Morning Commute Drives Him to Dis Traffic

While commuters are singing the blues, radio reporter Chris Hughes is warbling traffic reports. Hughes knocks out nine fender-bender tunes per morning on KYSR-FM (98.7). And all that lyricizing to pop tunes can leave him in an occasional jam.

“It’s really fluid and depends on the traffic conditions,” he told Don Barrett of laradio.com. “Sometimes I’ll write sample lyrics to a song beforehand if I have a good idea and then adjust according to traffic. Other times, I’ll have nothing and just suddenly be inspired.”

One verse went this way:

A SigAlert that ain’t no fun/ 105 east, right, at Wilmington.

The offramp is blocked/ And it’s backed up too.

East from Central,/ West from the 710, It’s true.

Hughes was asked if he’d like to appear on TV’s “American Idol.” “Why bother?” he responded. “My songs are already on the radio.”

The onramp to fame.

Asleep at the pump: Take comfort if you are one of those souls who has pulled away from a gas station with the fuel hose still in your tank, like the driver snapped by Dan Sarokin. The other day, it happened to Sam Hornish Jr.

Of course, Hornish had a bit more of an excuse to be in a hurry since he was racing in the Indianapolis 500 (see photos).

Turning to the weather: Robert Wilkins says his wife, Mardy, is fascinated with TV weather reports and can’t help personifying some of the terms.

“She imagines Coastal Eddy as a character right out of the movie ‘Guys and Dolls,’ ” Wilkins said.

“Onshore Flo would own a cafe in Culver City, and May Gray works as a beautician in Montrose. June Gloom represents all the ladies who must wait a while longer to try out their new swimsuits.”

I beg your pardon! Gloria Young of L.A. noticed that a sign at a gardening supply store contained a disastrous misspelling of the word “pump” (see accompanying). Not that Coastal Eddy would be embarrassed by such language.

Something was all wet: The big wave in “Poseidon” seemed to affect the Long Beach theater where I saw the film. About two-thirds of the way through, closed-captioning began to appear on the big screen. Luckily for me, it was in English. The captions give both dialogue and sounds, and I can’t remember how many times I read “They all scream.”

Anyway, considering how the movie sank at the box office, I guess the closed-captioning indicated that “Poseidon” is ready to go to video, and fast.

miscelLAny: On Valentine’s Day morning of 1991, Robert Goulet ascended in a helicopter as part of a radio promotion and sang love songs to the motorists below via a loudspeaker system. His serenade included “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.” As an Angeleno, I’ll just have to take his word for it.