I Can’t HEAR You . . . There’s a Post in My Ear

The U.S. Marine Corps is fighting the Battle of Generation Gap. Or: If we want you to make a fashion statement, mister, we’ll issue you one.

Not long ago, Marine Corps Commandant Alfred M. Gray Jr. issued an order prohibiting male Marines from wearing earrings, on or off duty. Compliance has not been 100%.

Marines can still be spotted wearing earrings. Not large, loopy ones or those flashy

multicolored ceramic ones that look like Zulu warrior shields.

The Marines seem to prefer a single gold post or, occasionally, a tiny zircon or cross.

Earrings are bad. Earrings are anti-authority. Earrings are macho. Studs wearing studs, as in, “Say anything about my earring and I’ll take your head off.”

“My ‘ring makes me feel good,” explained a private shopping at Horton Plaza.

He pleaded for anonymity. “The old guys, who are always talking about the Old Corps, hate earrings,” he said.

Right you are, my combat-ready young friend.

Take a recent edition of the Camp Pendleton newspaper, The Scout. Two gunnery sergeants complained bitterly about the earring rebellion.

Gunnery Sgt. Craig Sears said there is “blatant disregard” for the commandant’s order.

“A walk through the Oceanside Swap Meet will back up my allegation,” Sears wrote. “Worst of all is the number of staff NCOs and officers who see and hear these offenses and turn their heads.”

Gunnery Sgt. Roy Miller was more direct.

“I always wonder about men who wear earrings anyway,” he wrote. “I’m old-fashioned because I still associate earrings with transvestites.”

There you have it. See, and you thought Cpl. Klinger was the last fighting man to accessorize his wardrobe.

A Poplar Solution

Marked down to sell.

* Rancho Santa Fe golfers will have one less excuse for a wobbly backswing.

The flap over a back-yard sculpture spooking golfers at the RSF course is over. Homeowners have agreed to plant poplar trees near the metallic artwork so it can’t be seen from the fairway.

* Support for an anti-discrimination ordinance for homosexuals is shaky at San Diego City Hall after last week’s election.

Gay activists have been quietly seeking votes for a so-called Human Dignity Ordinance allowing gays to seek court orders and damages involving discrimination.

Some council members are thinking twice about defying the religious right wing in this new era of single-issue politics ushered in by district elections, where a few hundred votes can send you back to private life.

The gay movement is strong in only two of the eight council districts, but the religious right is everywhere.

Sage Brushoff

When Money magazine listed smog-choked Riverside-San Bernardino as the country’s 11th-most “livable” place, compared to an embarrassing 52nd-place finish for San Diego, the civic hooting hereabouts was considerable.

Now my columnar colleague Dan Bernstein of the Riverside Press-Enterprise has decided to hoot back. He hooted a whole column’s worth.

Among other things, he decided that Pete Wilson is the quintessential San Diegan.

“Pete Wilson’s mug should be on an oatmeal box,” Bernstein wrote. “If he were sold over the counter, he’d be a painkiller. If he were a song, he’d be Muzak. If he were a suspicious white powder, he’d turn out to be Johnson & Johnson.

“That’s the trouble with San Diego. It has no personality.”

Bernstein also noted that Les Girls, a San Diego strip joint, has an answering machine that advises job applicants:

“Our clubs are managed and run by women. You do not have managers, bartenders or doormen trying to put the make on you. This keeps your husband or your boyfriend happy. A dancer with a happy home life becomes a better dancer.”

I called Les Girls. Dang if Bernstein isn’t right.

Never again will I doubt the man known from Pedley to Blythe as the Sage of the Inland Empire.