Businessman Donald Trump is out of the presidential primary contest but the humor of his candidacy will live on.

Had he run, would his campaign theme song been “Hair?” (Full disclosure: I stole that line from the reader who sent me this poster.)

Trump's campaign poster?

When I’m having a good day, or sometimes when I’m down, I sometimes give myself a gift on the limited budget available to me as a reporter: a 99-cent splurge on new iTunes song for my iPod. And so as the primary election winners strut and the losers lick their wounds, here are a few suggestions for songs they might want to add to their playlists:

Meg Whitman, the billionaire former eBay CEO who spent $71.1 million out of her own pocket to buy the Republican gubernatorial nomination: “Money” by Pink Floyd, or “Killer Queen” by Queen

Steve Poizner, buried under Whitman’s $71.1 million and a 37-percentage-point deficit in the election results: “Wipeout” by the Surfaris

Chris Kelly, who spent $12 million out of pocket to lose the Democratic primary for Attorney General to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris by 17 percentage points; PG&E President and CEO Peter Darbee, whose company spent $46.4 million on the unsuccessful Proposition 16; and Mercury Insurance Group President and CEO Gabriel Tirador, whose company spent $15.9 million on the unsuccessful Proposition 17: “Can’t Buy Me Love,” by the Beatles

Carly Fiorina, who as the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate has had the last laugh after people snickered at her “demon sheep” ad attacking rival Tom Campbell: “Sheep” by Pink Floyd

Abel Maldonado, the appointed incumbent who – despite winning the GOP’s nomination to try to keep the lieutenant governor’s office – knows his party wants him and needs him but there ain’t no way it’s ever gonna love him: “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” by Meat Loaf

Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor who won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor but might have his own words from 2008 on same-sex marriage come back to haunt him in November’s general election: “Like It Or Not,” by Madonna

Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles District Attorney who broke from California tradition by being a moderate capable of winning a Republican primary: “Middle of the Road,” by the Pretenders

Tom Torlakson, the Antioch Assemblyman who placed second and so will go to a November runoff – at which time he’s likely to pick up a lot of the Democratic votes that went yesterday to third-place finisher Gloria Romero, along with stronger Democratic turnout overall – against former school district superintendent Larry Aceves for state Superintendent of Public Instruction: “Time Is On My Side,” by the Rolling Stones

Mike Villines, the Clovis Assemblyman and former Assembly Republican Leader widely berated within the GOP for OKing a budget deal with tax hikes last year, who now is eight-tenths of a percentage point – 11,204 votes – behind political unknown Brian FitzGerald, an Insurance Department attorney from Napa who raised no money, in the GOP primary for Insurance Commissioner: “Living on the Edge” by Aerosmith

Brian FitzGerald, who might want to ask himself, “Well, how did I get here?” : “Once in a Lifetime,” by the Talking Heads

Leno

Steve Lesher, the driving force behind Newsmakers, the annual Lesher Speaker Series, may have been exaggerating just a tiny bit when the event’s inaugural speaker, funny man Jay Leno, mentioned the Lesher Center for the Arts on the Tonight Show.

“He talked about how it is the greatest venue in all of California, and how appearing at Newsmakers was the high point in his career, hands down,” Lesher wrote on the LesherSpeakerSeries.org blog.

But then Steve came to his senses.

“Well, not exactly.  It was cool, however, to hear him mention ‘Walnut Creek, California at the Lesher Center for the Arts,’ when introducing his guest, Dana Carvey, who is appearing here in town at an upcoming charity benefit.”

Click here to watch the segment.

I have great readers who send me stuff including this link to Cosmo’s web site, where you can see the 1982 nearly-nude pictures of Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass.

My goodness. And here I thought Cosmo was just a place to find out the latest advance in mascara technology.

But the link got us to talking here in the newsroom about which of our local elected officials we never want to see naked.

It’s an exhaustive list. I won’t bore you with their names as you will probably have your own ideas.

And I’m pretty sure they feel the same way about us.

A colleague of mine scoured the central Contra Costa Halloween costume stores this week and could not (insert gasp here) find a Richard Nixon mask.

This is not right. We can’t have Halloween without bands of trick-or-treaters roaming the suburbs wearing Tricky Dick masks.

Instead, Times photographer Karl Mondon found this Veep Dick Cheney mask, which doesn’t even look that much like Dick Cheney. (Bernie Madoff, maybe? Or Rush Limbaugh?)

At least it was cheap: On sale for $7.97.

The Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton masks cost $19.99 each, a tad pricey for a prop. At $29.99, the Sarah Palin mask was way too dear for the paper’s paltry illustration budget.

What about George W. Bush? No mask of him either.

But there’s a big shipment coming next week to the Halloween Spirit stores. All is not lost just yet.

Turkeys have invaded the Shadelands business park in Walnut Creek where the Contra Costa Times’ offices are located. Times columnist Gary Bogue tells me a flock of six turkeys has been hanging out in the neighborhood for a few months.

Hmmm. Is this where out-of-work-reporters go?

A turkey feeds in an open lot across the street from the Contra Costa Times offices in Walnut Creek. No word on whether he has applied for a job in the newsroom or not. Photo by Lisa Vorderbrueggen/Contra Costa Times

Where can I buy a can of this?

"The Barack & Michell Obama Paper Doll & Cut-out Book" by John Boswell, Randy Jones and Susann Ferris Jones

People send all kinds of stuff to the newsroom and every once in a while, something fun shows up on my desk.

In June, St. Martin’s Press will release its Barack and Michelle Obama paper doll and cut-out book by John Boswell and illustrated by Randy Jones and Susann Ferris Jones.

Dress up your very own buff Obama and a shapely Michelle in their election night attire, inaugural clothes,  Kenyan costumes or their vacation in Hawaii with mix-and-match accessories.

I have my First Pair sitting on my desk right now (see picture below) wearing their “First Day on the Job” outfits, complete with the president’s Blackberry. (Inexplicably, the authors didn’t give the president a cigarette to hold because, really, he should quit.)

Boswell has collaborated on books such the New York Times bestseller “French for Cats” and produced the “First Family Paper Doll and Cut-out Book.” Jones’ work has appeared in the New York Times and the National Lampoon and Ferris-Jones’ work was featured in “The Cat’s Night Before Christmas” and “French Cats Don’t Get Fat.”

The First Pair on Lisa V's desk wearing their "First Day On The Job" attitire

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.(Note to readers: This is a joke.)

The new element, Governmentium(Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years; It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

If you do, the California First Amendment Coalition has a (tongue-in-cheek) deal for you. Read on.

Psst: Wanna buy Barack Obama’s new email address?

By Peter Scheer

What would you pay to have President Obama’s new private (and secure) email address?

Two weeks ago I wrote in this space about efforts by Barack Obama’s aides to get him to surrender his Blackberry, on which Obama had relied to escape the bubble that descends on leading presidential contenders, not to mention elected presidents. I argued that the aides’ concerns about legal and security constraints were overblown and urged Obama to keep the Blackberry—and to use it, while President, to stay in touch with ordinary citizens.

I am not at liberty to reveal how I know that President Obama read my article, which was reprinted in several publications.  Suffice it to say that I am now in possession of the Chief Executive’s new, private email address, the one reserved for family members and close personal friends. (Two additional email addresses have been created for use by, respectively, Cabinet level officials and campaign supporters who contributed $200,000 and above.)

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t betray a confidence, especially a presidential confidence. But these are, as we know, “challenging” times, not least for the California First Amendment Coalition (“CFAC”), a cash-strapped nonprofit working overtime to defend freedom of speech and the public’s right to know about its government.  Besides, President Obama is a big proponent of open government, as shown by his recent pronunciamento on the Freedom of Information Act.  He will, I’m sure, understand that extreme measures in the defense of government accountability are no vice (to paraphrase a rather less successful presidential candidate).

Accordingly, I have decided to divulge Obama’s private friends-and-family email address, the one that reaches him on his belt-mounted Blackberry, to …(click here to go to First Amendment site.)