A Power Grab by Candidate Turner?

Just a few days after media mogul Ted Turner was quoted as saying he might run for president, a colleague of mine turned on his TV in Arcadia and noticed that every cable station showed CNN. Each time he hit the remote, up popped CNN, which of course is the network that Turner founded. TCI Cablevision, which serves that area, says there was simply a temporary malfunction. Or was Turner kicking off his campaign? Hey, can I nominate Larry King for Secretary of Chatter?

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SMILE, L.A.: Journalist Gary Leonard, the gritty photo-biographer of L.A.’s streets, is coming out with a book, “Take My Picture Gary Leonard.” Today, this column is sneak-previewing two of the shots that will appear, one showing a man pushing a lawn mower at a safe speed in Hollywood and the other showing an L.A. costume party (catch the guy who came as a table for two).

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COMMUTING MILESTONES: On this day in 1953, the L.A. Times reported that a Mr. George Malone set out on his 17-mile drive to work from Reseda, “pleased to see his wife waving such an enthusiastic goodbye.” Later, he learned that she had not been waving, exactly, but frantically motioning that their cat was on the rear bumper. Yes, the tabby survived the trip.

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IS IT ANY SKIN OFF HIS NOSE? In an item titled, “Make mine tasteless,” the December issue of Glamour magazine relates that Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Robert Kotler “sent out self-promotional coffee mugs emblazoned with ‘before’ photos of two women--one with a large nose, the other with middle-aged wrinkles. Once you add boiling water to the cup, the ‘after’ photos (smaller nose, fewer wrinkles) appear like magic.”

Summed up the magazine: “No blood, no stitches, no scarring--just a shameless hard sell.”

Another self-promotion of Kotler’s, by the way, was a T-shirt that he sent your columnist. It said, “If your face is not becoming to you, you should be coming to us.” I wasn’t insulted.

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FREEWAY OBSTACLE DU JOUR: A spill of videotapes across every lane of the Ventura Freeway gummed up traffic the other day. Little did drivers caught in the mess know that they would be living that old broadcast cliche: “Let’s go to the videotape.”

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I SEE WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM: In our last episode, you may recall, this column quoted a New York Times piece that had Michael Ovitz saying of his proposed NFL site that, on Sundays, “Carson is 10 minutes from downtown.” This despite the fact that it’s about an 18-mile drive from L.A.’s City Hall. Glenn Donofrio says I misunderstood completely. He figures Ovitz “was making reference to downtown Carson. The civic center is about 10 minutes from the proposed stadium.”

miscelLAny:

This column doesn’t usually suggest Christmas presents, but I’m making an exception for “The Lawyer’s Career Change Handbook--More Than 300 Things You Can Do With a Law Degree,” by Hindi Greenberg. Give it to a lawyer you know. Help reduce the critical oversupply of attorneys.

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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.