Schwab’s is gone. But you can still...

Schwab’s is gone. But you can still be discovered on the Venice boardwalk.

Sidewalk Joe, who conducts walking tours of what he calls the “Real Venice,” was recently selected to star in a Pacific Bell television commercial. He’s seen thumbing through the Yellow Pages next to his stand.

Several other boardwalk colleagues have had their moments on the tube.

Huba-Huba, self-described Prime Minister of Limbo, danced under a 12-inch-high crossbar in a commercial for eyeglasses. The same company also filmed Tony Vera, who blows fire, balances people on a folding chair on his chin and tells jokes, though not simultaneously.

Other Venetians who’ve popped up in commercials include Liz (Skateboard Mama) Bevington and Harry Parry, the turbaned, roller-skating guitarist. (Or is it guitar-playing roller-skater?)

Sidewalk Joe, whose last name is Sigler, noted that his plug for Pac Bell is unusual in one respect.

“I don’t have a phone,” he disclosed.

As if we don’t have enough logos on the skyscrapers of downtown financial institutions and oil companies, an electronic scoreboard of sorts has suddenly appeared on the north face of Arco Center.

It’s busily ticking off numbers like--well, like a gas pump. What the numbers indicate, a spokesman explained, are “the pounds of pollutants that would have been introduced into the atmosphere had we not reformulated our gasoline” into two low-emission brands.

The scoreboard, just west of the Harbor Freeway, will grace the skyline for “a couple of weeks,” the spokesman said.

Arco also planned to put up a similar display on the south side of the building, but city officials, who don’t seem to mind logos, said that one was enough. So unexpected was the rejection that Arco already had installed the “LBS” portion. It could still be seen Tuesday.

List of the Day:

The futuristic 1930 film, “Just Imagine,” prophesied these features for the year 1980:

1. Videophones.

2. Automatic doors.

3. Test-tube babies.

4. Peoples’ names replaced by numbers.

5. A cop, in a tethered balloon, directing traffic below on Wilshire Boulevard.

miscelLAny:

Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald, founders of the giant hamburger chain, opened their first McDonald’s eatery near Pasadena in 1937, followed by a second one in San Bernardino in 1940. McDonald’s biographer John Love points out that the original stand served hot dogs, but no hamburgers. And no, the frankfurters weren’t called Dog Macs.