Tom Bradley couldn’t have said it better:L.A....

Tom Bradley couldn’t have said it better:

L.A. Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, on a speaking engagement in Ventura, was only too happy to autograph a couple of T-shirts that will be auctioned off to help finance a charity run by law enforcement agencies.

The logo on the shirts: “Help Run a Cop Out of Town.”

Running into town, meanwhile, was San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who complained afterward that he had “a wonderful time.”

“It used to be fun to poke fun at L.A., Ellay, El Lay, Louse Angeles, Loose Angles. . . .” Caen wrote nostalgically, “but the fun is over and the joke is on us.” El Lay has replaced Es Ef as “Numbah One” in the state, he admitted.

Caen told his readers that L.A. has “clean streets, shiny buses (washed with S.F. water?) and no panhandlers.”

Of course, he’s destroyed his credibility in this town, but thanks anyway.

Meanwhile, there’s no need to worry that L.A.-bashing is a forgotten sport.

The soundtrack of the hit Broadway musical, “City of Angels,” begins with a hard-boiled narrator saying:

“Three million people in the City of Angels, according to the last census, easily half of them up to something they don’t want the other half to know . . . Palm trees finger the sky and there’s enough sunshine to lay some off on Pittsburgh. But that’s all on top. L.A., truth to tell, is not much different than a pretty girl with (a social disease) . . .”

List of the Day:

Menu items that should be offered in the cafeteria of the new Ronald Reagan State Building:

1. The Evil Empire (borscht).

2. The Where’s the Rest of Me? (diet plate).

3. The Gipper (Irish stew).

4. The Make My Day (chef’s special).

And, for dessert, may we recommend:

5. The Bonzo (banana split).

We have, not simply dueling signs, but dueling fish signs (see photo), courtesy of Morty Mittenthal of Pasadena. Let’s hope the delivery men don’t get mixed up.

“This comes under the heading of ‘Economic Indicators Not Put Out by Washington,’ ” says Norman Sklarewitz of West Hollywood.

He saw a stretch limo on Burton Way in Beverly Hills that sported an accessory of the times--a Denver boot.

miscelLAny:

The L.A. schools that once went by the names of Owensmouth High, Warren G. Harding High and Calvin Coolidge High are now, respectively, Canoga Park High, University High and Verdugo Hills High.