Buildings, buses, even trees are splattered with...

Buildings, buses, even trees are splattered with graffiti. But Tom and Gloria Laffey saw a new target while driving east of the Civic Center Thursday morning: a dog.

“It was a white mix,” said Gloria. “Someone had tagged it with blue paint. The letters were about 5 inches tall. I couldn’t believe it.”

We don’t want to publicize the offender. But it wasn’t Chaka.

Great news: Mayor Bradley’s office tells us it’s starting a “war against unwanted junk mail.”

Now, can you do something about junk faxes, Mr. Mayor--like the one you sent us making this announcement?

“Gorbachev didn’t know,” writes Kevin McMahon of Sherman Oaks. “Yeltsin didn’t know. Bush didn’t know. But the managers of the now-defunct Fox Theater on Van Nuys Boulevard--they knew.”

McMahon alerted us to the still-visible marquee for the theater’s final twin bill, which played earlier this year.

We never knew there were Kremlinologists in Van Nuys.

List of the Day:

The proposed Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown, which is being designed by Frank Gehry, “will be . . . perhaps the most important building in Los Angeles,” said project committee Chairman Frederick Nicholas the other day.

It’s possible. We gave up on City Hall a long time ago. And, after all, the Studio City Car Wash is gone, demolished after it was denied landmark status.

But, in terms of calling attention to L.A., the Disney Hall will have to have tremendous impact for it to surpass: 1--The Tail of the Pup hot dog stand on San Vicente Boulevard.

2--The “Psycho” house at Universal Studios.

3--The Burger That Ate Los Angeles eatery on Melrose Avenue.

4--The Crypto-Phenomena Bigfoot Museum in Malibu.

5--Randy’s Big Donut in Inglewood.

Note: We took the Coliseum off our list after USC’s loss to Memphis State.

Your Only in L.A. correspondent made reservations for four for 7:30 p.m. at a cozy little restaurant in Long Beach. Upon arriving we were told that no table was available. When we mentioned that we had 7:30 reservations, the maitre d’ said apologetically:

“Oh, we thought you meant 7:30 a.m .”

Only in L.B.

miscelLAny:

A salt lake in Redondo Beach, now a historical landmark at the corner of Harbor Drive and Yacht Club Way, yielded 450 tons of salt in 1879.