Breaking Ground for Gondolas

Imitation Italy Bureau: Venice, Italy, is slowly sinking into the sea, but it doesn’t matter anymore. A new Venice will open in November in Bakersfield--in the form of a shopping mall modeled after the city.

Known as Grand Canal Port, the 65-acre project will achieve realism with such amenities as a 4-million-gallon canal, gondoliers and a Linens ‘n Things and Ross Dress for Less.

According to the Bakersfield Californian, a groundbreaking ceremony held earlier this month featured three tiara-topped beauty queens aboard a 27-foot model gondola that was towed by a truck through the dry canal channel.

The new Venice is conveniently located along Highway 99, south of Panama Lane.

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Why Criminals Need Depends: One of our duties here at Off-Kilter is writing new slogans for the National Rifle Assn. Our latest is: “Guns don’t give people diarrhea, people give . . . well, actually, guns do give people diarrhea.”

Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who searches the globe for nonlethal gadgets to thwart criminals, says he recently discovered a gun that uses sound waves to induce stomach cramps and Montezuma’s revenge.

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Brilliant Deduction Bureau: Those of you who aren’t getting enough sleep at night may be interested in a new report from the Journal of the American Medical Assn., which quotes Dr. James Wyatt of Harvard Medical School as saying that “without a doubt, hands down, the best countermeasure to sleep deprivation” is . . . sleep.

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Random Facts Division: William Shatner, whose toupee must be on a little too tight these days, reportedly spent thousands of dollars to convert his master bathroom into a copy of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, complete with a toilet seat shaped like the fictional spacecraft.

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Gentile Humor: The latest trend in humor, according to editor Paul Krassner of the Realist newsletter, is Gentile jokes. Example: A Gentile man calls his mother and says, “Mom, I know you were expecting me for dinner this evening, but something important has come up and I can’t make it.” His mother replies, “OK.”

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Educational Toy of the Day: A New York toy company has introduced a $20 cat from whose mouth can be pulled fur balls, a fish bone, a parakeet, a mouse and a ball of yarn.

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Alarming Trends Alert: Mayday, mayday! AllHerb.com, an online herbal remedy supplier, is sponsoring a giveaway that will unleash 100 Speedo swimsuits on innocent American beaches and swimming pools.

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Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Plant Hospice Lets Terminally Ill Houseplants Live Out Their Final Days in Peace and Die With Dignity!” (Weekly World News)

It was founded by the Mother Teresa of vegetation, who was bothered that “ailing plants usually wind up in the garbage, left to shrivel and die friendless and alone.”

Off-Kilter’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Unpaid Informants: San Francisco Chronicle, Wireless Flash News Service, the Learning Channel. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.