Ballot Bafflement Strikes in L.A.

I phoned the L.A. city clerk’s office, prepared to demand that the April 10 municipal election be postponed. And not because I’m supporting mayoral candidate Melrose Larry Green, whose campaign needs more time to gain momentum.

No, I called because Andy and Barbara Serrano had sent me a copy of an absentee ballot application that contained a typographical error--one that could conceivably render that ballot inadmissible (see accompanying).

But the clerk’s office checked and told me its copy contained the correct wording. The erroneous application, I was told, might have been sent out in one of the candidates’ mailers.

Well, there went the Pulitzer. I checked back with the Serranos and learned it was mailed to them by the Villaraigosa campaign. So I guess the election will go on as scheduled. Anyway, I don’t believe what the polls say about Melrose Larry’s chances.

STILL ON THE POLITICAL BEAT: David Story of Santa Monica reports that some relatives were in town from Missouri and stayed at a Days Inn, where they visited the hotel’s Presidential Walk. They were stunned to see the party designation of one of their native sons (see accompanying).

Sure the Republicans won a contested election in Florida last year. But now they’ve latched on to Harry Truman? If he were around, Harry would really give them, well, you know what.

DECONSTRUCTING HARRY: The party designation is one of the worst insults against Truman since the Chicago Tribune headline declaring that Thomas Dewey had defeated him in 1948. I bring that up here before any wise-guy readers remind me that the Tribune papers have taken over The Times.

THE DEVIL YOU SAY: Gary and Teresa Larrison found a product that claims it can remove one of Truman’s favorite words (see accompanying).

PHILOSOPHER OF SORTS: A recent item here about wacky legal defenses prompted a note from Ross Amspoker, who recalled that when he was practicing law in Palmdale in the 1950s he heard a woman allege “extreme cruelty” in a divorce case. Amspoker said that she testified “that her husband ‘used profound language’ in her presence.”

Some of it was probably profane too.

BEFORE YOU GO . . . : Amspoker also remembered defending a man accused of going 70 mph.

“The jury brought in a not-guilty verdict, but the foreman asked the judge if he could say something to the defendant,” Amspoker said. “The judge consented. The foreman stared at my client, searching for just the right message, and finally blurted out, ‘Slow down!’ ”

MORE LAW AND ORDER: Esquire Jauchem, producer of the Court TV series “Anatomy of a Crime,” was shooting a segment in Newton, Iowa, when he over-parked in front of the police station. He got a parking ticket--and a $3 fine. But that wasn’t all. If it wasn’t paid after 30 days, it would skyrocket to $6.

If parking tickets were that low here people would use much less profound language, I think.

miscelLAny:

“Anonymous Rex” by Eric Garcia, is set in contemporary L.A., and follows the adventures of a secret society of dinosaurs who are disguised as humans in latex outfits.

Phil Proctor points out that Dave Barry’s blurb on the book’s dust jacket said: “What would the world be like if the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct? . . . For one thing, L.A. would be weirder than it is now.”