Welcome to Our Real-Life Horrors

Welcome to Only in L.A.’s Halloween party, which is open to everyone from Maliboo and Aghoula to Hacienda Frights and Hauntington Beach.

Just to put you in the mood, let’s start with some appropriate artwork (see accompanying):

* A vision of that dreaded underworld place (I’m surprised they’re allowed to sell gasoline there).

* A macabre traffic sign with a double meaning, snapped in New York by Steven Leffert.

* And applications that no Halloween party should be without (submitted by Marylyn Ginsburg).

*

TV NEWS IS GETTING SCARIER AND SCARIER: In cardiac rehab, Jim Glass was viewing a closed-caption version of the morning news when he saw the scrolling text talk about some victims who were “hospital iced,” a taxpayer’s “deaths,” and a “stabbing debt.”

“I guess debt and taxes are still inevitable,” he concluded.

*

GETTING IN THE LAST WORD: The discussion here of the cemetery epitaph of cartoon voice Mel Blanc (“That’s All, Folks!”) prompted film historian Lee Harris to offer a few other colorful tombstone inscriptions, including:

* “Go Away--I’m Asleep” (actress Joan Hackett)

* “She Did It the Hard Way” (actress Bette Davis)

* “Just the Facts” (“Dragnet” creator Jack Webb)

* “Lt. Tragg” (Ray Collins, the cop on TV’s “Perry Mason”)

*

MORE FAREWELLS: A few other tombstone inscriptions I’ve collected:

* “1910-1975-?” (actor Richard Conte)

* “Nothing in Moderation” (comic Ernie Kovacs)

* “To Yesterday’s Companionship and Tomorrow’s Reunion” (actress Rita Hayworth)

* “Peace at Last” (comic Lenny Bruce)

And then there’s “Is It True?” the trademark phrase of sportscaster Jim Healy, which decorates his headstone. When his widow, Pat, died, a few years later, their son Patrick had a response chiseled on her marker:

“Yes.”

*

IN GRANADA CHILLS? I received a press release from two women who claim to be able to rid your residence of ghosts (though not live house guests). I wasn’t aware there was a problem out here, unless some of the spirits were listening when Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) told a disputatious Manhattan demon in “Ghostbusters II”:

“If you had brain one in that huge melon on top of your neck, you’d be living the sweet life out in Southern California’s beautiful San Fernando Valley.”

*

COMMUTER HORRORS: Stuck in the post-storm gridlock of the Long Beach Freeway on Friday morning, I saw a radio station’s billboard quoting a Lenny Kravitz song that every commuter would have agreed with:

“I want to get away, I want to fly away.”

I think I was near the city of Bell Goblins.

miscelLAny:

As if reckless drivers aren’t scary enough, here’s a seasonal hazard, as reported in the Seal Beach Sun’s police log: “Seal Beach Boulevard, 8:05 p.m.--A passing vehicle threw a pumpkin at a bicyclist.”

*

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.