IN A TYPICALLY oblivious news moment, the puppeteers of Avenue ...

Is there a more p.c. thought than "Everyone Is a Little Bit Racist"?

That's enough to get me down to Atlantic City for some cutting-edge entertainment from a bunch of old men. As part of their retro remodeling, The Sands is investing in the "Legends of Atlantic City" show through August 17. "Dirty Old Men of Atlantic City" would be a little more appropriate, but that phrase went out of fashion around the time that the headliners last saw their 50th birthday.

Nobody expected these guys would live much longer then, either. After all, The Treniers were singing about poontang back when Ted Nugent was a toddler. Claude Trenier is 84 years old now, and he can still pull off the synchronized hand motions that looked so sharp in The Girl Can't Help It. He's also got a believable leer when he croons about how he "saw her snatch/Her suitcase from the window."

Freddie Bell?who's old enough to have beat Elvis to the white-boy spin on "Hound Dog"?gets off to a scarier start with a discofied "I've Got You Under My Skin." That's just the warm-up for a genuinely fearless lounge extravaganza. He's fearless about cracking Alzheimer's jokes to a crowd even older than he is, and his ode to impotence (sung to Tone-Loc's "Wild Thing") is worthy of Weird Al. Then he remembers to note that Louie Armstrong sang "Mack The Knife" in schvartze.

On the other hand, Bell can assume that his audience gets the joke when he does an ace impersonation of Gabby Hayes. That's my kind of crowd.

And then there's the miracle of Sam Butera, about to turn 76 and blowing his sax like a true jazz legend?which he is, but you'd have to leave New York City to see him treated that way. "They just won't come up with the money there," he later explains, which is why he's happier running off to Sweden to perform with James Brown or longtime friend Van Morrison. Yet Butera puts on a great show for Atlantic City, paying tribute to his glory days with swing legend Louis Prima?although he notes that the only thing he got from those years was a cock in the ass."

Actually, he uses the Italian phrase for "a cock in the ass." That sounds classier.

Then it's back to Manhattan, where all the talent has to be young and beautiful?except for The Lady Bunny, who's actually looking better than she has in ages. And I say that with some authority, having attended one of her birthday parties about 20 years ago. Sadly, we're both too senile to remember what year that was.

Bunny may not have the lungs of Sam Butera, but she has the gams of a gal half her age. That alone is a pretty good reason to attend her birthday party at Plaid. It would usually be the only reason, since this is the kind of event best left to sniveling sycophants at Paper. Lady Bunny, however, is also a great throwback to classic bawdy humor, as heard by her fine rendition of "The Pussycat Song" a few years ago.

I don't even mind contributing to the latest coming of Wigstock, returning August 23 in compact form. Longtime fans might still want to know that Bunny's now working a lot more blue. "The older I get," she explains, "the more it seems I better go for the laughs." She remains an old-fashioned girl, though. Her new act?as previewed at the club?mainly serves as a one-woman episode of Laugh-In.

Incidentally, Lady Bunny isn't impressed with being compared to The Treniers or Sam Butera. She's never heard of them. But those old guys would like her spirit, especially when Bunny finds out their heyday was in the 1950s: "I'm not that old, fucker!"

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