Mystified by Voices Coming From Your Radio? Try Turning the ‘Off’ Button

The city of Paramount’s newsletter says that a resident phoned authorities “to report that he was hearing voices coming from his radio.” Must be a haunting experience, especially if all he hears is talk radio.

The SWAT team wasn’t dispatched for this one, either: The police log of the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise carried a complaint about a gent who “threw his clothes on the bed because he knew it upset his wife.” Bet he leaves the toilet seat up too.

The rising postal rates have everyone on edge: The News-Enterprise’s crime report also said a woman called the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, “cussed at the man who answered and was disrespectful to the federal government.”

Harrumph for Hollywood: Is Tinseltown trying to secede or does it intend to take over the City of Angels? Dick Barnes of Long Beach noticed a magazine’s discount dining guide had already wiped L.A. off the map (see accompanying).

Shear enjoyment? Margaret Sargent of L.A. received a flier from an establishment whose name caused her to ask: “Do you suppose they offer to rinse the hair in beer?” (see accompanying).

Food for thought: Unless it’s an attack on the media, Scott Shulman thinks he came upon a funny malapropism on a sign (see photo). Shulman recalled a fowl pun that the late Times columnist Jack Smith used for a type of blooper (and it certainly is appropriate here): a “pullet surprise.”

Ooh L.A. L.A.: French journalist Alain Jeannin tells me that “Los Angeles,” a melancholy song by Benjamin Biolay, is a hit in his country. Which should come as no surprise. Jeannin noted the City of Angels holds a fascination for the French, citing the popularity of the recent movie “Mulholland Drive” and the mystery novels of James Ellroy and Michael Connelly.

Another popular French song of a few years back was “California” by Mylene Farmer, which was set in an L.A. hotel room. Jeannin called the song “dark and erotic.” And before that there was Jane Birkin’s “Baby Alone in Babylone,” which had an L.A. connection, sort of a “sur les freeways de L.A.” theme.

Ooh L.A. L.A. (Part Deux): I’m not sure whether this genre should include Frank Black’s English-language song “Los Angeles,” which was also big in France in the early 1990s. It goes like this: “I wanna live in Los Angeles/Not the one in Los Angeles/No, not the one in South California/ They got one in South Patagonia.”

They do indeed have a Los Angeles in Chile’s South Patagonia region. I wonder if that L.A. has secession problems.

MiscelLAny: As for the controversy over whether to name Bodie or Calico the official state ghost town, a friend of mine has a compromise choice: “How about downtown L.A. after dark?”

*

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.