People and Events
When a Pomona Ford dealer left a new model worth $20,000 parked next to his lot after closing hours with the keys in the ignition, it seemed like an invitation to steal.
And that’s what it was.
The problem, as three alleged thieves discovered, was that this Ford had a few glitches installed, at the request of Pomona police.
“We had been experiencing a lot of thefts at dealerships,” Detective Ray Birch said. “So we got together with the dealer’s mechanic and rigged up a little surprise for them.”
The three suspects waited until the dealership closed at 10 p.m., Birch said, then jumped into the car and sped off. They sped all of about three blocks when the engine died. And the power door locks jammed so they couldn’t get out of the car.
Talk about a lemon.
“The arrests went very smoothly,” Birch said.
An eye for an eye, an artwork for an art. . .
That’s the attitude of KFI-AM personality Tom Leykis, who announced Friday that he plans to organize a record burning of the music of Cat Stevens after the latter endorsed the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death threat against novelist Salman Rushdie.
“Somebody has to say something about that,” said Leykis referring to the statement by Stevens, a converted Muslim who changed his name to Yusuf Islam and lives in England.
However, Geoff Edwards, another KFI personality, blasted Leykis’ plan on his own program and threatened to resign over it.
Edwards “believes you don’t burn and destroy artistic work . . . because that’s exactly what the ayatollah is doing,” explained Paula Schuster, Edwards’ producer.
Date and location of the record roasting have not been set, said Alan Eisenson, producer of Leykis’ self-professed “combat radio” show. As a sort of warm-up Friday, Leykis played Stevens’ hit “Peace Train” with machine-gun fire edited into the sound track.
“Who was Stephen White?” was a not uncommon question around the corner of 1st and Hill streets in downtown Los Angeles where the statue of the 19th-Century U.S. senator stood for years. It was identified by nothing more than a nameplate.
When the sculpture was moved up to 1st and Grand last year to clear it out of the way of Metro Rail construction, an explanatory plaque was added. Then, earlier this year, the statue was transferred to San Pedro in commemoration of White’s campaign to win funds for Los Angeles’ harbor there in the 1890s.
The statue was unveiled this week. Meanwhile, the explanatory plaque remains at 1st and Grand in Los Angeles . . . to mystify a new generation of passers-by.
A Fighting-Fish Simulator Chair will be one of the curiosities at the Western Fishing Tackle and Boat Show in Long Beach next week. The would-be angler holds a fishing pole with a line that can be adjusted to impart as much pressure as that of a 1,000-pound marlin. But, warns show director Fred Hall, “you don’t get your picture taken with a fish.”
