This Proposition to Ben Affleck Might Prevent Another ‘Gigli’

A classified ad that has been running in The Times’ “Personals” proposes this deal:

“Ben Affleck, in exchange for $185,000 which I need to purchase a modest home in St. Paul, I will personally screen all movie scripts that you are sent, to ensure your longevity in the movie industry.”

Seems like a small price for Affleck to pay to avoid making any more turkeys like “Gigli.”

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O, Venice: My nephew Nick Stein was chatting with an artist on the Venice boardwalk and asked him his name.

“Oh,” the man said.

It wasn’t an exclamation. It was his name, though spelled slightly differently.

The artist explained that he had legally changed it to, simply, “O.” As you might imagine, the new moniker caused some complications. The Department of Motor Vehicles wouldn’t accept it, informing him that he had to have a first and last name. So, O compromised.

He showed Nick his driver’s license. It listed the artist’s last name as O and his first name as O.

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Guide to Adventurous Dining: I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I’d rather do after the holiday season than think about food.

Accordingly, I offer these specials du column (see accompanying):

* An offering of lamb that sounds difficult to slice (from David Chan of L.A.)

* Some fish that evidently think only of themselves (Terry Cobb of Sun City)

* Some wiggly Christmas fare for those tired of turkey and ham (Willianne Perry of Altadena)

* And, finally, taste-tested by yours truly, not in a jet airliner but in a Santa Ana restaurant, some poultry. It had a good flavor, though one wonders how many people would order something with a title that smacked of airline food.

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Adventurous dining (cont).: Airline chicken, one website informs me, is “a boneless, skin-on breast with the first wing bone attached.” Interesting allusion to the airline industry. Of course, I’d hate to fly in a plane with only one wing.

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miscelLAny: Televangelist Pat Robertson’s latest wacky declaration was his suggestion that Israeli leader Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

Such controversy is nothing new for Robertson. Fifteen years ago, after a fire at Universal Studios, Robertson mused that the fire could have been “the judgment of God” because the studio had produced “The Last Temptation of Christ,” considered blasphemous by some.

I tend to think, though, that God would have realized that Universal had already suffered enough at the box office with that flop.

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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.