Crockery

San Diego — A member of the Spanish Village art colony in Balboa Park is making New York tabloid headlines. Thirty-six-year-old ceramic artist Lisa Karmazin -- who produces "colorful and whimsical cups, saucers, trays, and wall sculptures," according to her Web posting -- got involved with movie star Harvey Keitel, 63, about two years ago. After the birth of their son, Hudson, Keitel left Karmazin to marry Israeli filmmaker Daphna Kastner, and Karmazin filed a paternity suit in New York family court, even though Keitel had acknowledged he was the father and had been paying child support. Last week the pair were at each other's throats in a Manhattan courtroom. "I called him from the hospital in labor," Karmazin told the judge. "He said that he couldn't make it, that he would be there in a couple of days. It took him six months to see his son." Two weeks before she gave birth, on September 25, 2001, Karmazin testified, she called a Toronto hotel where Keitel was staying, and a woman answered the phone. "I was very upset. I didn't know what was going on." Keitel came up with their son's name, she added. "I thought it was fitting, since he was conceived on Hudson Street," she said, making reference to Keitel's home in Tribeca. Later, she said, he tried to get her to change the name because it was "too personal." The New York Daily News reports that at Keitel's wedding to Kastner, when a justice of the peace asked anyone in the crowd objecting to the marriage to speak or forever hold their peace, Keitel's wise guy buddies, including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Christopher Walken, reached into their jackets for "their piece" ... Motivational guru Tony Robbins wants to tear down a big ocean-bluff house with six bathrooms and an eight-car garage on La Jolla Farms Drive and build an even bigger one. According to permit applications on file at city hall, the new Robbins domicile would consist of 15,000 square feet on 2.5 acres.

Bush league San Diego lawyer Mike Aguirre, who has taken on everyone from Chargers owner Alex Spanos to Padres owner John Moores, is now going after none other than George W. Bush. Aguirre told the Washington Post last week that he had obtained records under the Freedom of Information Act regarding Bush's 1990 sale of stock in Harken Energy Co. months before Harken reported big losses. Securities and Exchange Commission staffers had ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support an insider-trading allegation against Bush, who claimed he had done nothing wrong. But Aguirre discovered a letter in SEC files from Harken's outside lawyers cautioning Bush and fellow directors against selling shares if they had negative information about the firm's prospects. The letter arrived in SEC offices on August 22, 1991, one day after the SEC decided not to proceed against Bush, according to the Post. "There was a failure to deal with the most important piece of evidence," observed Aguirre ... Today's meeting of San Diego's ethics commission is set to include a closed-door discussion about settling its illegal campaign contribution case against city councilman Byron Wear.

Murphy's library Now that the election's over, insiders are carefully watching to see whether or not the state will come through with the $33.5 million in library-bond cash Mayor Dick Murphy says is needed to build a new downtown library and branches. Murphy has been pushing the library plan ever since his inaugural speech in January 2001. A year ago in July, the mayor proclaimed the library would soon be reality. "It's time to move forward. The bottom line is a world-class city deserves a world-class library." His city council ally Jim Madaffer added, "This is finally, actually, going to happen after years of false starts." But little did happen and again this August, Murphy proclaimed it was time to proceed, and Madaffer again chimed in, "What we have before us is truly a library system for the 21st Century." So far, though, the promised city bond measure and fundraising drive remain bottled up in the depths of city hall. The roughly $300 million cost of the plan relies heavily on a large issue of city debt, coupled with private fundraising efforts. The missing link is that state grant money, to be competitively awarded by a special committee sometime after the election. A key member of the group is Democratic state senator Dede Alpert, who has reportedly come under heavy pressure from Murphy to deliver the money to San Diego without delay ... Alistair Irvine, the 25-year-old son of Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor of England, has been sentenced by an Orange County court to 16 months behind bars for stalking the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend, reports the Independent of London. Irvine was in Southern California for treatment at a San Diego clinic for crack addiction when he met the girl at a gym in Newport Beach.

Contributor: Matt Potter