Trouble still follows Oklahoma bad man Elmer...

Trouble still follows Oklahoma bad man Elmer McCurdy, 80, years after a posse gunned him down.

You may recall that, in death, the failed train-robber found a new calling as a mummy in Wild West shows, ultimately arriving at the now dismantled Nu-Pike amusement park in Long Beach. There, billed as a wax dummy, he hung from a gallows until 1976, when someone accidentally pulled off his arm during the filming of a TV show.

McCurdy’s remains were eventually returned to a Boot Hill cemetery in Guthrie, Okla. Now there’s a new uproar over a tour operator who incorporates Elmer’s grave into staged murder mysteries.

In a typical show, a spectator “would find a body there and people would act up and scream and so on,” said Tim Arbaugh of the Guthrie Chamber of Commerce. “Some people felt that it (the cemetery) wasn’t an appropriate place for that type of activity.”

After several citizens protested, the operator told the City Council that she would henceforth “act quietly and reverently” at the cemetery, introducing no “corpses” there, Arbaugh said.

But, he added, it’s still not clear whether the controversy “is a dead issue.”

With Elmer, it never is.

Everyone’s a Media Critic:

“I don’t read the Los Angeles Times any more,” Police Chief Daryl F. Gates told a reporter at a news conference shown by Channel 9 the other day. “It’s so boring.”

The reporter replied: “I’m with the (Los Angeles) Daily News.”

“Or the Daily News,” Gates shot back. “That’s worse.”

Personally, we’re a bit miffed with the Civic Center NewSource, whose restaurant critic recently had some harsh words for the Kosher Burrito stand. L.A. boasts so few true landmarks that it seems a shame to have one handled irreverently. Your Spagos and Ma Maisons come and go, but the 45-year-old Kosher Burrito persists, like the fragrance of chili.

The newspaper’s reviewer termed the atmosphere at the KB “unpleasant,” explaining, “There are a few tables next to the stand. The heat from the grill makes this semi-enclosed area--which lacks sufficient ventilation--hot and stuffy.”

Au contraire . While bathed in sweat at our favorite table, we’ve found that the exterior heat perfectly complements the fire generated inside our body by the zesty combination of pastrami, chili, mustard, pickles and onions.

Regarding Santa Monica’s recycling of discarded toilets as material for roadbeds, Bill Stanley of Van Nuys asks:

“Don’t we have enough pot-holes as it is?”

miscelLAny:

The City of Industry has applied for recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records on behalf of a mollusk that climbed a 13-inch peg in two minutes and one second at the city’s recent Great Snail Festival. The official record for that distance is 2:13 by a British snail.