Big Cats, Big Storms: Another Day in L.A.

Yes, that was a tiger in a net. I had to look twice, but there it was on the front page of Thursday’s L.A. Times -- stripes and all -- with the headline:

Trackers Kill Tiger in Ventura County.

Some animal lovers were outraged, of course. This might be an oversimplification, but we live in a place where people would rather have a wild tiger in their neighborhood than a Wal-Mart.

At the top of the same page was a gorgeous picture that looked like a snapshot of the Swiss Alps. In fact, it was our very own Mt. Baldy.

With the tiger and the snow, it could have been the front page of the Nepali Times. And in today’s paper, you’ll learn that a rain forest exists above Pasadena, where 107 inches of rain have fallen, making Seattle look like Palm Desert.

None of this surprises those of us who live here. But I wonder how it must look to people visiting Southern California from around the world for Sunday night’s Oscars. Many of them are familiar with L.A., of course, but I thought someone should offer a brief primer to those who aren’t.

To put your mind at ease, tigers do not normally wander the hills around here.

Mountain lions do.

But it’s been months since any were killed.

The Ventura tiger probably got loose from one of the many sanctuaries around here where people keep exotic animals to rent out to Hollywood, or because they are nuts.

No telling whether herds of elephants and rhinos are stalking household pets and small children as we speak, but by all means, go for a walk in the mountains if you get the chance.

Even with jungle cats, mudslides, debris flows and runaway boulders, it can be much safer to walk in the wilderness than drive the streets of Los Angeles, where merely putting your stolen car in reverse could get you shot dead by police.

As a general rule, a natural disaster occurs every 10 minutes, the city and state are nearly as corrupt as Hollywood, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is liable to show up at the Oscars begging for money to run for president and illegal immigrants are trapped on Catalina Island and complaining about it.

Nobody is content, in other words. You spend two weeks here and you start wondering why you haven’t won your own Oscar and bought a second home in Malibu.

By the way, if you think it’s odd that we aren’t particularly frightened by photos of lions and tigers in our midst, it’s because normally we have to look at photos of Michael Jackson.

The same day the tiger was shot, a jury was selected in Jackson’s child-molestation trial in Santa Barbara County. One juror, a 20-year-old lad, described himself as an “assistant head cashier,” which can mean only one thing:

He’s working on a script.

The juror said he prefers “The Simpsons” to the news, but who doesn’t?

On the very day Jackson’s jury was seated in Santa Maria, Calif., not far from his Neverland ranch, the defense rested in the murder trial of Robert Blake.

TV’s Baretta, who calls his Studio City home the Mata Hari Ranch -- apparently to distinguish it from Neverland ranch -- allegedly offered a Hollywood stuntman $10,000 to “pop” his wife.

“Is that the term he used, ‘Pop?’ ” the prosecutor asked the stuntman.

“Yes, ‘Pop, pop,’ ” said the stuntman.

Pop, pop?

Lions and tigers?

As a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, I still hear from snobs asking how anyone can stand living in Southern California.

How can anyone stand living anywhere else? Life is so good, I’m thinking of calling my house S.Lo’s Rancho Paradiso.

On my way to work Thursday, I thought a car had crashed onto the steps of City Hall with police in hot pursuit, but it was just another movie being shot. I turned on the radio and heard an update on the tiger, along with a report on a Pacific Coast Highway boulder that couldn’t be dynamited, so a giant jack-hammer was being brought in.

We’re about to break a rainfall record set long before anyone thought of silent movies.

I’m betting more exotic animals will be flushed out and more houses will be turned into toboggans before the rainy season comes to an end.

Apocalypse?

No.

But if all these things ever happen in the same year Adam Sandler is nominated for an Oscar, nothing can save us.

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at www.latimes.com/lopez