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One reader can’t buy a solicitor’s version of ‘do not call’

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ONLY IN L.A.

For your What-Part-of-”No”-Don’t-You-Understand? file, Patricia Murray of Redondo Beach writes: “I hate telephone solicitors, so I recently renewed my membership to the national ‘do not call’ list.

“The other evening, I received an electronic message from DirecTV, thanking me for being a loyal customer and acknowledging that I am on the DNC list, but, just in case I want to change that, press 1. . . .”

More devilish advertisers: Eric Shost of El Sereno figures if you’re going to sell your soul to Satan, as one online ad advocates, “You should hold out for more than $500” (see accompanying).

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Unclear on the Concept: (Part II): Lee Yake of La Mirada noticed a handicapped parking place that would accommodate few drivers due to the placement of a sign (see photo). Then, again, not sure they’d want to park where the curb is red on one side and in the back.

Going nowhere fast: A witness saw a driver crash into a tree near Pacific Coast Highway, exit the car and begin “running in circles,” the Huntington Beach Wave reported. When a police officer arrived, the driver tried to flee but was apprehended. (Of course, when you’re running in circles it’s difficult to avoid being apprehended.)

Not exactly Jack Nicholson-type seats: Basketball season is almost here, but Ephraim Moxson of L.A. wonders whether even the most enthusiastic Clippers fans would want to purchase offshore seats to see the team (see accompanying).

For grumps? I’d hate to be the waiter asking diners to sample one wine on a Camarillo restaurant’s menu (see accompanying).

What’s the naked truth? OC Weekly’s “Best of OC” issue gives “Best Political Exchange” honors to Huntington Beach Mayor Pro Tem Debbie Cook and Mayor Gil Coerper for their philosophical debate about public nudity at the beach.

Cook: “You can’t see someone changing under a towel. They’re not publicly nude.”

Coerper: “They’re nude under the towel.”

Cook: “Under our clothes, we’re all nude.”

I guess Manhattan really has been cleaned up: My former colleague Yvonne Villarreal, now attending graduate school in New York, was approached by a panhandler who asked her for deodorant and then for skin lotion. She gave him some spares of each she carried. (He then asked for change, but she didn’t have any, so he left, no doubt looking forward to smelling better.)

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miscelLAny: Talk about a trying role. In the musical “Assassins,” currently playing in Long Beach, actor Dom Magwili is shot to death four times nightly while portraying presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy, wounded twice as Ford and Reagan and narrowly avoids getting shot as Franklin D. Roosevelt. Maybe in his next show he can portray someone with a less eventful presidency, like Millard Fillmore.

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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

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