Do Not Open This Page Till Christmas

Welcome to the “Only in L.A. Holiday Special” on radio station K-Only, with your host Santa Steve. Merry Christmas! Before we play some holiday ditties, let’s go to our first traffic report:

On the night before Christmas

All down 101

The traffic was deadlocked

It wasn’t much fun.

That’s from the book-size poem “The Night Before Christmas in California” by Catherine Smith and Steve Egan, in which a massive fog temporarily blocks Santa’s view.

(Remember, more traffic reports appear in “Only in L.A.” than in any other column.)

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TRAFFIC UPDATE: “Christmas in California” continued:

The governor was called

And the mayors alerted

The need for solutions

Was loudly asserted

They called on the Warriors

They called on the Lakers

The Giants, Rams, Clippers . . .

The Rams were too far away but the Clippers helped clear the traffic. You know why? When the Clippers appear, people head for the exits.

Now, it’s time for the K-Only Food Hour . . .

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ADVENTUROUS DINERS GUIDE: Tired of the traditional Christmas meals?

* For hors d’oeuvres, reader Tom Edwards recommends a delicacy for “Animal House” types: flying olives.

* An L.A. eatery is offering “Y2K enchiladas.” I’m not sure I’d try them at midnight Dec. 31, though. Or midnight any day, for that matter.

* For a real mystery dish, may we recommend the “green stuff”?

* And, finally, for dessert, Clare Pollock says there’s nothing like some coffeecake with a pecan flavor of disputed authenticity (see accompanying).

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SURF REPORT: Let’s switch to the Radudes, singing “Christmas in Malibu”:

They were breakin’ outside, sudden rise of the tide

Then out of the northern sky comes a sled

It lands on a swell, guess who’s inside?

St. Nick and his elves, wet suits off the shelves

It’s the one day of year, they get the waves to themselves . . .

You bring a tear to my eyes, Radudes.

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TOP 40 TIME: Here’s a list of Christmas carols customized for particular personality types in the cyber newsletter of entertainer Phil Proctor (“Firesign Theater”).

* “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing (About Me)” (narcissistic).

* “We Three Kings Are Me” (multiple personality)

* “On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me (And Then Took It All Away)” (passive/aggressive).

And, finally,

“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town . . . to Get Me” (paranoid).

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SURF UPDATE: From the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise’s “police log”:

“Seal Beach, Ocean Avenue, 8:16 a.m.: A woman accidentally dropped her fishing pole into the water, and surfers reportedly refused to return it to her.”

I know that none of those surfers could have been a plump gentleman with a long white beard.

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NEWS BREAK: Residents living in the vicinity of the proposed El Toro airport have been losing sleep over the possibility that they’ll lose even more sleep if it becomes a reality.

In a 10,000-plus-page environmental review, Orange County attempted to defuse that issue by including a study of residents living near Heathrow Airport in England.

The study found that just 5% were awakened in the night by airport noise. Other causes of interrupted sleep were dreams (3%), illness (4%), bedmate (8%), children (15%), and the sound of flushing toilets (17%).

Perhaps the Heathrow area needs an environmental report on the local toilets.

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HOLIDAY TRAVELERS ADVISORY: This song is dedicated to those of you leaving town soon:

The cab arrives, he honks his horn,

I stumble out in the early morn

And tell him of the place I’ve got to go

We hit a hundred signal lights . . .

L.A International Airport

Where the big jet engines roar.

miscelLAny:

Some day, I predict, “L.A. International Airport” will be followed by another great song of that genre--one with these lyrics:

El Toro International Airport

Quieter than the toilets’ roar