Tabs

The Playboy mansion isn't a playground, but a squalid, doggie-doo-infested dungeon. And Lord of the Manor Hugh Hefner ain't a nice guy, but a tyrannical monster who treats his girls, whom he plies with Quaaludes, like prostitutes. So claims former occupant Izabella St. James in a new tell-all excerpted by the Brit tabs. St. James says Hugh's girls had to live in dirty rooms with "disgusting . . . old worn and stained" mattresses. Hef's room also was filthy, she says, its carpet covered in dog poop.

HOW SMART are those Eagles? According to a Paul Domowitch report in last Thursday's Daily News, to build its new stadium, the team got a favorable loan from the NFL; the NFL gets a cut of the team's revenue. They got Lincoln Financial to pay $139 million in naming rights. In return, Lincoln gets to emblazon its name on the new stadium. The team got Pepsi, Sovereign Bank and others to pony up $30 million to be "founding partners. " In return, the companies get to be "founding partners" and high exposure as sponsors.

O.J. MADE THEM DO IT. If you don't know that O.J. Simpson had wild sex and drug parties for Los Angeles cops, that his father died of AIDS or that Nicole and Kato were lovers, it's because you're not one of the millions of inquiring minds who read supermarket tabloids each week. The Simpson case has been manna from heaven for the tabs. The big three - National Enquirer, Star and Globe - have each posted dramatic circulation gains since the murders, with the Enquirer sucking in about 3.5 million readers a week.

Members of the House of Representatives have bounced checks at their private bank and run huge tabs at their exclusive restaurants - but those are only two of the many perks that go with the job. They get private tennis courts and swimming pools and gyms. They get their own doctors on call, free and right down the hall. They have a private ambulance just outside the door. They get privileged parking rights at airports. They receive generous pensions. They even get free frames for pictures of themselves - and anyone who has seen the inside of a congressional office knows they have a lot of pictures of themselves on their walls.

You hardly ever saw Roberta Walker without a surprisingly large stash of aluminum can pop-tops in her purse or a plastic bag. "She collected tabs for the Ronald McDonald House" in Camden, said Pastor Nate Howard, of the Vineland Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. "She's known all over [Vineland] for that. " The Ronald McDonald House uses proceeds from the sale of the tabs to defray costs for out-of-town families that spend the night while visiting their children in area hospitals.

It took five years, but students at Ridge Park Elementary School in the Colonial School District have collected one million flip-tops from soda cans, and an area hospital will benefit. Third-grade teacher Bernice S. Grunes initiated the project five years ago, accumulating tabs for a friend who was collecting them for a charitable cause. She asked her students if they would like to help. "It wasn't until the tabs began to accumulate that I thought it would be a good idea to collect one million," said Grunes.

AS WE ALL KNOW, nothing saves a marriage on the brink like a baby - Britney Spears meet Kevin Federline - so we're not sure what to make of a report in the upcoming Star that Jessica Simpson is about six weeks pregnant. Husband Nick Lachey is reportedly so happy he must be convinced he's the father. "She's also hanging on Nick like they're on a second honeymoon," says a source. " . . . And she's eating like a horse," says another source. That's sweet. But the baby better not look like Bam Margera or Johnny Knoxville . . . or Afleet Alex.

Carlton Haselrig, the oft-troubled former Pro Bowl guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was charged yesterday with drunken driving and weapons violations after driving his Jeep down a seminary's steep, stone steps. Haselrig, 28, was charged with violating the federal firearms code and for drunken driving, police said. A companion, James Bonner, 35, of Pittsburgh, was also charged with drunken driving, according to police. Haselrig looked haggard and dazed as police led him from the police station in the city's East Liberty neighborhood, where he was initially held.

Poor Gloria Herran. This pleasant, retired Defense Department worker from the Northeast has been zapped three times. Three times over the last three years, some no-good parasite has scraped the registration sticker off her license plate. One time, if you can believe it, the sticker had been on there for only an hour. "I was so mad," Herran said. "It's very aggravating. " And these days, it's very common in the Philadelphia area to see license plates that have been cut, or stripped of stickers.

Kim Basinger has threatened the New York Times with legal action if it doesn't retract statements about her bankruptcy leading to hardships for the 450 residents of Braselton, Ga., the town she bought in 1989 for $20 mil. In an article Sunday, the paper noted how bankruptcy laws allow the movie star to continue to live in luxury while the people of Braselton - now just another Basinger asset - fear becoming homeless. Her lawyer blamed the town's straits on a declining real estate market plus a decision by the pension fund managing the investment not to develop the property.