It Turned Out to Be a Party of One

You think your community has problems. My second-favorite L.A. newspaper, the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise, carried this police log item out of La Palma:

“Marview Drive, 11:31 p.m.: A reported loud party was actually a resident practicing the bagpipes.”

Then there was this bulletin out of Cypress:

“Knott Street, 9:47 p.m.: A resident reported a motivational meeting was being held weekly nearby, and the attendees were being very loud.”

Guess the attendees were worked up to such a feverish pitch that an anti-motivational speaker had to be summoned to calm them down.

GUIDE TO DARING DINING: Hi, my name is Steve, and I’ll be your server today. We have a lunch special that might seem pricey at first glance. But, remember, the beverage is included (snapped by Bob Granados).

Those with strong teeth may want to try the bagel dish (submitted by Galen Murakawa of Mar Vista).

For those tired of ocean “traut” (or trout, for that matter), there’s a freshwater variety (spotted by Times reporter Richard Serrano at the L.A. Cafe, which is in Washington, D.C., of all places).

By the way, we have a lascivious Tex Mex dish (discovered by D.D. of San Bernardino). But it’s served only on Sundays, which is our coarse lunch day (snapped by Roy Ringer of Malibu).

STEWED READERS: Marc Nakagawa of Irvine was one of many who wrote, called, faxed, e-mailed or sent messages by carrier pigeon after I mentioned a still-circulating urban folk tale on the Web site of the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society. The readers pointed out that the yarn appeared in a slightly different form in the 1991 movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes” (adapted from a 1987 Fannie Flagg novel).

It’s the anecdote about a rich, older woman driver who purposely bashes her car into that of a smart-aleck youth after he cuts her off. The folklore society (https://www.snopes.com), in fact, mentions the “Fried Green Tomatoes” variation.

It also points out that Jan Harold Brunvand, author of several books on urban folk tales, has heard from numerous readers “who encountered this tale in the 1960s and ‘70s.”

LITERARY L.B.: In the novel, “All the King’s Men,” based on the life of early 20th century Louisiana politician Huey Long, a political aide becomes so disillusioned with the main character’s corruption that he leaves Baton Rouge and drives west until he motors into Long Beach. He never says why and he doesn’t stay long (the Queen Mary wasn’t there yet).

Long Beach has the darndest tendency to pop up unexpectedly in novels. For instance:

* In Robert Stone’s “Damascus Gate,” set in Israel, we learn that a character “once had a boyfriend, a dropout from Long Beach State and a Maoist militant, who had quit school to organize the shipyard workers at the San Diego Navy Yard (but) had given it all up for nitrous oxide and drowned in his own bathtub.”

* And, in William Boyd’s “The Blue Afternoon,” about a tragic romance in the Philippines, the narrator says: “It always seemed to me one of my life’s crueler oppositions: born in New Guinea, raised in Long Beach.”

Not that local authors have ignored the city. John Gregory Dunne’s 1940s-era novel, “True Confessions,” has one character say that a chic joint in Long Beach was one “where the bartender didn’t wear a tattoo.”

miscelLAny:

In a Palm Springs newspaper, Carol Nahin came upon this ad:

“6 sets of golf clubs from sand wedge to 2 iron & 4 metal woods, lot of putters and new metal woods & irons. Must clean up garage . . . (call for) appt.”

Nahin isn’t sure how many people would want to get all that sweaty and dirty in exchange for some golf clubs.

Now, if it were bagpipes. . . .