Time to leash dog owners?
Turnabout is fair play, I suppose. Jonah King spotted a sign at a Westside apartment that reminds canines that they must, uh, pick up after their owners.
Pecking out a living
David Batterson found an agency that boasts one actor who is an early-riser.
Shootout shrine
The LA Weekly recently ranked the Los Angeles Police Museum in Highland Park as one of "10 Oddball L.A. Museums Worth Seeing." The newspaper singled out the gallery's permanent exhibit on the 44-minute North Hollywood gun battle of 1997 for "Best Shootout Conservation" honors.
More than 1,600 rounds were fired in that confrontation, which left two heavily-armed bank robbers dead while 11 LAPD officers and seven civilians were injured.
The outdoor portion of the display is temporarily closed because of some construction. It includes four vehicles that came under fire: the robbers' Chevrolet (see photo) as well as an LAPD black-and-white (struck by rounds in 56 places), a battering ram and an armored truck. The inside exhibit, which is open to the public, includes mannequins of the robbers showing the armor and automatic weapons they used, as well as a 22-minute video on the shootout, which is absolutely riveting.
As for the oddball label...
"Had we known we were in the competition, we could have pulled out some of the really odd stuff we have (in storage)," quipped Glynn Martin, a retired cop who is the museum's executive director.
For instance, there's a mobile phone of sorts that belonged to interim Police Chief D. A. Davidson in the late 1930s. It was an era when local government, and the police department, were the subjects of corruption investigations in L.A.
Davidson would hook up his phone to an outdoors line when he wanted to make a call.
"He figured the phone lines in his office were bugged," Martin explained.
Uneasy neighbors
In 2009, the LAPD moved from Parker Center to a new building across the street from the Times, an event that did not go unnoticed by novelist (and ex-Times reporter) Michael Connelly. His latest thriller, "The Drop," features one officer who is so fearful that reporters are "watching from the newsroom across the way" that she keeps "her shades permanently lowered."
Inside job
Connelly's mention reminded me of a different type of spying incident that occurred in the Times' City Room during the 1970s, back in typewriter days. It was near deadline and a jittery substitute weekend editor was fearful of approaching a temperamental writer to check on the latter's progress on a story. So the editor crept a few rows behind the reporter, pulled out some binoculars, and tried to see what he was writing. (The reporter chased him away, and finished the story in time.)
Fast-breaking up Figueroa
I've always thought it odd that the 8-year-old bronze of Magic Johnson seems to depict him leaving Staples Center. Where is he pointing to? Then it struck me the other day: Magic must have had a premonition that someday he would own a piece of a baseball team. He's pointing in the direction of Dodger Stadium.
Undressed for success
One of the most popular performers at Staples Center this year was Mitchell Lancaster of Rossmoor, a Clippers season-ticket holder known as the Clipper Stripper.
Lancaster, 21, would drive the crowd into a mini-frenzy during time-outs when he appeared on the Jumbotron as he shed eight Clippers shirts, one after another, while jumping up and down.
A family values guy, Lancaster would not doff his 9th shirt, which said, "We Run L.A.," on the back, a clear taunt aimed at the rival Lakers.
The Stripper has received two endorsement offers (one from a cape manufacturer), but turned them down, preferring to rest after the team's intense playoff run. His father Hal joked that he had considered putting a message on the shirt that said, "Also Available for Bar Mitzvahs," but decided against it.
Longest case of road rage?
The Beachcomber newspaper reports that two angry drivers were in "a cut-you-off back-and forth" duel in Long Beach that may still be going. One of the vehicles bore a bumper sticker that said: "Follow Me to Hawaii."
miscelLAny
After David Harris graduated from Loyola Marymount, he entered the Peace Corps and was sent to a small town with a familiar name in the central highlands of Costa Rica. "Yes," says his dad Roy, pictured here with David (center) and another son, R.J., on the left, "the Peace Corps sent him from Los Angeles, Calif., to Los Angeles, Costa Rica."
Morning commute's not as busy in this L.A.
That's it
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Steve Harvey may be reached at steveharvey9@gmail.com. His Twitter handle is @sharvey9