A Race That Was Decided Before It Was Over
It’s bad enough that the TV networks delight in projecting the winners of national elections before people out here have even voted. But at least they wait until the early evening. At the Tuesday meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, member Yvonne Brathwaite Burke declared colleague Gloria Molina a winner at 10:03 a.m.--almost 10 hours before the polls closed!
I was really outraged until I found out that Molina was running unopposed.
*
TALK ABOUT SNEAKY INTERNET PLOTS: Barbara Mikkelson, who helps shoot down urban folk tales at the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, reports that her group has been asked for help by Nike. The Oregon-based company is battling to discredit an Internet hoax--that if you send a pair of old shoes to Nike for recycling, you will receive a new pair in return. Hundreds of people have sent along pairs of tattered footwear.
So the Folklore Society has set up a Web site to discuss the hoax at:
https://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/newshoes.htm
Nike, Mikkelson points out, isn’t the only shoe manufacturer to be the subject of an urban myth. Another yarn holds that Adidas stands for All Day I Dream About Sex. Mikkelson said of the believers: “Of course the similarity of Adidas’ name to the owner’s name, Adi Dasler, was dismissed as mere coincidence.”
*
DON’T EVEN ASK ABOUT THE SOCKS: I hope I’m not starting a new folk tale when I say that one Upland lot seems to have restrictions against parking your tennis shoes there, while a Lakewood lot is more liberal in this regard (see photos). Actually, Sneakers and Hi-Tops are the names of restaurants. They must serve tasty sole.
*
UNREAL ESTATE: Only in L.A.’s band of guerrilla proofreaders have reminded me once again that the Southland boasts a truly diverse real estate market (see excerpts). They found houses offering such unique selling points as:
* A location a few dances from the ocean (spotted by Patricia Sullivan).
* Five-inch-wide hallways.
* A location--”clu” de sac--with a touch of mystery (Doris Hoffman).
* A coquettish pond (Audrey Ruikka).
* A guest house that was the product of some unique recycling (Kate O’Connor, Vernon White, Ron Stevenson and others). Wonder if the same could be done with tennis shoes?
*
LEGENDARY SLAM-DUNKER: Hank Rosenfeld of Santa Monica writes: “Yeah, yeah, ‘Godzilla’ the film may be struggling to win in the marketing department. But at least in one part of town, ‘Godzilla’ still rules.”
He reports that at one Santa Monica movie complex, the marquee reads:
GODZILLA
HE GOT GAME
MiscelLAny:
When I saw “Godzilla,” by the way, my yawns were as wide as this column. Then, again, I may be too critical. I can’t help recalling a classic predecessor, a tragic tale in which the big lizard parks his foot on a grazing deer. I’m speaking of the 1969 cartoon short “Bambi Meets Godzilla.”
Steve Harvey, size 12E, 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.
