New Governor Now Ready for Framing

Pete Wilson has not left the building! At least that was the impression the other night when the ex-governor’s photo was discovered still on display in the boardroom of the L.A. Unified School District. Board member David Tokofsky proposed putting up a mug of the current governor, Gray Davis. At which point Supt. Ruben Zacarias noted that he previously had made the same request. Perhaps it had been bottled up in committee somewhere. At any rate, the communications staff of the school district now swung into action. “We had four people calling--his state office, his campaign office, but no one had anything they could e-mail us,” said Hilda Ramirez. So it was time to get inventive. “We found a clipping, scanned it, printed it and framed it,” Ramirez said. A modest tribute, but at least Gray is in color.

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USING THE OLD BEAN: The school board photo gambit reminded me of the plot of the recent movie “Bean.” A visiting security guard, mistaken for an art expert, ruins the painting popularly known as “Whistler’s Mother” while it’s on display at a museum. He cannily replaces it with a poster, and no spectators notice. I hate to admit it, but the museum is in L.A.

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STEAMY AFFAIR: With Valentine’s Day approaching, Judy Goodstein of L.A. sent along a cautionary item showing that love can be overdone (see accompanying).

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UNRELATED ITEM: Jim McCormick of Fallbrook figures that the pet owner whose ad was placed in a wrong category is going to be pretty hot, too (see accompanying).

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NO SHORTAGE OF FUEL: Responding to this column’s plea for someone to devise a New Year’s Eve celebration that L.A. can call its own, Rudy Minger of L.A. says: “Why not have a big bonfire made up of rejected screenplays?”

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APPEAL WITH LIMITED IMPACT: Richard La Porte of Hermosa Beach saw a trash can in the Palos Verdes area that could have used someone to pitch in and do a bit of proofreading (see photo).

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THE EXCITING WORLD OF TV: The assistant producer of a TV talk show called, somewhat out of breath, to say that she needed the phone number of a person who had been mentioned in this column. “His name is . . . his name is . . . oh, his name escapes me!” she said. “I’ll have to phone you back.” A few minutes later, she called again, this time on a cell phone. “OK, I got the name of the person,” she began. Then the line went dead. I never heard from her again.

miscelLAny:

May I give a warning to the fan who paid $2.7 million for Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball? Be more careful than the Only in L.A. reader who told me a while back about the time he bought a baseball autographed by Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to show his two young boys. They loved it. So much so, that they took it to a park, scuffing it up beyond recognition.

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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.