Remember during the Great Depression, how down-and-out Americans would follow the exploits of the rich and famous to forget their own troubles?

Dressed up like a million dollar trooper,
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper.
Super-duper!

Come, let's mix where Rockerfellas,
Walk with sticks, or umbrellas,
In their mitts.
Putting On The Ritz.*

In Utah, we don't have celebs, of course, so we have to settle for living vicariously through our high-stepping legislators who took $170,000 in lobbyist gifts last year including meals, golf rounds and Jazz basketball tickets.

In the Senate, newly elected Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack is pretty super-duper with $1,800 in gifts, managing to edge out Sen. Curt "Open Hand" Bramble who grabbed $1,000. Sen. Mark Madsen, who has accomplished very little aside from introducing bills to liberalize gun laws, took a grand too.

Fun fact: Utah Republican Party chairman Stan Lockhart, who coincidentally is also a lobbyist for Micron, husband to Rep. Becky Lockhart and BFF to Bramble, is beloved on the Hill for "spending every dime for a wonderful time" and showering Jazz tickets on everybody.

Any resemblance between Gene Wilder's dancing partner and Bramble is purely coincidental.

*Irving Berlin's Putting on the Ritz.