Saturday, September 19, 2009

To live and drive in L.A.

Hey, even drive-thrus have limitations --- though you'd never guess it by looking at the boarded-up portion of an Angel Food restaurant in Long Beach. The intruder in this case was after the ATM inside --- and didn't get it, I'm told.







***



Closing the barn door after the driver has bolted...
I was reminded of a years-ago photo by Benjamin Reuben of a similarly re-arranged Westside eatery.




***




Someone badly in need of a sugar fix?
Then there was the 2004 shot by Donald Bentley of a La Puente landmark that had some of its chocolate knocked off by a wild motorist. Jimmy Rodriguez of Fontana says a local newspaper commented at the time that the doughnut obviously wasn’t jelly-filled.





***



No calorie worries, obviously
Ron Weintraub of Randy's Donuts, by the 405 in Inglewood, gave me a photo of a chipmunk munching on one of his products. Even a chipmunk’s smart enough to know not to bury one of these tasty things.




***




Water, water, nowhere
You may have read that the scoreboard of the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium hangs so low that punters have been banging kicks off it. And the new Yankee Stadium has drawn complaints of obstructed views not to mention a wind-tunnel effect in right field that makes for cheapo home runs.
That’s the thing about new buildings. They always have a few surprises.
Ours out here are no different:
--Disneyland opened with almost no water fountains in 1955. Uncle Walt said that because of a plumbers strike he’d had to choose between constructing restrooms or drinking fountains first. He chose restrooms, he said, because "people can buy Pepsi Cola but they can’t pee in the street."
--Dodger Stadium made its debut in 1962 with just two water fountains -- one in each team dugout. But owner Walter O’Malley had plenty of beer and soft drinks available at the concession stands.
--The Pyramid, Long Beach State’s basketball arena, developed leaks early on in 1994. They were repaired. It was not -- I repeat NOT -- the Curse of the Pharaoahs.
--When the Getty Center opened in 1998, visitors complained of a shortage of both restrooms and drinking fountains. There was no shortage of bottled Getty Water on sale, though!




***



Attn.: Fashion Police
In North Hollywood, Alex Auerbach snapped a photo of a store that seemed to share the same bad opinion of hangers that Faye Dunaway did as Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest."





***



Unclear on the concept
Bill Doty of Sylmar saw a reminder that "nothing says refreshing like a nice glass of HOT milk.”





***



Food for thought
In Cabo San Lucas, Dennis Levin of Larchmont spotted a restaurant that had adopted the maxim that the customer is always wrong. A maxim long ago adopted by phone companies and cable services.






***



Pokin’ along…
Have you heard that commercial on the radio where a doctor offers to give you a "fingerprint of your eye?" I couldn't help but think of all the times Moe thumbed Curly's orb in "The Three Stooges." Curly had plenty of Moe’s fingerprints on his eye.






***



miscelLAny
"As I was walking into Starbucks near the corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon the other day,” writes Josh Mankiewicz, "a guy panhandled me. Nothing unusual about that --- except that to do it, he had to briefly interrupt the cell-phone conversation he was having.”



***

Steve Harvey can be reached at steveharvey9@gmail.com.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Steve, Saw your post on the Donut Hole in La Puente and just wanted to report its outer skin was repaired and it is still in business. Had a classmate from Little League (Cheviot Hills/Palms Jr. High) write me from Texas and ask about the Donut Hole which he remembered from the '70's when he lived in the SGV. Do you remember the Big Donut on the corner of Sepulveda and Washington Place? Drive through like Randy's and Angel Food's. Dan Holloway, La Puente

Unknown said...

I haven't received Only In L. A. via e-mail since Sept. Is it still being sent out? Bangkok Bill