Hoax of Fame: A year ago this...

Hoax of Fame: A year ago this month, while a jury was deliberating in the federal Rodney G. King trial, a city gardener at one L.A. park announced over the PA system:

“The riot has started! Run for your life! They are turning over cars and setting fires! They are coming your way!”

The statement was repeated at least two more times, city officials said. Some park-goers--obviously fearing a replay of the 1992 riots--were observed running to their cars.

The gardener later claimed that some teen-agers, not him, had made the announcement. But his suspension was eventually upheld by the city’s Civil Service Commission.

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Feel free to panic: That incident reminds us of a fake recorded message that was once left on the red emergency phones in transit department offices. When the 5.8-magnitude Sierra Madre quake struck on a Friday morning in June, 1991, employees picked up the phones for instructions and heard this disturbing advisory:

“We are all doomed. Drop your pants and kiss your ass goodby.”

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Chouchou! Heel!Here’s one French tourist who’ll leave with happy memories of L.A.--though she had her anxious moments for a while.

Fabian Leone had planned to fly home two weeks ago until her poodle, Chouchou, crawled under a gate of their Sunset Boulevard motel and went sightseeing alone.

Leone, an actress, vowed to stay in L.A. until she found the gray pooch. Finally, on Thursday, a nurse brought Chouchou into a nearby pet hospital that Leone had contacted.

“She (the nurse) found Chouchou in an intersection near here,” Leone said.

We admire Chouchou for ignoring all those nabobs of negativism who say that L.A. is a dangerous place to roam about.

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A big bite out of the pocketbook: Rick Tello of Canyon Country came across one ad that’s likely to appeal only to people with really large appetites.

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Ski it or not: Only one candidate in the Long Beach mayoral race has attracted the attention of the Guinness Book of World Records as well as Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

It’s political gadfly (and Only in L.A. regular) Ski Demski, who owns the largest American flag ever displayed, 505 by 225 feet, according to Guinness. In his front yard, patriotic Ski flies a more modest 60-by-30-footer, which the city attempted unsuccessfully to prove was illegal.

Ripley’s recently taped a session with Ski--but won’t air it until after Tuesday’s election so Demski’s rivals won’t have to be afforded equal time. Demski was interviewed alongside his official campaign vehicle, an out-of-service fire engine, which has caused some confusion in the past.

Once, Demski related, “a trash truck caught on fire. And the driver saw the fire engine and ran over to my house. I gave him a garden hose and called the Fire Department.”

And Demski’s reward?

“Before they put out the fire they had the trash truck dump the trash in front of my house,” Demski said.

We believe it.

miscelLAny:

In honor of International Guitar Month, Fender Musical Instruments notes, among other things, that the late “Jimi Hendrix owned (and destroyed) more than 100 Fender guitars.” We’d like to get a comment from Hendrix, but when a rock music seance was held in Hollywood several months ago, he failed to materialize. Some musicians can be so unreliable.