OK, So After That Donna Shalala Said . . .

A listener called Michael Jackson’s radio show on KRLA-AM (1110) and mentioned that he was on his car phone. “Just be careful,” replied Jackson’s guest, Donna Shalala. She added, “L.A. makes me nervous.”

As it would any secretary of Health and Human Services.

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EVEN THE OCEAN LINERS ARE FREEWAY HAZARDS: The Titanic is in trouble again, having apparently veered off the 110, according to a drawing by Curt Miller (see accompanying). Miller won a prize from the L.A. Downtown News in a contest inspired by the arrival of the “Titanic” musical here. I hate to see the big ship flatten Angels Flight so soon after the city finally got the trolley running again.

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MARDI . . . WHAT? A San Gabriel Valley church’s innocent ad about a Dixieland jazz program took on a new meaning when one letter in the announcement was inadvertently changed (see accompanying).

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URBAN MYTHS DU JOUR: Apart from the five-word answer he supposedly gave on an essay test, a couple of other legends surround Robin Williams’ brief stay at Claremont McKenna College. One holds that he signaled his departure from the school by driving a golf cart through the dining hall. Williams denied that story in an interview with Dick Anderson, editor of the school’s alumni magazine.

Nor is there any evidence to support another rumor: that when Williams was invited to speak on campus a few years ago, he responded with a 60-minute audio cassette filled with mad laughter.

Of course we’ll never know for sure until Ken Starr says whether he has the tape.

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L.A.--YOU CAN’T ESCAPE IT! Michael Chaskes and his wife were on the Greek island of Mykonos when they suddenly felt “like we had somehow landed back on Hollywood Boulevard” (see photo). They didn’t go inside to check the eatery’s claim of being a “payless restaurant.”

Later, they saw a car with a UCLA decal, leading Chaskes to comment: “I guess that Greek life on the Westwood campus is still alive and well.”

TUSK, TUSK: Subscribers to the Pursuit-Watch Network, the San Dimas-based service that pages members when a police chase is on TV, had a glorious day on Wednesday. There were three. Two were simultaneous, causing some TV stations to use split screens to cover the action.

The roots of the TV police chase date back to July 4, 1958. That’s the day that KTLA Channel 5 introduced the first television-transmitting helicopter, newsman Stan Chambers writes in his book “News at Ten.”

One of the first assignments of the Telecopter, as it was called, was not a police chase, believe it or not. Rather it involved the coverage of 10 circus elephants marching on Hollywood Boulevard. But the chopper failed to track them down.

Chambers writes that the station’s news director muttered afterward, “How do you like that? Ten elephants in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard and you can’t even find one of them.” Well, it’s not like it was a pachyderm police pursuit.

miscelLAny:

In a discussion of miracles in Friday’s column, I mentioned the time a gentleman conked me on the head with a beer bottle--and my amazement that the container didn’t break. Naturally, wise guys Rich Roberts and Gene Hutchings had to respond that now they understand why my mug shot shows me holding my noggin.