DWP Follies (cont.): How many light bulbs...
DWP Follies (cont.): How many light bulbs does it take to screw up a DWP program?
That’s the plot of the latest DWP sitcom.
In previous episodes, you laughed along with the wacky agency as it sent City Councilman Joel Wachs a bogus bill for $205,000, paid a $333,407 penalty for a late tax filing because it was $3.40 short in postage and spent $500,000 advertising tap water while seven of its offices had the bottled variety.
In this installment, the DWP provided energy-efficient light bulbs to its customers as part of “A Better Idea” program. Thin comedy material, you say? Remember, this is the DWP.
The agency subsequently had to notify 10,000 residents from Hollywood to South L.A. that “one particular brand . . . the 27-watt Liberty Bell, has been found to have a high failure rate, and could pose a potential safety hazard.”
So DWP workers had to go house to house to recall the bulbs, a process that it says has been completed without anyone’s house going up in flames.
Remembrances of cotton candy past: We wish the DWP could turn off the tap of letters we’re receiving on Pop’s Willow Lake--more than 50 now. Of course, it’s our own fault for having said that the long-ago recreation area was in Tarzana. But even though we’ve since confessed that Pop’s was actually in the Hansen Dam area, readers continue to castigate us.
Fortunately, many also sent in other examples of vanished play areas, including Corriganville cowboy town (Raul Blacksten) in what is now Simi Valley, Pico Rivera’s Streamland Park (Albert Navarro, who says he “jumped off the train ride”), Sonja Henie’s skating rink in Westwood (Meri Olsol) and “the ski slope (on hay) on the hill where the Sheraton Universal Hotel is now” (Robert Butz). Bob Quinn mentioned a 1940s attraction on Cahuenga Boulevard called Monkey Island--”an artificial mountain . . . with about 100 monkeys running loose . . . and doing all the things monkeys like to do in public.”
And Gary H. of Redondo Beach praised good ol’ Pacific Ocean Park (1958-1967), in particular the Banana Train Ride, which, he recalls, Dodger outfielder Wally Moon “went on 28 straight times.” Why ask why?
The Dutch Connection: The folks at Malibu Travel are unconcerned that another travel agency has stolen its name. After all, the other Malibu Travel is located in Amsterdam, where its sign was photographed by vacationing Angeleno Ron Burton.
“I think they (the Amsterdamers) just like the name,” theorized travel agent Renee Thiel.
Thiel liked the name, too. She moved to Malibu three years ago from Amsterdam.
Grounded royalty: Out here in the land of the beleaguered Queen Mary, we think we know the real malady that the Queen Elizabeth II suffered: Sympathy pains.
miscelLAny:
An overlooked clue? Marilyn Monroe lived with a dog named Maf, a gift from Frank Sinatra, at the time of her mysterious death in Brentwood, according to “The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book.” Author William Gordon says that Maf was “short for Mafia.”