People and Events

Yippie eye-ay, yippie eye-oohhh, garbage riders in the sky!

Maybe they haven’t become figures of legend yet, but the Bureau of Sanitation’s drivers were, after all, truckin’ in the first-ever Los Angeles Road-E-O Friday at the Bishop Canyon Landfill in Elysian Park.

Thirteen contestants, none of whom were thrown from their mounts, competed in such events as “Alley Backing,” “Parallel Parking With Obstacle” and “Rear Dual Tires Between Two Lines.”

Trash barrel lassoing and wild dog roping, however, weren’t on the program. In fact, perhaps for the sake of spectators and judges, the trucks weren’t carrying their usual cargo. “We’re emphasizing safety, not the loading process,” said bureau official Bill Knapp.

The winners--Robert Mathis (rear-load trucks), Ronald Lee (side-loaders) and Jesus Jiminez (front-loaders)--will climb aboard their buckin’ rigs in the regionals in San Diego next Friday. (The nationals are in August in Baltimore.)

Knapp plans to relocate next year’s Los Angeles Road-E-O to Dodger Stadium. No word on whether the Bishop Canyon Landfill will make a stink over the move.

KFI radio disc jockey Al Lohman bettered the course record for the Los Angeles Marathon Friday morning. Of course, he accomplished it in an automobile just barely.

Traveling along the marathon route between Exposition Park and Hollywood, Lohman sped the 26.2 miles of surface streets in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 8 seconds. Last Sunday, Martin Mondragon of Mexico ran the same distance on foot in 2:10:19 to win the other marathon.

The disc jockey’s feat, upholding the local tradition of brave quests by radio personalities, brought back memories of the attempted capture of Santa Catalina Island by Dick Whittington (then of KGIL) and the invasion of Great Britain by KABC’s Ken & Bob in order to throw “The First Annual Lady Di Bridal Shower.”

Lohman said his time would have been faster, “but I had to stop at a liquor store to buy some cigarettes.”

Songwriter Dave Zink thinks it’s a shame that sidewalk dancer Elaine Anderson has halted her daily 5 p.m. act at the corner of Main and Temple streets downtown because she can’t find a parking place.

Zink, pointing out that Anderson gave us the chance to “laugh at rush hour . . . to distance ourselves from this life we have created,” has penned “Lunar Light” in her honor.

Maestro, if you please:

Lady dancin’ in green tights

And a parasol

Down by the courthouse

On the sidewalk -- at midnight

She knows what she’s doin’

The chopper turns, beats down, zeroes in

And while she is framed, in the glowing

White moonspot

Say lady -- why you dancin’

She says -- I’m dancin’ cause it’s bright

Under that moon tonight

She says -- I’m dancin’ cause my belly’s full

Of Lunar Light

When last we heard from adventuresome pianist Sandra Tsing Loh, she was serenading rush-hour commuters on the Harbor Freeway by playing atop a downtown parking structure. “Spontaneous demographics,” she titled it. Now she’s taking her act to the parking lot of the Hollywood Roosevelt.

There, in what she describes as a parody of promotion, or at least a semi-parody, she will begin pounding the ivories at 10 a.m. March 25 while an assistant stationed overhead sprinkles down $1,000 in one-dollar bills on her.

Loh, who says it’s her own money, has invited out-of-work actors, striking screenwriters and other members of the public to scramble for the bucks. “The (Roosevelt’s) valets are welcome too,” she added.