DiCaprio Fan Is One for the Books

The L.A. Public Library’s new Los Feliz branch just opened a couple of days ago, but someone has already gotten the dirt on actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

When the branch was being built, a DiCaprio worshiper from Madison, Wis., accompanied by her grandmother, showed up at the reference desk of the library’s temporary facility. She asked if she could scoop some soil from the construction site.

The girl had read that DiCaprio was making a $35,000 donation to the Hillhurst Avenue library, which is on the site of his childhood home.

“I started to tell them that trucks had brought in new dirt to the site when I saw her 8-year-old eyes watering,” recalled senior librarian Pearl Yonezawa. “So I said, ‘OK.’ ”

What was really charming about the encounter, Yonezawa said, was that after the DiCaprio fan and her grandmother had filled a plastic zippered bag with the celebrity soil, they showed it to library personnel. “They wanted to make sure they hadn’t taken too much,” Yonezawa explained.

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LEONARDO, CALL HOME: The news of DiCaprio’s donation, which will fund a computer center, has prompted some unusual phone calls to the Los Feliz branch.

“One person asked if Leonardo was in,” Yonezawa said. “We said, ‘No, he’s in Thailand, making a movie.’ And the person said, ‘Well, can you tell him to call me when he gets back?’ ”

By the way, the library wants to reassure DiCaprio fans on another point. The actor’s home was gone long before the library acquired the site. “We did not tear down Leonardo’s house,” Yonezawa said.

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TAXPAYER ALERT: With the tax filing deadline approaching Thursday, Susie and Dave Rawson of Long Beach found a sign posted by an accountant who, they hope, is better with numbers than letters. And Dan Fink of L.A. confirmed what you always suspected: that the motto of the IRS is “Destruction With Care” (see photos).

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THE FINAL INDIGNITY: The Democrats and Gov. Gray Davis apparently scored an even bigger victory in the last election than was previously known, points out Cliff Dektar of North Hollywood. In a local newspaper, he noticed that Davis had captured Pete Wilson’s e-mail address (see accompanying).

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YOU THINK DENNIS RODMAN IS A PROBLEM? UPN’s television show “The Sentinel” rebroadcast a 1997 episode in which Kurt Rambis portrayed the coach of a fictional NBA team, the Cascade Jaguars, composed of several actual NBA players.

In “Three Point Shot,” Rambis was confronted with the murder of one of his star players (Mitch Richmond) while another player (Clyde Drexler) was the prime suspect. There was also a gunfight in the rafters of the stadium and the crash of a massive scoreboard onto the court.

No wonder Rambis seems so mild-mannered as coach of the comparatively quiet Lakers.

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MISFIRES: “At Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we kinda consider ourselves an important part of the universe,” writes section secretary Rosemary Hagerott. But lately, she adds, JPL has been receiving some “ego-deflating mail” bearing such addresses as:

* Jet Compulsion Laboratory

* Jet Proportion Laboratory

And, Hagerott’s favorite:

* Jet Repulsion Laboratory

miscelLAny:

I. Mezzo of Encino sent along a printout of a headline from the Web site of KNBC-TV Channel 4 news, which reported: “Gas prices sore. . . .” Motorists are pretty sore, too.

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.