Principal Makes Point With Name
The principal of Edison Middle School in L.A. has the perfect name to inspire obedient behavior in her students: I.M. Good.
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CAR CITY? While at the gym, Chuck Rozner of Northridge viewed the closed-captioned version of a local newscast that referred to the city of “Isuzu.” It was supposed to be Azusa, which I know how to spell correctly because I know its slogan is “Everything from A to Z in the USA.”
Anyway, Azusa now joins a long list of cities whose names have been mangled in one way or another (see accompanying). Some are still identifiable, such as Canoga “Pork,” “Monsterey” Park, Manhattan “Ditch,” and West “Ills.” More explanation is needed for “Stupid” City (actually Studio City) and “Ruedelapie” which, believe it or not, was how a mail-order clerk back East translated Rancho Palos Verdes.
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CAMPUS STARS: Mention was made here of a person who showed up at the Los Feliz Branch Library asking to see the Brad Pitt After-School Study Center, after a Times article mentioned it. The reader hadn’t understood that the reference to Pitt was a joke, although there really is a Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center at the library. There are other star names attached to local institutions of learning, including:
* Barbra Streisand Professorship in Intimacy and Sexuality, USC
* Anthony Quinn Library, East L.A.
* Steven Spielberg Music Scoring Stage, USC
* Johnny Carson Television Center, USC
* Hart High School, Newhall (named for the silent screen cowboy star Bill “Two Gun” Hart).
* Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Cal State Long Beach.
And, for one semester, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena offered this course:
“The Films of Keanu Reeves.”
The homework must have been murder.
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TALK ABOUT TAKING THE PLUNGE . . . Leonora Parker, 23, and Eric Chowdury, 21, will take their wedding vows Saturday, and before anyone can pelt them with rice they’ll hurtle down a course called “‘The Wedge” at Raging Waters in San Dimas. The couple will ride a double inner tube that will, of course, say, “Just Married” on the back. I don’t know where the cake figures in all this.
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NO STARBUCKS FAN: The police log of the Long Beach Press Telegram reported an incident in which police arrested an intruder who was “brewing coffee” in the home of a resident.
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RUBBING OUT BUGS: The election of former mob attorney Oscar Goodman as mayor of Las Vegas is a good reminder of the approaching anniversary of the death of the man who helped build that city: Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. He was shot to death June 20, 1947, in the rented Beverly Hills home of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, while reading a newspaper (The Times, of course).
Siegel’s movie star friend George Raft, who had loaned the mobster $100,000, gave this tender eulogy to a reporter:
“They say you can’t take it with you. But Benny did. My $100,000, I mean.”
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CHIP OFF THE OLD SATELLITE: You knew that tattoos were in vogue for celebrities. But how about microchips planted under the skin? The Sunday Times of London says that “film stars and the children of millionaires are among 45 people” who have been fitted with the $6,000 Sky-Eye Chip, which could supposedly be detected by space satellites in the event of a kidnapping. Two of the 45 are Americans, the newspaper said, but it did not identify them.
miscelLAny:
Speaking of scientific advances, Columnist David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, while invading my turf the other day, noticed this curious sign at the Farmers Market in L.A.:
“We Make Our Own Frozen Bananas.”
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Steve Harvey can sometimes 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.
