People and Events

Bad words--and a flashing knife--involving two inner-city groups.

Rival street gangs? No. Feuding members of the Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The two rivals gathered Thursday at an RTD board meeting to discuss the Long Beach-Los Angeles trolley line, which the commission is building and which the RTD will operate. The two differ on how it should be built and operated.

Shown a sample of a cloth-covered foam seat that the commission has chosen to use in the trolleys, RTD board member Nick Patsaouras pulled out a knife and slashed the cushion open. This latest dig was his subtle way of showing that the pad isn’t vandal-proof.

Later, when commission members said they planned to use a “graffiti-resistant” paint for the trolley exteriors, RTD forces argued that it is “essentially the same” type of paint now used on RTD buses. And RTD buses aren’t exactly immune to spray paint.

“We’re going to have problems (with the paint),” warned RTD official Rich Davis.

The trolley exteriors didn’t get the knife test, however.

On Oscar night, the tension will be building over which nominees, if any, show up.

The nominees, that is, for worst achievements in film. Those awards, plastic raspberries called Razzies, will be handed out in a rival ceremony March 29 at the Palace.

“We hope to see Sly,” says writer John Wilson, who founded the Oscar parody.

However, Sylvester Stallone, a two-time Razzie winner going for his third Worst Actor award for “Rambo III,” is not expected to appear. In fact, in the Razzies’ eight years, no nominee has ever shown up.

But versatile Bill Cosby, a three-Razzie winner for “Leonard, Part Six” last year, did later make a good-natured exception to his no-awards-accepted policy. He collected his Razzies between shows at Harrah’s resort in Lake Tahoe. No word on whether Cosby will hand out the Worst Actor award this year.

It was a situation hardly befitting the dignity of the Hermosa Friends of the Arts Poetry Reading Series.

Somehow, a woman with numerous gentlemen friends left her name with a referral service, but in doing so, transposed a couple of numbers. Suddenly, the Friends began receiving calls at all hours from inquisitive men.

Hence, the new recorded message on the phone machine of the Hermosa Poetry Reading Series: “Please do not leave any messages for Tanya. There is no one named Tanya at this number.”

With rumors circulating that the newspaper might be purchased by the Toronto Sun, Don Rosen, a reporter at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, suddenly launched into a semi-striptease in the City Room to the whistles and groans of colleagues.

“I thought, what the hell, I might as well volunteer to be the first ‘SUN-shine Boy,’ ” said Rosen, referring to the Canadian tabloid’s daily photo spreads of scantily clad men and women.

In the alphabet-soup world of radio, station KNX-FM recently switched to an oldies format and rechristened itself KODJ--”O” for oldies, “DJ” for disc jockeys. The station is following the current trend of choosing call letters that symbolize a format, in the manner of KROQ (rock) and KLSX (classics).

The call letters of older stations, however, have more mysterious origins.

Some bear their original owners’ initials--KMPC (MacMillan Petroleum Co.), KFWB (Fox-Warner Brothers), now-defunct KECA (Earle C. Anthony) and KJLH-FM (John Lamar Hill III, whose first studio was in a Long Beach mortuary).

Others are acronyms: KFI (Farm Information), KHJ (Kindness, Happiness and Joy), and KCRW-FM (College Radio Workshop or Corsair Radio West--”I’ve heard two versions of the origin,” said spokeswoman Sarah Spitz. KGFJ is short for Keeping Good Folks Joyful, said music director John Morris, a reference to the fact it was one of the first 24-hour stations.

And, 68-year-old KNX-AM, the oldest local broadcaster of all? “The letters go back so far that no one around here seems to know,” said spokesman Fred Bergendorff.