A recent issue of the Daily Bruin...

A recent issue of the Daily Bruin featured eye-opening stories about UCLA students sighting alien spacecraft, a planned missile silo on campus, and a seminar “on the art of winning” by USC football coach Larry Smith.

Meanwhile, the Daily Trojan surprised some readers one day by reporting that it was ceasing publication because of “mounting litigation costs” while also trumpeting a USC chemistry professor’s discovery of bean dip.

Actually, the “Daily Trojan” was published by the Daily Bruin, and vice versa. The traditional parodies were dropped secretly on each other’s campuses before the USC-UCLA football game.

The fakes caused more controversy than usual because there were some accusations on each side that the stories contained undercurrents of racism, sexism and homophobia.

UCLA’s Student Council went so far as to condemn the Daily Trojan.

“I think it’s been blown out of proportion,” responded one USC editor. “And please keep in mind that we are only college students.”

There’s even been talk of a mutual agreement to discontinue the bogus editions.

“I doubt if that’ll happen,” said one UCLA editor. “We have a lot of fun doing it (the parody), as long as it’s tasteful.”

Estimating the value of gifts obviously isn’t a science among L.A. council members.

A list published in The Times the other day showed that attorney Art Snyder sent a monthly fruit package to six City Council members in 1988. And the yearly worth of the gifts was valued variously at $100 (by Joy Picus), $180 (by Gloria Molina) and $225 (by Ruth Galanter).

It isn’t a case of comparing apples and oranges, either. Snyder, a former council member, says he sends the same fruit shipments (worth about $160) to each of his pals.

Freeway Spill du Jour (let’s not even mention the body that fell out of a coroner’s van on the Hollywood Freeway): A refrigerator on the Golden State Freeway.

Enticing sign outside a Long Beach pizza joint:

“Money contains germs. Spend it here and take no chance.”

A while back we mentioned that Los Angeles--once known as a city full of people born somewhere else--had never produced a native who became mayor.

Actually, one of the 38 Hizzoners was born here, just a few blocks from the current site of City Hall.

He was Fred Eaton (1855-1934), who was born, writes historian Abraham Hoffman, “in an adobe building on Fort Moore Hill where the administrative offices of the L.A. Unified School District are now located.” He served from 1898 to 1900 (too early to receive any fruit from Snyder).

Does this make you feel a bit older? Dick Clark, America’s oldest teen-ager, turns 60 Thursday.