Team All Shook Up Over Use of Name

One of the teams in a new professional in-line skating league will be called the California Quakes, and some folks in Rancho Cucamonga think the name is out of line.

After all, Rancho Cucamonga already has a minor league baseball team called the Quakes. (They play in the Epicenter ballpark.)

The Cucamonga Quakes point out that their name is a trademark and that their minor league association has lawyers to protect that trademark.

A spokeswoman for the skating venture said she doubted that the baseball team’s claim “has any bearing.” The skating Quakes are scheduled to rumble into view Jan. 15 on the new “Rollerjam” TV series.

No telling yet if Cucamonga’s mascot will defect to the skaters. The mascot’s name, naturally, is Tremor.

A TULIP BY ANY OTHER NAME: Dan Fink of L.A. couldn’t help admiring the floral sign on Poppy Cleaners--even if the flowers shown are not poppies (see photo).

IT’S TOO LATE TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY: On the San Diego Freeway, just a few miles north of the site of Carson’s proposed Hacienda NFL stadium, Paul Cate noticed a billboard graced with the helmets of the San Diego Chargers (see photo). Some nerve. The Chargers were once based in L.A., before fleeing, a la the Raiders and Rams. Are they hinting they want to come back now?

END OF THE ROAD: Congrats to Mike Frankovich, who won first prize in this column’s search for a poem that mentions L.A.’s downtown streets in order. Frankovich rhapsodized:

“The MAIN thing I hate about driving in L.A. is the way other drivers seem to SPRING out of nowhere. BROADWAY is filled with over-the-HILL drivers and those who have had a few too many OLIVE-topped martinis. A GRAND idea would be to go to work with the HOPE that none of those former FLOWER children in their BMWs will cut you off while trying to find FIGUEROA.”

Frankovich wins “Retro Rooter,” a CD by the Roto Rooter Good Time Christmas Band, featuring “Pico and Sepulveda,” not to mention “March of the Dead Brain Cells.”

MAIN TO FIGUEROA THE MOVIE? One of the entries in the “Cars” category of this weekend’s Smogdance Film Festival in Pomona plays tonight at 7. Titled “Downwardly Mobil,” it’s about a 1977 Honda Civic that “goes on a bender.” No doubt the action will hold your interest throughout. After all, it’s only three minutes long.

BACK TO DEAD BRAIN CELLS: After I mentioned that ex-wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota (Land of a Thousand Lakes), Jerome “the Professor” Kleinsasser of Cal State Bakersfield wrote to say that the state’s nickname is actually Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. Kleinsasser adds that there are, in reality, close to 20,000 lakes, so I’m not apologizing until the state updates its slogan.

The Wall Street Journal reports, incidentally, that after Tuesday’s election, a Minneapolis lawyer phoned a colleague in Los Angeles to say, “My governor can beat your governor.”

miscelLAny

It was fitting that those who are backing the L.A. Coliseum as an NFL site chose actor Charlton Heston to narrate their promotional film at the meeting of league owners. After all, Heston tracked a murderous terrorist through the Coliseum in the 1976 movie “Two Minute Warning.” Odd--no clips from that movie were included in the presentation.