Only in Mega City 2:Unable to wait...

Only in Mega City 2:

Unable to wait for the opening of “Judge Dredd,” the sci-fi movie about a wrongly accused lawman, we bought the paperback so we could find out how L.A. will look in the future.

The year 2191, to be exact.

As you might guess, it ain’t pretty. Consider these changes:

* L.A has been renamed Mega City 2, making it even harder for songwriters to rhyme than Los Angeles. Mega City 1 is, of course, New York City, which is so big it has a 2,023rd Street.

* L.A. is encircled by a wall 2,700 feet high (anything to keep those New Yorkers out!). The rich live in high-rises whose “great spires are lost in the clouds.”

* Medicine is even more high tech, as when a doctor announces “the new DNA sample has been multiplexed as ordered. . . . Gametes are dividing.” (Has the Simpson defense thought of this alibi?)

* Every citizen is “entitled to free health care, including the necessary genetic correction procedures to assure the elimination of those traits undesirable to contemporary society.”

* The latest fashion has men painting half their face blue, half red.

* There is no mention of the whereabouts of the Raiders.

I AM I SAID!Vic Ten of Hollywood sent along a document that his mother, Elsie Wong, received from the L.A. County Employees Retirement Assn. She was happy to fill it out.

POCANEWTON? “Wayne Newton tells me he is a direct descendant of Pocahontas,” Army Archerd reports in his Daily Variety column, “and he wants to bring back her remains from a burial site in Graveside (no kidding), England.”

(Funny. We always thought the singer was a descendant of Sir Isaac.)

Newton, who says he is related on his father’s side, told Archerd that with “today’s forensic knowledge” it should be possible to find her remains and “bring her home to Jamestown (Va.).”

We can almost hear the spirit of Pocahontas telling Newton: “Danke schoen.”

ANAGRAM OF THE DAY Hank Jeffries of San Pedro found what would make a dandy slogan for a city to the south:

FOUNTAIN VALLEY--A LOVELY TUNA FIN.

THE WORLD CAN START SPINNING NOW: The Greater L.A. Press Club nearly broke up recently because of a power struggle between news and publicity types in the organization. The newsies won and will hold an installation ceremony for officers tonight. Keynote speaker at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel will be Jess Marlow, the KNBC-TV anchor.

Disputes aren’t new to the press club. During Prohibition, the members guzzled contraband beer and whiskey contributed by police-beat reporters until their headquarters was shut down by police. The cops were tipped off--by a drunk reporter who had been denied service at the club.

WE’D LIKE A SECOND OPINION: That disabled car on the shoulder of the Foothill Freeway probably didn’t attract many potential buyers, even though the “For Sale” notice on its back window insisted that it “Runs Good.”

miscelLAny Sam Frank saw this marquee on the Emmanuel Lutheran Church in North Hollywood: “The Lord Loveth a Cheerful Giver. He Also Accepteth from a Grouch.”