By J.R. Taylor

As Janeane Garofalo tells the story, she’s leaving home for the Howard Dean fundraiser when another woman is standing at the elevator. This woman looks at Garofalo’s Dean button–and another with a peace symbol–and says, "I guess I’m just a proud George Bush Republican." And Garofalo wonders, "Why didn’t she just say, ‘I’m an asshole?’"

The crowd cheers, and–oh, wait. I forgot the most important part. Janeane specifically notes that the woman is just "some dogwalker who doesn’t live in the building." Because, you know, it would be awful for Janeane Garofalo to live in the kind of building that allows Republicans.

There’s nothing elitist about the good leftists gathered for tonight’s Dean fundraiser at Avalon–and what is it about Dean’s NYC machine that keeps embracing blight? Earlier, there was Dean speaking before a backdrop of the graffiti that used to be a plague on this city. Now it’s a fundraiser at the former Limelight, which remains a disaster to both nightlifers and those who live nearby.

Then again, Dean doesn’t live in our building. Thankfully, neither do most of these Dean supporters. It’s the kind of crowd that jeers Bushisms while supporting a candidate who doesn’t know Iraq is in the Middle East.

Truth is a quick casualty, too. Al Franken’s soon spouting enough lies to warrant my leaving without even seeing Gloria Gaynor. I head off to the opening of the new Toys in Babeland. It’s still not my kind of crowd, but at least there are fewer androgynous freaks.

Fortunately, I take comfort in knowing that the next night offers an appearance by a great American. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is in town to promote his new autobiography, My Dinner of Herbs. As the last straight arrow of 77 Sunset Strip and the star of nine seasons of The F.B.I., Zimbalist was a true icon of the establishment amongst the loony tumult of the 60s.

Nothing’s changed, either, as Zimbalist baffles the moderator at his Makor appearance by declaring his admiration of J. Edgar Hoover. "I was very fond of him," Zimbalist notes, and he’s got no patience for the host suggesting that Hoover would show up at Hollywood parties in drag.

"It’s so outrageous," says Zimbalist, "that it’s not worth discussing." And he’s right. Later, as the rain outside gives U.N. protestors the first bath they’ve had in weeks, I’m sitting with Zimbalist in a fine apartment on the Upper East Side. He’s still one of the great squares of all time, witty and self-deprecating and proud to maintain some standards.

There’s a reason that his childhood friend Mel Ferrer cast Efrem as the ultimate voice of self-sufficiency in 1967’s Wait Until Dark. As loving husband Sam Hendrix, Zimbalist insists that blind wife Audrey Hepburn make her way to him even over the dead body of hipster psycho Alan Arkin.

"I love that ending," says Zimbalist, "because it’s saying–without any words–that she’d survived because she was made to be self-sufficient. Had he come running up to her, it would have said that she couldn’t take care of herself. A lot of people didn’t like that ending, of course. Tough love isn’t popular with the masses."

Despite Zimbalist’s own popularity, he was still cruising his beloved Sunset Strip as young kids began to sport Che Guevara t-shirts. "I thought it was very sad," says Zimbalist. "My politics were formed by living in Russia in the early 30s. I knew what communism was, and not the myth of communism. Students still get told these wonderful lies about history. They become automatons, all sprouting the same thing. That’s very depressing–as it would be if they were all conservatives, too."

The talk isn’t just about politics, though. Zimbalist is happy to sit and gossip about the great actors he’s known. It’s mainly the kind of gossip where Zimbalist brags about how loyal his old friends were to their wives. As mentioned, he was part of a changing world. This further becomes apparent when I mention the autobiography of 77 co-star Edd "Kookie" Byrnes–specifically Edd and Roger Moore joining up for a ménage a troi.

"Oh, my," Zimbalist replies. "I enjoyed my single days very much, but that wasn’t really my kind of thing. There were many stories I could have told that might have hurt people, I guess–but that’s not the book I wanted to write. Edd really wrote that? Oh, my."

jrt@nypress.com