People and Events

Nostradamus’ followers had it wrong, apparently. The May 10 disaster that the 16th-Century seer had predicted for Southern California was not an earthquake. It was a Caltrans promotion.

To push the concept of van pooling, the agency had granted a permit to KIIS-AM and -FM disc jockey Rick Dees to broadcast his show from a Ventura Freeway overpass in Encino Tuesday. A Caltrans planner was a guest star.

The problem was that Dees also offered $100 prizes to the driver of any passing vehicle that he described on the air--if the driver exited and reported to his mobile unit.

Some commuters unfurled banners, stood through sun roofs or waved animals to attract Dees’ attention, acting much like hopefuls trying to get on “Let’s Make a Deal.” Winning drivers were observed cutting across several lanes of traffic to collect their prizes.

The result: A 15-mile backup of motorists, some of whom said their drive time was increased by 30 minutes.

No accidents resulted, but “we were inundated with calls through the morning from angry motorists,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Jill Angel. An angry City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who took San Fernando Valley surface streets to work, said she’ll introduce legislation to outlaw broadcasts from overpasses.

In its defense, Caltrans said KIIS’ permit was for a van, not Dees’ mobile home. The permit was revoked at 8:30 a.m., but CHP officers didn’t show up to shoo Dees away until his show was ending at 10 a.m. The chippies became stuck in the traffic too.

“This does for van pools what W.C. Fields did for sobriety,” growled KNX traffic reporter Bill Keene.

Members of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity at Occidental College are in the midst of a 100-hour “Sit for Charity” atop a telephone pole to raise funds for Teen Canteen, a Hollywood organization that aids runaways.

No chance for a record perch, though. That distinction belongs to St. Simeon the Elder, a 5th-Century monk. He reposed on a stone pillar from 422 until 459 A.D., according to the Guinness Book of World Records, which waived its requirement of having a representative on the scene in that case.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce recently corrected a 28-year-old spelling error by replacing the star of the nonexistent Maurice Diller with that of Swedish film pioneer Mauritz Stiller on Hollywood Boulevard. Now comes word from Fred Perry, an observant movie buff/lighting designer, of another concrete typo, verified by The Times.

The Greek actress who won the Academy Award for best supporting actress in the 1943 movie “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is billed as Katrina Paxinou on her square near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. “No, Katrina is wrong; it should be Katina, “ said a spokesman for the Greek Consulate in San Francisco. Although the consulate has no plans to ask for a correction (as Swedish authorities did in the case of Diller/Stiller), the spokesman said optimistically, “Maybe they (the chamber) will do something about it.”

Incidentally, Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is the work that asked the famous, post-love-making question, “Did you feel the earth move?”

Which brings us back to earthquakes.

For the record, Tuesday was not the first time that Los Angeles survived Doomsday.

The end also failed to come on:

--April 10, 1981. Wall Street guru Joseph Granville warned that L.A. would be flattened at exactly 5:31 a.m. Obviously Granville had no inside information in this area.

--Feb. 12, 1969. The date was inspired by the book, “The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California.” The rock group Shango, a sort of calypso Nostradamus, came out with a ditty that warned:

“Do you know the swim?

You better learn quick, Jim.

Those who don’t know the swim

Better sing the hymn.”

Then there was the June 9, 1980, press conference called by a Hollywood evangelist to announce The End. Fears lessened somewhat when he showed up 20 minutes late, explaining that he’d overslept.