Emergency Botox in Malibu? It’s Not Meant as a Laugh Line

For your Only-in-Malibu sub-file, Nanci Vernon read in the Malibu Chronicle that a local urgent-care center has a botox specialist.

No joke. That’s comforting news, I suppose, for someone whose wrinkles show up suddenly a few hours before an important cocktail party.

The Rat Pack lives! Ex-Angeleno Jeff Bliss noticed an article with a Southern California ring -- ring-a-ding-ding, actually -- in the online version of England’s Sun newspaper. It began:

“An actor who plays Frank Sinatra in a West End play was caught drunk driving -- by a policeman called Dean Martin.”

Attention, bird-listeners: In a local newspaper, Byron Myhre of Palos Verdes Estates learned of an opportunity to hear the grunting of the California gnatcatcher (see accompanying).

Guess those speedy bugs make the poor bird run all out ...

Talk about low-key advertising: On a trip up north, Dan Kaplowitz of Whittier chanced upon a town that didn’t seem very exciting (see photo).

He didn’t visit it.

Boring (cont.): The town was named after resident W.H. Boring.

Obviously the townsfolk had a sense of humor -- or didn’t want Californians moving up there.

Such a deal: Moving farther afield, Wendy Mollett of Studio City espied a debatable offer at a shop in Egypt (see photo).

Something strange going on: A while back I mentioned that Brooklyn-born Eddie Raheb of Arcadia received a letter from the U.S. Marine Corps offering to transform him into an “elite warrior” -- the only problem being that Raheb is 78. The Marines wanted to make use of his Arabic-language skills. Raheb had no idea how the Marines knew about his Arabic-language skills.

Since then, I’ve heard from Donna Attallah of Long Beach, who wrote: “My husband received the same letter recently -- and he celebrated his 96th birthday in August!”

And an 81-year-old woman and her 80-year-old sister say they got the same letters.

I wonder if the names might be crack intelligence passed on to the Marine Corps from the Department of Homeland Security.

miscelLAny: Laurie Golden reports that “a representative from Home Depot in Woodland Hills just called me regarding a check I wrote for the installation of a new dishwasher. The message was this: To process the check, Home Depot needs to have the date for the ‘expiration of my birth.’ ”

Maybe the company figures that everyone in Southern California changes their birth dates, not just movie stars.