The San Francisco Giants are in town to play the Mets for the first time this year, and Barry Bonds, 10 home runs shy of breaking Hank Aaron‘s all-time home run mark, was supposed to meet with the media before last night’s game. Here’s a Connecticut beat writer’s detailed account of what happened next:

Instead of giving the assembled media that numbered close to 100 a few minutes of his precious time — which the Giants had announced would happen via an e-mail — Bonds gave us just another reason why he is one of the most disenchanting figures in the game. He bopped into the Giants clubhouse, wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, around 4:30 p.m., acting larger than life, softly singing to some music that was blasting out of his headphones connected to the iPod that was strapped to his right arm.

Standing guard in front of Bonds’ locker were Giants public relations members Blake Rhodes and Matt Hodson, making sure that no reporters got close to Bonds. No one, it seems, ever gets close to Bonds. Rhodes leaned in toward Bonds and said something regarding the meeting with the media.

Bonds shook his head no.

A few seconds later, Rhodes gathered the reporters together.

“Barry is not going to speak today,” Rhodes said.

This, of course, from a guy who last year dressed up as Paula Abdul and — even worse — made reporters endure an episode of the Tyra Banks Show before taking questions from reporters.

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It lasted but a week. The Associated Press’ experimental blackout on news about Paris Hilton is over.

The AP’s Jocelyn Noveck delivers the sad news:

So you may have heard: Paris Hilton was ticketed the other day for driving with a suspended license. Not huge news, even by celebrity- gossip standards. Here at The Associated Press, we put out an initial item of some 300 words. But it actually meant more to us than that. It meant the end of our experimental blackout on news about Paris Hilton.

So what did we miss during “blackout week”? The AP bravely didn’t mention Hilton’s birthday party (“at which a drunken friend reportedly was ejected by security after insulting Paula Abdul and Courtney Love“), nor a promotional visit to Puerto Rico to hawk her fragrance. But her name did slip into copy “unintentionally three times, as background: in stories about Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and even in the lead of a story about Democrats in Las Vegas.”

One question, AP: How can “Paris Hilton” just slip in “unintentionally three times”?

He may be banned from all 29 Jeffrey Chodorow restaurants, but the Penthouse Club welcomes Frank Bruni with open, uh, arms

It’s no secret the New York Times‘ much lambasted food critic Frank Bruni is said to be gay. And he’s rather out about it in today’s piece from the Penthouse Club, in which he and some buddies go to sample the steak while, he says, being less susceptible to other pleasures of the flesh. Still, he does sample a desert known as a “buttery nipple”:

“It involves one of the women straddling your lap, tilting your head back, pouring a combination of Baileys Irish Cream and butterscotch schnapps down your throat, and squirting Reddi-wip into your mouth. It costs $20 in cash. Note to the newspaper’s expense auditors: I don’t have a receipt.”

Meanwhile, in a review of not food but TV, Virginia Heffernan tells us that American Idol‘s Paula Abdul has a “mom I’d like to sleep with” vibe.

We’re blushing.