Snoozing through the Big One: It was...

Snoozing through the Big One: It was Peter H. King, our own On California columnist, who revealed that when the 7.5 Yucca Valley quake struck at 4:58 a.m. on June 28, Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton sought protection in a doorway.

But the U.S. Geological Survey’s Lucy Jones, who is anti-doorway, stayed in bed with her child.

Ray McCoy of Beaumont, Tex., who read King’s column, claims that he has come up with a solution amenable to both sides: his Earth-Quak bed (price: $520 to $700, depending on the size). The “extra heavy structure” is covered by a canopy that “helps to provide protection for those who get caught sleeping,” McCoy asserts. The mattress and box springs also “float on water, just in case California falls into the ocean.” (A little earthquake humor, folks.) And there’s room to hide underneath.

McCoy said by fax that he is sending one Earth-Quak bed to each scientist, but it isn’t clear whether anyone can change Hutton’s mind on this issue. Her office said on Wednesday that she is on vacation.

Which raises another question: Is that a good or bad sign when Hutton goes on vacation?

Katz in the hat: The office of Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) sent us a copy of “Pete Wilson’s Dr. Seuss,” a poem that an anonymous Democratic poet slid under the doors of the members of the state Legislature a while back. The sad thing is, the issue is still timely following the rejection of a compromise budget bill proposed by state Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier).

An excerpt:

I will not sign a budget soon / I will not sign a bill in June / I will not sign a budget now / I may not sign one anyhow.

I will not close the budget gap / I do not have a budget map / Do not throw it in my lap / Blame it on a Democrat.

Republicans, we await your poetic reply. And don’t forget, many words rhyme with Willie Brown, including drown .

When the Bandini hit the rotor blades: Irv Sepkowitz, the entertainment executive and UCLA booster who died the other day, is best remembered at USC for the many pranks he pulled on the school.

His most ambitious project was a plot to bombard Tommy Trojan with fertilizer from a helicopter in 1958. The idea was to “thwart the phalanx of Trojan men guarding the statue round-the-clock the week before the (UCLA-USC) game,” wrote Neil Steinberg in “If at All Possible, Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks.”

Several hundred pounds were dropped. But, as war historians have noted, aerial assaults are often more accurate in theory than in practice.

“There is a wash of air that blows much of what you throw out of a helicopter back at you,” Sepkowitz said later. “We were covered with the stuff. . . . How much landed I do not know.”

miscelLAny:

Attempting to dispel Eastern fears of scorching L.A. summers, the local All-Year Club tourist group advertised in the 1920s that “it is even possible to guarantee summer visitors that they will sleep under blankets at least nine nights out of every 10 that they spend in Southern California.”