When You’ve Seen One City Out West

Hoping to avoid a repeat of the fiasco of L.A.’s Y2K party, Mayor Riordan replaced the original official in charge of planning the Democratic Convention at Staples Center.

So how effective has the advance publicity been? Well, Time magazine, in its Feb. 28 issue, said the convention will be held in San Diego (see accompanying).

I’m not sure the mayor’s people realize how thorough they must be when dealing with those big Eastern publications. To the media back there, one city on the West Coast is pretty much like another.

HARDLY THE TALK OF THE TOWN: Then again, I can’t say I feel the excitement building here for the anointing of the charismatic Al Gore in August. In fact, when Paula Partch sent me a shot she snapped in Mexico I thought at first it was a billboard about the convention (see photo).

SPEAKING OF POLITICIANS: Betty Wielkiewicz of Tujunga found an ad with a touch of humor in a weekly (see accompanying).

PLANES . . . : “Did you happen to notice the irony in the photograph on Page 1 of Tuesday’s paper?” wrote Josh Howell of San Diego. “The Southwest jetliner headed for the Chevron station with the price sign displaying gas at $1.79.9/gal. There was an unrelated headline right next to the photo predicting that gas prices would be $2 per gallon in the near future. Perhaps the pilot was just trying to top off before the rush.”

. . . AND BOATS: “The city of San Diego should have a military ship based here bearing its name,” noted columnist Diane Bell in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Even L.A. has one, she pointed out.

True, but the submarine Los Angeles is based in Honolulu.

Then again poor Anaheim doesn’t even have a submarine. At least not since Disneyland shut down that attraction.

NICKEL BREW: A new collection of writings by the late Charles Bukowski, the Shakespeare of San Pedro, is titled “What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire.”

One of the poems by the celebrated drinker/poet is “Phillipe’s, 1950,” a tribute to the venerable emporium near Union Station.

Bukowski praises the tolerance of the eatery’s workers in the early morning when “the bums come off Bunker Hill.” He quotes the street people thusly:

Phillipe’s, they say,

is the only place that doesn’t

hassle us

Bukowski misspells 92-year-old Philippe’s, but let’s call it poetic license.

In the poem, he notes that coffee is a nickel there. Of course, that was 50 years ago. No one serves 5-cent coffee anymore. Coffee at Philippe’s is now 9 cents.

AH, THAT HOLLYWOOD LIFESTYLE! The April issue of Vanity Fair has an excerpt from the forthcoming “Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland,” revealing that during her troubled marriage to director Vincente Minnelli the couple rented a second house on Sunset Boulevard near the one they lived in. They did this, author Gerald Clarke explained, “so that after a fight, Judy would have a place” where she could “get away.”

miscelLAny:

Tonight at 6, the Queen Mary hosts a screening of the “Poseidon Adventure” (1972) with an appearance by star Shelley Winters. Tickets are $35. Part of the disaster flick was filmed aboard the QM. In a way, it was a perfect match since the QM has been something of a disaster as a tourist attraction, draining more than $100 million in its 34-year stay in Long Beach.

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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.