A Movie About a Sport That’s Forgotten in L.A.

Talk about place-kicking a city when it’s down. Rick Rofman of Van Nuys noted that in Sunday’s TV movie, “The Garbage-Picking, Field Goal-Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon,” Tony Danza exhorted his pro football teammates:

“We’re the Philadelphia Eagles, not the Los Angeles Whoevers.”

Almost makes you wish for the return of Al Davis. Almost.

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NFL TEAM OR NO NFL TEAM: L.A. has no trouble attracting people in other cities--or countries--to resettle here, as you can see from the vanity plates on the DMV’s Web site (https://plates.ca.gov). It lists the plates of motorists who have moved from:

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BONN2LA, CHGO2LA, GUAM2LA, INDY2LA, ITLY2LA, LOND2LA, MASS2LA, MAUI2LA, MINN2LA, NYC2LA, ROME2LA, PHLY2LA (goodbye, Eagles!), TAOS2LA and UK2LA.

Then there’s ERTH2LA, surely the longest move of all.

Unless you count OZ2LA.

Of course, I don’t know what the devil to think of HL2LA.

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A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS, GTE: Maybe it’s all the competition that is forcing General Telephone to play hardball with Shawn Lavi (see accompanying).

Surely, some way can be worked out so that Lavi can pay the amount owed--one cent--on an installment basis rather than have the bill made “subject to immediate referral for collection and credit reporting.”

Heck, I might loan Lavi the money myself (payable within 90 days, at 8% interest).

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TOMBSTONE-TO-TOMBSTONE CARPETING? In the “unusual things for sale” category, Georgia Lee saw an ad in a weekly newspaper for a CD with true gristle (if not grit) while Janet Crossman came upon a reference to a strange showplace for rugs (see accompanying).

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THE HMS ONLY IN L.A., LISTING BADLY: Here your columnist was innocently trying to capitalize on the attention paid to the movie “Titanic,” and next thing he knows, he’s crashed into an iceberg of criticism.

I quoted Boating magazine, which said that boaters watching the movie “snickered when the helmsman of the doomed ship swung the wheel to port as a fellow shipmate cried, ‘Turn hard to starboard!’ ”

But the movie is correct, responded James Lima, among other readers.

“Prior to the widespread use of the automobile, ship’s wheels were rigged to mimic the turning of the rudder,” Lima pointed out.

“As such, the wheel would have been turned to the left (port) to move the ship to the right (starboard). Only after many people had learned to drive were ships’ wheels rigged to correspond to replicate the turning of automobile wheels.”

Do I understand? Right. I mean, starboard.

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MOO-VING ALONG: The L.A. Daily Journal carried a state appeals court ruling out of Ventura that, under the doctrine of assumed risk, a cowboy injured while wrestling an enraged calf cannot sue the animal’s owner for negligence.

“While we do not pretend to read the mind of a bovine animal,” said Justice Kenneth R. Yegan of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, “it seems apparent that these animals do not want to be lassoed, thrown to the ground and tied up so that their horns and other anatomical parts can be severed.”

After receiving the letters about “Titanic,” I know how those animals feel.

miscelLAny:

Author Marvin Wolf informs me that the Independent Writers of Southern California “had that sinking feeling” after the scheduled speaker for the group’s program dropped out.

Luckily, Don Lynch, author of “Titanic: An Illustrated History,” agreed to appear instead.

The subject of the canceled program, by the way, was: “Finding God in L.A.” (Surely it can’t be as difficult as finding a pro football team here.)

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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.