What's two extra meatballs between friends?

I just want to let readers know that over the weekend, I was not the reporter who accepted kickbacks, gifts or superfluous meatballs.

The Sons (and Daughters) of Italy held a spaghetti and meatball fundraiser on Saturday which was attended by Senator Bob Dutton, Mayor Don Kurth and our columnist David Allen. While someone like Dutton, who has sway in the state budget process and could influence whether our taxes will be increased this year, was in attendance, it was Allen, who got the celebrity treatment by getting four meatballs while everyone else got two.

"What are you trying to do, bribe him?" the Italian American Councilman Sam Spagnolo asked the chef.

Yes, I believe a Daily Bulletin reporter was being bribed and that reporter was not me. I just want to make that clear in case anyone might get a white man in his 40s confused with an Asian woman in her 30s. You know how all reporters look alike.

Councilman Rex Gutierrez wasn't alarmed by this special treatment.

"It looked like he needed it, he looked kinda frail," Gutierrez said about the columnist. "He could use some meat on his bones."

I think Gutierrez is trying to be complimentary because he's eyeing an office position in the Italian American service group despite being Mexican American.

"I can pass for a dark Sicilian," he said.