It isn’t every day that the city...

It isn’t every day that the city of Los Angeles receives a letter carrying the imposing letterhead of “Baginda Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo.”

The writer identified himself as honorary consul of same and notified the city that he expected to be accorded diplomatic immunity in the matter of the parking ticket that he had enclosed.

The city checked with the State Department and found that the consulate did indeed exist--until the late 1800s. Sula has since become part of the Philippines while Borneo has joined Malaysia.

It was all academic, anyway, inasmuch as the city doesn’t fix tickets for diplomatic personnel. And the self-styled honorary consul eventually paid the ticket without causing an international incident.

“I admire the chutzpah of the guy,” said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney. “But, you know, his stationery did look pretty damn old.”

A flier mailed out by a Glendale real estate office featured a “Thought for the Month”:

“Try not! Only do or do not!”

From Emerson? Thoreau? Proust?

No, from a Hollywood philosopher: The “Star Wars” character, Yoda.

It’s Los Angeles’ 208th birthday Monday, and no doubt local radio stations will be cranking out love songs about the “Freeway City” all day.

So many touching lyrics to choose from . . .

“Thought I’d be a star right away, but I’m sweeping out a warehouse in West L.A. . . . “ (Delbert McClinton) . . .

“Pico and Sepulveda, Pico and Sepulveda . . . “ (by Oingo Boingo) . . .

And, of course, “If I can just get off of that L.A. freeway without getting killed or lost. . . . “ (by Jerry Jeff Walker).

Speaking of Pico and Sepulveda, they will be represented at the city’s birthday party in the Pueblo on Monday.

The pageant will re-enact the early life of L.A., using actors to depict historic personages, including Don Pio Pico, the last governor of California under the Mexican flag, and Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda, whose Sepulveda House on Olvera Street is now a museum.

The hotel founded by Pico in 1869--the city’s first skyscraper (three stories tall)--still stands just south of the Plaza. When the Pico House opened it boasted of “bathrooms and water closets for both sexes” on each floor.

Henk Friezer points out that a South Pasadena community newspaper ran a classified ad that said: “Yard sale . . . unusual and free items, big assortment, including baby.”

Adds Friezer: “I hope they mean baby items.”