Only in L.A.

One Man, No Vote:

Housing consultant Isaac Richard, who won a runoff election for a seat on Pasadena’s Board of Directors this week, drew laughter and mock cheers when he exhibited his voting stub at a gathering afterward.

In the primary, Richard had been so busy urging supporters to go to the polls that he forgot to vote.

Stupid Criminal Tricks:

A guy snatched two dozen T-shirts off a table on the steps of City Hall the other day and took off running. Five men quickly chased him down. “He was astonished to find out they were off-duty police officers,” said Eric Rose, a witness. What the culprit didn’t realize was that he’d pilfered T-shirts that bore a photo of Daryl Gates and the words, “Citizens in Support of the Chief of Police.”

And Then There’s God’s Law:

Outside the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Keith Johnson of L.A. noticed a commandment never revealed to Moses.

Writer Rockey Spicer of Tarzana points out that this week marks the 65th anniversary of one of the nation’s first scheduled commercial airline flights. It was a Salt Lake City-L.A. run by Western Air Express (later Western Airlines, now Delta).

Western then used Vail Field in Montebello, not the present site of LAX. (Just think--except for the vagaries of history, there might be a Montebello International Airport today).

Of that first flight, pilot Jimmy James later recalled that he bade farewell to the crowd at the Salt Lake City airport and was about to start the engine “when I felt a peculiar thudding on the front of the plane.”

He was startled to see that it was a Utah official’s daughter, attempting to christen the plane by smashing a bottle of Salt Lake water into the propeller. At James’ suggestion, she hit the bottle on the wheel’s hubcap, instead, while he delayed his departure.

List of the Day:

We’ve had smokeless, meatless, don’t-drive-alone days. Now, the Gumpertz/Bentley/Fried ad agency is pushing for a Dry Monday campaign. “Silly as it sounds, not using water just one day a week could go a long way toward saving water,” says the agency, which also wrote a water conservation ad for TV that parodied the shower scene in the movie “Psycho.”

G/B/F offers these alternatives for water-using activities:

1--Shower: Cologne, perfume, deodorant, fly swatter (for extreme cases).

2--Shave: The Don Johnson look.

3--Brushing teeth: Mouthwash (avoid eating corn on the cob).

4--Watering the lawn: It’s unlikely to turn brown in one day.

miscelLAny:

Venice unveiled the first aerial police force in the nation in 1919 when it added aviator Otto Meyerhoffer to the force. Meyerhoffer patrolled in a biplane that carried the name, VENICE AERO POLICE.