And you thought there was no higher...
And you thought there was no higher authority than the DMV: Standing on the 4th Street overpass of the Santa Ana Freeway, Father Bob Hess looks into the camera and says: “If you’d like a sense of peace while driving, join the Sacred Heart Auto League.”
Founded 38 years ago to promote traffic safety, the Wells, Miss.-based Catholic organization is making its first TV commercials.
So it went where the autos are. “It seems like the traffic’s worse every time I go to L.A.,” commented Father Hess.
There is no charge to become a member, but the auto league does request donations for its parent group, the Sacred Heart League, a Catholic relief agency.
Members must pledge to be “careful, prayerful” drivers who will forgive “the carelessness and inconsiderateness of other motorists.” In return, the league provides “the graces of a Holy Mass offered daily for Auto League members.”
In the early years, the league sent out plastic, magnetized statues of Jesus for the dashboard. That practice ended, Hess said, when car manufacturers “stopped making metal dashboards.”
Bakersfield & Hollywood--don’t invite ‘ems: The new TV series, “Bakersfield P.D.” has angered citizens of our neighbor to the north. “We should be able to laugh at ourselves,” said an attorney up there, who admitted he watched only 10 minutes of the show, “but a lot of people have been trying to improve the Bakersfield image and that 10 minutes didn’t indicate that would happen through this show.”
Well, such is the price of fame. Writers and comics have been lampooning the burgs of Southern California for years. Some examples:
--Beverly Hills: “Everybody’s into health in Beverly Hills. You’re not considered legally dead until you lose your tan.” (comic Joan Rivers)
--Burbank: “On a daily average, Burbank Airport has 94 departures. No arrivals. Just departures.” (comic Johnny Carson)
--Glendale: “I’m never going back to Glendale.” (actress Joan Crawford in “Mildred Pierce”)
--Hollywood: “You could take all of the sincerity in Hollywood, put it in a flea’s nose, and you’d still have room for four caraway seeds and an agent’s heart” (comic Fred Allen)
--Long Beach: “A chic haunt in Long Beach, Crotty said, was a place where the bartender didn’t wear a tattoo.” (novelist John Gregory Dunne).
--Los Angeles: “Big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup.” (novelist Raymond Chandler).
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One sportswriter certain to stay sober: Among the requests for media credentials that Santa Anita publicist Jack Disney received for the Nov. 6 Breeders Cup, one from Barcelona stood out. The uncertain English in the letter made it sound as though the applicant would have trouble fitting into the press box. “We are a Spanish racing horse,” it began.
miscelLAny:
Southern California should be proud. One of the words added to the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is SigAlert. The term was named for former KMPC boss Loyd Sigmon, who devised a system for alerting drivers of long traffic delays.
