Refusing to heel: During the deadlocked labor...
Refusing to heel: During the deadlocked labor negotiations between the city and the LAPD, police officers have warned of a possible blue flu slowdown during the World Cup. Such a tactic would be ironic in view of the name of the Cup’s canine mascot:
Striker.
Just the thing for dieters: But David Chantler of Marina del Rey figures this offer from one local mall is one he can afford to pass up.
The fastest gun in L.A. (cont.): After reading in Only in L.A. that shootist Wyatt Earp lived out his final years in a cottage in L.A., City Councilman Nate Holden wants to erect a plaque at the site.
Earp died at the age of 80 in 1929 at 4000 1/2 W. 17th St., near the corner of Crenshaw and Washington boulevards.
“Since he died in our district we thought we’d bring him the recognition he deserves,” said Holden press deputy Roger Galloway, a former writer on the TV show “Legends of the West.”
The site is now part of Mt. Vernon Junior High School and Galloway said that Principal Leonard George was delighted with the idea. “He (George) said the school doesn’t get a lot of recognition,” Galloway added.
A plaque for Earp is overdue if only to strike a historical blow for law and order. After all, L.A. County already has a Vasquez Rocks Park near Saugus. Vasquez was an L.A. outlaw who was hanged for his misdeeds.
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A real space cadet: Lisa Bialac-Jehle, stuck in heavy traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, noticed that the driver in the next lane was reading a book. “I looked closer to see the title,” Bialac-Jehle continued. “She was reading, ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.’ ”
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A literary leg up: Discussing the recent yard sale to raise money for prosecution of the Menendez brothers, we dismissed one $75 item as ugly and tacky--a lamp whose base was a mannequin leg attired in a red high-heel shoe and fishnet stocking.
Now, Rick Shafarman of Saugus tells that a shapely lamp of this type plays an important part in Jean Shepherd’s novel “In God We Trust--All Others Pay Cash,” later the movie “A Christmas Story.”
The 1930s tale recounts how the narrator’s father received the leg in the mail as a contest prize.
It was so realistic, Shepherd writes, the family thought it might be the work of an artist “that was very active at that period--the Trunk Murderer. . . . In those days something in the air caused many a parson’s daughter to hack up her boyfriend into small segments which were then shipped separately to people chosen at random from the phone book.”
The family’s leg, displayed in the living room “in the soft glow of electric Sex,” meets an untimely end when it crashes to the floor one day while the narrator’s mother is dusting.
Mom claims it was an accident. There being no witnesses, she is eventually cleared of leg-slaughter by the family.
miscelLAny:
La Golondrina, the 70-year-old Mexican restaurant on Olvera Street, advertises that it’s in the “First Brick Building in L.A. (built circa 1855-57).” L.A. was a pretty wild town back then. There are indications that the building, like the brick home of the present-day Philippe restaurant, was once a brothel.