Something Funny Turns Up in His Past

No sooner did the FBI file on Frank Sinatra come to light than Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen dug into the past of actor Robin Williams. Well, the actual shoveling was done by CMC, the alumni magazine for Claremont McKenna College, which was known as Claremont Men’s College when Williams was a student there.

Nothing too shocking unless you count the time Williams misrepresented himself during a soccer game. Steve Davis, then CMC’s soccer coach, recalled that Williams--a cutup even then--spoke with a pronounced Cockney accent throughout. Afterward, an opposing coach asked Davis, “Where did you get the Englishman?”

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HELLO? Several readers were puzzled over a dual-language Pacific Bell ad they received (see accompanying). The Spanish version states that the basic necessities of life are salud (health), dinero (money), amor (love) and phone. (It’s actually a variation of a common saying in Latin America, with the exception of the “phone” part).

The English version says the basics are just “food, water, phone.” Forget about health, money and love. “Spanish-speaking customers must be having more fun,” commented Marge Klugman of L.A.

What makes the English version so puzzling is that everyone knows phone service costs a lot more dinero, excuse me, bucks, these days.

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MY FAVORITE CATASTROPHES: In his book “Ecology of Fear” author Mike Davis is so enthusiastic about imagining disaster scenarios for L.A. that at one point, he mentions the possibility of a tornado “colliding with a 747 in its final descent over LAX,” or a twister swooping “down on the Coliseum during the annual USC-Notre Dame gridiron duel.”

Davis even devotes a chapter to fictional catastrophes, finding that the City of Angels has been destroyed 49 times by nuclear weapons, 28 times by earthquakes and 10 times by monsters.

Some novelistic milestones he cites:

--First overall disaster: “The Valor of Ignorance,” by Homer Lea (1909). Japanese armed forces invade, making a feint at the “worthless” fortifications in San Pedro, then landing in Santa Monica and sweeping west (there was less traffic to contend with on the Westside back then).

--First devastating quake: “The Secret Power: A Romance of the Time,” by Marie Corelli (1921).

--First slide into the ocean: “Flutter of an Eyelid,” by Myron Brinig (1933). “Los Angeles tobogganed with almost one continuous movement into the water, the shore cities going first, followed by the inland communities . . . “

--First eco-disaster: “Greener Than You Think,” by Ward Moore (1947). A Hollywood man’s superfertilizer causes a worldwide takeover by Bermuda grass.

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TOBOGGANING RIGHT ALONG: Davis writes that in “The Creeping Terror,” a 1961 short story by Richard Matheson, L.A. gets some revenge, jolting “to life as a single asphalt-and-citrus megafungus” that spreads across the country. The capital is moved to Beverly Hills and citizens warble the new anthem: “Sing out O land, with flag unfurled! Los Angeles! Tomorrow’s World!”

Well it is more catchy than, “Food, Water, Phone.”

miscelLAny:

Ella Webb of Hemet writes that when granddaughter Erinn was elected student body president of her elementary school, she asked the youngster what her duties were. Erinn thought for a moment and then replied, “Well, first I say, ‘This meeting is opened,’ and then I say, ‘This meeting is closed.’ ”

A boss that even Dilbert would admire.