Rubbish, You Say? Sounds More Like One of Those ‘Candid Camera’ Stunts

The police log of the Los Alamitos News-Enterprise carried this bulletin: “Marlin Avenue, 3:42 p.m. A man was talking to a resident’s trash can in front of his residence.”

Hmmm. I’ve heard of athletes talking trash, but they usually do that to each other.

On the other hand, as I grow older, I find myself conversing more and more with inanimate objects. I like the fact that they never interrupt me or yawn. True, they don’t laugh at my jokes, but then neither do my children.

Don’t follow me -- I’m lost: Bob Lloyd of Burbank noticed a sort of boastful sign on an out-of-commission bus -- a bus, in other words, that wasn’t at all difficult to keep up with (see photo).

The market in teachers: An Arcadia reader came upon an ad labeled “Kdgn Tchr Sale,” while across town Mathis Abrams of Beverly Hills saw an opening for a preschool teacher -- though an extremely young one (see accompanying).

Would a hang glider be the national bird? Alan Simon tipped me to the AlterNet.org Web site, where comedian Will Durst proposes that California secede from the union -- and, yes, the San Fernando Valley can come along too (see illustration).

Durst reasons that it’s the logical next step, since California seems so out of step with the rest of the country, having elected all those Democrats the other day.

Durst’s selling points on the Republic of California:

* “We got the food. We got the wine country to wash it down with.”

* “We can charge a fee on” every visitor from the United States “trying out as a contestant on ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ Call it a stupid tax.”

* “Our own armed services. Eastwood, Schwarzenegger, Stallone or Willis in charge?”

* We “can extradite and convict Enron CEO, Ken Lay, at our own war crimes tribunal.”

Only in L.A. on exhibit: I felt proud when my nephew Nick Gannon remarked that he’d seen a column of mine at school.

I imagined it being displayed in some sort of showcase -- perhaps for great journalism of the 21st century.

Turns out he noticed it in a pile of newspapers that had been discarded prior to a current-events discussion.

Oh, well.

At least it wasn’t at the bottom of a bird cage.

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miscelLAny: Don’t know if you noticed the mention in The Times the other day. But one company that did not observe Veterans Day in Ventura County was G.I. Garbage.

Not that I’m talking trash or anything.

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.