She’s winging it:Piedad Robertson will provide some...

She’s winging it:

Piedad Robertson will provide some of the entertainment at her own inauguration as president of Santa Monica College Sunday. She’ll do bird calls.

Robertson, who describes herself as a woman with “no musical talent,” will perform during Leopold Mozart’s “Toy Symphony” (though something by the Eagles might be more appropriate).

A spokesman said Robertson will be accompanied by “equally musically uninclined members of the SMC Board of Trustees” at the ceremony at John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica.

She is not the first SMC president to take an unconventional approach.

Richard Moore, a predecessor of Robertson’s, once gave a commencement address at the end of a high school graduation ceremony that had dragged on far too long. Moore strode to the podium and said three words: “Feelings. Adventures. Ideas.” Then he sat down.

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SELF-SERVING: Old-timers will recall the experience of driving into a gas station and seeing several attendants run to your car.

Nowadays, at a lot of gas stations, the only guy willing to clean your windshield is a free-lancer.

Hence, this message blared over the PA system at an AM PM Mini Market in Santa Monica: “An individual who offers to pump gas, wash windows or solicits products is not employed by or associated with this facility . . . we discourage any contact with these individuals.”

If it’s any comfort to AM PM, we’d never suspect that one of their employees would offer to pump gas or wash windows.

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NOW WE FIND OUT: Lynn Dickhoff of Topanga saw a hand-lettered, un-punctuated sign pointing out directions to a shooting site for a film. The wording, Dickhoff observed, could be “a comment on our judicial system.” It said:

JURY

AROUND BEND

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MARCO POLO WOULD APPRECIATE IT: Pete Kohl of Signal Hill contributed a photo of a Monterey Park store sign as part of our continuing series on the diversity of the Southland.

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NO CLIP JOB: Long Beach has a new airline, Presidential Air, currently flying to Houston and Atlanta. Considering its name, we’re surprised that Presidential Air hasn’t tried to capitalize on the publicity that President Clinton received at LAX. But, so far, the airline has made no announcement about offering haircuts on the Tarmac.

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O.J. FRAMED: That’s the offer from J&E; Enterprises of Long Beach, which is offering framed color prints of the former football star for $325. Unframed: $225.

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THE THING SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: Ellen Alperstein received a “Dear Postal Customer” letter, inviting her response to a survey about the quality of the service. Of course, the letter didn’t get to her right away. It was sent to an address she had left 18 months ago, and the envelope had a “notify sender” label on it.

miscelLAny:

Tom Bratter of West L.A. points out that two ideal streets for trick-or-treaters this Halloween would be Caspar Avenue in Eagle Rock and Broom Way in Brentwood.