Finally, a Name Clinton Can Trust

So how did Paula Jones react when she received a fund-raising appeal from the Democratic Party on Bill Clinton’s stationery (see accompanying)?

She sent a donation. “I am a Democrat,” explained this Paula Jones, a West Hollywood businesswoman who is not the Paula Jones seeking some funds from President Clinton in a sexual harassment suit.

Although the West Hollywood Paula Jones has short blond hair, she says she is constantly asked if she is the Long Beach Paula Jones, especially when she’s at a function where she wears a badge bearing her name.

A business manager for California Plaza Presents, which stages concerts on Bunker Hill, Jones feels sympathy for Clinton. “I think this is all just a setup,” she said. “He’s not lily-white, but none of them are.”

She added: “And you heard that from Paula Jones.”

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MOSTACCIOLI? The ongoing stories about unsanitary conditions in some eateries seem to have caused some restaurants to brag about things other than their food, as this new establishment in Pasadena did in a flier (see accompanying).

VERY UNTIMELY DIAGNOSIS: Her 100-year-old ladies’ pocket watch, a family heirloom, wasn’t working, so L.A. Preston of Valencia took it to a local repair shop. A young clerk “turned the watch over and over,” Preston said, “opened the back cover and finally said, ‘Oh, I am sure that all we are looking at here is a battery replacement.’ ”

A 100-year-old battery?

WHALE OF A TALE: Perusing the biographies in the program before a recent performance of Ionesco’s comedy “Rhinoceros” at the Odyssey Theatre in West L.A., Gene Walsh of Burbank concluded that actor Eric Poppick would be a muscular 6-foot, 6-inch giant. Instead, Poppick turned out be a slim balding guy of medium stature. In retrospect, Walsh suspects that perhaps Poppick exaggerated his profile, which said:

“Before moving to Los Angeles, Eric turned down an offer to be a defensive end for the Boston Patriots. Instead, he pitched for 17 years for the Oakland Athletics and retired when he broke Nolan Ryan’s strikeout record. He recently logged his sixth space mission with NASA, and plans to accept the offer to captain the Calypso after the untimely death of Jacques Cousteau.”

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY: It was 14 years ago that a milestone event occurred at the Shrine Auditorium--Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire during the making of a Pepsi commercial.

I’M ALL SHOOK UP: George Kiseda of L.A. came across a stunning passage in a Washington Post article that carried a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, dateline. At a dinner in that city, the story said, “the City Wide Youth Choir sang, a minister whose real name is Elvis Presley gave the invocation. . . .”

Added Kiseda: “I guess that settles it. He’s alive and well in Cedar Rapids. Where else would you go to hide?”

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The most shocking moment of the State of the Union address, for me, came on my drive home when I realized that the speech was going to be broadcast without interruption by both all-news radio stations, KNX-AM (1070) and KFWB-AM (980). I’m speaking as a commuter, you understand. When Clinton at one point spoke of the mystery and adventure of entering outer space, I thought, oh yeah, you want suspense, try venturing onto the Santa Ana Freeway without the aid of traffic bulletins.

Steve Harvey, until he takes command of the Calypso, 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.