Red Cross Blood Drive Had Some Donors Baring It All for a Good Cause
The members of the Elysium Institute have put their clothes back on, as you may have read. The nudist colony on the Westside has shut down after 33 years. But it left its mark on history. In 1981, Elysium held what was billed as the world’s first nude blood drive, and it became an annual event.
A news release for one drive noted that though “almost all donors will be nude . . . the Red Cross doctors and nurses who actually collect the blood will be wearing their usual whites. The nude donors have been instructed that they do not have to roll up their sleeves.”
Pregnant with no meaning: A. Harold Janken of West L.A. was confident he didn’t have to worry about the warning on his prostate drug prescription (see accompanying).
Kids, don’t read this! At an electronics store in Thousand Oaks, George Burditt noticed a grammatically challenged sign for some educational software, including a “Harry Potter” product (see photo). The work of an evil wizard, perhaps.
Freeway literature: Companies continue to use traffic jokes and puns on Southland billboards (see photo), though I’ve never been able to figure out why. It seems to me that the last thing that drivers stuck in a commuter crawl would want to read about would be the traffic.
Taming telemarketers (cont.) Contributing to the daily seminar here on handling phone solicitors, Joya Light of West L.A. sent along some suggestions she saw on the Internet:
* Tell the telemarketer you are on “home incarceration” and ask if he could bring you some beer.
* If they want to lend you money, tell them you just filed for bankruptcy and you could sure use some.
* Tell the telemarketer, “OK, I’ll listen to you. But I should probably tell you, I’m not wearing any clothes.”
* Insist that the caller is really your buddy Leon, playing a joke. “Come on, Leon, cut it out! Seriously, Leon, how’s your momma?”
* Tell them to talk very slowly because you want to write down every word.
* Say “No” over and over. Be sure to vary the sound of each one, and keep a rhythmic tempo, even as they are trying to speak.
* If MCI calls trying to get you to sign up for the Family and Friends Plan, reply, in as sinister a voice as you can: “I don’t have any friends. Would you be my friend?”
Name game: Truckers beware! A motorcycle officer in the LAPD’s West Traffic Division is named John Bigrigg.
Unclear on the concept: Paul Jolly of Covina wonders whether one local “assisted-living retirement community” should be a bit more careful with its language. The facility said in one ad that its retirees were “a skip and a jump” from several hospitals.
miscelLAny:
Hank Rosenfeld noticed that the new Santa Monica Daily Press newspaper proudly carried this statement on page one the other day: “Serving Santa Monica Since Last Tuesday.”
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.
