GET NASTY… Ah, the good ol’ days (in June) when Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado was riding high off his recent appointment to the state post and Prop. 14’s victory. At the time, Maldo said he wasn’t going to attack Gavin Newsom, his opponent for the lieutenant governor’s gig in the November race, over the San Francisco mayor’s support for gay marriage. “My issues are going to be jobs, reforming government and protecting education funding,” he told the Weekly. “Education is still my top priority.”

And then the race got tighter. Asking any Republican politician to try to resist bashing S.F. is like asking Snooki to give up spray tans, Bump-Its and tequila for 24 hours: It can’t be done.

Maldonado played the “S.F. values” card at the recent GOP convention in San Diego with his “Naughty, Naughty Newsom” video (on YouTube), which begins with – and repeats incessantly – Newsom’s now-infamous “whether you like it or not” gay marriage growl and accuses the mayor of “cheering for gay porn.” Seems Maldonado’s having second thoughts about taking the high road. But even Squid’s gotta admit, gay porn’s a whole lot sexier than reforming government and funding education.

COCKAMAMIE SKETCH… Speaking of man parts, Squid was shocked and a little bit titillated by a recent work of art on Scribble Hill, the Seaside dune that doubles as a free billboard at the Fremont Boulevard/Highway 1 ramp. Squid was on Squid’s way to the Watsonville Pride celebration Aug. 22 – hoping to catch a glimpse of Gavin, or perhaps Maldo in drag – when Squid came upon the looming rendering of male anatomy etched into the sandy slope. Squid would like to give credit to the person who had the balls to create it, but the initials “A.S.” are the only clue. Did Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pay a recent visit to Seaside?

SOAKING IT IN… Next to tawdry talk and sexting, Squid’s favorite topic is Squidself. So Squid was ecstatic with last weekend’s BLUE Ocean Film Festival – which, naturally, featured a cephalopod on the cover of its glossy program. If landlubbers are finally taking the condition of the sea seriously and devoting five action-packed days of panels, films, art exhibits and parties on the varied topics of oceans, maybe there is hope for those above the water’s surface.

Squid was particularly cheered by the Best of Festival win of Bag It, a documentary about the plastic plague poisoning our seas and our bodies. Single-use plastic bags should be illegal – and almost were, with the near-passage of AB 1998, California’s proposed bag ban. But Senate Republicans, mercenaries for the chemical lobby, suffocated the bill in the Legislature’s final tense hours Aug. 31. Guess they didn’t attend BLUE.