P asadena, Pasadena, Pasadena . . ....

P asadena, Pasadena, Pasadena . . . Chris Valente, a La Canada Flintridge councilman, is tired of seeing Pasadena used as the dateline for stories about the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The last straw came while he was reading on a train in Italy and discovered that even La Repubblica newspaper had swallowed Pasadena’s propaganda that JPL is in the Rose Bowl city.

After all, about 90% of JPL is actually within the confines of LCF; only 10% is in Pasadena.

So, in order to capture his town’s share of the glory, Valente rose at a council meeting the other night and proposed a Hollywood-style Walk of Fame for astronauts and scientists on LCF’s main drag, Foothill Boulevard.

“I want to instill into the people of this community the importance of the space program, and that we here in La Canada Flintridge are sitting in the hub of it,” Valente said.

His motion had trouble getting off the ground.

After all, it could also be argued that JPL’s mailing address is in Pasadena, that Pasadena-based Caltech administers JPL, and that JPL was established in 1944, 32 years before LCF’s incorporation.

More to the point, noted Joan Feehan, one of Valente’s colleagues, “Pasadena is a lot easier to say than La Canada Flintridge.”

Valente’s proposal was shot down, 2 to 1, with two members absent. He says he won’t give up.

Meanwhile, Feehan said that a JPL spokesman suggested another city for the astronaut walk of fame.

Houston.

That’s also easier to pronounce.

Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono apparently views Simi Valley as the Juneau of Southern California. Juneau, you’ll recall, is the Alaskan city that can be reached only by airplane or ship. Simi Valley, you’ll recall (maybe), is 40 miles northwest of L.A.

Organizers of a charity bash in Simi Valley said the other day that Bono refused to make the 140-mile journey there to receive an award because he learned he would have to pay his own air fare. Bono says he simply forgot.

But Bono also complained: “It’s difficult to get there, by air or land.”

OK, Sonny. Got a pencil? Tell your limo driver to take the San Bernardino Freeway (I-10) east to the Foothill (I-210) and then north to the . . . (and this is the easy part to remember) the SIMI VALLEY FREEWAY (I-118)!

Bono’s snub comes just as the town had almost lived down a Los Angeles newspaper columnist’s report of a few years ago that there is no downtown Simi.

It’s a couple of decades short of being the country’s oldest junior college. But Santa Monica College, which turns 60 on Nov. 10, boasts several other distinctions, including a long list of such celebrity alumni as actors James Dean, Dustin Hoffman and Sean Penn.

SMC may also be the only college ever to feature a nude male centerfold in its yearbook (1972).

“You have to remember this was back in the crazy days,” recalled Dick Dodge, the yearbook adviser at the time. “Peter Gowland, a glamour photographer, was a member of the college’s general advisory board. One of our students, Susan Yanok, asked him if he’d be willing to have the camera turned on him for a change. He said sure.”

Strategically placed palm fronds partially obscured the photo.

“The story was on the Walter Cronkite (CBS) news,” Dodge said. “I heard from friends back East who said, ‘What the hell are you doing out there?’ Cosmo’s (historic male) centerfold with Burt Reynolds came out two months before us, but we had the idea first.”

And how did school officials react?

“Back then,” said Dodge, now director of the college’s Center of the Humanities, “they were more worried about people streaking nude across campus than nudes in magazines.”

The next time your spouse grouses about how you don’t keep your car windows clean, you can always recite this ominous piece of downtown graffiti scrawled on the asphalt of Traction Avenue.

“Wash Your Windows--Steal Your Radio.”