Undertaker’s Ex-Worker Won’t Let Case of the Carnal Cadaver Die
Your court system at work.
* The poet Andrew Marvell told us:
The grave’s a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Well, Andy, you may want to check a lawsuit in Vista Superior Court: embalmer Gayla Delgado versus Service Corp. Int., also doing business as Eternal Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary of Oceanside.
Call it the case of the frisky cadaver. Or maybe an example of necrophiliac follies.
Delgado alleges that her bosses at the funeral parlor harassed her sexually. Including using the hand of a corpse being dressed for burial to massage her breasts.
That kind of cold-handed approach may pass for foreplay in the Addams Family, but Delgado charges that it gave her insomnia, headaches, diarrhea and cramping.
She says she protested to a district manager and soon found herself pushed out of a job. She wants damages.
Eternal Hills retorts that the harassment never happened, and besides Delgado waited too long to bring a lawsuit, making the whole incident a dead issue.
* I’ll trade you five Dmitris for one Viacheslav.
The Upper Deck Co., a Carlsbad-based maker of sports trading cards, is suing Topps Co., the trading card giant, over rights to five Soviet hockey players.
Topps claims to have exclusive permission from the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation to do cards of Vladimir Malakhov, Alexei Zhamnov, Dmitri Filimonov, Alexander Semak and Viacheslav Kozlov.
Not good enough, responds Upper Deck, which has signed personal contracts with the five.
Topps offered to let Upper Deck use four of the stars on a one-time-only basis. Upper Deck said nyet . To sue Topps, Upper Deck hired the San Diego office of Baker & McKenzie, the world’s largest law firm.
Upper Deck argues that any agreement with the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation was probably done without the consent of the players, who were only slaves to the sports commissars of the Evil Empire.
Further, that when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved, so did the hockey federation, and therefore any contract with Topps is kaput.
“They’ve got a contract with a government that’s out of business,” said B&M; lawyer Don McGrath.
A Message for Santa
You figure it out.
* San Diego Animal Advocates, which has been critical of the San Diego Zoo’s policy on “surplus” animals, couldn’t resist a seasonal shot.
The group issued a press release saying it has asked Santa Claus to bypass San Diego:
“We’re fearful that his reindeer could be mistaken for zoo animals and be sold to hunting ranches.”
* Chula Vista attorney George Schultz represented Charger back Marion Butts in his (difficult) preseason negotiations with General Manager Bobby Beathard.
Maybe that explains why Schultz’s entry in a fantasy football league is called “Beathard’s B.S.”
* Departing Rams coach John Robinson bought a home not so long ago near Beathard in North County.
If Robinson ends up coaching the Chargers, remember you read it here. If not, forget we ever talked.
* Bumper sticker on a BMW near Rancho Santa Fe: “Due to the Shortage of Wood and Paper Products, Wipe Your (Rear) on a Spotted Owl.”
‘Tears for Sears’
The bomb scare Wednesday that caused the evacuation of the Sears store at University Towne Centre provoked the Hudson & Bauer singers (actually one singer: Glenn Erath) on KFMB radio to give the world “Tears for Sears.”
When I heard the news this morning, it brought me to tears,
I heard that somebody almost blew up Sears,
Whoever it was, thank God they were stopped,
Don’t they know that’s where America shops?
Oh tears for Sears calm all my fears, tell me it isn’t so,
Next time aim for Target, Mervyns or Wards,
But please just leave my Sears alone.
Oh, I wouldn’t have minded if someone blowed up,
A Kmart, a Ross, but not Sears and Roebuck,
Allstate and Dean Witter guys blown into space,
There’d be Silvertone stereos all over the place.
Erath can be forgiven his Sears sentimentality. When he’s not writing H&B; songs, he’s an agent for Allstate, which is owned by Sears.
