Serenading Congress: It’s unlikely that you’ve been...

Serenading Congress: It’s unlikely that you’ve been in any bars that have played selections from Harvey Sid Fisher’s albums “Astrology Songs” and “Golf Songs.” And there aren’t any jukeboxes that blare his autobiographical single, “Bloodlines,” which contains the lyric:

“My Dad was into Zen

I was baptized and circumcised

What’s left was born again.”

But he is an ASCAP member. And the West Hollywood singer-songwriter swung into action when he heard that a bill had been introduced in Congress to make it more difficult for those in his profession to collect music licensing fees from bars and restaurants.

He wrote “Vote No on 789.”

ASCAP officials were so impressed that they recently sent him to Capitol Hill, where he warbled on behalf of the nation’s songwriters:

“Dear Dear U.S. Congress

Some merchants want to use my song

But they don’t want to pay me

And I think that that is wrong wrong .”

“They seemed to appreciate the ingenuity of the song,” Fisher says of the legislators.

It was a career milestone, even if he didn’t get a chance to knock out any astrology or golf tunes.

*

The Heston contest (cont.): Anne Olmstead of La Crescenta still can’t understand why Charlton Heston chose “the mouse-like (title of) ‘In the Arena’ ” from the suggestions he received for his autobiography. Especially after she had submitted a title that “rather neatly summed up the actor’s distinguished career and sterling character in the simple phrase, ‘Wholly Moses.’ ”

Olmstead says it’s obvious Heston hasn’t read the new book, “Now All We Need Is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way,” by Andre Bernard. “For one,” she says, “it tells how editor Max Perkins suggested a new title for a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, so that ‘Trimalchio in West Egg,’ which sounds like something you ought to stamp on or call the exterminators for, became ‘The Great Gatsby.’ ”

Actually, “Trimalchio in West Egg” sounds as though it could make a great Harvey Sid Fisher song.

Bringing the Red Line to heel: As Lil Vander Heide was boarding a Red Line car at Union Station the other morning, her foot was nudged from behind by another passenger. Vander Heide’s right shoe flew off and disappeared into the narrow crevice between the door and the platform.

Which presented a dilemma. Vander Heide, a legal secretary, could limp into work (and go shopping at lunchtime) or hop off and try to retrieve the black pump. She took the latter course. A nearby Red Line worker was kind enough to descend into the track bed and recover the shoe.

It didn’t have a nick.

Day saved.

miscelLAny Celebrity judges will choose a Ms. Ripe to represent the California Avocado Commission at noon today at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The commission says that the Cinco de Mayo weekend is “the biggest avocado consumption day of the year” in this state. That isn’t nearly as surprising as the fact that there actually is a California Avocado Commission.