Notoriously eccentric [Rick Rubin], who co-founded the Def Jam record label as an NYU undergraduate student and later split with his partner Russell Simmons, produced Cash's final five albums and is credited with single-handedly reviving the song legend's career. Rubin got his start producing seminal rap acts like Run-DMC and LL Cool J, then moved to Los Angeles to work with elite rockers like Mick Jagger and Tom Petty, churning out a host of well-known hits in the process.

A SURREAL showdown erupted the other night between drag queens Lady Bunny, Miss Understood and Linda Simpson and the hate-spewing, crackpot Black Israelites during an RNC protest in Times Square. While the wig-and-dress-wearing trannies toted signs reading "Bush is a Drag" and "Sex Change for Regime Change," the Black Israelites ridiculed Bunny as a "devil." Bunny shot back, "The devil made me buy this dress!" The testy trannie also spouted off other zingers at the robe-clad Israelites, including, "Honey, looks like we ain't the only ones wearing dresses!"

MYSTERY still surrounds the case of Kevin Hynes, son of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, who recently resigned as Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro's $128,752-a-year chief counsel after crashing his government car. Pirro suspended Hynes in July after he cracked up his 1997 Mercury Marquis in North Castle and was later secretly driven from the accident site by a colleague in the Westchester DA's office before cops arrived at 6 a.m. An empty Heineken bottle was found inthe car. Hynes was fired and the colleague who hustled him away was forced to retire. Now, according to the Park Slope (Brooklyn) Courier's Erik Engquist, there's a new wrinkle to the case. It seems that both the driver-side and passenger-side air bags in Hynes' car were deployed in the crash, suggesting that someone weighing at least 80 pounds was sitting next to him when the accident occurred. But it may be a moot point. Since Hynes didn't turn himself in for six days, cops could not determine his blood-alcohol content at the time of the wreck. He was simply charged with leaving the scene of an accident.