News John can use ...

As you know, dear readers and only friends, I'm a newspaper copy editor.

Between local copy and whatever's on the wire, chances are the other copy editors and I will be looking at dozens of stories while we lay out the paper over the course of an evening. You'd figure at some point, a dude would stumble across a story that affects him personally. You know, something that hits him right where he lives. But it doesn't always happen.

On Tuesday night, I was working on the lifestyles section and came across a vital nugget of information in a wire story.

What was it? A foolproof way to save for an early retirement? Some simple change I can make to live a healthier lifestyle? Well, no.

In hindsight, the headline didn't really suggest that anything in the story would appeal to me ...

ROBERT DENIRO TESTIFIES IN DISPUTE OVER DESIGN OF HIS NEW YORK CITY HOTEL

The story in a nutshell: Basically, De Niro and a herd of other investors own a swanky hotel that opened up in Tribeca in April, and they're trying to convince a group of city commissioners that they shouldn't have to do a complete remodeling of a penthouse suite just because it didn't match up with the original plans.

Really, none of this should interest me at all. I've never been to New York, so it's not like I know my way around Manhattan, much less Tribeca. And why should I give a hoot about a ritzy hotel where the rooms start at $625 a night?

Well, in the eighth paragraph, the story mentions that a bona fide celebrity came to De Niro's aid: none other than actor-director Ed Burns, who has been a fixture on my fecal roster since the afternoon of June 7, 2003, when he married the most awe-inspiring supermodel ever to walk the earth -- Christy Freakin' Turlington.

Oh, Christy. I realize that aside from the fact we're both carbon-based lifeforms, we really don't have much in common. And sure, my chances of sweeping you off your feet may have improved greatly if you knew I existed. (Come to think of it, maybe that was an ace up my sleeve. But I digress.)

Still ... Ed Burns? You married Ed Burns? Really? Argh! All my dreams of being a trophy husband dashed! DASHED!

What was I talking about again? Right ... this fancy-schmancy hotel.

So anyhow, Mr. Wonderful himself, Ed Burns, went before the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission on De Niro's behalf on Tuesday to tell them the hotel's design doesn't stick out like a sore thumb in Tribeca.

Here's the quote from the story:

"For me as a lay person, the architecture is beautiful," said Burns, who lives across the street from the hotel.

So what exactly did I learn? Well, if I ever decided to get my act together and head down to New York, I could stalk Christy Turlington. Now I know where she lives! Right across the street from the Greenwich hotel in Tribeca!

You can almost hear her lawyers working in shifts to draft a pre-emptive restraining order, can't you?

UPDATE, 2:35 P.M.: Of course, hours after I mused about Christy Turlington's lawyers getting all litigious on me, I stumbled across this story. If it isn't one thing, it's another, right?