<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Trading a Few Shots Over Raiders’ Gun Exchange

Nobody disses the Raiders and their new old hometown--not even ABC. Or else.

Assemblyman Don Perata (D-Alameda), who as a supervisor helped to bring home the boys in silver and black, was watching the Raiders-Chiefs game when he heard two sportscasters’ jock-joshing exchange about Oakland’s guns-for-tickets swap. (Oakland player Chester McGlockton, his team and Oakland cops are sponsoring the trade-in program, which began this week.)

Wouldn’t you know, Perata heard one of them say, that of all NFL franchises, the Raiders would be caught up in exchanging guns for tickets?

Perata’s letter to Al Michaels at ABC Sports scolded, “You ridiculed the entire community, not just Raider fans. . . . [Go ahead and] make fun of cheese-heads, tailgaters and tattoos. Gun exchanges are about real life in urban America. . . . They deserve our respect and support.”

(Perata knows that “we don’t have gang members turning in guns for a couple of 40-yard-line seats, but it comes down to heroes like McGlockton saying these guns are a bad thing to have in our community.”)

Still no reply from ABC, but Perata did notice that the same sportscasters “were in Miami this past week and they didn’t talk about the riots there.”

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California Nuts

Out-of-staters who consider California “nuttier than a fruitcake” are only literally correct: We produce three-quarters of the world’s almonds, and 99.5% of the nation’s English walnuts.

So, as you munch that holiday fruitcake or assorted nuts, take a look at last year’s top five almond- and walnut-producing counties:

ALMONDS

County: Tons

* Kern: 32,200

* Stanislaus: 30,866

* Merced: 28,436

* Fresno: 22,900

* San Joaquin: 19,299

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ENGLISH WALNUTS

County: Tons

* San Joaquin: 55,140

* Stanislaus: 29,367

* Butte: 24,666

* Tulare: 22,600

* Sutter: 21,366

Source: California Agricultural Statistics Service

Researched by TRACY THOMAS / Los Angeles Times

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Shooting blank verse: The duelists: a Denver poetaster and the Laguna Beach police chief. The weapons: stanzas at a thousand miles.

Coloradan Chris Baumgartner, lunching with his granny in Laguna Beach, was sure he’d put enough coins in the parking meter, but returned to find a $10 ticket--and time left on the meter.

In seven quatrains titled “A Poem in Disputation of Parking Citation LB003065438,” Baumgartner appealed the dispute in rhymes like “machine” and “obscene.”

(The entire exchange is in the new Mother Jones magazine, but for brevity’s sake, the rhyming reply from Police Chief Neil J. Purcell advised Baumgartner in four verses that “Your time was fine! You were not late. The problem was with your license plate”--no month expiration sticker.

In the interest of fairness, the ticket was expunged. In the interest of poetry, the Nobel Prize committee will not be calling.

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Barbie Dalis: You wouldn’t suspect it of a doll that sells at the rate of two per second, but there is a Barbie Backlash, and it’s thriving in San Francisco.

Barbie haters’ holiday antidote to Twirling Ballerina Barbie is Trailer Trash Barbie or her sister dolls, Big Dyke Barbie with a pierced nose, Hooker Barbie with negligee and condom, and Drag Queen Barbie, a Ken doll wearing Barbie’s clothes and wig.

A shop called In-jean-ious also offers pierced-to-order customized Barbies. Owner Bill Tull has had to compile a waiting list for Trailer Trash Barbie in particular, an inbred irresistible with a cigarette, black roots to her platinum hair, and a quote bubble reading, “My Daddy Swears I’m the Best Kisser in the County!”

While Barbie has become a cultural tabula rasa, she is not public property. The alternative “Motel” brand Barbie is waiting for the other high-heeled shoe to drop from the trademark-conscious “Mattel” company to the south. . . .

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One-offs: Chico cabaret musicians who were sick of breathing secondhand smoke during performances cobbled together a ballot measure that now bans smoking in city bars. . . . John Wayne Bobbitt canceled an appearance at the opening of a Stockton porn superstore because of his new status as an ordained minister. . . . A Sonoma assemblywoman is trying to end the state’s 40-year-old practice of charging sales tax on pets adopted from local shelters “as if they were toasters,” said a Humane Society official. . . . In the spirit of civic “volunteerism,” Los Altos Mayor Francis La Poll is keeping a campaign promise to return his $3,500 salary to the city. . . . The announcement from the presidential inaugural committee that North Monterey County High School’s marching band will be the state’s representative in the January parade refers to the band’s hometown as “Castorville.”

EXIT LINE

“They could have installed an ATM in here and legitimized the whole thing.”

--Pub patron Biff Montes. Facing a lawsuit by a Dublin financial institution that has called itself “The Bank of Ireland” since 1783, a San Francisco pub that has called itself “Bank of Ireland” since 1995 has agreed to change its name to “The Irish Bank.”

California Dateline appears every other Friday.