Just to show you what prestige this...

Just to show you what prestige this column enjoys, Only in L.A. has received an invitation “to sail on the VIP voyage” of newly formed Los Angeles River Cruises.

And you thought Metro Rail was the only new transit system being developed.

The Yorty and Bradley , “river barges patterned after the famed Rhine River crafts,” will make daily voyages between the Commercial Street Landing downtown and Universal Studios, the company’s prospectus says.

It adds: “Your 5-hour voyage will be fully narrated by our courteous crews,” and will include such highlights as “cruising under the world’s greatest freeway system. . . . On the return trip, you’ll thrill as the captain cuts the engine and you glide over the rapids alongside Griffith Park.”

While we were unable to contact the cruise director Monday, the prospectus said that reservations for the VIP voyage have been made by “members of the City Council, the Board of Supervisors, and many Hollywood personalities.”

We’ve circled the date of that history-making trip on our calendar--April 1.

H as the good gray/beige L.A. Convention Center gone positively avant-garde? Is it trying to make the Pacific Design Center look like a shrinking blue whale by comparison?

As some motorists may have noticed, one 30-by-60-foot section of the south face is painted three shades of blue and one of off-white. The building also sports smaller stripes of rose, beige and mauve near ground level.

Actually, the rainbow effect is only temporary.

“We’ve been making a large scale mock-up of colors that are being considered for the repainting of the building,” explained Chris Simons, senior project coordinator. “The (main) color has to be approved by the Cultural Affairs Commission, and this enables (the members) to get a feel for what each color is like.”

Could be the most exciting new paint job in town, next to Van Gogh’s “Irises.”

In mid-February, you may recall, we covered the unveiling of the chopped-liver Oscar that was unveiled at the Carnegie Deli in Beverly Hills.

You can understand our shock, then, when we received a press release the other day trumpeting, “Chopped-Liver Oscar, Created By Carnegie Deli . . . To Star During Academy Awards.”

It was put on display at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Monday night.

By our calculations, the liver statuette was about 45 days old.

Maybe that’s why it was placed in the Pavilion’s Green Room.

The Lakers may be having a big year, but L.A. narrowly avoided a shutout in another early-year competition--the Solid Waste Truck Drivers Road-e-o.

San Diego municipal employees deftly maneuvered their rigs through a series of obstacles in the Rose Bowl parking lot to win three divisions: side-loader truck, rear-loader truck and roll-off truck.

Daniel Lucero of L.A. provided some consolation by capturing front-end loader honors. Lucero and the San Diegans will advance to the international finals in August. Needless to say, we are hopeful that substitutes will be found for all four on their routes during their absence.

To that list of appropriately named local officials, such as Department of Water and Power officials Daniel Waters and Norman Powers, we must also add Santa Monica’s aquatics director--Richard Gill.

But we’re not sure whether to include the vice president of Chatsworth’s Oak Lake Assn., Rita Seashore.

MiscelLAny:

Folklore has it that residents of Azusa chose that name because the city “has everything from A to Z in the USA.” Actually, it’s an Indian word for “skunk hill.”