Now Don’t Be Finicky About What the Hunter and Gatherer Brings Home
Claims adjuster Curtis Barickman of Sherman Oaks phoned an insurance agent in a little town in West Virginia about a case only to have the agent say he was leaving the office. When Barickman offered to phone back later in the day, the agent said, “Oh, no, I won’t be back. I gotta go squirrel hunting.”
Maybe he’s in charge of bringing home the Thanksgiving dinner.
More food for thought: Some unusual items served up by column readers (see accompanying):
* A not-quite-ironclad guarantee from a watermelon grower (Clifford Larsen of La Habra).
* A courageous dining performance by members of the La Canada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce (Dorothy Ertel of La Canada).
* And, a scary-sounding fish dish in a Baja California restaurant (spotted by Bennett Mintz of Chatsworth).
Rock ‘n’ real estate: I never did learn why he was on a sports talk show, but guitarist Berton Averre of The Knack had some revelations about the group’s 1979 million-seller, “My Sharona,” on KSPN (1110) radio the other day.
Averre told hosts Joe McDonnell and Doug Krikorian that the song was named after Sharona Alperin, a Fairfax High student who was the girlfriend of group member Doug Fieger. And the group wrote it while a second (soon-to-be-ex) girlfriend of Fieger’s was in the same room.
Fieger and Alperin also broke up later. But Alperin has become a prominent real estate agent here. Maybe Averre’s appearance on KSPN did have a sports tie-in--after all, real estate is a game of sorts.
Taming telemarketers (cont.): If she gets many more calls from phone solicitors, Grace Hampton of Burbank says she may buy a CD that she recently heard advertised.
“It’s a recording of all the big party killers from the ‘70s-’Sometimes When We Touch,’ ‘You Light Up My Life,’ ‘Feelings,’ ‘You’re Having My Baby’--all those songs we love to hate,” Hampton said. “I’ll keep a boombox by my phone and when a telemarketer calls I’ll put her on hold and play that CD--loud--right into the receiver.”
Driving their fans crazy: “UCLA football--it’s not just about the game,” say the radio ads for the school’s team.
I don’t know what that means, either. But the slogan has taken on new meaning of late, what with UCLA’s star running back suspended for driving an actor friend’s SUV and the team’s quarterback revealing that he was arrested for drunk driving.
Shades of 1999 when several members of UCLA’s team were suspended for illegal use of handicapped parking placards.
All of which leads cyber commentator Ron Fineman to suggest that UCLA move to New York City, where you don’t need to use a car. (Heck, the team began moving in that direction a few years ago anyway when it switched the location of its home games from the Coliseum to Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.)
miscelLAny:
Chevy’s new Avalanche SUV was singled out here as one of the dumber vehicle names of recent years. And, just the other day, another reader mentioned that he thought that Chevy’s slogan, “Like a rock!” was also questionable--who wants a car as mobile as a rock?
Well, Chevrolet has managed to combine both nonsensical concepts. I saw a freeway billboard that said, honest to goodness:
“Avalanche . . . Like a rock!”
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, 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.
