Without Their Secretaries, Some People Can Be Totally Helpless
“Your Boss Did What?” was the theme of the Administrative Professionals Horror Story Contest held by the L.A. Downtown News.
My favorite involved an investment banker on a business trip in New York, who called his secretary in L.A. from his hotel to handle an emergency: He was “thirsty.” He asked her to phone his hotel to send up a bottle of water. On another visit to New York, he called his secretary in L.A. and asked her to phone his hotel to complain that the chocolate left on his pillow “was not Godiva.” The staff “had to purchase Godiva for him before he could sleep.”
Speaking of tyrannical bosses: Rich guy Donald Trump of TV’s “The Apprentice” is not the first TV performer to regularly use the phrase, “You’re fired,” points out Richard Rofman of Van Nuys.
It was a running gag on the “George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” in the 1950s; Burns would can announcer Harry Von Zell weekly only to rehire him.
Then there was the all-too-real drama of the 1953 TV season, when variety show host Arthur Godfrey, apparently jealous of the growing prominence of cast singer Julius LaRosa, axed him on the air.
“That, folks, was Julie’s swan song,” Godfrey told the audience of “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends” moments after non-friend LaRosa had crooned “Manhattan.”
LaRosa later confessed he didn’t realize what had happened because he didn’t know what “swan song” meant.
Signs of the times: Bob McKewen of San Diego informed me that someone has been changing “the street signs along Niagara Avenue to bring them to a more contemporary mode” (if not more energetic mode as well).
Altering street signs, of course, is an ancient art, one that has been practiced on such L.A. area roadways as Valley Circle and Albright Street (see photos).
And ancient Angelenos will recall that when Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, the signs along Coldwater Canyon were duly edited by his supporters.
Lawyer at work! Julia Wilson of Manhattan Beach noticed that an ad for a carport was footnoted to make it clear that nothing else in the photo was included (see accompanying). The carport, by the way, cost $99 -- generally less than the cost of a car.
Mondegreen of the Day: “When I was a little kid, the Beatles song ‘HELP!’ was popular,” wrote Susan Loveira of Burbank in our latest saga of misinterpreted lyrics.
“I remember the lyrics as, ‘Help me if you can, I’m feeling down. And I do appreciate you being ‘round.’ I guess I was a body-conscious Los Angelena even at age 8 as I piped up to Mom, ‘Why would he appreciate her being round? Wouldn’t he want someone skinnier?’ ”
miscelLAny: “Murder Me at the Long Beach Grand Prix -- Please” was the title of a dinner show mystery at a local restaurant over the weekend.
Precisely the thought that has gone through the minds of some Long Beachites during the noisy, traffic-clogging event.
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATimes, 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.