JOKER: Keith Nelson was voted the Funniest...

JOKER: Keith Nelson was voted the Funniest Person in the Valley on Tuesday night at the L.A. Cabaret Comedy Club in Encino. It’s the third time the comedian from Palmdale has vied for the title, and the $1,000 prize. “For seven minutes work . . . only Heidi Fleiss’ girls make that much,” Nelson quipped later.

OVER THE HILL: Could our own Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks be guilty of Valley bashing? You decide. . . . Its new ads, featured on three billboards over the hill, invite shoppers to visit Fashion Square, where they’ll find “a little bit of the Westside in the Valley.” Does that imply the Westside offers the ultimate shopping experience while Valley slugs soldier on with pastel polyester? Marketing Director Michele Mason says the ads are not meant to diss the Valley.

SOUNDS LIKE: Menendez prosecutors are reinterpreting a sound bite in hopes it will help them prove the brothers schemed to make their parents’ murder look like a mob hit. (B1) In the 1989 police interview, Lyle Menendez’s words were transcribed to say his dad’s business “worked . . . from 9 to 5.” Now, a detective testified, Lyle said the business “wasn’t free from organized crime.”

SHAKE AWAKE: The finding that heart attack rates jumped 35% after the 1994 Northridge earthquake (Jan. 17, 4:31 a.m.) made sense to Good Samaritan Hospital cardiologists Robert A. Kloner and Jonathan Leor. But why didn’t the same rates rise in the Bay Area after its 1989 temblor, at 5:04 p.m.? Are Northern Californians made of sterner stuff? . . . Nope. In Psychology Today, Kloner blames the surge on the hour of our quake. That kind of wake-up call is a heart stopper.