The big fade-out: “Have L.A. Cellular technicians...

The big fade-out: “Have L.A. Cellular technicians found that your car phone is the one thing that you can take with you after you get that final call from on high?” asks Bruce Carroll of L.A.

He points out that the company’s latest newsletter lists several sites where new antennas have been installed, including:

All Souls Cemetery.

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Which reminds us: An L.A. urban tale of years past--mentioned in Ken Schessler’s “This Is Hollywood”--held that when evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson died in 1944, she was interred at Forest Lawn’s Glendale cemetery “with a live telephone beside her.”

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One political candidate who has a six-PAC: Assembly hopeful George Reis says his Libertarian campaign wasn’t getting much media attention so he made a batch of 48 bottles of George Reis for Assembly Beer (see photo).

Naturally, he caught Only in L.A.’s attention.

Reis, running to replace Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), concocted the liquid campaign favors at a cost of about $300 at Hamilton Gregg Brewworks in Hermosa Beach.

He has discovered that the bottles, most of which he has handed out, are more popular than potholders. It’s difficult to gauge how much they helped, though. Running unopposed in the primary, he amassed 61 votes (compared to about 14,000 cast for candidates in both the Republican and Democratic contests).

“There are 62 Libertarians in the district, so someone didn’t vote,” Reis said. “I’m a little afraid to ask my wife if it was she.”

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List of the Day: L.A.’s Downtown News has listed several categories in its sixth annual Reader’s Poll for the Best of Downtown, including:

1. Best Thrill Ride?

2. The Mickey Mouse of Downtown?

3. Best Panhandler?

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Now that you asked: Here are our votes on the above three ballot questions.

1. Heading south on the Hollywood Freeway (101), you must cross over four lanes of traffic to reach the Harbor Freeway (110). In the novel, “Play It as It Lays,” author Joan Didion immortalized the maneuver this way:

“On the afternoon she finally did it without once braking or once losing the beat on the radio she was exhilarated, and that night slept dreamlessly.”

2. We’re still looking at our mug shots of the City Council members.

3. The guy who greets Downtown business people around City Hall with a semi-mocking, “Hello, professionals! How about a quarter today?” Our former colleague, Bob Trounson, was once waiting in line at a DMV office in the San Gabriel Valley when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was the panhandler.

“Hello, professional,” he said to Trounson. Then the panhandler laughed and said, “That’s OK. I’m not working right now.”

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Bonus selection: Barbara Ryan of L.A. suggests a new category--best Downtown News typo--and nominates the opening paragraph of a June 6 cover piece on archeology.

It began: “Downtown has its fair share of buried treasurers. . . .”

Apparently L.A.’s always had problems with its finances.

miscelLAny:

In Peter Lefcourt’s new novel, “Di and I,” Princess Diana runs off with a middle-aged Hollywood writer. The lovers become the operators of a McDonald’s franchise--in Rancho Cucamonga. Perhaps, if that venture fails, they could get a distributorship for George Reis for Assembly Beer in the sequel.