A Sure Way to Tuck Some Money Away
Here’s your chance to tell friends that you have stomped on the L.A. Lakers’ center. The “Shaquille O’Neal Presentational Manhole Cover” is being offered at an auction of sports memorabilia next month in New York City. Bidding starts at $100 for the ornamental steel lid, which is two feet in diameter. It bears Shaq’s name as well as the Warner Bros. trademark. But, please, no jokes about recent Warner Bros.’ movies like “The Postman” and “Mad City” going into the sewer.
OH, MAN: If you do purchase the Shaq memento and you live in the city of L.A., be advised that you’re forbidden to call it a manhole cover. By executive order of then-Mayor Tom Bradley, such objects were renamed “maintenance hole covers” in 1990 during a purge of allegedly “sexist words.”
THE FINALISTS: Only in L.A. readers responded gallantly with suggestions to rename City Hall, which has been vacated for rehabbing. You may recall that the City Council voted to christen its new headquarters--City Hall East--as City Hall. Some of the name proposals for the old building:
* City Hall Left (Frances Curran)
* Carny Hall (Mark Flatman)
* Triforium West (Judi Birnberg)
* City Overhaul (Lee DeBord)
* The Building That Time Forgot (Rudy Minger)
* The Once and Future City Hall (David Johannsen)
THE RUNNERS-UP: Two of my favorites were:
* City Hall--The Prequel (Andy Cuk, who wins a copy of the tape “Still Cruisin’ for Traffic Safety,” one of whose singers is gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren.)
* The Daily Planet Building. (James Cornell, Michael Helwig, Steve Marshall and Bob Mattes, who win joint custody of one CD by Rake & the Surftones, featuring the classic “October in Oxnard.” Sorry, fellas, I have a limited budget.
AND THE WINNER IS . . . Drum roll please--Colin Silvio, for his suggestion of: Full Monty Hall. (So many levels of meaning!)
That title will be relayed to the City Council, which no doubt will approve it unanimously. Silvio receives a copy of “The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena,” a fantasy novel by R. L. Stine. (What--you didn’t think there really was a Pasadena, did you?)
NON-UNION CONSTRUCTION? Meanwhile, as you can see from this snapshot of the Civic Center (see photo), Godzilla is proceeding smoothly on the make-over of City Hall, I mean, Full Monty Hall.
LETTER IMPERFECT: Godzilla should also yank out the sign spotted by Jim Jewell of Long Beach on a local onramp to the San Diego Freeway and throw it down the Shaq manhole (see photo). No hurry, though, Big Guy. As Caltrans would say, get to it, “whem” you please.
TORTS AND PASTRIES: Lawyers often fatten up off their clients. But Nancy Schwab of L.A. found a new twist in the town of Mojave (see photo).
miscelLAny
A new novel takes its title from a term all too familiar to commuters--”Road Rage.” The Ruth Rendell mystery takes place in an area described as having “newly planted, well-chosen trees, roofs rethatched, cattle in the meadows, (and) ducks paddling in couples, looking for nesting sites.” I thought for sure that was Ventura Boulevard but it turns out to be a road near London.