A Place All Puffed Up With Pride

The cheeky flier for Barney’s Beanery, the colorful old joint on Santa Monica Boulevard, lists more than 50 “house rules,” ranging from the usual to the unique, including:

* You must be 21 with valid I.D. to drink alcohol.

* Do not sit on backs of booths or juke box.

* Ask your server for coffee, water, etc. Don’t help yourself.

* Check all knives and guns with management.

* If you must use bad language, keep it down.

* Don’t ask stupid questions (No, you cannot ask for all white meat, or all dark meat).

Etc.

About the only activity not covered is smoking. It’s banned by law, of course. But you’d never know it from all the people seen lighting up in there one recent night.

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MAKING A MONKEY OUT OF THE BUYER? Nancy Holland of Palos Verdes Estates noticed a building for sale that must be a real zoo (see accompanying).

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A COUPLE CAGES DOWN THE WAY . . . : As you may know, there’s a continuing soap opera at the L.A. Zoo, where several chimps have become pregnant, though the males of breeding age have all had vasectomies. I’m still a bit suspicious about Toto, who is not only considered too old for such high jinks--he’s 45--but has reportedly never shown an interest in the opposite sex.

A friend said it reminded her of the saga of Lion Country Safari in Orange County in the 1970s. A grizzled old beast there was said to have sired more than 30 cubs in 16 months before dying, possibly of exhaustion. The animal became nationally famous as Frasier the Sensuous Lion.

Toto, if you’re also found to be sensuous, I promise to give you a nickname.

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POSSIBLY IT’S EASIER TO SWALLOW THAT WAY: Bob McEdward of Calabasas spotted a store in Chatsworth that has come up with the idea of selling wine and other spirits in a liquid state (see photo). Wonder if it’ll catch on. . . .

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THOSE WACKY RADIO FOLKS: After quoting the radio columnist of the L.A. Downtown News, I received a note from him, which read in part: “Tomm Looney here. I noticed you spelled my name Thom, which is OK, because I used to spell it that way. . . . Did you used to read the old L.A. Radio Guide? That is how I spelled it when I worked for them. I added an M for the new millennium, and dropped the H for the ell of it.”

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THE NAME SOUNDS FAMILIAR BUT . . . : A major league baseball team played in Cuba the other day for the first time in 40 years. By coincidence, I was reading “Castro’s Curveball,” by Tim Wendel, a novel about some Americans who played winter league ball in pre-revolutionary Cuba. A pitcher on one team is “a feisty little guy named Lasorda.” In a crucial game, Lasorda taunts a batter but then gives up a home run to him and is sent to the showers. He also disappears from the book.

Wonder whatever became of him.

miscelLAny:

The L.A. Daily Journal reports that a nurse is suing the estate of the late Lillian Disney, alleging that the latter’s dog bit her twice.

The plaintiff, Ellyn Singer, said she was working for Disney, the widow of Walt Disney, when she was nipped by her chow, Sunny.

Singer’s attorney, Russell F. Maginnis, contends that the dog nipped other Disney employees as well.

It “did not act like one of the ‘101 Dalmatians,’ ” he said.

(Thus closes today’s edition of “The Weird World of Animals.”)

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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.