You get fast results in L.A. when...
You get fast results in L.A. when you hold a contest whose grand prize is a good-luck charm for selling real estate.
Only in L.A. received about 75 phone calls after we challenged readers to find where artist Al Hirschfeld had hidden the name of his daughter Nina on a new Abbott and Costello stamp.
All found it on the tie of Abbott, whom a half-dozen entrants identified only as “the skinny guy.”
A reader who called our answering machine at 5:20 a.m. Friday--we weren’t in yet--won the plastic figurine, “St. Joseph: The Underground Real Estate agent.” (We couldn’t reach the unidentified early bird--we can understand lottery winners being slow to pick up their prizes, but the winner of a real estate good-luck charm?)
Three realtors were among the runners-up, including Jim Ezell of Northridge, who explained: “I have a good inventory of about a dozen houses so I need everything I can get.”
Then there was Ruth Gastel of L.A., who revealed: “My niece is named Nina and she’s trying to sell her house.”
Most heartfelt plea, though, came from Lambert Moonen of Hawthorne, who said: “I need that St. Joseph to sell my damn house and get out of L.A.”
List of the Day:
In case you wonder how the underground real estate agent can get you or your noisy neighbor out of L.A., its creator--Inner Circle Marketing of Modesto--offers the following directions:
1--Dig a hole 6 inches deep near the “For Sale” sign.
2--Place St. Joseph in the hole “head first, feet toward heaven, so he faces the direction of the street.”
3--”Say the following words over St. Joseph: ‘Oh, St. Joseph, guardian of household needs, we know you don’t like to be upside down in the ground, but the sooner escrow closes, the sooner we will dig you up. . . . Please bring us an acceptable offer (or any offer!)’ ”
4--”Cover St. Joseph with dirt and / or grass.”
Best of all, this real estate agent doesn’t ask for a percentage of the deal. St. Joseph costs $8 for all.
It was freeways vs. cable cars, beach days vs. drizzly weather, earthquakes vs. earthquakes: In short, El Lay vs. Es Ef.
Your Only in L.A. correspondent took to the airwaves of the Tom Leykis Show to debate the rivalry with S.F. Chronicle columnist Steve Rubenstein and assorted KFI-AM callers.
Seven L.A. listeners voted for L.A. (including two who phoned while on the freeway), five for S.F. and one for Buenos Aires (apparently because you can get pizza there at 3 a.m.).
Listeners’ comments included:
* “People in San Francisco need mass psychiatry to find out why they’re so fixated on L.A. You never hear anyone down here speak of San Francisco.”
* “The women dress better in San Francisco.”
* S.F. “is a cute vacation weekend destination but everything happens in L.A., and San Francisco reads about it a week later.”
* L.A. is so dull that “you don’t even see hookers on Sunset Boulevard.” One San Francisco native also phoned to say she had made “a temporary move” to L.A.--”that was in 1965”--but added, “I’m planning to go back.”
If she can only find an underground real estate agent.
miscelLAny:
Don’t tell San Franciscans: An estimated 20% of the nation’s swimming pools are located in Southern California.
