The November special in one Melrose Avenue...

The November special in one Melrose Avenue restaurant is a dish featuring two varieties of shellfish that are bound together by tiny handcuffs: Lobster Zsa Zsa and Lobster Leona.

“Zsa Zsa is spiny Pacific lobster, and Leona (Helmsley) is Maine lobster,” said Frank Competelli, owner of Brightons restaurant, referring to the convicted Beverly Hills cop-slapper and the convicted New York hotel queen.

And where did Competelli find 150 pairs of miniature metal handcuffs?

Hollywood Boulevard, of course.

“It was one of those S & M (sadomasochistic) shops,” Competelli said. “The owner didn’t know what I was buying them for, but he got very excited and said, ‘Here, take my card!’ ”

County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, stung by criticism of conditions at county-owned Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in his South Los Angeles district, has appealed to a former resident of the area for funds:

President George Bush.

“I know that you lived in Compton at one time,” Hahn wrote Bush, “and I would like to tell you about a fine county hospital . . . that serves Compton.” The supervisor pointed out that the King hospital “is in desperate need of $20 million for improvements to keep its accreditation.”

Hahn was alerted to Bush’s Southern California days by his wife, Ramona, who read an interview with Barbara Bush in the November issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

The First Lady recalled that in 1949 her husband, then a drilling-bit salesman for Dresser Industries, was transferred from Texas to California. The family lived for short periods in Compton as well as in Huntington Park, Whittier, Bakersfield and Ventura.

Noting that Bush has “pledged several hundred million dollars of support for Poland and other European countries,” Hahn reminded the President of the need of people in South Los Angeles to have “an excellent hospital.

“By the way,” the supervisor concluded, “Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is Jan. 15, and if the county could receive notice of this funding, it will be a great announcement to make at our annual celebration.”

Among the celebrities scheduled to pilot classic cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s on a 100-mile jaunt to raise money for the homeless is none other than Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono.

It’s an admirable gesture by Singing Sonny, who, you may recall, still isn’t completely familiar with the roadways of Southern California. A few weeks ago, he failed to show at a charity bash in Simi Valley, explaining: “It’s difficult to get there, by air or land.”

But this time, he should have no such problem finding the destination. The classic cars are traveling from L.A. to . . . Palm Springs.

From the November, 1912, issue of the Auto Club’s old Touring Topics magazine:

“The California Legislature passed the bill increasing the state speed limit from 20 m.p.h. to 30, but it failed to become a law through the veto of Gov. (Hiram) Johnson.”

Obviously, Johnson didn’t want the roadways to get out of hand.