Tattle: Is Slater circling to land again at JetBlue?

THE FREAKIN' FLIER, the JetBlue Plane-iac or the self-described "Bag Nazi" - take your pick of monikers - wants his job back with JetBlue.

Yes, Steven Slater, the flight attendant who executed one of the coolest Bleep-yous to The Man, who inspired working folk everywhere, who chuted his way off a plane with two beers in hand into awesomeness, is backtracking off his middle finger felt 'round the world.

The Belle Harbor, Queens, resident has his fingers crossed that he can work for JetBlue once again and is in talks with the Queens District Attorney's Office to work out a plea deal, his lawyer, Howard Turman, told the New York Post yesterday.

Maybe 15 minutes isn't paying what it used to, especially with this economy.

Slater "wants to return to a normal life" and has been in talks with Queens prosecutors since his arrest Monday at his home after an altercation with an allegedly rude passenger on a Pittsburgh-to-New York flight. Here is how it supposedly went down: She stood up to grab her bag while the plane was taxiing at JFK Airport. He told her to sit down. She didn't and her bag hit his head. He asked for an apology. She didn't give one and then dropped the F-bomb on him.

Then he got his hands on the plane's public address system: "To the [bleep] who just told me to [bleep] off, it's been a good 28 years!" Dude then deployed the emergency slide, grabbed some brewskis and slid off the plane.

"For 20 years I thought about it," he told the New York Times about activating the chute. "But you never think you're going to do it."

In other Slater developments:

* Surprise, surprise, the media found an ex-wife, Cynthia Niethamer, who from all published accounts absolutely adores the Queens hero. Although he is gay, she said, "I think love does not have a gender bias. I think he loved me when he did."

And we think she turns to the ex for fashion advice.

"He'd love his own fashion line. He's a brilliant merchandiser," Niethamer told the New York Post, speculating on other careers for Slater. "Actually, we met working at JCPenney when we were 16. He's absolutely stellar at it."

The pair were married in 1991 for less than a year and have a teenage son, the Branson, Mo., woman told the paper.

Niethamer also said she "does not believe he was rude to anyone. . . . I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this passenger was a nightmare."

* Turns out the uppity traveler, as described by witnesses on the plane, is believed to be 21-year-old Carnegie Mellon student Hilary Baribeau, The Post reported. But she denies any smack talk, just civil conversation with Mr. Slater.

"The only thing I heard was some guy a few rows behind me I think opened his compartment early when they were taxiing to the gate," said Baribeau, of North Haven, Maine.

"I saw the male steward get up and say, 'Please sit down and wait,' and then the female stewardess said, 'Please wait, please wait until the light has turned off.' "

Baribeau said she didn't even know Slater activated the chute.

Fantasia picked wrong state

Aspirin ain't gonna make troubles or a potential lawsuit go away. Fantasia Barrino, released Wednesday night from a Charlotte, N.C., hospital after taking an overdose of aspirin and a "sleeping aid," may be looking at a lawsuit by a woman who claims the "American Idol" winner had an affair with her husband, Fantasia's lawyer told TMZ.com.

Gena Graham Morris, the lawyer, attributes the possibility to North Carolina's "archaic" domestic laws. The idea arises "out of the notion that women were once property that could be stolen like televisions," Morris said. "It is a comical irony that in 2010 women can sue women for stealing husbands."

Paula Cook filed for divorce from Antwaun Cook, whom Fantasia admitted to seeing "off and on for 11 months," according to People.com. Paula Cook cited in legal papers their "adulterous affair."

In other Fantasia news, the Idol winner's Monday-night overdose isn't going to interfere with the Sept. 19 premiere of her VH-1 reality show, "Fantasia For Real," the New York Post reported.

The overdose was accidental, according to Team Fantasia, and may be reflected in the show's run, the channel said. "At this moment, it's too soon for us to speak to how these events will change the show and/or if anything will be reworked for the [season] premiere."

Tattbits

* The Guy on theLawn Chair is at it again: Mel Gibson's father, the crotchety crotch Hutton Gibson, who appears to dog anything that's in front of him, said he believes Pope Benedict XVI is a homosexual, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Of course, he was appearing on a show called "Political Cesspool Radio Program," where he stated that "half the people there in the Vatican are queer." The genes don't jump in this clan.

* No matter who you are, politician or rock drummer, seems that America's lightning rod, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, is never far from your mind.

Marky Ramone, the second drummer for the legendary band The Ramones, is a big fan of the Snookster, but criticized "Jersey Shore's" portrayal of Italians.

"It just shows a very condescending way about Italian people and what they perceive," he told Paper Magazine. "I go to Italy every year, and there's that other side, the painters, the great actors . . . and then there are people who glorify them as gangsters."

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. John McCain appeared on a radio show and said he thought Snooki, 22, "might be too good-looking to go to jail."