Earth to County D.A.’s Office: Dah?

It’s too late for Santa to bring you one. But you can purchase “The L.A. County District Attorney Historical Calendar 2000” for $14.95 (plus $4.95 for the ever-dreaded shipping and handling). If you want one, fax your order to (818) 879-5717, But don’t expect to see the calendar highlighting anniversaries of the failed prosecutions in the O.J. Simpson, Susan McDougal, McMartin and “Twilight Zone” criminal cases.

LITERARY TROY: Some recent mystery novels in which USC receives a prominent mention:

* “The Devil’s Workshop” (1999) by Stephen Cannell: A graduate student in microbiology at USC investigates the reported suicide of her husband, the chairman of the department. The novel opens in the school’s brick Science Building, where “years of Lysol had turned the light gray linoleum floor yellow.”

* “Groucho Marx, Private Eye” (1999) by Ron Goulart: Amateur detective Groucho threatens to quit his radio show because the station’s owner wants to turn the writing duties over to his own son, Collin. The owner explains: “While he was at USC, Collin . . . wrote the skits for the Phi Sig Homecoming Dance three years running.”

* “Flower Net” (1997) by Lisa See: Investigators look into the past of a shadowy USC student, who is the son of a U.S. ambassador. The spoiled lad’s most visible scholastic achievement: racking up $1,125 in school parking tickets in his first year.

ONE LESS SMILE IN L.A.: In 1998, Edwin F. Parsons Jr. noticed a Hancock Park mansion with a Greco/Happy Face architectural style. Parsons went back recently and found that one of the smiling heads was gone. And the survivor seemed to be winking (see photos). I wish I could put Groucho Marx on this case.

THERE WERE 100 TAILS IN THE NAKED CITY: I was perhaps premature in decrying the absence of streakers welcoming the 2000s.

A gentleman who identifies himself as Randall Tin-Ear says that about 100 individuals gathered in the nude at 6:50 a.m. Saturday morning on Hill Street in Chinatown “to greet the first sunrise of the new year.”

While video cameras were recording the scene, Tin-Ear says, “a cop drove by, and, although he looked squarely at us, he did not even tap his brakes.”

Perhaps the officer thought it was a reunion of the cast from “Hair.”

In any event, that was the kind of spectacle L.A. needed to liven up the mayor’s boring show at the Hollywood sign.

miscelLAny:

The book, “Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest,” recounts the arrest of 20 would-be drug buyers by Huntington Beach cops posing as dealers. “I’ll tell you how bright these people are,” a Huntington Beach officer recalled. “We actually had people coming up and getting in line [to buy drugs] when we had people [under arrest and handcuffed] on the ground.”

One woman tried to make a purchase from a “a uniformed officer wearing a jacket with the word “police” spelled out in 8-inch letters.”

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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.