No Cover, No Minimum

One of the best one-liners during the benefit at the Elysian Fields clothing-optional club came from comic Carol Ann Leif, who told the mostly nude audience, “My mother really wants me to marry a Jewish man, and they’re much easier to pick out here.”

Leif, like the other professional quipsters appearing for the Stand Up Against Domestic Violence show, kept her clothes on.

Entertainers in the past haven’t always been so modest, said Dana Lange, whose late father founded the Topanga colony.

“We had a magician perform nude once, and I didn’t think he’d be able to do the tricks without any clothes,” she said, “but he did.”

NO HORSE SENSE: Leslie Charleson of L.A. came across a visitor to Griffith Park who was exhibiting flagrant disregard for a posted prohibition (see photo). In fact, it’s possible the visitor also took a kick at the sign.

TALK ABOUT HIGH-LEVEL SCHMOOZING: After four hours of hiking in Idyllwild, Hank Rosenfeld of Santa Monica stopped at an elevation of several thousand feet to gaze at the view with three friends: Liz Ryan, Meredith Zamsky and Ann Randolph. The three are, respectively, an assistant director, a producer and an actress.

And? “And there she was,” Rosenfeld continued, “a pretty blond actress, hiking with her two therapist parents. She schmoozed us for half an hour, got tips from the film women on breaking in, exchanged business cards, the whole deal. In the middle of the wilderness! Nobody else around. Maybe her parents thought it was the best thing to do, therapeutically speaking.”

BUMPER STICKER OF THE WEEK: Seen on the San Diego Freeway: “Friends Don’t Let Friends Watch ‘Friends.’ ”

DECISIONS, DECISIONS: I hate complicated directions. Mel Steinberg of Rancho Palos Verdes found a sign that requires you to remember what day of the week it is, what sex you are today, etc., etc. (see photo).

EVERYTHING COMES AROUND: The other day I mentioned a poem on the menu of the Mayflower restaurant in L.A. earlier this century:

As you ramble on through life, brother,

Whatever be your goal,

Keep your eye upon the doughnut,

And not upon the hole.

It must have been a chain poem. Max Strauss says that that ditty “was written in my graduation autograph book by one of my classmates at P.S. 103, Brooklyn, N.Y., June, 1928.”

Strauss adds: “I wonder if Mayflower should have been compelled to print the rebuttal given by H.L. Mencken: ‘Anyhow, the hole in the doughnut is at least digestible.’ ”

miscelLAny

Almost any Angeleno could identify with the horrible experience of the couple trying to sell their house in “The Dead Hollywood Moms Society,” by Lindsay Maracotta. Just when some potential buyers are doing a walk-through, the body of a onetime actress is found in the swimming pool. Does it affect the property value? You bet--the actress had never had any major roles.