The Leap From Comic to Angel
In “False Memory,” Dean Koontz’s new psychological thriller, a roofer named Skeet threatens to jump from a three-story Newport Beach mansion. From the roof, of course.
Koontz describes the house as “a 10,000-square-foot, $4-million atrocity” blending several styles: “Spanish modern, classic Tuscan, Greek Revival and early Taco Bell.”
But that’s not why Skeet wants to jump. No, it’s because he’s being tempted by “the angel of death,” which only he can see.
Asked what the angel looks like, Skeet responds: “Billy Crystal.”
I would have guessed the Chihuahua on those Taco Bell commercials.
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THEN, AGAIN . . . Maybe Billy Crystal isn’t such a strange answer. After all, the comic is a presence at the games of the L.A. Clippers, whose playoff hopes died long ago.
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TALK ABOUT A REAL WORKOUT! I’ve heard of dude camps where vacationers actually pay money to perform cowboy chores all day. But on Catalina Island, Dan Dobrin of Pomona found a hotel where guests are asked to put in 12-hour stints on the piano (see accompanying).
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SCREENWRITERS HAVE ALWAYS DUG L.A.: “I was watching a funny old movie starring Debbie Reynolds and Carl Reiner with a classic reference to L.A.,” wrote Ann Gray, the publisher of Balcony Press.
It was “Gazebo” (1959), in which the two are a married couple living in New England.
“He is being blackmailed and finds himself confronting and accidentally killing the supposed blackmailer one evening when his wife isn’t home,” Gray continued. “He wraps the body in plastic and buries it in the wet cement of their new garden gazebo. When his wife discovers what he has done she frets, ‘Oh, why couldn’t this have happened in Los Angeles? They find dead bodies there all the time and no one thinks a thing of it!’ ”
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ICE DREAM: Make-believe rocket ships and horses for tots to ride are, of course, common in parks.
But an ice-resurfacing machine? Why would the Paramount Pond, that city’s new plaza, offer such a toy? Because Paramount was the birthplace of the world’s most famous brand. It was named after the creator, Frank Zamboni.
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I MISS THE FOOTBALL STADIUM IN CARSON: In USC’s Trojan Family Magazine, Elliot Zwiebach came upon this passage: “Conceive of a world without Lincoln Center, Tanglewood or the unbuilt Disney Hall. Too horrible to contemplate?”
But, as Zwiebach points out, “There is no Disney Hall yet so it’s already a world without it.”
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BACK TO EARTH: Randall Bruce of L.A. says he was grateful he noticed one Palm Springs-area sidewalk sign (see photo) because “otherwise I would have been tempted to just walk out across the desert.”
A REAL SIDEWALK WARNING NEEDED HERE: In the Hollywood Independent’s crime blotter, Joe Shea noticed an item about a man who was robbed by a gunman on Hollywood Boulevard while “urinating on the sidewalk.” The newspaper said the gunman “shouted, ‘Give me the money,’ and the victim complied.”
Commented Shea: “But with which hand, one wonders.”
miscelLAny:
Ed Bresnan of Long Beach saw a local TV station’s segment about Hillary Clinton declaring her candidacy for the U.S. Senate and wondered if she had a mole among her supporters. A graphic on the screen identified one Clinton backer as the Bronx “Burrow” president.
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.