Trouble in L.A. River CityAs if L.A...

Trouble in L.A. River City

As if L.A hasn’t taken enough lumps on movie screens lately, more cinematic catastrophes are on the way. In “Escape from L.A.,” a devastating earthquake will turn the city into an island. In “Independence Day,” seemingly friendly flying saucer people will destroy downtown L.A., including City Hall. (Imagine how depressed city employees will be over the destruction of their cellular phones.)

And a division of 20th Century Fox has a script about a volcano that erupts in the City of Angels. A lava-slide! That’s probably one L.A. disaster you never dreamed about. What do you want to bet that the volcano will be beneath the Hollywood sign?

WE OPPOSE IT, WE OPPOSE IT NOT: One of the attendees at a meeting of Tom Hayden’s anti-Metro Rail group, Stop the Subway Now, passed us a copy of its agenda for that session. After seeing the title, he wonders if the MTA had infiltrated Hayden’s office. (See excerpt.)

STOP THE MUSIC: Our contest in which readers were asked to nominate the five most annoying disc jockeys in L.A. radio history is over--at last. The delay was because of an investigation into possible ballot-box stuffing by backers of Robby Russell, a midnight jock at KWIZ-FM before the station changed formats. Most of the votes for him were unsigned, illegible and bore the same handwriting (several contained the same scary photo).

When we confronted Russell, he readily admitted urging friends and acquaintances to support his cause. “I really am an annoying deejay,” insisted Russell, who bolstered his case by playing us an old show intro in which he refers to himself as “the nightmare of radio.”

So did we disqualify him? Not at all. If he wants the title that much, he deserves it.

KNOCKS POPULI: The top vote-getters in the most-annoying-deejays contest:

1. Robby Russell, 36 votes.

2. Mark & Brian (KLOS-FM), 15.

3. Robert W. Morgan (KRTH-FM), 13.

4. Jed the Fish (KROQ-FM), 10.

5. Rick Dees (KIIS-FM), 10.

The reader who came closest to picking the Bottom Five was Sherry Miller of L.A., who picked three of the above (though not Russell). She wins a copy of Don Barrett’s “Los Angeles Radio People.” Our congratulations to Miller--and to the deejays who were singled out.

ON A POSITIVE NOTE: The annoying-deejays idea came to us after we mentioned that author Barrett is asking buyers of his book to list their favorites. Several of our entrants also wished to vote for their faves, who included Morgan, Mark & Brian as well as Hudson & Landry, Lohman & Barkley, Gary Owens, Jimmy Rabbit, Al Jarvis, Dick Whittington and Dick Whittinghill.

DEALING IN FUTURES: A panhandler was observed on a sidewalk near the Pacific Stock Exchange building Tuesday, holding a sign that said: “Three Burritos Sound Good. Or I Can Eat Your Tires.” He looked skinny enough to be a threat to a set of radials.

miscelLAny Husbands who have been tardy taking down the holiday decorations can take solace from Charles Lockwood’s book, “Dream Palaces.” Lockwood points out that comic actor Harold Lloyd kept a “year-round Christmas tree” on his Greenacres estate in Beverly Hills.