Providing a Clear Channel for Proper Cubicle Etiquette

So much for the colorful, free-wheeling days of radio. Writer Don Barrett’s laradio.com website obtained an interoffice memo sent to employees by Clear Channel Communications, owner of more than 1,000 stations, including KFI-AM (640) and KIIS-FM (102.7):

* Never enter someone’s cubicle without permission.

* Behave as if a cubicle has doors.

* Don’t loiter outside someone’s cubicle waiting for them to finish a phone conversation.

* Eat quietly.

* Avoid gum popping, slurping, humming and pen tapping.

* Never eat hot food at your desk.

* Perfume and cologne should be avoided in a cubicle arrangement.

Now I understand why Clear Channel pulled talk show host Howard Stern off the air. It didn’t have anything to do with all of those indecency complaints lodged against Stern. It was his refusal to stop eating soup at his desk. I heard he was a pen-tapper too.

Thirty days hath September...: But how the heck many hath February? You can find wildly varying estimates from such sources as a Palm Springs magazine cover spotted by George Smith (see accompanying) and an L.A. street sign (see photo).

So the freeway gives you a pain? Wendell Jones of Ojai noticed one possible solution in his town, a few miles from the 101 (see photo).

As a concept, it’s dead meat: After protests by animal rights activists, Kraft Foods Inc. announced that it has stopped production of its fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi candies, which were shaped like flattened chickens, snakes and squirrels (and decorated with tire tread marks).

“We understand that this product could be misunderstood,” a Kraft spokesman said.

This development comes a few years after an L.A. museum that specialized in this type of attraction shut down (see photo).

Road kill (cont.): Actually, the museum was a prop in “Larger than Life,” a movie starring Bill Murray.

No place to keep road kill: In a sort of related item, Ken Hyams sent me an ad for a refrigerator that he says might make a good bookcase or planter -- just not a good refrigerator (see accompanying).

miscelLAny: Did you hear about the two guys suspected of filching $25,000 worth of broccoli in Santa Barbara? Soon afterward, a produce company in Sacramento got a call from someone offering the 35,000 pounds of green stuff for just $15,000. Cops arrested two suspects. Veggies weren’t good for them, in this case.

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.