Blessed Be the Dodger Fan, Fated to Wait Till Kingdom Come for the Playoffs
The Dodgers have been so miserable lately that I don’t think they stand a prayer of making the playoffs. Too bad the founder of their radio station--now KXTA-AM (1150)--isn’t around to work a miracle. They could really use the divine contacts of Aimee Semple McPherson, the flamboyant evangelist who broadcast her “Sunshine Hour” from the Angelus Temple in Echo Park from 1923 to her death in 1944. If nothing else, I think a stern lecture from Sister Aimee would shake the Dodgers out of their lethargy.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping score: The Dodgers haven’t won a playoff game since 1988 (remember the 1900s?). I recall the time a caller to KXTA was asked to relate his most treasured moment as a Dodger fan. He couldn’t think of any. “I’ll be honest, guys,” he said. “I’m only 19.”
Ask me how I gained 50 pounds! Henry Sands spotted an ad for a formula that helps you add something I don’t need: flab (see accompanying).
Speaking of calories: Ray Barnecut of Long Beach saw a chicken wings’ offer from a company that believes you should get what you pay for--no more, no less (see accompanying).
Barking up business: Then again, if you want to lose some weight, Eloise Thro Greenstone of Laguna Woods noticed that a restaurant seems to be offering a shrub buffet (see accompanying).
Interactive entertainment? Kingsley McDonough came upon an ad for a resort that offered you the chance to participate in movies (see accompanying).
I don’t know about you, but most movies I go to see these days don’t make me want to jump in. They make me want to leave the theater.
Trash-talking: Marlene Gordon’s Pasadena-based Next Stage Tours presents such events as the Insomniacs Tour of businesses open before sunrise; L.A.’s Ups and Downs Tour of picturesque elevators and escalators; and a Chocolate-Covered L.A. Tour of candy shops with, yes, free samples. Now she’s organizing a Best of the Worst Tour of L.A., which would include visits to a landfill, a treatment facility, a car-crushing business and a flower disposal site as well as a lecture on trash. And, of course, the tour bus will pause for refreshments when it becomes enmeshed in a traffic jam on the San Diego Freeway at rush hour.
Gordon vetoed her husband’s suggestion to visit a morgue, but I think a stop at the coroner’s gift shop would be fun. It has a fine selection of towels and other items adorned with a body outlines.
The lost L.A. expedition: Gordon experienced the ultimate nightmare of a tour operator the time she was buying tickets for a Red Line trip to a surprise destination. Her customers hopped on board ahead of her, she said, “like kids let out of school for summer vacation.” Gordon was still buying her ticket when the Red Line car’s doors shut. She pounded on the door to no avail. She yelled to her guests, but they couldn’t hear her.
The subway train took off without her. She and her customers “watched each other disappear from sight,” Gordon said. “They didn’t know where they were going.” Fortunately, a worker saw what happened and called ahead to the departed train, telling the tour folks where to disembark.
That, Gordon adds, is the only time she lost a tour group.
MiscelLAny: The freeway obstacle du jour Friday was a bathtub, which fell out of a truck on the Santa Ana Freeway in Newport. It was not occupied at the time.
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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, ext. 77083;and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes .com.