Off-Kilter

Lethal Museums Department: Ralph Nader wants to open a Museum of American Tort Law in his hometown of Winsted, Conn., according to Newsweek. Proposed exhibits include--no joke--a Ford Pinto with the exploding gas tank, flammable pajamas, asbestos and breast implants.

We think Nader is on the right track, but he should open a Tort Law amusement park instead. Attractions could include Slip-N-Fall Hall, Pinto bumper cars, a McDonald’s coffee-machine fountain that sprays boiling java on people and an HMO Maze that leads visitors down numerous dead ends before they finally reach a specialist.

Lame Lyrics, Chapter IV: Back by popular demand (or back because we don’t have anything else to write about), it’s time for another installment of When Bad Lyrics Happen to Good Songs, wherein we search for stupid lyrics in otherwise decent rock tunes. Today’s entries:

* Kirk F. Maldonado submitted a Bee Gees verse, “More than a woman to me,” and asked: “How could a woman be more than a woman? Was she a woman and a man (a hermaphrodite)? Or maybe a woman and a duck-billed platypus?”

* Steve Hoffman of Redondo Beach nominated the Supremes’ “I’m Livin’ in Shame” for this desperate rhyme: “Then came a telegram; my mama passed away while making homemade jam.” As opposed to making store-bought jam.

* Steven Plasman of San Diego and Saaqib Rangoonwala of Irvine both lobbied for Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love,” which contains the repetitiously redundant “Only time will tell if we stand the test of time.”

* And finally, Daryl no-last-name of KCAL-FM drafted the Tubes’ “White Punks on Dope,” a classic rocker except for one supremely bad rhyme: “Other dudes are living in the ghetto, but born in Pacific Heights don’t seem much betto.” Or maybe they spelled it “bhetto.”

More Holidays: Our recent listing of August celebrations was woefully incomplete. We apologize for not mentioning National Elvis Week (this week), International Left-Handers Day (this Friday), National Gossip Day, National Failures Day, National Mustard Day and, of course, National Damn the Torpedoes Full Speed Ahead Day.

Government Lyrics Department: President Clinton’s campaign to translate federal documents into plain English is finally having an effect, according to Chicago columnist Zay N. Smith. This month’s government award for using everyday English goes to a pair of Bureau of Land Management employees who replaced the phrase “commencing any surface-disturbing activities” with the word “digging.”

Rod McKuen, MD?: England’s Poetry Society has received a $600,000 grant to pay for poet-in-residence programs at prisons, gardens, businesses and soccer clubs, according to John Wilcock of the Montecito Journal. Another project, dubbed “Poetry in the Waiting Room,” will bring poets to hospital operating tables to “soothe people and help them control difficult feelings.”

Or maybe Clinton could hire the poets to translate government documents into haiku, iambic pentameter and free verse.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Dog Arrested for Being a Peeping Tom!” (Weekly World News)

* Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.

Unpaid Informants: Ann Harrison, Steven Lubet, Chicago Sun-Times, Buzz Report