Since we’re becoming a nation of numbers,...

Since we’re becoming a nation of numbers, it should come as no surprise that someone has gone beyond the human side of illegal immigration to tell the geometric side.

As a public service, a RAND Corp./Urban Institute study calculates the odds of one alien making a successful crossing of the border thusly:

Under these assumptions, we can model crossing the border as a stochastic process that falls into a geometric probability distribution with probability density function:

g(y) = (1 - p)p y,

Where p is the probability of failing on any one try and y is the number of failures. Consequently, the probability of crossing the border in one try--that is, failing zero times--is:

1 - p

Under these assumptions, if N1,people attempt to cross the border, we would expect total apprehensions,A1,to be:

E (A1l N1) = N1x E(X)

Maybe that formula should be posted on the border.

Now for a different kind of verse. Al Hix of Hollywood is the winner of this week’s Malathion Poetry Contest. Unfortunately, we’re a bit short of space, so we only have room for the title (which really impressed our judges):

“Pest Aside.”

Then there’s the revue playing at the Second City theater in Santa Monica. Name: “Lord of the Medflies.”

A benefit held there the other night drew several celebrities, including a blond actor who was introduced as “Ed Bugley Jr.”

A cozy little crowd--one estimate was 500--greeted pop singer Janet Jackson as she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Friday. It was a far cry--or scream--from the outpouring of more than 5,000 delirious fans who flocked to the unveiling of brother Michael’s plaque in 1984.

The One-Gloved One departed in less than three minutes that time as the crowd surged forward against the barricades. Emcee Johnny Grant shouted at one point, “The trees are gonna fall over!” Women and children caught in the crush broke into tears. Someone in the back held up a death figure, a sports coat over a frame topped by a skull.

For a few moments, it seemed as though the final scene of Nathanael West’s “Day of the Locust”--the riot on Hollywood Boulevard--would come to life. And that was before he made the Pespi spot.

Here comes da judge:

Steve Trott is one of the original members of the Highwaymen singing group, which is suing the new Highwaymen (Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings). Trott, who was the U.S. attorney in L.A., now sits on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It was an era when the corner of Ocean Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard was known as Death Curve.

Decades before Long Beach got the idea to hold a Grand Prix, Santa Monica staged the Vanderbilt Cup auto races through its streets from 1911 to 1915.

The first quarter of the century was, in many ways, the Golden Era of the sport in Southern California. In addition to Santa Monica’s streets, race tracks in Corona, Culver City and at the current site of the Coliseum attracted such big names as Barney Oldfield and Ralph DePalma.

Auto races were also held on a wooden oval in a field near the isolated crossroads of Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards.

The track’s gone. The Beverly Wilshire Hotel’s there now.

Glad they got that settled:

Attorneys for the Grand Prix Assn. and for Beach Charities, two groups that stage events in connection with this weekend’s races in Long Beach, have resolved a bitter dispute. Under the agreement, only Beach Charities has the right to hold an ugly dog contest.

miscelLAny:

The 62-year-old Hollywood-Western building, which now houses a 24-hour pool hall, features outside friezes of semi-nude actors and actresses listening to a megaphone-wielding director. The decorations were an inside joke of architect S. Charles Lee--one of the building’s early tenants was the industry’s censorship office.