Angel Fans Can Take Solace in Official County Song

Angelenos, are you still a bit melancholy over the playoff failure of your baseball team -- the Angels? Well, maybe you can salve your injured pride by warbling the official song of L.A. County, which was uncovered by Susanna Erdos of the Ford Amphitheatre. All together now:

God made the world and then he looked around

To find him a county and this is what he found.

A land of sea and mountain and desert wilderness.

And he made an earthly paradise he called Los Angeles.

If only he’d have found the Angels another slugger or two.

This song, adopted by the county Board of Supervisors in 1965, apparently hasn’t been sung lately. Which explains why the American Civil Liberties Union hasn’t filed suit. I suppose the county could agree to change all the references to God to another creator -- Walt Disney, perhaps.

Scary time: To get you in the mood for Halloween, here are a few photos from the “Only in L.A.” Creepiness Collection:

* A body container at a yard sale, noticed by Robert Castle. A used body container?

* A traffic sign with a double meaning, snapped in New York by Steven Leffert.

* Some apples you wouldn’t want to bob for (from Scott Woods).

* A vehicle just made for a Halloween party, spotted by Carol Trudelle of L.A., even if the last word in the title actually was an acronym for the Brockton (Mass.) Area Transit.

Civic barbs: L.A. (Lozangeles, Los Angles, Moronia) has long been the target of jokes. Why shouldn’t some of the younger cities in Orange County receive equal time? Well, that’s what OC Weekly provided in its Oct. 21 issue. For instance:

* Aliso Viejo “has a history that can be summed up on the back of a matchbook.”

* “Brea’s official nickname is Tree City USA -- ironic considering how much of the town of 36,000 has been shopping-malled over.”

* Corona del Mar is “the Chile to Orange County’s South America: a tall and thin coastal sliver. (Thanks, perhaps, to the thrilling innovation of the gastric bypass, much of its citizenry is tall and thin as well.)”

* Laguna Niguel “has the most elegant beach name of any city not located on a beach.”

* “Lake Forest: neither a lake nor a forest.”

miscelLAny: When I mentioned the police blotter item about someone being punched “in the rear upstairs unit,” a colleague was reminded of an exchange in one of the 1930s “Thin Man” movies about a husband-wife detective team:

Nora: “I read you were shot five times in the tabloids.”

Nick: “It’s not true. He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”

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.