Simpson, Part 1Arguing against a fifth attempt...

Simpson, Part 1

Arguing against a fifth attempt by the Simpson defense to tell jurors about news leaks, Deputy Dist. Atty. Hank Goldberg said he was reminded “of one of those monster movies that we have all seen where the monster is impaled and burned and stabbed, and just when you think it’s finally going to rest, it rises up again out of the ashes.”

To which Judge Lance A. Ito replied: “You are probably speaking of ‘Friday the 13th’?”

An adept analogy.

KNBC’s Tracie Savage, one of the reporters who broadcast a leak, had a bit role in the 1982 slice ‘em up, “Friday the 13th--Part 3.”

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THE FALLING LEAVES: To paraphrase Joyce Kilmer, we think that we shall never see these guys working on a tree, no matter how many times we look at today’s photo by Terri Dorow.

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SAY IT WITH BILLBOARDS (CONT.): We still haven’t solved the mystery of the Santa Ana Freeway billboard that says: “Kathy, I love you more than you’ll ever know . . . Please forgive me. Tom.”

A spokesman for Metropolitan Outdoor Media, the billboard company, would say only that Tom’s a lottery winner who “got into some kind of trouble with his wife.” And he doesn’t want to be interviewed by the media. The one-month public apology cost him $6,500, by the way.

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LET’S GO . . . SURFIN’?Members of the Beach Boys singing group who were actually surfers, from “The New Book of Rock Lists,” by Dave Marsh and James Bernard:

1. Dennis Wilson.

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LAST ONE IN: Members of the Beach Boys who had a phobia about going into the water, from our own treasury of useless trivia:

1. Brian Wilson.

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LITERARY L.A.: In “Sweet Thursday,” John Steinbeck’s sequel to “Cannery Row,” a grocery store in the fishing community is purchased by a mysterious newcomer with the improbable name of Joseph and Mary.

It turns out that Joseph and Mary was formerly a city gardener in the Plaza area of L.A. during a period when marijuana sales increased markedly. “Every vacant lot was searched from San Pedro to Eagle Rock,” Steinbeck writes.

Police didn’t crack the case until Mildred Bugle, age 13, “head of her class in Beginning Botany, L.A. High School,” noticed the cannabis growing in the historic Plaza area.

The cops were in a dilemma. “How would it look if the newspapers got hold of the story that the Plaza was the source of supply,” Steinbeck writes, “that the product had been planted and distributed by a city employee, freshened with city water, and fed with city manure?”

And that’s how Joseph and Mary came to leave L.A.--via a bus ticket police donated.

miscelLAny:

Rhino Chasers, a micro-brewery that is opening at LAX’s Terminal One in October, derives its name from the ‘60s expression for surfers who chased the biggest waves. We tell you that so you won’t be surprised by the seats, which will be in the shape of surfboards. Made to order for the Beach Boys.