Winter Can Bring Nudists’ Discontent

The newsletter of the Elysium nudist colony in Topanga reports that the facility has added heaters so that members will be “able to be outdoors in cooler weather, comfortably!”

People! Did you ever hear of putting on clothes?

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WHAT WAS THAT NAME AGAIN? Adding to our list of sites that seem to have shifted as a result of seismic activity, Keith Dixon points out that the Los Alamitos Racetrack is actually in Cypress.

Some other entities I managed to locate:

* The Hollywood Reporter is on Wilshire Boulevard, south of Hollywood.

* The Beverly Hills Country Club is in West L.A.

* Universal Studios-Hollywood is in Universal City.

* Newport Dental is in Hawaiian Gardens.

* Lake Los Angeles is in the Antelope Valley.

And, finally, Cal State Channel Islands is located not offshore but in Camarillo.

One reason boosters weren’t in favor of the name Cal State Camarillo, by the way, was the inevitable designation of C-SUC.

Now it’s CSUCI, which I’m told, is informally pronounced C-Sushi.

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LESS IS MORE: The C-SUC dilemma reminds me of the problem confronting those who wanted to name the state office building in downtown L.A. after Ronald Reagan. The ex-president was kidded about the matter when the building was finally dedicated. Backers had been fearful that a Ronald Reagan State Office Building would be nicknamed the Reagan SOB. So the “Office” was omitted from the name.

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NOW FOR THE WEATHER: In a dry period like this, it’s difficult to remember that just a few years ago the Southland was flooded--at least according to the map of one area newspaper.

Notice the positions of Torrance, Santa Fe Springs, Long Beach and Huntington Beach, also known as the Channel Islands.

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IT WAS L.A.ME: I’ve waited until all the yawning was over before commenting on L.A.’s dull New Year’s Eve spectacle. Reader Lance Hill wrote that he was upset over a New York Times report that called the show “lackluster.” But USA Today was even more critical--it didn’t even list L.A. on its colorful map of Y2K festivities.

I’m afraid that the criticism is deserved.

Luckily, the next New Year’s should also be a big event, so maybe L.A. can make a comeback. I like the idea of my colleague Agustin Gurza “to shut down the freeways and throw a party on the ramps and connector roads. Let revelers roam those soaring roadways to their 10-story peaks. Let there be salsa dancing on the diamond lanes. . . .”

And at midnight, I think, all eyes should switch to the Santa Monica Pier. As Jennifer Campana suggested in this space a year ago, nothing would be more L.A. than to stage a fake earthquake on the pier at the stroke of 12, “crumbling a giant mock HOLLYWOOD sign to the sounds of Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (used in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey’).”

I guarantee you no one would call that show lackluster.

miscelLAny:

In case you’re wondering, Dec. 31, 2000, is a Sunday. I know because I checked my new 2000 State Soils Calendar, put out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It has centerfolds of 12 of the official state soils of the nation (California is represented by San Joaquin Soil).

Yup, some guys get dirty calendars for Christmas. I got a dirt calendar.

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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.