Ah, 80-degree days--summer’s back, at last. Get-away-from-it-all...

Ah, 80-degree days--summer’s back, at last. Get-away-from-it-all weather. Inevitably, one’s thoughts turn to the ocean.

Lee Evans of Marina del Rey couldn’t help but notice four boats at one dock, named (from left to right): Island, Escape, My Way, and Sail La Vie.

Sounds like a plan.

Sun-bathers traveling through Manhattan Beach, however, should be warned that the city has strict regulations regarding compact cars, as the accompanying photo by Mark Hinds of Gardena illustrates.

List of the Day:

After consulting area psychics, L.A.’s Downtown News has issued these startling predictions for 1992:

1--Automated teller machines downtown “will automatically deduct 1% on behalf of panhandlers.”

2--While no new skyscrapers will be built, “several 50-story-high company logos will be constructed.” The logo production “will provide jobs without contributing to the office space glut.”

3--All future contracts for rail car construction will go to L.A. firms. However, the cars will be recalled when “their on-board cellular phones (are unable to) accommodate the new 310” area code.

4--Customer-hungry Gorky’s will make a comeback on Skid Row by “netting deposed Soviet apparatchiks to divert diners” with comedy routines.

Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, may well want to polish up his act at Gorky’s in the next few months. After all, he’ll deliver the commencement address at USC in May.

Political reporters at the recent televised press conference of Gennifer Flowers, the self-professed lover of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, were forced to take her seriously. Not so John Melendez, an intern for “shock radio” disc jockey Howard Stern, whose show is heard on KLSX in Southern California.

During the New York press conference, which Melendez infiltrated, he shocked Flowers (and everyone else present) by asking her: “Do you plan to sleep with any other Democratic presidential candidates?”

Willing to forgive the Angels and the Rams for their recent miserable seasons, Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter says he holds out hope that the teams will someday adopt the city’s name.

But Angels owner Gene Autry, in an interview on KOCE-TV in Orange County, said that Anaheim’s civic modesty was one of the main reasons he moved the team there. Autry revealed that Long Beach, another candidate, had insisted on the Angels using its name.

The Rams, meanwhile, insist on clinging to “L.A.” But, when they visited the L.A. Coliseum to play the Raiders a few month ago, the scoreboard mischievously designated them as “Anhm.After a protest at halftime, the team was re-designated as “Rams.”

Anaheim’s moment of glory had passed. Oh, well. Sail la vie.

miscelLAny:

L.A. has finished 22nd in the latest “State of the Cities” ranking of America’s 30 largest cities by Financial World magazine. Dallas was first in the survey, which measures how well cities are managed. L.A. did edge out 23rd-ranked Cleveland.