Taking Scuba Divers for a Ride

The thing I like about this time of year is that Reef Seeker, a Beverly Hills scuba diving publication, always announces a fascinating venture. A few years ago it was the private “Dive Disneyland” event, an exploration of the lagoons in the amusement park’s Submarine Ride area.

Last year it was “Dive the Tar Pits Day,” in which visitors, aided by special lights “to cut through the haze of the water,” were offered “a terrific chance to see fossilized animals in their natural environment” off Wilshire Boulevard.

I couldn’t attend either get-together but I’m anxious to hear about this year’s project. Reef Seeker usually announces it on April 1.

CANINE CAR ACCESSORY: Edwin F. Parsons Jr. writes, “Forget about the Club!” He found a driver in L.A. who employs a different kind of burglary deterrent (see photo).

COINCIDENCE? Amid reports that former super-agent Michael Ovitz heads a group hoping to bring NFL football to Carson, the electronic message board at a Don Kott dealership in that city displayed this message:

“Laugh, even when you feel like crying.”

Could someone be afraid the Raiders will settle there?

L.A. NEEDS YOU, ARNOLD! You may recall that this column’s most recent selection for the L.A. Disaster Book of the Month Club was “I Am Legend,” the 1954 Richard Matheson novel about a Gardena man battling an invasion of vampires.

Chris Koreivo of Long Beach read in Dark Echo Magazine that a movie version of the book, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been scrapped. Instead, Schwarzenegger will appear in “End of Days,” a “supernatural thriller” set in New York City. The big guy “will fight Satan” who “has come to New York City to search for a bride,” the magazine said. Schwarzenegger’s job: “To keep the devil away from Manhattan’s women.”

Well, that’s fine, Arnold. Go East. Leave Gardena to be overrun by vampires.

Gardena is just a few miles from Carson, incidentally.

WEIRD SCIENCE: There’s a new twist in the case of the Pasadena pet shop that has a cutout of a beheaded dog out front. As I mentioned, the head has been stolen so many times that, rather than attach a new noggin, owner Divinity Libby has decided to commission a new type of sign. It’s not ready yet.

But Kevin Whitaker of Altadena reports that, in the meantime, the cutout has been outfitted with a rhino head. Owner Libby says she didn’t perform the strange transplant. “It was probably the same person who kept taking off the old [dog] head,” she said, adding she’ll leave it up for now.

Whitaker likes the hybrid mascot, explaining: “It reminds me of the personality of my dog Scout, a golden retriever/cocker spaniel/space monkey mix.”

CHEW ON THIS: Actress Didi Conn, who wrote a memoir about the making of the just re-released movie, “Grease,” says that cast members went through more than 1,000 pieces of bubble gum during the 15 weeks of filming.

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Speaking of grease, fans attending next weekend’s Long Beach Grand Prix have an opportunity to sit in “Pit Suites” (see photo). Can’t you just hear a waitress in that area asking some notable: “Sir, how about some more champagne with those exhaust fumes?”

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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.