Groin rehabilitation in Malibu: Just wanted to...

Groin rehabilitation in Malibu: Just wanted to make sure you were awake. Actually, the above, racy-sounding words, sent along by Walter Prince of Northridge, can be found in a notice distributed by the normally unsensational California State Lands Commission (see excerpt).

We might as well save the folks on the TV show “Current Affair” a trip out to Malibu to investigate. Although the announcement makes reference to “old groins present along the public beach,” it turns out they are nothing more than “steel interlocked sheet-piling.”

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Art to go: Nick Agid’s bronze and aluminum objects were very much in demand on opening night of the L.A. International Art Fair at the Convention Center. Unfortunately, they were in demand by thieves, who stole eight items.

“Tickets cost $35 for opening night,” Agid noted. “I guess some people thought they deserved a souvenir, too.”

Among the stolen goods were four gun sculptures, two giant pencils and a soup can bearing a Latin phrase that translates as “Don’t eat beans.” Also taken was a two-foot-high letter L, part of a sign that said, “L.A. ON SALE.”

Was “L.A. ON SALE” a political statement? “No,” said Agid, “those just happen to be some letters I found at a scrap yard.”

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We love L.A. or whatever you want to call it: Los Angeles has been given a lot of other names, from “La-La Land,” “Nowhereville” and “Moronia” to “Cuckooland,” “Double Dubuque” and “The Capital of Kansas.”

Singer Big Jay McNeely may have come up with what we think is a catchy new description of the City of Angels on “Welcome to California,” his compact disc. It’s the title of one song: “A Funk South of Bakersfield.”

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Dueling signs: In West L.A., as you can see from the accompanying sign, the residents expect their streets to be squeaky-clean.

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Mystery vegetable: A while back, Marielle Smith of Echo Park alerted us about an infestation in her neighborhood of flyers bearing an image of an eggplant and nothing more.

With our powers of deduction, we figured someone was looking for a missing eggplant.

Now, Smith sends an update, reporting that “a friend saw two very young neo-hippie guys stapling up more eggplant flyers. A few days later, I noticed in the L.A. Weekly listings that there’s a band called Eggplant.”

She adds: “It’s so L.A.”

So south of Bakersfield.

miscelLAny:

L.A.’s first gas station, according to the book “Los Angeles Access,” opened on the corner of Washington and Grand in 1912 and charged 8 cents a gallon (cash only).