The white guys in View get the good stuff. I get the poo-poo stories. : The Do-Do King

I was being interviewed the other day on the telephone by a college student who said that writing a newspaper column must require a precise command of semantic skills and an ability to convey thematic messages in a quick and concise fashion.

I said, “Huh?”

“You have to say what you mean and mean what you say,” she said snappily.

I said, “Oh yeah, right.”

“Deciding what subject to tackle must necessitate thought and evaluation, weighing the importance and immediacy of one issue against the other, measuring broad impact against personal preference.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“For instance, Mr. Hernandez, have you selected your column topic for Thursday?”

“The name is Martinez.”

“Of course.”

“You sure you got the right person?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “The assignment is to interview a minority journalist. You’re a minority?”

“Si. “

“Good. Now, about your Thursday column?”

“Yeah, well, I’m writing about this guy who picks up doggie do-do.”

Silence.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sort of the Poo Poo King of San Fernando Valley. Zeke Zeleznikar.”

“He picks up doggie . . . do-do? “

Actually, Zeke and his partner will pick up any kind of do-do, but the primary thrust of their business are the messes left by dogs. Their motto is, “We pick up where your dog leaves off.”

I met with Zeke the other day in his tiny Studio City apartment, which is dominated by a 500-pound bronze mermaid lying on a table near the front door.

Zeke is an artist and used to hustle his wares out of a van on Laurel Canyon Boulevard until the cops said you can’t sell naked mermaids on a public street and chased him off.

Later Zeke gave the mermaid to Santa Monica because the city seal is a mermaid, and Zeke figured he might get a little ink out of the donation, if you know what I mean.

“They loved it,” Zeke said, standing in the middle of his apartment.

He was wearing an aloha shirt, jeans, cowboy boots and a dirty white smock. He looks a little like Dr. Johnny Fever on the old “WKRP in Cincinnati” television show.

“I thought the deal was closed, and then one day I got a letter saying the decision was reversed because the mermaid was ‘unfit for public sighting.’ ”

“It was the breasts,” Maria Maucere said. She lives with Zeke. “They didn’t like the naked breasts.”

Zeke sighed. “I should’ve put a bra on her.”

Artistically, things have not gone well for Zeke. He has made only one sale in the past 18 years, a portrait for which he was paid $5.

As a musician, he hasn’t fared much better.

In 1981, Zeke organized a band he called Trash, for reasons he felt were perfectly clear.

“What I did,” Zeke explained, “was to pick up a bunch of drunk musicians and keep them sober long enough to make a record. We fed them and bathed them and wouldn’t let them out of our sight until the job was done.”

The song was called “Wrong Number,” and although everyone liked it, no one bought it.

Meanwhile, he and Maria and their dog, Ziecher, had to eat. Ziecher means rabbit hunter in Croatian.

Zeke kept them going with odd jobs but wanted work of a more consistent nature that would bring in money but not take up a lot of time, thus freeing him for artistic pursuits.

That’s when he discovered the do-do business.

“I was reading a magazine story about a guy in Omaha who was making a fortune picking up poo-poo,” Zeke said. “So I says, why not?”

He brought in the guy across the hall, Evan Freeman, and together they organized Pooper Scooper, distributing cards and flyers throughout the Valley.

The flyer features a kind of Thurberesque dog, which, Zeke said, he drew as a self-portrait years ago. I didn’t ask him to explain.

For about $40 a month, Zeke and Evan will come to your house once a week, pick up the poo-poo and take it away. Evan wears a top hat during the calls and Zeke an artist’s tam. They put the do-do in bins and garbage cans.

They began their company eight weeks ago, Zeke said, and already have two houses and a 120-unit apartment complex.

“It’s bound to grow,” Zeke said. “There is do-do everywhere.”

The idea is not to make a fortune for themselves, he added, but to be in a financial position to borrow money from a bank to make a movie.

“A movie about what?” I asked.

“About an artist trying to making money,” Zeke said.

When I explained all of this to the college student who was interviewing me, she said, “That’s what you write about?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s what minority journalists do. The white guys in View get the good stuff. I get the poo-poo stories.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Trust me,” I said. “I will write it for Thursday’s paper and attempt to communicate the artistic significance of the do-do endeavor in terms that will convey its thematic message quickly and concisely, not to mention semantically.”

“Thank you,” she said coolly, “it’s been a pleasure.”

De nada.