USC Students’ Tuneful Practice Apparently Wasn’t Music to Everyone’s Ears

USC’s music students have been told to stop the music--at least outdoors on campus.

The school’s Daily Trojan newspaper reports that the melody-makers have been banned from practicing in their traditional area on a lawn near Norris Theater after complaints reached what one official called “a serious level.”

They must instead use the practice rooms in the aptly named Practice and Instructional Center.

The ruling drew a chorus of student protests that there isn’t enough space to hold the 427 musicians who have portable instruments. Cello players take up a lot of room.

“I think it’s pretty lame,” opined one trumpeter, who had tried to maintain a low profile by using a mute on his instrument during his daily four- to six-hour practice sessions outdoors.

But a doctoral student who teaches nearby gave the novices a bad review in the Daily Trojan. “It’s so infuriating to either teach or have a class,” he said, “through the din of their practice notes.”

For a blowout sale? Alan Frisbie of L.A. points out that a Burbank shopping center located on the premises of the old Lockheed “Skunk Works” displays Lockheed aircraft atop many of the buildings, including a P38 Lightning fighter above an aptly named store (see photo).

“Duh!” award winner: Bill Faherty of El Segundo noticed a cardboard Halloween mask with some common sense directions (see accompanying).

Hot stuff: Michael Berman of Walnut and Roy Sykes of Woodland Hills came upon some wines that were supposed to be served at “cellar temperatures.” But Berman wondered if these were the wines from hell (see accompanying).

Spacey collectibles: Some unusual items listed in the catalog for the Oct. 27-28 auction of Superior Stamps & Space Memorabilia of Beverly Hills:

* “Survival Machete Blades and Cosmonauts Pen Knife. . . . Very useful for cutting your way through the jungle if your spacecraft lands in the wrong place. Like new.” (Estimated value: $150-$250).

* “Toilet ‘Inserts’. . . . We’re not exactly sure what part these pieces play in the overall operation of the Soviet spaceship toilet but these raise lots of questions. Sure to elicit a lot of comment from your friends” ($100-$150)

* “Stainless Steel Vodka Flask with a cloisonne medallion of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on one side” ($100-$150).

I’m fairly certain, by the way, that the Gagarin flask was not used on his space missions.

Chatter time: Alan Eisenstock, author of the entertaining new book “Sports Talk,” says he was drawn to the world of jock radio in the 1970s when he heard Ed “Superfan” Bieler of KABC-AM (790).

And how could anyone resist? After all, Eisenstock recalls that Bieler’s voice was a “guttural celebration of phlegm” with the “consistency of sandpaper,” sounding as though he’d “just staggered into the studio from a bar stool.”

Eisenstock points out that unlike other timid hosts, Bieler knocked the ticket prices of the Lakers, the poor seating in the L.A. Coliseum and Dodger Dogs.

As for that latter dish, he challenged listeners to “hold the pickle, hold the relish, hold the mustard, no chili no ketchup, no bun” and taste one. Alas, Bieler’s station, KABC, was the sponsor of the Dodgers, and Superfan’s tirade landed him in the hot-doghouse. He was fired.

miscelLAny:

Seen on the Long Beach Freeway, a 99 Cents Only corporate truck with the message: “Driver Carries 99 Cents Only.”

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., Los Angeles 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.