No Need to Get Shaken Up by Miniseries’ Seismic Scenarios

The local weather forecast for May 2: massive earthquake, at least on NBC, which begins a miniseries disaster yarn, “10.5,” that day. As The Times’ Ken Reich reported, real-life seismologists have taken issue with the show’s many inaccuracies, including the idea of attempting to fuse the San Andreas fault using atomic explosions.

The network would have been just as realistic to replicate the quake-prevention maneuver of conceptual artist Lowell Darling a quarter-century ago. Darling hammered nails into each side of the San Andreas and laced them together with rawhide. Hey, it calmed down the fault for a while.

Weird science (cont.): The quake in “10.5” submerges everything west of Barstow, just the latest flooding of L.A. in the entertainment biz.

Some other high-tide experiences:

* In the 1996 movie “Escape From L.A.,” a 9.6 quake in the year 1998 destroys much of the City of Angels and turns Universal Studios and the rest of the San Fernando Valley into the San Fernando Sea.

* “End of the Age,” a novel by televangelist Pat Robertson, has a giant meteor striking the coast of California in the year 2000, leaving Southern California under 5,000 feet of water. A character on a plane flying above the damage says he’ll miss the Lakers (this is not a joke).

* Amid speculation that medieval seer Nostradamus predicts the end of L.A. for May 10, 1988, two Phoenix disc jockeys hire four 200-pound men to perform jumping jacks on Venice Beach to rev up those tectonic forces.

* Inspired by the 1969 disaster tome, “The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California,” the rock group Shango releases “Day After Day,” with such lyrics as:

Where can we go, when there’s no San Diego?

Better get ready to tie up the boat in Idaho ...

Just thinking: If the Mojave Desert did become beachfront property, as the miniseries “10.5” has it, do you think Chevrolet would replace its Malibu model with the Barstow?

Mark your calendar: Easter is over, a passing symbolized by a shot that Brad Alan Lewis of Pacific Palisades took a few years ago (see photo).

Next up? That April 15 deadline for you-know-what, and you have no excuse for forgetting when just about every merchant around has a side business preparing taxes. By the way, don’t worry if some accountants can’t spell -- numbers are what are important here (see photos).

Mondegreen of the Day: “Some time ago,” Judy Scott said, “they reissued a Dionne Warwick hit that prompted my (then) 11-year-old daughter to ask, ‘Mom, what’s with this song, “Don’t Make Me Yodel”? (‘Don’t Make Me Over.’) When I stopped laughing, I told her it was the Swiss National Anthem.”

miscelLAny: It’s not unusual, of course, to see handcuffed people around cops. It was a different scene at the Los Alamitos police station, though. A guy walked into the building with a cuff around one hand and requested that someone free him, the Seal Beach Sun said. He explained that he had found them and -- naturally -- tried one cuff on, then realized he had no key. He walked out of the station with both hands free.

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