The Real Race Never Ends in L.A.
A TREE THAT DOESN’T GROW IN L.A.: Los Angeles’ reputation as a plastic city can only be enhanced by the fake palm tree looming near the San Diego Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass (see photo).
Its ersatz fronds are meant to conceal the structure’s real identity as a transmission tower for cellular phones and beepers.
It was also a reminder, for T. Larry Watts of L.A., of the plastic flowers and trees “used a number of years ago to landscape Jefferson Boulevard between the 405 and Lincoln Boulevard.”
Ah, yes, the Great Plastic Plant controversy.
The county had installed more than 900 of the things, explaining that there wasn’t enough earth along the road.
The project sprouted numerous critics, ranging from garden clubs who said the city’s reputation as a garden spot would be jeopardized, to schoolchildren who worried that real birds would have no place to nest.
The county relented in 1976 and removed the ornaments. By that time, about 50 of the ersatz shrubs had already been torn out by terrorist gardeners.
*
SPEAKING OF PLASTIC: Andy Rubin of Malibu saw a panhandler on Santa Monica Boulevard with a sign showing a photocopy of an American Express card alongside this message: “I Left Home Without It.”
*
THEY WERE ONLY USED ON WEEKENDS . . . Ex-Angeleno Ron Keyson spotted an ad placed by a developer offering “new” homes--”1968 models”--near Lake Arrowhead (see photo).
*
LIST OF THE DAY: Some other curiosities found in print by Only in L.A.’s guerrilla proofreaders:
* A Whittier restaurant that says it’s “off the beat and path” (submitted by Maggie O’Donnell).
* A school searching for a “Pet” squad advisor (Deb Bennett, who says this is further proof that “public education is going to the dogs”).
* A restaurant offering “authentic food made daily” (Bill Miller).
* A sculpture containing sterling “sliver” (Dan Force).
* “Sweet juicy plums” that are left “on the tree for 3-5 days longer, [which] ensures a naturally ripe nectarine” (Anne Currie, who wonders if it’s an authentic nectarine).
* A Torrance art exhibit featuring “sex artists from Southern California” (Sam Kraus).
And, finally, Michael Harker, who works in the motion picture industry, says he once came upon a folder in a filing cabinet that was titled, “Paper View.” He adds: “This completely baffled me until I spoke the words aloud. It is, of course, a twisted form of ‘Pay Per View.’ ”
*
TODAY’S MYSTERY PLATE: After my disastrous attempt to translate the 2 XNTRK license plate, I don’t dare hazard a guess on the plate that Dion Nissenbaum saw on a Riverside street: IMAKUPU. “A Pepto-Bismol salesman?” Nissenbaum asked.
miscelLAny:
Marjorie Flathers of San Bernardino caught this reference to the Beach Boys in an area newspaper: “What do ‘California Girls,’ ‘In My Room,’ ‘Little Blue Scoop’ and ‘Help Me Rhonda’ have in common?” Nothing actually, since the group recorded, “Little Deuce Couple” not “Little Blue Scoop.” At least, the writer didn’t mention, “Surfing U.S.S.R.”
Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.
