The MTA Admits Something Missing

The MTA recently sent Mark Nakata of L.A. a job reply (see accompanying) that said, “Thank you for your interest in employment with the MTA as Missing Value (98105N).”

Nakata suspects that the MTA’s computer was supposed to fill in the job title when it came upon the words “Missing Value,” but somehow missed its stop (a problem MTA bus drivers sometimes have as well).

Nakata checked and discovered that 98105N, interestingly enough, is the title of “Deputy Inspector General--Audits.” Considering all the money spent on the subway, one could say the MTA itself has been a Missing Value.

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UNOFFICIAL ECONOMIC INDICATORS: The vacancy rate in the South Bay must really be on the decline, opines Colette Meyer of Redondo Beach. After all, in a weekly newspaper she saw a notice for a space that would be small for any renter more than a couple feet tall (see accompanying).

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L.A. VERSE: In this column’s attempt to update a sentimental old ditty about L.A.’s downtown streets, I’ve so far published reader contributions with themes embracing (1) the car culture and (2) the idea of Valley secession.

Now comes Richard Graham with a pedestrian’s view, which could be summed up as “Duck!”

The traditional saying, you may recall was: “From Main, I Spring to Broadway, and over the Hill to Olive, and wouldn’t it be Grand to Hope to pick a Flower on Figueroa.”

Graham’s version: “In the Main, I have a Spring in my step, but at Broadway and Hill I was wounded in a drive-by by a kid in a Olive-colored Grand-am. I’ll be pushing up a Flower on Figueroa soon.”

Graham is no stranger to violence, being editor of the publication Inline Hockey Central.

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NOW FOR A DIFFERENT VIEW: Not that all hockey types are missing L.A.’s value. Just a few years ago, a young Vancouver Canuck player named Gino Odjick said in an interview that L.A. was his favorite NHL city. And not just because the L.A. Kings are so beatable. He explained: “I’d never seen palm trees or the ocean before. I like going to the carwash and seeing the nice cars.”

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PALM ATTITUDES: While I’m on the subject, it was nice hearing someone who’s fond of fronds. Writers seem to love to hack away at our palms--I guess they’re convenient symbols. Anyway, consider these palm-related potshots:

* “ . . . Like wigs on stiff rope” (novelist Charlie Smith in “Chimney Rock”).

* “ . . . It was still beyond my understanding how you could look out a window, see a palm tree in the sun, and think funny” (Neil Simon in his memoir, “Rewrites”).

* “Do we have rats? The place is crawling with them. All kinds. The worst are the big ones up in the palm trees” (a character in novelist Alison Lurie’s “The Nowhere City”).

* “I often imagined they were sentries wearing grotesque helmets” (novelist Horace McCoy, “They Shoot Palm Trees, Don’t They?”). Whoops! Now they’ve got me doing it! The correct title of McCoy’s novel is “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

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SPREADING THE GUACAMOLE: As part of its advertising campaign, Pepperdine’s graduate business school is running a radio testimonial by an alumnus who is on the state Avocado Commission. The avocado man praises the school’s “cutting-edge approach.”

miscelLAny:

James Antonio of L.A. was insulted by a previously mentioned reference in the novel “The Nowhere City” to L.A.’s supposed lack of seasons. Not true, he said. There’s the Fall TV Season, the New-Shows-on-Hiatus Season, the Mid-Season Cancellations and, of course, Summer Reruns.

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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.