Doo Dah East: You may have read...

Doo Dah East: You may have read that Peter Apanel, the founder of Pasadena’s Doo Dah Parade, is threatening to cancel or move the event because spectators persist in throwing tortillas at the participants. The Briefcase Drill Team even boycotted this year’s event.

But the Doo Dah spirit, nevertheless, has caught on in the East.

A celebration set for next month is going to include a Precision Lawn Chair Demonstration Team as well as two Elvis impersonators representing different stages in the evolution of the King’s waistline.

They’ll perform on side streets near Pennsylvania Avenue on Jan. 20 in Washington. They’re among the groups invited by the Presidential Inaugural Committee to supply pre-parade entertainment.

We predict the presidential Doo Dah will be different in at least one respect from Pasadena’s: No tortilla tossing.

Speaking of impersonators: It probably won’t cause as much of a stir as the charge by a woman last year that a Cerritos store was selling Christmas gift wrap with satanic designs. But, there is a new holiday controversy of sorts. A reader says he walked into a San Gabriel Valley store and was surprised to find a Christmas card that misspelled the name of one of the Jolly Old Elf’s reindeer (see photo). On, Donder , indeed.

Marilyn’s hip injury: When a crane tipped over at the Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art recently, one of the building’s most famous architectural features was slightly damaged: the Marilyn Monroe wall. The name is derived from the disclosure by Arata Isozaki, designer of the Bunker Hill museum, that he patterned the undulating wall after the curve of the actress’ body in one of her nude pinups.

Menu item of the week: “How did Mel’s Drive-In get my mother-in-law’s recipe?” writes Bill Stanley. He was referring to the Woodland Hills eatery’s ad for a dinner with “lumpy mashed potatoes and gravy.”

Hello. Young lovers?A spokesperson told us the other day that the cost of marriage licenses in L.A. County would increase from $35 to $40 on Jan. 1, a bit of news we passed on to couples hesitating to take the big step.

Now, the county registrar-recorder’s office has received a memo from the state saying that the measure calling for the fee increase was approved but it was tied to the passage of another bill, which was rejected . So, lovers, you can take your time getting to the church on time.

Fuel for thought: A street person, carrying a gasoline can, walked up to a shopper at a Culver City mall and said: “I ran out of gas. Can you give me some money?”

It was the identical routine the panhandler had used with the shopper a few weeks earlier.

“Your car sure runs out of gas a lot,” commented the shopper. “You ought to get your fuel gauge fixed.”

“Oh,” the panhandler quickly replied, “that was my other car.”

miscelLAny:

Local streets that have changed their names over the years include Prospect (now Hollywood Boulevard), Grasshopper (Figueroa Street), Bath (Main), Bellevue (Sunset Boulevard) and Nevada (the Santa Monica portion of Wilshire Boulevard).