Conversations that nevertake place in Dubuque:Linda Rosen...

Conversations that never

take place in Dubuque:

Linda Rosen overheard the following exchange between a couple of swinging singles at the Twelfth Street Bar in Manhattan Beach.

She: “What do you for a living?”

He: “I’m an actor.”

She (rolling her eyes): “Oh God.”

He: “No, really, I’m a working actor.”

She: “What restaurant?”

TOO FEW METHOD ACTORS: The above conversation reminds us that, like most Angelenos, we’ve been served in eateries by actors who were merely moonlighting in their restaurant jobs.

And we’ve often noticed that these actors don’t seem skilled at playing the parts of waiters.

PUTTING THE MILK CART BEFORE THE HORSE? A reader noted that one Pasadena hospital’s catalog of classes, included a title that seemed premature to say the least.

DON’T WE FEEL LIKE A DUMMKOPF: This column has discussed the historic births of such chains as Bob’s Big Boy (Glendale, 1936), Winchell’s Donuts (Temple City, 1948), In-N-Out Burgers (Baldwin Park, 1948) and Denny’s (Lakewood, 1953). So M.R. Rosenlof scolds us for leaving out another pioneer, the premiere Der Wienerschnitzel, which opened on the corner of Gulf Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington in 1961.

AND THIS IS NO BUNCH OF TRIPE: But is Der first Wienerschnitzel Wilmington’s main claim to fame? Maybe not--maybe it’s Juanita’s Foods, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary making menudo.

Publicist Mike Venema goes so far as to call Wilmington the “Menudo Capital of the World,” but he’s paid to say things like that.

Menudo’s main ingredient is tripe (the stomach lining of a cow) and Venema points out that tripe is as American as George Washington. In fact, in his diary, Washington said of the winter his troops spent at Valley Forge, “without traeppe, we would surely have perished.”

It’s a legendary hangover cure, too.

WEEKEND SIGHTSEEING TIPS: “The public is invited to an extraordinary afternoon of music, personal tours and refreshments in celebration of the grand reopening of the newly renovated Praiswater-Meyer Mitchell Mortuary,” says a news release for the May 4 event in Long Beach. Remember to step lively.

THE BEAT CHANGES: On a rerun of the 1970s TV program “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Mary Richards tries to talk Lou Grant out of a scheme by reminding him that what he wants to do is too “hip.” Lou Grant is not hip, she tells him. She adds: “Sonny Bono is hip.”

That conservative congressman from Palm Springs?

miscelLAny:

We came upon a December 1995 edition of the Contractor News (“Voice of the Industry”), which proves, once again, that every cloud has a silver lining. Its main headline says: “MTA Corruption Creates Work for Local Contractors.”