And you didn’t think the IRS had...
And you didn’t think the IRS had a sense of humor! Certified public accountant David Lewis of Century City sent us a whimsical apology he received from the wits at the Internal Revenue Service.
“Oops!! We goofed,” it said.
Which moved Lewis to ask: “Do you think the IRS would accept, ‘Oops, I goofed,’ from a taxpayer?”
And while we’re at it, shouldn’t the IRS be forced to pay a penalty for the mistake?
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Now if he could make the Brown Derby reappear. . . . We don’t know if you noticed, but the Hollywood Walk of Fame is bringing in a new shipment of entertainers for sidewalk plaques, including magician David Copperfield.
We’re sure he’s very deserving. But we’ve always been a bit mystified by the popularity of his TV specials. A magician on TV? How can he beat William Shatner beaming himself aboard a spaceship in “Star Trek,” Barbara Eden shrinking to a few inches tall in “I Dream of Jeannie” or a horse talking on “Mr. Ed”?
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Speak up, Harry!Copperfield isn’t the only magician having a good year. Harry Houdini was just profiled on A & E’s “Biography” and a movie about his life is in the works. Maybe he’ll even speak up this Oct. 31 (the 68th anniversary of his death) to fulfill his pledge to communicate a message from the Other World.
His wife, Bess, attended a seance for 10 straight Halloween nights after his death--the final time on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. But Houdini kept his silence.
Bess, meanwhile, died a few years later aboard a train that had stopped in Needles, Ariz., en route from L.A. to the East. “In a way the spiritualists could say that was significant,” Houdini biographer Milbourne Christopher observed. “The ‘East Indian Needle Feat’ had always been ‘Needles’ when they (Bess and Harry) spoke of it during his show.”
Now we know why we feel that sense of mystery when we drive through Needles.
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And now, the Loch Angeles monster: Larry Kaplan of Silver Lake noticed a flyer headlined: “Don’t Believe the Government Cover Up!!” plastered on poles around his area.
The anonymous writer claims that the Ivanhoe Reservoir was not drained so that it could be upgraded (as reported), but because of “sightings of a strange prehistoric creature.” It contains a murky photo of a Loch Ness Monster look-alike.
The writer surmises that the presence of Nessie is the reason that several “residents (have been) forced to sell homes below market value.” (Declining real estate values in L.A.? What a shock!)
We contacted City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg’s office and the Department of Water and Power, and both said they knew nothing about the creature.
But isn’t that what you would expect them to say?
miscelLAny:
Just when we finished with angels predicting quakes in Southern California, an Oakland prophet named Harold Camping has predicted that the world will come to an end on an unspecified day in September. In that case, then, we could truly say of Oakland that there is no there there.