We’ve brought you eyewitness accounts of drivers...

We’ve brought you eyewitness accounts of drivers rehearsing on the flute, the trumpet and the guitar as they sped down the freeway. There was the car in which both a motorist and passenger were speaking on cellular phones. And then there was the swerving driver who was conversing with a parrot balanced on her steering wheel.

Now, Kay Hopkins of Marina del Rey has a new freeway-follies sighting.

On the dreaded South Bay Curve of the San Diego Freeway, she was passed by a motorcyclist prepared to take advantage of any lull in the traffic. His machine had a laptop computer attached to the gas tank in front of him, she said, “with the monitor screen up and ready for business.”

Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before freeway reporters are issuing bulletins about computer crashes, as well.

While we’re on the subject, L.A.’s latest job opening bulletin for a clerk typist (see graphic) reads as though it might have been composed on a speeding motorcycle. Or proofread on one.

“Encino Man,” described as a film about a dude who digs up a frozen caveman in his back yard, is yet another epic in which the San Fernando Valley plays a key role. The soon-to-be-released movie follows in the great tradition of:

* “Chinatown” (1974): Private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) to a water official: “Where are those orchards?” Official: “I said the northwest Valley.” Gittes: “That’s like saying they’re in Arizona.”

* “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” (1990): Private eye Fairlane (Andrew Dice Clay), on his first reaction upon seeing a famous heavy-metal band: “I thought they were just some lucky (censored) from Reseda.”

* “Ghostbusters II” (1989): Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), to a medieval fiend who has returned to life in Manhattan: “If you had brain one in that huge melon on top of your neck, you’d be living the sweet life out in Southern California’s beautiful San Fernando Valley.”

* “An Inconvenient Woman” (1991): A friend comforting a very nervous Jules Mendelson (Jason Robards), a powerful financier and presidential pal who’s covering up a murder: “Jules, we’re in the Valley. No one is going to recognize you.”

* “Sunset Boulevard” (1950): A producer explaining why he’s too broke to loan money to screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden): “Last year somebody talked me into buying a ranch in the Valley.”

A press release announces that “New Mexico native” Michael Cooper, the former Lakers star, will appear in Albuquerque to speak out against teen-age drinking. Cooper attended the University of New Mexico, but he was born in L.A. and attended high school in Pasadena.

It’s bad enough that other states are stealing our companies. Now they’re claiming our athletes as their own.

We hate to say it, but we see signs of a splintering in the “Buy American” movement. The city of Redondo Beach has been distributing “Shop Redondo” flyers at the South Bay Galleria. Across the border, a source tells us that a campaign “along the lines of ‘Shop Torrance’ ” is being planned. Hang tough, Hawthorne.

miscelLAny:

A gallery of the L.A. County Museum of Art is named after donor Sidney Sheldon, author of such steamy potboilers as “The Other Side of Midnight,” “Bloodline” and “Naked Face.”