Political Trend With Grave Overtones

In a preelection radio commercial on behalf of incumbent school board member Barbara Boudreaux, county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke ticked off endorsements from several notables, including L.A. City Atty. “Kenny Hahn.”

Kenny Hahn, the late supervisor, was, of course, City Atty. James Hahn’s father. The commercial followed, by a few weeks, City Councilman Nate Holden’s claim that the late Tom Bradley had endorsed his reelection bid.

If this keeps up, it will soon be said that in Chicago, the dead vote; in L.A., they endorse.

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LIMITED GUARANTEE? Larry Rabb of L.A. saw a restaurant that brags about the food it serves on Monday and Saturday (see photo). What about the other five days?

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CRISPY STYLE: David Chan of L.A. found a recipe for eaters who like their sandwiches extremely well done (see accompanying).

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AND FOR NONE OF THE ABOVE? The sight of a sign that said, “His & Her Parking Only” (see photo) prompted Thomas Frick to comment: “In L.A., I guess, the obvious question--’Who’s excluded?’--probably has several answers.” (Actually, the sign refers to the name of a hair salon.)

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DEVILISHLY POPULAR: Too bad L.A. can’t trademark use of the phrase “City of Angels.” I read where Blair Underwood, who played a lawyer in “L.A. Law,” will now play a surgeon at a hospital in a new CBS entry, “City of Angels.”

This show should not be confused with the short-lived 1976 “City of Angels” TV series that starred Wayne Rogers as a Chandleresque gumshoe with an office in the Bradbury Building.

Nor should it be confused with the 1998 movie, “City of Angels,” which starred Nicolas Cage as a hunky angel.

Nor should it be confused with the “City of Angels” musical of a decade ago, a spoof of detective shows. This production boasts one of my favorite soundtracks, mainly because of the hard-boiled narrator who opens it by saying:

“Three million people in the City of Angels, according to the last census, easily half of them up to something they don’t want the other half to know. . . .”

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NOTHING LIKE A SMILING DEFENDANT: Doris Walden swears it happened while she was working for a store in Culver City. Several job applications were taken from students, including one with this passage:

Q. Have you ever been arrested?

A. Yes.

Q. What was the charge?

A. Possession of mari . . . pot.

Q. What was the disposition?

A. Happy.

miscelLAny:

While watching the reality TV series, “LAPD: Life on the Beat,” I saw a blurb advertising a videotape of the 1997 North Hollywood shootout.

Which brought to mind the press conference at which a police spokesman played what was billed as an audiotape of the incident, donated by a businessman who said he had recorded it.

It turned out to be a hoax, the department later discovered. An officer recognized it as the soundtrack of the climactic scene in the cops-and-robbers movie, “Heat.” The disposition of the LAPD: Not happy.

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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.