TALE OF TWO LOVE STORIES… Don’t be fooled by Squid’s outward clamminess and general bitterness. Squid’s still a sucker for romance. When it involves a famously unlucky-in-love conservative icon like Condoleezza Rice, two robust local links and a fair amount of flimflammery, all the better. 


One man’s unrequited rapture for Rice came first (Condi’s condo chemistry came next), as detailed in a mockumentary called True Bromance screening this weekend at Carmel Art & Film Festival. Devin Ratray, most famous as Buzz in Home Alone, stalks Condi from her birthplace of Birmingham, Alabama to her hometown of Denver to her home in D.C. while soliciting advice from “bros” like Entourage lead Adrian Grenier (“You should Guantanamo her ass a little bit”) and Monster Rain comedian Jim Norton (“You get her, you have me come over… ”).


But where the chubby, would-be lover blew it was not in the corny serenade in front of the White House or the “I’m a Rice guy” button, but not tracking her to her latest stop, Pebble Beach, where Rice recently acquired a Spanish Bay Golf Links-adjacent, multimillion-dollar, five-bedroom “condo” (it’s bigger than most homes and has an elevator and an ocean view). There he could’ve mined the connection she found with the home, where she lingered for hours on her visit, ogled the huge photos of the kids on the walls and generally, well, fell in love.


BAY VIEW… Speaking of bays – Guantanamo and otherwise – Squid knows Leon Panetta looms large on the Monterey landscape, but who knew he would loom large over one fisherman who cast his line in the federally protected Elkhorn Slough? The state slapped Octavio Alvarez Birueta with a misdemeanor after game wardens found a bat ray and a trio of tiger sharks in his boat. When he was sentenced last week by Superior Court Judge Albert Maldonado, Birueta also got a lesson on the history of the slough – its status as part of one of the most important waters in the world, how the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary came to be and the role then-U.S. Rep. Panetta, played in its creation.


Did Birueta know who Panetta was, the judge asked? Panetta was the guy who killed Osama bin Laden. (Well, he didn’t actually kill Osama – he ordered SEAL Team Six to do it for him, Maldonado explained.) After telling Birueta he was lucky not to face federal poaching charges (or, by extrapolation, the wrath of Leon) the judge slapped him with a $4,000 fine, 90 days in a work program and barred him from fishing between Point Sur and Santa Cruz. Squid hopes Birueta isn’t asked to pick up trash anywhere near the Panetta Institute. Sylvia might put a cap in his ass.