This musical enterprise bows out

Was it a coincidence or another unfavorable economic indicator? Ken Ayeroff of Beverly Hills notes that the Troubadour club recently announced the cancellation of a gig by a group called Big Business.

The dancing protester

I had a flashback when I read Catherine Saillant’s story in The Times about Jennifer Moss, an environmental activist who has the town of Ojai in an uproar. It seems she bicycles through town wearing only pasties and a G-string (see photo).

I couldn’t help but think back to L.A.’s own Eileen Anderson, a onetime dancer and model who danced in brief outfits on weekdays at the corner of Temple and Main streets for more than 15 years (see photo).

Anderson was protesting her treatment by Secret Service agents who seized her while she was trying to dance an Irish jig for visiting presidential hopeful Hubert Humphrey in 1972. (Possibly jinxed, Humphrey failed to win the Democratic nomination.)

Anderson declared herself a “public landmark” and once, after Mayor Tom Bradley left the country on one of his many trips, she asked if she could use his parking place because he seldom did.

Dancing protester (cont.)

Eventually Anderson began running for office. She tried 17 times without success, but one campaign was noteworthy for her proposal to disperse the smog with giant fans. Anderson delivered her plan in song:

Dig a hole in the mountains

Put a tunnel through

Put some wind behind it

And blow some fresh air through

Blow away the smoggy-og-og

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She brought a breath of fresh air to the local political scene.

miscelLAny

Speaking of characters, the Wave newspaper took a look back (so to speak) at “The Naked Man of Huntington Beach,” a gentleman who would walk around in his birthday suit inside his house (with the windows open) and occasionally outside his house, neighbors complained.

The city voted to ban public nudity, and the Naked Man moved elsewhere in the county (he declined to say where). A former neighbor spoke for many when she commented: “You don’t want to be spending a couple million dollars on your house and find you have a neighbor that’s naked.”

No, no, no.

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083; by fax at (213) 237-4712; by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012; and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.