No one was interested in writing screenplays?The...

No one was interested in writing screenplays?

The only reference to Los Angeles in the first episode of Ken Burns’ PBS series, “The West,” was a statement that the San Gabriel Mission fathers considered the founders of L.A. “lazy and corrupt, interested mainly in drinking, gambling and pursuing women.”

COMPLEMENTARY BUSINESSES: Charles Mulholland of Encino snapped today’s photo, which prompts us to wonder which of the two shops arrived first. Or was it a conspiracy?

BLASTING OFF INTO INNER SPACE: “My wife, an avid birder, was on the First Sunday of the Month Bird Walk in the South Coast Botanic Garden,” writes Bill Burkhardt of Rancho Palos Verdes. “Spotting a lesser goldfinch at the beginning of the walk, she shouted its location to the group, but the bird left its perch immediately and winged into the flower garden. Margaret retrained her binoculars on the bird, and excitedly announced, ‘It flew into the cosmos!’ ”

Another birder, unaware that cosmos is the name of a type of plant, said to Burkhardt’s wife, “Could you narrow that down a bit?”

THE FREEWAY NEUROSIS INDUSTRY: Have you ever noticed (we ask in our whiniest Andy Rooney voice), how many products are aimed at drivers? For instance:

* BMW says that to cut down on the chances of a 70 mph sneeze in your car--and the disaster that can ensue during the instant you blink--it has installed a “micro-filtrator system” that will “eliminate dust and pollen.”

* Books on Tape brags that its readers look forward to “boring commutes.”

* Wrigley’s gum says its product is just the alternative for the passenger whose fellow car-poolers won’t let him smoke.

* A freeway billboard from radio station Easy 100.3 warns: “Stress kills. Don’t let it get to you.”

* A freeway billboard from Mercedes-Benz says: “Fire your therapist.”

* And then there’s the book, “Manifold Destiny--The One, The Only Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine,” by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller. The authors reveal how motorists can utilize valuable free time to make such internal combustion delicacies as Melrose Avenue Chicken. Just don’t sneeze on it.

HOW ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL IMITATORS INSTEAD? The L.A. Downtown News’ lively “Street Talk” column asked passersby which 1996 presidential candidate they’d most want to be stranded on a desert island with. The votes were distributed among Ross Perot (“he’s a lot shorter and sillier and he’d keep me laughing”), Bill Clinton (“the fairest . . . I’d get my share of coconuts”), and Bob Dole (“he’s been around and pretty much knows what he’s doing).”

But paralegal Laura Thomas told the column’s Victoria Looseleaf and Gary Leonard: “Oh, puhleeze! Those are my choices? I’d rather be alone.”

miscelLAny:

John Stein saw a placard on a telephone pole in Pacific Palisades that asked for assistance in locating a cherished possession. The notice said: “Lost--Hubcap” and gave the date it disappeared as well as the owner’s telephone number. No other details on the item. Just: “Hubcap.” It gives us pleasure to report an item illustrating that Angelenos are no longer preoccupied with just drinking, gambling and pursuing women.