Don’t Call Me Madam, Say 2 With Newsy Names

Karen L. Wilkening is not Karen L. Wilkening is not Karen L. Wilkening.

There are three women in San Diego County named Karen L. Wilkening. One is the stuff of salacious headlines, two are not, and the two who are not are tired of being mistaken for The Other One.

Karen Louise Wilkening, 43, late of San Diego and the Philippines and now of the County Jail at Las Colinas, is the alleged madam of a prosperous call-girl ring that provided pleasure to car dealers and dispirited businessmen. She faces 18 charges of pimping and pandering.

Karen Louise Wilkening, 36, has a massage and dance therapy studio in Del Mar. Karen Lynn Wilkening, 34, lives in Oceanside and is a “body-balancing” instructor.

During Wilkening’s months as a fugitive, creditors dunned the other two for her unpaid bills, often quite vigorously, sometimes late at night.

Karen of Oceanside came close to getting arrested until she produced a birth certificate. “Two cops came to my door with an arrest warrant and nearly dragged me off,” she said.

Since Wilkening’s well-publicized arrest and court hearing, both Karen of Oceanside and Karen of Del Mar have endured giggling, snickering, side glances and the whispered question, “Are you the one on television?”

“Sometimes I’ll write a check and the cashier will be gone for 15 minutes,” said Karen of Oceanside. “I’ll look and several people will be peering out at me from an office.”

It does not help that both Karen of Oceanside and Karen of Del Mar are in professions that involve the laying on of hands.

“I think of it as a cosmic joke,” said Karen of Del Mar. “If anything, maybe people will realize through this case that sexual massage, like she may have done, and spiritual massage, like I do, are completely different.”

Karen of Oceanside has decided to delay doing any advertising until the notoriety of the Wilkening case dissipates. She’s already gotten an obscene phone call from a man requesting certain illicit acts.

To which she replied, “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong person.”

Mesmerized by the Law

Update: Michael R. Samko, the North County psychologist who uses hypnosis to help would-be lawyers pass the California Bar Exam, reports that all 12 of his patients passed the February exam, according to results released last week.

Most of Samko’s patients, as always, were “bar phobics” who had failed several times.

One woman had failed so many times that even under hypnosis she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remember the exact number.

Another Oil-Spill Cleanup

It’s time again for the Miss California Pageant in San Diego, so Ann Simonton, the former model who says beauty contests are degrading meat markets, is in town to continue her protest.

She’s best known for shaving her head and wearing a dress festooned with sliced bologna.

On Thursday, Simonton will go to UC San Diego to lecture fraternity men who are being punished for bringing a stripper on campus to cavort and wallow in oil. Her topic: “Sex, Power & the Media: What’s Wrong With a Strip-Tease?”

Some Light on China

Chinese students at UCSD, anguished by the bloodshed in their homeland, have found a way to raise money for students and others hurt in the turmoil: T-shirts, on sale for $15 each.

On the back is an editorial cartoon by The Times’ Paul Conrad, showing a darkened map of China, a mass of white dots near the populated areas and the caption, “A billion points of light.”

On the front is a globe and the slogan, “China. The World Is Watching.”

“I’m an old radical from the 1960s, so I know the power of T-shirts to help keep a political movement alive,” said Doyle McCloud, whose Encinitas firm, Herbal T’s, is producing the shirts.

The students plan to sell the yellow T-shirts on campuses along the West Coast.

A second T-shirt is also is in the works, showing the Goddess of Liberty, the statue erected by students in Tian An Men Square and then destroyed by the People’s Liberation Army.