Send Those Valley Secession Donations to ... West L.A.? That’s Right
A shocked Encino resident alerted me that the Web site for the San Fernando Valley Independence Committee says that donations can be sent to an office on Santa Monica Boulevard. Yes, in dreaded West L.A.
“Considering the size of the Valley,” the resident wrote, “it’s pretty sad that the group couldn’t find an address somewhere, anywhere, in the Valley.” I was surprised about the West L.A. address for another reason. I thought the borders had been sealed.
Attention amateur dentists! Prowling the sidewalks of Manhattan, this column’s national correspondent, Phil Proctor, came upon a display of do-it-yourself products (see photo).
Too gory for me: Elizabeth and Don Kiel of San Diego spotted a bestseller about some couples whose internal organs flip-flop (see accompanying). Too many cocktails, perhaps.
They didn’t stop to smell the roses: I mentioned that the FBI had given its field office in L.A. an uncorroborated report that terrorists might be targeting oil refineries in Pasadena. Turned out the threat involved Pasadena, Texas. Anyway, Mary Maher writes that the FBI folks would have been a lot quicker to identify the Pasadena in Texas “if they were familiar with its old booster slogan: ‘The grass is greener in Pasadena,’ which was inevitably expanded to, ‘And so is the air,’ due to its large number of oil refineries and paper mills.”
Speaking of bad directions: Bert Corson noticed that a Web site listing the driving times to a San Diego County casino assumes motorists in L.A. and Riverside are race-car drivers while those in Escondido are in golf carts (see accompanying).
Questionable plugs: A discussion here about negative product placement in the movies moved Rick Mitchell to contribute a couple of refreshing moments:
* In “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), Keenan Wynn machine-guns a Coke machine to get the change that British liaison officer Peter Sellers needs to put through what he hopes will be a world-saving phone call to American President Peter Sellers.” (Sellers had several roles in the movie.)
* In “Head,” (1968), Mickey Dolenz, lost in the desert, “comes across a Coke machine which refuses to dispense until he blows it up with a tank borrowed from some Italian soldiers lost since World War II.”
Come out with your paws up: The Laguna News-Post’s police log reported that “a resident heard sounds and saw shadows in his living room. He told police he thought that some wild animal was in his house. A small opossum was found and escorted to the front door.” How does one escort a possum? Not by the tail, I bet.
MiscelLAny: Singer Weird Al Yankovic, one of the stars appearing at the Orange County Fair, counts among his successes “My Bologna” (1979, a parody of the Knack’s “My Sharona.”) Yankovic recorded “My Bologna” across the hall from the radio station at his alma mater, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo--in a bathroom stall.
