Trials, Tribulations of Major League City

Bill Kinman saw this crack about Los Angeles on an Alhambra movie marquee:

CITY OF ANGELS

BACK TO THE MINORS

Hey, just because the Rams and Raiders left L.A., that doesn’t mean this isn’t a major league city.

ATTENTION, SHOPPERS! Have we got some strange deals for you.

Scott Wilson found an L.A. parking lot that charges $200 per hour (nothing minor league about that!), Irma Lindsay noticed a $500 piano on sale in the South Bay for just $2,500 and Olga Galindo came across a sale on the Westside where the savings seem minimal (see accompanying).

A HEIST THAT WENT UP IN SMOKE: Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies nabbed a bicyclist suspected of stealing the bike as well as a gold jewelry chain during a robbery.

What was a bit odd about the case, said Paramount’s City Talk newsletter, was that the robber had originally demanded money and cigars from the victim, neither of which the latter had handy.

“This cigar fad is getting ridiculous!” noted the newsletter.

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: City Talk--whose current issue is more exciting than TV’s “Cops”--also relates the story of a man arrested while staggering down the middle of a Paramount street.

After the gent took a load off his feet--in the back of a patrol car--he began repeating, “I’ve said my Hail Marys. Now let me go. . . .”

City Talk’s analysis: “Maybe the prison chaplain can explain how that works!”

IT’S ENOUGH TO DRIVE YOU HALF-MAD: Jack Swank of La Verne received two letters from GTE, one telling him that his unlisted street address and telephone number had “inadvertently” been published in a directory, the other telling him that his unlisted fax number was not published.

Added Swank: “Seems that I remember a joke from many years ago that began, ‘Say something funny!’ OK, ‘GTE!’ ”

VEHICULAR BUSINESS CARD: Hollywood’s penchant for self-advertising has helped fill the coffers of the DMV, as this list of vanity plates shows:

* ACTOR

* ACTORME

* EXACTOR

* ACTOR4U

* ACTORA1

* LAACTOR

* NYACTOR

* USACTOR

* TVACTOR

And, finally;

* BDACTOR.

Does that mean BAD ACTOR? If so, I wonder which Aaron Spelling show he worked on.

miscelLAny

Six of Jarlath Curran’s children have attended Loyola Marymount University, the school from which Curran graduated in 1960.

Is it desire on the part of the kids to emulate good old dad?

Partly.

Then, too, there was this offer from Curran: “Go to Loyola and I’ll pay; go somewhere else, you pay.”

Three of the six majored in finance, by the way.

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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.