Soboroff’s Error Off the Field
In baseball parlance, score it: Error-Soboroff.
Steve Sussman points out that a mailer from mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff mixed up Rafael Perez, a key figure in the Rampart Division police scandal, with a former Dodger pitcher. In the mailer, Soboroff referred to “bad cop Carlos Perez.” Actually, from the point of view of Dodger fans, Carlos Perez’s only crime was winning just five games last year.
ANNALS OF STRANGE CRIME: An L.A. County sheriff’s deputy responded to a burglary report in Paramount only to be told by the victim “that someone was using psychic powers to remove items from her home,” the city’s newsletter reported.
Which pretty much eliminated the possibility of finding any fingerprints.
THAT PERSONAL TOUCH: Jill Bassett of Burbank was less than charmed at the way a piece of junk mail was addressed to her (see accompanying). It also raised a couple of questions. “If they don’t know my name, how did they determine I was a ‘Ms.?”’ she asked.
Also: Did the sender think No First Name’s last name was Exhibits Manager?
TIME FOR A PREGNANT PAUSE: After reading the drug prescription for his 80-year-old mother, Los Alamitos resident Allen Bundy commented, “I guess it’s never too late to be vigilant regarding birth control” (see accompanying).
FROM STORKS TO . . . “I have read in your column of the numerous sightings of L.A.’s Freeway Chickens,” writes Jeff Ballam. “Yet I have never heard of the Freeway Pheasants. As I was driving westbound on the 134 near the Equestrian Center in Burbank, there was a male ring-necked pheasant standing proudly on the shoulder of the freeway. I saw no others with him, so I don’t know if he was a bachelor or if the others were too afraid to approach the roadway.”
CIVIC BOOKENDS: I mentioned the sign that proclaims, “Barstow, Calif., 2,554 Mi.,” on the eastern end of Interstate 40 in Wilmington, N.C. And Kevin Smith wrote to remind me: “As a river rat who drives I-40 a lot, I can tell you there is a sign on the California end as well” (see photos).
And thanks, also, to the 2,554 readers who corrected me for saying the highway was U.S. 40.
MELROSE ON WILSHIRE: After my report of a passerby snatching a campaign poster from mayoral candidate “Melrose” Larry Green on Sunset Boulevard, Albert C. Cardenas wrote: “Apparently Melrose Larry has learned a lesson. He was campaigning on the 720 (Wilshire Boulevard) bus last evening, presumably so he could easily nab anyone taking a poster from him.”
JUGGLING ACT: At a softball game in Modjeska Park in Anaheim, a spectator was talking on a cellular phone when a foul ball came his way. He stopped talking for a moment to catch the ball with his free hand. Further proof that nothing can make people put their cellular phones away.
miscelLAny:
OK, I admit I found those “Baby on Board” placards in drivers’ windows irritating when they were in vogue a few years ago. But they did make me drive more carefully. I can’t say a sign in the back of a car on Beverly Boulevard had the same effect on me. It said: “Flower Delivery in Progress.”
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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.