Plug Is Pulled on Cafe Talking Head
Writer Jon Dobrer was in the restroom of the Moustache Cafe in Westwood when he heard a voice that seemed to be coming from the urinal. “Hi,” the voice said. “Normally I wouldn’t intrude, but this is the only time I can tell you about my new TV show starring. . . .”
It wasn’t just the loss of privacy that angered Dobrer, a columnist for the Fullerton Observer, but the fact that the male voice made anatomical jokes directed at whoever was using the urinal.
Dobrer described the experience in a column and sent me a copy because I had written about another bathroom incident, in which some residents of Paramount had taped over the sensors of new automatic flush toilets in a city park, fearing they were cameras.
“I laughed at their foolish paranoia,” Dobrer wrote. “Then. I’m not laughing now. Last night the toilet talked. Tomorrow it may listen, and the day after it just might run a drug test.”
IN THE MOUSTACHE: The restroom voice box was actually hidden in a poster frame, one Moustache Cafe worker said.
A couple of recordings have been used. A previous ad began with, “Hey,” which “some of our customers found a little bit scary,” the worker said.
Another worker said “some people were offended” by the ad that Dobrer heard.
As of Tuesday, the recordings were no longer being used in the Moustache’s Westwood or West Hollywood restaurants.
HOT AIR: Don’t know if you’ve heard of the bizarre movement called breatharianism, which holds that humans should shun food and liquids and live on air alone.
An Australian breatharian was awarded one of the 2000 Ig Nobel Prizes at Harvard University the other day. Yes, Ig Nobel Prizes. The satirical awards show is produced by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research--or, coincidentally, AIR.
I’m disappointed because I thought a Southland restaurant deserved the award for its faux chicken concoction (see accompanying).
The winner, by the way, wrote a book titled “Living on Light.” She did not attend so she did not hear AIR editor Marc Abrahams utter his traditional closing: “If you didn’t win an Ig Nobel prize tonight--and especially if you did--better luck next year.”
TRIBUTE TO CAR CULTURE: The book “The Los Angeles Watts Towers,” by Bud Goldstone and Arloa Paquin Goldstone, contains many fascinating stories about the recently reopened landmark.
In the 1940s, Italian immigrant Simon Rodia was asked by curious city inspectors about the heights of the spires he had constructed.
Rodia replied that he built the three largest “in honor of the highways of California.” He added: “I build that tower 101 feet tall, in honor of Highway 101. . . . I build that tower 99 feet tall, in honor of Highway 99. . . . I build that tower 66 feet tall, in honor of Highway 66.”
What a shame that Rodia started the project before the 605 and 710 freeways came along.
miscelLAny:
During Public Works Week in 1983, the city of L.A. set out what might have been the world’s only talking trash can. It contained a hidden speaker and was hooked up to a nearby truck, where a worker appealed to passers-by not to litter. It was not a success. One participant said later: “Some kids tore paper out of the can.”
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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, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.
