please don't take my sunshine away


Tessa Sutton, Past Glaciation, Present Foundations, 2006

* A truly odd communication:

"August 1, 2007 -- Pulitzer prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler sent out an e-mail yesterday announcing that his wife had dumped him for billionaire Ted Turner.

"'Put down your cup of coffee or you might spill it,' Butler, 62, wrote to his graduate students and fellow professors at Florida State University in Tallahassee. 'Elizabeth is leaving me for Ted Turner.'

"Elizabeth is Butler's wife of 12 years, Elizabeth Dewberry, 44, an author in her own right, who might be attracted to Turner, 68, because the media mogul resembles the grandfather who molested her as a child, Butler writes in the shocking e-mail.

"'She has spoken openly in her work and in her public life of the fact that she was molested by her grandfather from an early age, a molestation that was known and tacitly condoned by her radically Evangelical Christian parents,' Butler wrote. 'And it is very common for a woman to be drawn to men who remind them of their childhood abusers. Ted is such a man, though fortunately, he is far from being abusive.'

"However, Turner, who has been married three times, is hardly an ideal partner. 'She will not be Ted's only girlfriend. Ted is permanently and avowedly non-monogamous,' Butler writes. 'But though he has several girlfriends, it is a very small number, and he does not take them up lightly and he gives them his absolute support when he does.'

"The jilted husband reveals Dewberry nearly died in March from an intestinal blockage while she was traveling with Turner in Argentina. The white-haired mogul also took Dewberry as his date to the May premiere of 'Georgia Rule,' which starred Turner's ex-wife, Jane Fonda.

"'Rumors will soon be swirling . . . so I want to tell the full and nuanced story,' Butler wrote. 'This sort of thing can get wildly distorted pretty quickly.'

"Butler, whose books include 'Tabloid Dreams' and 'Mr. Spaceman,' told Page Six he showed Dewberry his e-mail before sending it off and, 'she was weepingly grateful to me for it. It's full of love and compassion.' He said he was surprised one of the recipients then leaked it to several Internet bloggers. 'Elizabeth and I are not Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston,' he told us.

"A rep for Turner had no comment."

* A beer can Mustang.

* The Caribbean kicks off their west coast shows tonight in Denver at the Hi-Dive.

* "Rock won't eliminate your problems, but it will sort of let you dance all over them." -- Pete Townshend