Hey--everyone has standards: The Long Beach legal...

Hey--everyone has standards: The Long Beach legal newspaper, the Reporter, recounts the case of a defendant who decided to plead guilty in a Compton court.

He was reminded that he was charged “with a violation of Health and Safety Code Section 11350(a). That’s possession of a controlled substance, in this case, cocaine.”

“Cocaine?” the defendant replied: “Oh, no . . . I wouldn’t use that junk to save my life. Oh, no. Oh, no.”

The man’s file was rechecked and it was found that, as a matter of fact, he had been charged with possession of a different substance.

“It’s heroin,” he was told.

“OK,” the defendant said.

*

Do you have trouble getting Rover started in the morning?Jeff Jost of West Hills says he found a place “that’s offering a hell of a summer deal on those old worn-out pets of yours.”

City of Lost Angels: We received a newsletter from Swedenborg Information of Los Angeles, a group dedicated to the study of angels, and were chagrined to find that we had missed its January “Angel Festival.”

We did, however, pick up a lot of angel lore that we’ll use to impress people at cocktail parties:

* The namesake of the organization, author Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), mentioned the word angel in his books 1,934 times, according to spokeswoman Candace Frazee. And that’s “not counting the word angelic ,” Frazee adds.

* Swedenborg contended that angels did not have wings. Now there’s an iconoclast.

* Present-day artist Jill D’Agnenica devoted 19 months to an art piece that consisted of the placement of 4,687 magenta plaster angels (all with wings) in public areas around L.A. (The angels were promptly snatched by devilish passersby or suspicious security guards and janitors.)

* And, finally, our personal highlight, the angel wings that actress Sharon Stone wore for a cover piece in Premiere magazine are on display at the Angel Store in Pasadena. Talk about casting against type.

Duty and the Beast: When we heard that a stage production of “Beauty and the Beast” was opening in Century City later this month, we asked a neighborhood mom if she planned to buy tickets for it.

“Well, let’s see,” she replied, “I saw the movie with the kids three times. I read them the book about 30 times. And I’ve listened to the soundtrack in the car about 100 times. . . .”

We took that as a no.

miscelLAny A colleague received news of a delightful Easter product to give a lover--chocolate bloodsuckers. The ad said: “A beautiful, one-pound box of delicious chocolate bats costs $28. . . . Just leave a window open at night!”