Robbie Bray dislikes Joe Isuzu, and that’s...

Robbie Bray dislikes Joe Isuzu, and that’s no lie.

Bray even took to the streets Thursday, picketing the Wilshire Boulevard branch of the ad agency that created the prevaricating pitchman.

Nothing personal against smiling Joe. This was business. Bray’s Glendale-based company, Ultimate Image, works with car dealers striving to improve their image.

TV and the movies haven’t been much help.

“There was that movie ‘Used Cars,’ where the dealer put $100 on the end of the fishing pole,” Bray said, “and threw it across the street to another dealership and reeled it back with the customer chasing it. . . .”

But Bray admitted that the public’s low approval ratings for dealers are in part deserved.

“Salesmen are taught unethical tactics,” he said. “I was, myself, when I first went to work. That has to change. Honesty will work.”

Asked for a reaction to being picketed, the Della Femina, McNamee WCRS ad agency suggested that Only in LA should phone Isuzu.

Isuzu said its public relations people would call back. . . .

We’re still waiting.

And we trusted them, too!

Talk about car dealers inevitably gets us to thinking about politicians. There is a clear link in the mayoral campaign of Long Beach’s most famous flag-waver, Ski Demski.

Demski, in his sample ballot statement, requests that his campaign song, “Vote for Ski,” be warbled “to the tune of ‘Go See Cal--Go See Cal.’ ”

Since we’re versifying, let’s introduce the winner of this week’s Malathion Poetry Contest, Glen Kuller, who bombards us with:

They spray in the air

With hardly a care;

This fly killin’ business is boomin’.

They tell us all day

How safe is this spray

(Unless you’re a bug, car or human ).

Speaking of safety, a black sports car was spotted on Pasadena Avenue in East L.A. with a license plate frame that read:

“I’m fun, single and HIV-negative.”

Ah, romance in the ‘90s.

Here’s one to ask your boss about:

This has been a short work week for McDonnell Douglas employees, who had a day off, as they do every year, to celebrate a birthday. That of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO turned 41 Wednesday. And you didn’t even send a card?

MiscelLAny:

The red light that shines nightly atop L.A. City Hall was installed in 1928 to honor visiting aviator Charles Lindbergh for his historic flight from New York to Paris. The light, suggested by pioneer photographer George Watson, was activated by President Coolidge through a hookup with the White House during a special ceremony. Its name: the Lindbergh Beacon.