E-Mail This Article to a Friend O Ben, where art thou? BY CHRiS WRIGHT

TUESDAY, July 27, 2004 -- Far be it from me to gripe about getting free booze and ossified hamburgers, but, I have to say, what the fuck? Too many of these so-called "VIP" DNC shindigs end up being as celebrity-laden as my bathroom after I’ve taken a big plop. I mean, Tom Daschle, really, how many parties did you not show up at yesterday? Then there’s Ben, who’s been cozying up to Katie Couric the last couple days, and who bailed on the -- and I quote -- "Bowling, Pool, and Cocktails With Ben Affleck" party at Jillians today.

"He stopped by," said one of the volunteers standing outside the club.

"What, for like three-and-a-half minutes?"

"Something like that."

This wouldn’t be so bad if the line to get into Jillian’s hadn’t stretched all the way to Framingham. Ben’s a hot commodity in Boston right now, bigger than all the Democratic governors put together, and it was simply heartbreaking to see all those fresh-faced ticket holders munching on cudgel-like hot dogs and sipping their drinkies, casting casual eyes about the club in furtive searches for the strong-jawed one. Because, no matter how you look at it, a game of free pool isn’t going to hack it -- not in this town, not this week.

But maybe I’m just bitter. After all, I spent an entire day yesterday tramping around in search of celebrity, braving security checks and retina scans and random DNA tests, and what do I get? Dick Gephardt, that’s what. Not that Gephardt’s chopped liver, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that when I got back to the office yesterday evening, someone e-mailed me with the news that Affleck and Couric had been spotted cozying up at Leo’s, the divey bar in Harvard Square. Next thing you know, someone will write to inform me that Howard Dean and various members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers were spotted helping to clean the filters at the Nut Island Sewage Treatment Plant, while I’m wasting my time wandering from celebrity party to celebrity party, eating way too many crispy little crab cakes.

Then today, after a barren, Affleck-free afternoon at the pool hall, I get this: "You just missed Bill Clinton. He was at the Alpha Omega store in Harvard Square buying a Rolex." It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. A vast, left-of-center conspiracy.

To read Mike Miliard's account of watching Bill Clinton buy said watch, click here.