After the Orange County Register characterized Sacramentans...

After the Orange County Register characterized Sacramentans as mostly fast-food-eating, ball cap-wearing truck drivers, readers of the Sacramento Bee responded with their own barbs.

For instance: An Orange County-ite’s “idea of a nature walk is a stroll along pavement, looking at strip malls.” (Actually, it’s a slow drive through a strip mall.)

Anyway, now L.A. has been dragged into this unseemly affair, an innocent bystander caught in the cross-fire.

Michael Martin of Sacramento told the Bee of a visit to a beach in San Clemente where he met a young woman “who asked me where I was from.

“I said I was from the capital.

“She said, ‘Oh, I’m from L.A., too.’ ”

What a cheap shot--branding L.A. as the meeting place of the state Legislature.

Which reminds us: Spurred into action by the Milli Vanilli scandal, Assemblyman Bob Epple (D-Norwalk) has introduced a bill that would require promoters to warn concert-goers of performers who intend to lip synch. Certainly, we’ll all be able to sleep better once it passes. But why stop there?

How about a law requiring legislators to disclose when they’re merely mouthing the wishes of big campaign contributors?

Few schoolchildren would recognize the name Nathan Stubblefield, and, as a result, attorney Melvin Belli says he may sue book publishers on the behalf of misled youngsters.

If you’re asking who Nathan Stubblefield was, maybe you, too, can join in the plaintiffs’ action!

Stubblefield is the man who invented radio, according to his grandson, Troy Cory. At a news conference in Pasadena Thursday, Cory opened a recently recovered strongbox containing records which he said proved that Stubblefield, a Kentucky inventor, made his first broadcast in 1892. Thus, he would have been a few years before the breakthrough of Guglielmo Marconi, who many credit as radio’s inventor (and the guy to blame for loud next-door neighbors).

Cory, a Pasadena resident, was flanked by a Belli associate as well as publicist Chris Harris, who previously hosted the opening of Rudy Vallee’s safe. (Historians are still mulling over the importance of those contents.)

RCA and Westinghouse stole his kin’s patents, Cory charged, though he admitted that it’s too late to collect damages. But he warned book publishers that they better set the record straight.

The grandson’s real name, by the way, is Keith Stubblefield. He said he changed it to pursue a career as a singer.

The name Stubblefield just doesn’t seem to get much respect from anyone.

Quid Pro Dough: Antonio’s Pizza in Torrance makes this guarantee:

“If you tell your friends about us, we won’t tell our friends about you.”

Regarding our recent item on TV pitchmen of years ago, Dick Tyler of Burbank writes that when he entered public relations, he learned that one of those personalities, downtown car dealer Frank Taylor, “gained much business from church groups because of his ‘No Sunday Selling’ slogan.”

Tyler also learned that “that Frank Taylor’s building and land were leased from a church, and that his lease did not permit any business on Sunday.

“It was my first brush with, ‘If you have a lemon, make lemonade.’ ”

The lemon analogy is particularly appropriate when applied to the car business.

miscelLAny:

Acres of Books, which has landmark status in Long Beach, has one of the largest collections of used books in the country, with 750,000 volumes draped over 6.5 miles of bookshelves.