Turkey and undressing: Three L.A.-area striptease joints,...

Turkey and undressing: Three L.A.-area striptease joints, the Oddball Cabaret, Bare Elegance and the Jet Strip, peeled off more than $3,000 of their receipts to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day.

It wasn’t their first such donation to local charities, either. Van Nuys’ Oddball Cabaret even received a plaque from Peter Ueberroth in 1992 after raising funds for victims of the L.A. riots. The Oddball, you may recall, held a dance contest that year, with the winner being crowned Miss Rebuild L.A.

No such contest was held this time. Who would compete for the title of Miss Turkey?

*

Culture and Cucamonga: The arts seem to be bursting out all over in Rancho Cucamonga. “Simpatico,” the new play by Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shepard, is partly set in Cucamonga, the boyhood home of two of the drama’s principal characters. And the fact that they’re involved in a racetrack scandal takes none of the luster off the city’s involvement, as far as we’re concerned. (In real life, Shepard attended Mt. San Antonio College, a few miles to the west in Walnut.)

The city already boasts a sculptural landmark--a statue of comedian Jack Benny in recognition of the joking references that Benny used to make about the area.

And then there’s “Di and I,” the recent novel by Peter Lefcourt, which recounts how Princess Diana runs off to Cucamonga with a middle-aged Hollywood writer to open a McDonald’s franchise. At least, we think it’s a novel.

*

Tribute to the Unknown Pedestrian? Speaking of art, David Ross of Long Beach points out that the designer of the pedestrian zone at Long Beach’s Memorial Medical Center “could have selected an icon that didn’t approximate a policeman’s chalk outline of a dead body.”

Ross adds: “The inadvertent impression is further enhanced by random oil drops that could be mistaken for bloodstains.”

*

Freeway flicks: We’re ashamed that our recent list of freeway movies omitted “Falling Down,” in which Michael Douglas acts out the fantasy of every commuter who’s ever been trapped in a sea of red brake lights. He ditches his car on the Hollywood Freeway near the four-level and decides to hoof it the rest of the way.

We also left out the slightly less immortal “Smash Up on Interstate 5,” in which Robert Conrad and Buddy Ebsen have some serious driving problems near San Clemente.

But we can be excused for failing to include Steve Martin’s “L.A. Story,” even though the star is a freeway message board that dispenses advice to the lovelorn. In truth, the freeway scenes were shot on Burbank Boulevard between Sepulveda and Balboa boulevards.

And the electronic message board was a mock-up. You can tell because it didn’t have any glitches.

miscelLAny:

La Tapatia in Compton has set Dec. 2 as the day to unveil its Mega Press Tortilla Line, which it claims is the fastest tortilla machine in the world. The company says the Mega Press can churn out about half a million tortillas a day--about enough for the average-size holiday party.