Some people are content to seek out...

Some people are content to seek out the autographs of celebrities. John Pate goes after their tread marks, too.

Pate, a comic at the Improv club in L.A., persuades stars to allow him to douse their car tires in watercolors. The celebs then drive over individual canvases and sign them.

“I call them ‘Star Tracks,’ ” said Pate, 33. “The idea came to me while I was in a museum looking at some pop art. I figured you could run a car across a canvas and get the same effect.”

Pate, who hopes to hold some exhibitions for charity, numbers as his subjects boxer Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini as well as TV celebrities Phyllis Diller, Fritz Coleman and Ed Marinaro. The latter signed his: “Have a Goodyear.”

Pate doesn’t insist upon it but, so far, each star has personally done the driving rather than delegating the job to a chauffeur.

“Of course Phyllis drove herself,” confirmed Diller’s publicist, Frank Liberman. “She’s a painter, too, you know.”

Apparently former President Reagan was unaware of the delicate strategy that went into the naming of the new state office building on Spring Street.

It’ll be called, simply, the Ronald Reagan Building, which gives no clue as to what it is. (Sounds more like a collection of his memorabilia.)

Milan Smith Jr., one official involved in the project, remarked at Friday’s dedication that Reagan “with his Irish sense of humor” would appreciate the fact that it wasn’t called the Ronald Reagan State Office Building because people might refer to it as the “Ronald Reagan SOB.”

Reagan smiled.

Pacific Rim Business Breakfast of the Week: Miso soup, broiled salmon, steamed rice, pickled vegetables and seaweed at the downtown Sheraton Grande for $14.95 (the price of seaweed must be skyrocketing).

In the 19th Century, the visit of a bigwig to dusty little L.A. was an extraordinary event. No U.S. President paid a call here until Rutherford B. Hayes arrived 110 years ago this week. Hayes was five days late and caught the city off guard. Mayor James R. Toberman was so flustered that he committed a major gaffe in those innocent times: While giving Mrs. Hayes a tour of the city he inadvertently ushered her into a men’s clothing store.

miscelLAny:

While contests to find L.A. an official song have produced more than 2,000 entries in recent decades, no ditty has ever won the sanction of the City Council. Randy Newman received a resolution for “I Love L.A.,” but the council evidently didn’t love it enough to give it official song status. Also rejected: “I Left My Liver in the L.A. River.”