People and Events
There was, as Gertrude Stein remarked of Oakland, no there there.
Actually, there was a there somewhere, but it was the wrong there.
Greenpeace protesters had a cause but not an effect Thursday when the Culver City company they had targeted for protest--Pott Industry Co.--was not where it was supposed to be.
The investment outfit is partnered with the government of Guyana and another California firm in a waste-incineration plant project that Greenpeace says will produce enough hazardous waste to kill the surrounding tropical foliage and wildlife in that South American nation.
So about 15 Greenpeace demonstrators in skull-and-crossbones-adorned jump suits showed up to shame the company by scattering 2,000 dead carnations and 60 gallons of “blood money”--red-daubed fake cash.
Except they couldn’t find Pott’s doorstep; the office, if it was there, was not marked. Undaunted (“It’s true to character,” groused Greenpeacer Chris Hammerleine), they dumped their expired flora and filthy lucre anyway, near another company on the same floor.
When annoyed employees of yet another company on the floor made their displeasure known, Greenpeace made its peace and cleaned up.
In a city named for a dentist and noted for Johnny Carson, nothing is impossible.
When Walt Disney Co. recently pulled out of its mega-bucks plans for a retail and entertainment center in Burbank, that left 40 unloved vacant acres. What to do?
One builder has proposed putting a spaceship on the property, its interior lined with boutiques for the earthbound shopper. Another thinks a farm would be nice--fruit and vegetables at a profit. (“Burbank Farms--Furrows and Farrows.” Has a nice sound to it.)
They are entertaining proposals, but the city manager says the city will not be entertaining proposals until next month.
Mr. T is home again--wherever home is.
An Encino woman walking her two dogs between rainstorms last weekend found a footsore, haggard-looking but “gorgeous” lost German shepherd.
The dog began following her, so she took him home and checked his tag. Mr. T, it said his name was, and gave a phone number--Jackson Productions.
The woman lives not far from the lavish Jackson spread--as in Michael, Jermaine, et. al.--and figured the dog had fled thence.
Though she called repeatedly, nothing happened, she said. People who pledged to call back did not. Someone even came out to look at the dog, recognized him, but left him at the woman’s home. “First they said it was Joe’s dog, then Michael’s dog, then (a member of Jackson’s entourage’s) dog,” said the woman.
It was five days (and nights, and one torn screen from the storm-panicked Mr. T) before the dog was retrieved. He belongs, it seems now, to brother Tito Jackson.
The woman is still puzzled. “Now I understand why so many people turn away; nobody wants to get enmeshed in somebody else’s problems, and I did.”
Not long ago, when her neighbor found Martina Navratilova’s lost dog, the grateful tennis player “was there in five minutes . . . said she was so glad there are people who care.”
And yes, they have no bananas either.
Rumors winged across town that some Bruce Springsteen tickets--unclaimed, unused, returned--would be on sale at the Sports Arena before Thursday night’s concert.
But those who went to find out instead found this handwritten sign above the arena ticket office window: “No, we have no Bruce Springsteen tickets. Yes, we’re sure.”
