Anything for a buck

La Jolla — One of La Jolla’s most august and well-heeled institutions is throwing a fund-raising party inspired by the classic 1970s porno movie, Debbie Does Dallas. A flyer for the September 6 bash, “Debbie Does Disco,” put on by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, announces that “Everyone at MCASD scores when your pom-poms fly!” It continues: “After the sun sets, MCASD invites you to put on your boots, tease up your hair, and two-step over for some wild and naughty antics at Debbie’s Disco.”

The invitation, which features a facsimile of the poster for the movie, goes on to warn that admission to the racy affair is limited to “ladies and gentlemen over 21.” The event is part of a bigger fund-raiser on the same night called Monte Carlo Does Dallas, billed as the museum’s “annual gala fundraiser.” Tickets start at $650. The Debbie portion is $50 for museum members, $75 for nonmembers. But those tapped-out La Jollans whose subprime mortgages have gone into default needn’t fret: according to the small print at the bottom of the invite, city law mandates that “no purchase is necessary to participate in the casino party, which is open to the general public.” According to the museum’s IRS filing for 2006, the latest available, the Monte Carlo event grossed $428,485 that year, netting $199,842; the salary of museum director Hugh Davies was $305,834. … Yet another highly paid administrator at UCSD has gotten a hefty raise. This time it’s engineering dean Frieder Seible, whose annual salary was boosted a whopping 25 percent, or $65,200, to a total of $326,100. The university justified the increase by saying that Seible has just completed a “stellar five-year review” and helped raise “$240 million ($40 million more than originally planned) in UCSD’s recent $1 billion fund-raising campaign.”