People and Events

It’s not very often that the sedate Tea Room in the Bullock’s Wilshire building plays host to two basset hounds, two miniature pigs and a man who makes Tarzan sounds.

But they--and others with unique callings--were there at a reunion of subjects profiled on the “Videolog” television show on KCET Channel 28. The get-together will be televised Dec. 29.

Producer/host Huell Howser paid tribute to such guests as the singing Del Rubio triplets; Bassett Hound Club President Ralph Scarrow; miniature-violin player Roberta Wilcox; Danton Burroughs, grandson of the creator of Tarzan; Kayla Mull, who raises miniature pot-bellied pigs, and Jay North, who grows edible flowers.

Eyeing North’s platter of organically grown nasturtiums (described as “slightly hot”), one hungry Tea Room guest asked: “They haven’t been picked over by everyone else, have they?”

Another attraction at Sunday’s bash was John Ortega, who sells garlic juice at a downtown stand. The herb’s alleged vampire-fighting qualities help business, but he makes no guarantees to his customers.

“Some people ask me if it will keep evil spirits away,” he said. “I tell them I don’t know--it might even bring them closer.”

The Melting Pot (updated): Dr. Lance Alexander, a Jamaican-born neurologist who teaches at UC San Diego, brought the school’s cricket team to Los Angeles to play an English pub’s group the other day. Afterward, Alexander’s team, made up of players from India, Kenya, South Africa and England, sampled another culture’s cuisine in Chinatown.

When they got back to their van, all their equipment had been stolen.

The absurdity of it confounds Alexander. As he pointed out, “I can’t believe there’d be much of a market for our equipment here.”

The Department of Water & Power is opening a permanent display of artifacts and photographs in its headquarters Thursday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct--and a historic one-liner.

On Nov. 5, 1913, about 40,000 Angelenos showed up to watch the completion of the 233-mile aqueduct. Cheers erupted as the Owens Valley water cascaded into a San Fernando Valley reservoir. William Mulholland, chief engineer of the municipal water department, said:

“There it is, Mr. Mayor. Take it.”

End of speech.

It was sprucing-up time in the city over the weekend. A two-week effort to replace broken city street lights began. Graffiti-busters fanned out over the metropolis. And 21 members of the Bureau of Street Maintenance, working on their own time, tore off 5,513 illegally posted signs from utility poles, reports James Washington, chief street-use inspector.

A good start, for sure. But Sue Frank of Culver City wonders when someone is going to take down the kite that’s been stuck in an overhead wire near the Washington Boulevard exit of the Santa Monica Freeway since at least Memorial Day of 1987. “I keep thinking it’s got to come down one day, but every day I drive by it’s still there,” she said.

Freeway creatures are bothered by things like that.

Of all the sign-wielding demonstrators espousing causes outside Pauley Pavilion before to the Bush-Dukakis debate, one may see his dream realized by this weekend. His placard said: “Dodgers in Seven.”