Caroling, It’s Not: Partyers’ Singalong Isn’t Music to Lawman-Critic’s Ears

A discussion here of complaints about late-night singing in one neighborhood prompted Pat Wilson of Corona to write:

“My daughter gave me a birthday party that lasted into the wee hours. Unfortunately, so did our karaoke singing. In the frontyard. A cop came by and told us to cease and desist. ‘It’s not that you’re singing too loudly,’ he told us. ‘It’s just that you’re such rotten singers.’ ”

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Food for thought: OK, it’s obvious what the Italian menu writer meant (see photo). But still, the item spotted on vacation by Phil and Melinda Proctor of Beverly Hills doesn’t exactly make one’s mouth water.

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An accidental high: “Were you ever involved in a holiday promotion that went wrong?” author Don Barrett asked on his laradio.com Web site. Disc jockey Whitney Allen recalled when she worked for a small station that offered a same-day round trip on a small plane to a Rolling Stones concert in San Francisco. Two high school kids won and brought dates.

Allen, who accompanied them, had no time for breakfast and gobbled down some brownies her roommate had made. As the plane landed, she said, “I was feeling a little strange.... These were not regular brownies.”

At concert’s end, “as I watched the sun set behind Keith Richards and Mick’s jumbo lips,” the pilot informed her he didn’t have clearance to fly at night.

Allen had to call the students’ parents to say they’d miss school the next day, rent two rooms at “some seedy motel” on her own credit card, and segregate the boys and the girls.

The girls wanted to have a slumber party. Allen, who was in their room, ordered them to sleep, feeling older than her 20 years.

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A commuter classic: As is my custom, I’d like to read a bit now from “The Night Before Christmas in California,” by Catherine Smith (see photo). It begins:

“On the night before Christmas, all down 101/The traffic was deadlocked; it wasn’t much fun.” You see, children, fog had shrouded the state, grounding Santa.

Officials appealed for help from everywhere. They even “called on the Lakers/the Giants, ‘Niners, Clippers/But there were no takers.” What’s that? No, there were no rally monkeys back then, children.

Anyway, someone finally obtained “a court order, a clean writ of habeas” that outlawed the fog and sent it off “to Las Vegas.” And Santa was able to make his rounds.

Yes, it was the Christmas that was saved by a lawyer. I don’t know why Hallmark hasn’t made a movie about it.

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miscelLAny: Bob and Rita Rubin of Whittier spotted a neighbor’s banner that made them wonder if his favorite activity this time of the year is eating (see photo). Which reminds me: Holiday greetings (spicy or non-spicy) to all of you.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083; by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012; and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.