Nine lives and then some:Two days after...

Nine lives and then some:

Two days after Janice Turley’s Buick was stolen, the car was found stripped on the Long Beach Freeway. But what really bothered Turley was that her cat Tikey also had been taken from the car. And the feline is unlikely to find its way home.

Tikey is stuffed. Or freeze-dried, to be more precise.

The animal died in 1994 at the age of 23 (which is 161 in cat years, or 46 in rock-musician years). And she sent Tikey to a specialist in Ohio who preserved her pet in a sleeping position. Tikey was still in the shipping box in the trunk when Turley’s car disappeared.

That was more than three weeks ago. “I am desperate for any information I can get,” said Turley. She has run ads in several local papers and has posted fliers around town (“If you have seen a tan cardboard box with the label ‘Kulis Freeze-Dry’ . . . please contact Long Beach Police, (310) 570-7362”).

Turley hasn’t lost hope, though. She says a pet psychic recently told her that Tikey is still in the area.

EVERY DARK CLOUD HAS A DARK LINING: Among the events postponed Wednesday because of the soggy weather was the dedication of a new facility at Ft. Irwin: a solar energy system.

HERE’S THE JOHNNY PRECEDENT! A Circuit Court recently reinstated a lawsuit by basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar against General Motors, which aired a commercial mentioning him by his former name, Lew Alcindor, in 1993.

A federal court originally had thrown out the suit largely because Jabbar isn’t Lew Alcindor--hasn’t been since 1971.

We bring up this not-terribly-important legal matter because the federal court also discussed one of our favorite landmark cases--Carson vs. Here’s Johnny Portable Toilets.

Carson’s lawyers successfully flushed away that business for attempting to exploit the comic’s name.

In the Jabbar matter, the since-overruled federal court said, as reported in the L.A. Daily Journal’s Daily Appellate Report: “One cannot say that Lew Alcindor equals Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in anywhere near the same sense that ‘Here’s Johnny’ equals Johnny Carson. . . .”

There must be a Leno or Letterman joke in there somewhere.

DRIVER FOR A DAY: A friend of ours noticed that the state has adopted a new policy for increasing revenue. Vehicle registrations only cover one day. At least that’s the impression he received from the Department of Motor Vehicles (see excerpt). Notice the self-descriptive phrase, “A Public Service Agency,” under the DMV name. We’ve said it before--how ironic that government agencies can fine individuals for mistakes, but not vice versa.

ONLY IN L.A.--POWER BROKER: Several weeks ago, this column asked readers to name the most annoying disc jockey in town. The winner, as you’ve no doubt forgotten, was Robby Russell, an obscure, out-of-work personality.

Russell later admitted that he and his cronies had stuffed our ballot boxes. We gave the title to him anyway because we found him so annoying. True to form, he later wrote us to complain that we hadn’t published a picture of him.

Anyway, now we hear that Russell has been restored to his weekly post as a midnight Sunday-to-2 a.m. (non-drive-time) jock on KWIZ-FM radio.

Sometimes, the influence we wield frightens even us.

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A plaque on the Metro Rail Blue Line car dedicated to Hidden Hills says that the city offers many rustic features, including “bridal” paths. We presume that, in the interests of equality, the city has some paths for the grooms, too.