UPDATE 4 p.m. Thursday: The Bee is reporting that there is a Bid for new MMA fights at Woodward.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: How time flies. It seems like just yesterday when we were grousing on the Beehive about cage fighting in Woodward Park's Rotary Amphitheater competing against the Woodward Shakespeare Festival's productions at the Theater in the Glen across the road.

Now it's time for a new Shakespeare season. (I frankly have no idea whether any cage matches will be scheduled opposite the Bard this summer, but if they are, I'll be leading the protest against them with bear-baiting stick in hand.) The festival on Thursday night opens a wacky version of "As You Like It" directed by Michael Peterson. It will play 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through July 25.

I have an interview with Peterson in Thursday's Life section about the show, which he is setting in the Summer of Love in 1960s southern California. Here's some more from the interview.

Via Beehive commenter couchlock: My movie colleague and fellow Beehiver Rick Bentley gave the New York Times inspiration for the entire lead paragraph of a story that moved this afternoon on the wire:

LOS ANGELES -- "If Eddie Murphy's career were an injured horse, it would be shot and the carcass buried in the remotest part of the desert to ensure no one ever stumbled upon it."

That harsh sentence, written on June 12 by Rick Bentley in The Fresno Bee in California, is as good an example as any of the prevailing sentiment about Mr. Murphy these days. With two big flops in a row ("Imagine That" and "Meet Dave"), another risky project on the way ("A Thousand Words") and a diva reputation, people seem to be confused. Why does Hollywood keep hiring this man?

Memo to Rick: I wouldn't accept any invitations to Murphy's secluded mountain cabin if I were you.

We don't usually follow the foibles of national politicians on the Beehive, but this story just turned officially bizarre. For days, the media has been speculating about the whereabouts of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. The explanation from his staff was that he was hiding out somewhere on the Appalachia Trail. Now it turns out that he was in Argentina having an affair with a woman he met via email correspondence. The New York Times reports:

Governor Sanford, 49, admitted that he had been in Buenos Aires since Thursday, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had told reporters. In revealing an affair that had gone on for about a year -- and which he said he had disclosed to his wife, Jenny, five months ago -- he said: "This was selfishness on my part."

I think that Sanford may have officially knocked John and Kate off the top of the gossip A-list.

My colleague Heather adds: "That's a loooong way to go for a booty call."

Photo: AP