State Needs to Catch Up on Its Beach Boys History
There’s a proposal to declare the boyhood home of one of the Beach Boys a landmark. Yes, the Hawthorne site where Brian Wilson wrote “Surfin’ Safari” for a music composition class and received an F. (He stuck with songwriting anyway.)
The state Historical Resources Commission received an 84-page application signed by such luminaries as state Librarian Kevin Starr, music figure Dick Clark and several politicians, the Daily Breeze reported.
One problem: The house, at 3701 W. 119th St., was demolished in the mid-1980s to make way for the Century Freeway. Thus, the historical commission is being asked to give landmark status to a site that is a freeway wall. I’m picking up bad vibrations.
Need a loan to fill ‘er up? In Pennsylvania, Shane Snyder of Costa Mesa discovered a bank with some unusual services (see photo). And why not, with rumors that gas might go up to $3 a gallon in the next year?
Of course, there is all that interest you’d pay: Nancy Woodruff of Sun Valley came upon a deal that would stretch well into the first half of the millennium (see accompanying).
Just don’t leave the keys in the ignition: While vacationing in the Caribbean, Patti Garrity of Manhattan Beach found an especially strict parking enforcement policy (see photo). My question: After the car’s been flattened, where do they place the ticket?
Food for thought: Diana Steshko of El Toro noticed a starchy breed of dog in one ad (see accompanying).
Post ‘Graduate’: Suddenly, the 1967 Dustin Hoffman movie about student angst is in the news. There was that recent stage version. And now, Daily Variety reports that Jennifer Aniston (of TV’s “Friends”) has signed to star in an untitled movie about a young bride-to-be who returns to Pasadena to investigate a rumor that her grandmother was the inspiration for the adulterous Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate.”
Post ‘Graduate’ (cont.): Hoffman himself has signed to appear in an Audi commercial spoofing the climactic scene in “The Graduate” where he bangs on the window of the United Methodist Church in La Verne, interrupting the nuptials of his love, Katharine Ross. The movie ends with them running off in a yellow school bus.
In the commercial, Hoffman roars up to the same church and stops still another wedding. As he hustles the young woman out, he says, “You are just like your mother.”
Alas, word is the commercial won’t be seen in La Verne, or anywhere, in this country, only overseas.
miscelLAny: Can’t a guy get any privacy? After showing a handgun under his shirt, a nervous fellow told the cashier at a Lakewood shop to be quiet and hand over all the money in the register. Just then, a couple of customers, unaware of what was happening, approached the checkout area, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported. The would-be robber raced out of the store empty-handed.
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.