Covering a Convention Can Be a Very Sweet Deal

What do you say to a Madonna look-alike who invites you to retrieve a small bag of peanut butter-filled pretzels stuffed in the strap of her bra?

I said, “Thank you, I don’t mind if I do.”

The National Candy Wholesalers’ Assn. is having its winter convention/exposition at the San Diego Convention Center. The air is thick with confections and talk of market shares and advertising strategies.

Gaylord Perry (no relation) is pushing Proctor & Gamble goodies (Fisher Nuts, Hawaiian Punch and more). Dick Butkus is hawking a new kind of plastic folder for trading cards. Warren Spahn is here, too.

So is a guy in a cowboy hat selling down-home sausage, and, in the next booth, a guy from New Jersey wearing a yarmulke and displaying his kosher candies. A nearby booth has a sign “Leadership in Licorice.”

The Madonna look-alike is fronting for Maxim Marketing Corp. of Pomona, distributors of Pocket Pretzels, only recently arrived in markets. She’s a San Diegan: Denise Ames, 26, an aspiring actress.

She had a bit part in the movie “The Last Boy Scout,” with Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans.

“I’m the Jacuzzi party girl,” she explains. “Damon Wayans knocks out a guy who’s trying to kill me.”

The candy association PR thrust is that the candy industry is recession-proof. Maybe so, maybe not. I know I’ve cut back on my intake of Tootsie Rolls.

But I also know that going to the candy convention made me feel better about America.

Recently I got a letter from a retired Navy captain living in Coronado (where else?). He began:

“The US. A nation amok, our economy receding, misery rampant, society and culture degenerating; our President and congress comatose, impotent.”

Sorry, captain, I’m not with you on this lachrymose voyage. I remain onshore, confident.

Can any country where a young woman, dressed in black lace underwear and a motorcycle jacket, makes a living by singing the praises of peanut-butter pretzels possibly be on the ropes (economy-wise) and breathing through its mouth?

I don’t think so.

Signs Of Our Hard Times

See here.

* Chris O’Hara has found two signs of what the recession is doing to San Diego.

In Point Loma, a Mercedes dealer has been replaced by a Goodwill office. In Mission Valley, a real estate office has given way to a Pain Treatment Center.

* Today is the public debut at the San Diego Zoo for Elvira, the Malayan sun bear born on Halloween from noble lineage.

Her father is Boo Boo, 26, the zoo’s oldest bear. He’s also the zoo’s only non-human Vietnam veteran.

He was a mascot for a Seabee unit in Vietnam in 1966 until he bit the commanding officer in the butt and was busted out of the service and transferred to the zoo.

* The common wisdom this year says it’s a liability for a political candidate to own a foreign car.

Councilman Bob Filner, running for Congress from the blue-collar South Bay, just traded in his Nissan for a Mercury Sable. He denies any political motivation:

“I needed a new car and I thought in these recessionary times it’s important to buy American.”

* Look for Mayor Maureen O’Connor to nominate Barrio Station director Rachael Ortiz to the Civil Service Commission.

* Superior Court Judge Dick Murphy says it’s (highly) unlikely he’ll run for Congress.

* Yes, that was Muhammad Ali (surrounded by three bodyguards) spotted in several sites Thursday.

In town to see his pal Al Aladray, owner of a Mobil station in Clairemont.

* A San Diegan who got aboard Air Force One during President Bush’s visit reports Bush’s taste in videos: “Thelma & Louise” and “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.”

Jewelry Fit for a Chief

Accessory after the fact.

On Monday, San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen (reluctantly) dropped the ban on male cops wearing earrings off-duty.

On Thursday, his assistant chiefs (as a gag) presented the chief with a pair of earrings (his first). Two gaudy clusters of red globes, tres chic , a 99-cent bargain.

Burgreen, very big on Buy American, just groused that the earrings were made in Korea. Proving anew that some people just have no fashion sense.