Lives of the Rich and Face-Lifted:Le Petit...

Lives of the Rich and Face-Lifted:

Le Petit Ermitage in Beverly Hills “could be the nation’s only luxury hotel designed to help” socialites and celebrities “recover from cosmetic or reconstructive surgery,” says the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau newsletter. “Guests can arrive through an underground tunnel . . . via a tinted-window limousine.”

On behalf of the city’s hard-working paparazzi, thanks for the tip!

Could it be that Angelenos don’t love their freeways the way Bay Cityites cherish their cable cars?

An absurd notion to be sure, yet San Francisco columnist Herb Caen recently reported the sighting of a car down here that was “plaintively plated” YMINLA. “Another lost soul on the Santa Monica Freeway,” Caen gleefully wrote in the Chronicle.

That item tailgates sightings in Only in L.A. of a HATE 405 license plate and a flyer on a 405 overpass that proposed, ABANDON LA.

We were reassured, then, to receive a snapshot that Scott DeWees of Hollywood took on the Ventura Freeway. He noticed a car that was passionately plated YIKM2LA.

UKM2LA for the Ventura Freeway?

What all those car-less San Franciscans don’t realize is that there are so many provocative reading opportunities available to L.A. commuters. On Pacific Coast Highway, Lisa Bialac-Jehle of Topanga was overtaken by a long-haired motorcyclist in a leather jacket with a drawing “of a fist clutching a wad of cash” on the back. It carried the title: “Accountant from Hell.”

Another reader saw a car on the beloved 405 with a license plate that said, 976ELVS. We dialed it immediately but couldn’t make contact with The King.

Only in L.A. came across a pickup truck whose owner had painted the words, “Present from my ex-wife,” on the body. An arrow ran from the message to an unsightly dent.

We also saw a mashed-up vehicle in a garage whose dirty back window was scratched with the warning: “I know who did this. I’ll get even, you. . . .”

Roadside confrontations can be interesting too. Such as the one between an L.A. officer and a man whose car was ticketed, logically enough, because he left it in a “no parking” section on Main Street outside the federal courthouse. “I’m not playing any favorites,” the officer said. That, she explained, was why she ignored the placard in the driver’s window that identified him as an FBI agent.

On the other hand, no one ticketed the 45-foot-tall, 10-ton pig that was parked for several days northeast of Lancaster. The unlicensed porker was in a dry lake bed, where it starred in an automobile commercial. The only officers who seemed to take notice were military test pilots buzzing over from nearby Edwards Air Force Base.

During the Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court, one radio newsman mistakenly referred to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) as Phil Spector.

A record producer, Spector had no connection with the Supreme Court--or the Supremes, for that matter.

miscelLAny:

Corvallis, Shore Acres and Indiana Colony are the former names of Norwalk, Manhattan Beach and Pasadena, respectively.