Dances With Wolves in the hit 1990 western, Richard Osterweil has given himself an Indian name as well: Stands With Celebrities. In Painting the Town, a wonderful, hilarious documentary screening at International House on Saturday and into next week, Osterweil, a painter, cabdriver and part-time coat-checker at a fancy Manhattan eatery, recounts how he bamboozled his way into a slew of high-society soirees, sidling up to the rich and famous simply to bask in their glow.

Something seems terribly wrong here. Has the world been turned upside down? Has Mike Schmidt taken a cut in pay? Has Moses Malone stopped rebounding? Something is definitely wrong. Jim McMahon doesn't want to party. In New Orleans for a week and he doesn't want to boogie on Bourbon Street. Uh oh. If there is one player among the Patriots and Bears who fits in with life in New Orleans, it's Jim McMahon. He's perfect for New Orleans. Who would you rather spend a night on Bourbon Street with?

Most businesses looking for sales help want "ambitious, aggressive, organized, career-minded, success-oriented self-starters. " But PMA Inc. of Maple Shade, N.J., is looking for "PARTY ANIMALS" to work at its "zoo," according to help-wanted ads that have run daily in a South Jersey newspaper, the Courier-Post, in recent weeks. While there may be a shortage of "ambitious self-starters" in South Jersey, there's an abundance of "party animals," said PMA's 23-year-old owner, Timothy Way. "The first week that we ran the ad, we were getting 150 calls a day. So many people were coming in for interviews, you couldn't move in this place.

You probably already know some of the story. Correll Buckhalter lost three seasons to knee surgeries earlier in his career, and yet he remains a productive member of the Eagles' roster. The Eagles will probably ask for more from Buckhalter tonight against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field because star running back Brian Westbrook is hobbled by an ankle injury that has made his status questionable. There's a part of Buckhalter's story, however, that rarely if ever gets told.

Steve DeOssie is an alcoholic, which means that when he awoke this morning he planned not to drink today. Tomorrow he'll worry about tomorrow. Promises of long-term sobriety he won't make. If he's learned anything after 10 months of counseling, therapy and self-help, it's to face one day at a time. All he knows is, a drop of alcohol hasn't touched his lips since Sept. 30, when he was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for possession of drug paraphernalia. That was rock bottom.

Derek Jeter wanted to say it loud and clear: He is not a party animal. Just 2 hours after officially reporting for spring training yesterday in Tampa, Fla., the New York Yankees' star shortstop planted himself in the dugout at Legends Field, and said he wanted to put owner George Steinbrenner's controversial comments behind. Flashing those neon-white teeth, and shaking his head repeatedly with an aw-shucks expression, the five-time All-Star said he was irritated not at the Boss for questioning his focus in public, but with the New York Daily News for running a back- page headline: "PARTY ON" that portrayed him as a king of the night rather than prince of the Bronx.

Harold Brodkey is the rampaging ego of modern literature, given to such hot-air pronouncements as, "It's dangerous to be as good a writer as I. " This fixture on the Manhattan literary cocktail circuit is a brooding party animal who is in the process of writing Party of Animals, a vast, long- delayed, self-proclaimed "masterpiece" of a novel. But decades ago, before he turned himself into our most famous Lit Twit, Brodkey wrote touching, tiny tales about egos more fragile than his own. Some of them were gathered in 1958's First Love and Other Sorrows, and the title story of that collection has been turned into a dreamily entrancing episode in PBS's American Playhouse series this evening (at 9 on Channel 12)

Supermodel Kate Moss, feeling somewhat less fabulous than usual, has checked herself in to a tony London clinic, claiming exhaustion. Moss, a favorite model of Calvin Klein and other top designers, told London's Mirror she needed some "peace and quiet. " But sources quoted by the paper hinted Moss may have needed some time to dry out as well. "I've been doing a lot of work and too much partying," the model admitted. "I wasn't happy with the way my life was going, so I decided to take a step back and assess my life and future.

Services were held last night for Clarence Chapman, a popular and familar figure at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, who died Saturday. He was 69 and lived in West Philadelphia. Chapman worked for the school for 32 years, mostly in the mail room and as a driver. Everyone knew Clarence Chapman. A good number of students graduated and didn't forget him either. He would get letters and cards from as far away as India and Africa. His wife, the former Christine Bonanni, said students "wrote him and told him what they were doing.

WELL, LOOK who just got interesting! According to Joe McGinniss, author of the soon-to-be-released The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin , the former Alaskan governor, pit-bull hockey mom, vice-presidential candidate and tea-party darling was a wild thing back in the day. In book excerpts printed yesterday by the National Enquirer , McGinniss reveals details of Palin's past that some will find salacious but I find run-of-the-mill....

Do you recognize this man in the white "I'm Keith Fenimore" T-shirt? Is he even somewhat familiar? No. No one gives him a second thought here at Jim's Steaks, which he's picked for the launch of his national publicity campaign. And that is the point. Keith Fenimore's mug is completely unfamiliar, so he considers it the perfect blank slate for his experiment in old and new media. He aims to become the most recognizable person in America. More recognizable than Sarah Palin and Kim Kardashian.

You probably already know some of the story. Correll Buckhalter lost three seasons to knee surgeries earlier in his career, and yet he remains a productive member of the Eagles' roster. The Eagles will probably ask for more from Buckhalter tonight against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field because star running back Brian Westbrook is hobbled by an ankle injury that has made his status questionable. There's a part of Buckhalter's story, however, that rarely if ever gets told.

Horse racing is weeks of anticipation. And sometimes it takes only 73 seconds to come face to face with reality. Vince Curran, the former Penn basketball player, has a lot of friends in the city. When he invited most of them to a tailgate Saturday at Philadelphia Park, many of them were only too happy to accept. "It's going to be the biggest tailgate ever at the Pha," Curran said. When he was told it was also going to be the first tailgate, Curran was not discouraged. A crowd of 60 or so hung out in the parking lot - cooking, drinking, telling stories - until it was time to come inside for the Pennsylvania Nursery, where Double Down Vinman would be the 6-5 favorite against a field of Pa.-bred 2-year-olds.

OK. So at, like, 9:50 Saturday night, the line to the new Old City bar Coyote Ugly - yes, like the movie - was three-deep and stretched half a city block. Anxious patrons pulled jackets tightly over tanks and low-riders to block the chilly night wind. No worries. The wait would be totally worth it once their pointy shoes made it to the other side of those Doric columns. Girls would down shots of Cuervo and Johnnie and shake their booties in the company of hottie bartenders.

Derek Jeter wanted to say it loud and clear: He is not a party animal. Just 2 hours after officially reporting for spring training yesterday in Tampa, Fla., the New York Yankees' star shortstop planted himself in the dugout at Legends Field, and said he wanted to put owner George Steinbrenner's controversial comments behind. Flashing those neon-white teeth, and shaking his head repeatedly with an aw-shucks expression, the five-time All-Star said he was irritated not at the Boss for questioning his focus in public, but with the New York Daily News for running a back- page headline: "PARTY ON" that portrayed him as a king of the night rather than prince of the Bronx.

The Republicans finally ran out of minority groups, so last night they had no choice but to listen to the actual nominee, George "W. " Bush III Jr. IV, who gave an acceptance speech that was pretty much flawless, except for the eight times he referred to the United States as "Venezuela. " Then the convention - which lasted four days, or, if you were actually here, 17 months - came to a dramatic climax, as more than 4,000 Republican delegates and alternates joined together and, in a striking display of party harmony, beat James Carville to death.

CNN founder Ted Turner and his wife, actress Jane Fonda, said yesterday that they were separating but that they remained committed to the long-term success of their marriage. And it was reported on CNN. Turner, vice chairman of Time Warner Inc., and Fonda have been married since December 1991. "While we continue to be committed to the long-term success of our marriage, we find ourselves at a juncture where we must each take some personal time for ourselves. Therefore, we have mutually decided to spend some time apart," Turner and Fonda said in a statement.

Supermodel Kate Moss, feeling somewhat less fabulous than usual, has checked herself in to a tony London clinic, claiming exhaustion. Moss, a favorite model of Calvin Klein and other top designers, told London's Mirror she needed some "peace and quiet. " But sources quoted by the paper hinted Moss may have needed some time to dry out as well. "I've been doing a lot of work and too much partying," the model admitted. "I wasn't happy with the way my life was going, so I decided to take a step back and assess my life and future.

Animals smell, but so do children, says Lynne Grim, who has both in her four-bedroom Havertown home. Furthermore, the skunks, bats, rats (with and without hair), prairie dogs, reptiles, turtles (tortoises, too) and other zoological wonders both domestic and exotic that board with Grim don't kick or yell or scream the way human offspring are known to do - with the exception of Miss Piggy, who squeals when she is lifted off the ground. But who could blame the porker? Most four-legged animals prefer terra firma, Grim told a group of about 60 children and adults recently at the Swarthmore Public Library.