German citizens who scaled the Berlin Wall...
German citizens who scaled the Berlin Wall learned one American custom from a group of Pepperdine students who were visiting the divided city.
The students sent a diary back to the Malibu campus relating how undergrads Christopher Wilshire, Barry Williams and Steve Schossberger mounted the barrier and began flapping their arms at staggered intervals in the cheer known to spectators here as “the wave.”
The students said that once the German onlookers caught on, they joined in and “absolutely loved it.”
Good. Maybe we can export the wave to East Germany.
Have you heard of the latest sport--wall bidding?
First, Encino coin dealer Barry Stuppler offered to buy the Berlin Wall for $50 million. Now he’s been outbid by Los Angeles businessman Abraham Lufti, who says he’ll fork over $60 million for a five- to 10-mile hunk. Instead of breaking it into chips, as Stuppler would do, Lufti wants to bring it over here intact as a tourist attraction (assuming it meets earthquake standards).
Maybe it could divide West Covina and Covina.
If the East Germans decide to hang on to the wall, however, perhaps they’ll listen to West Hollywood artist Clayton LeFevre.
He wants to paint a mural on it. (After all, there’s practically no place in Southern California that doesn’t already bear a mural.)
LeFevre says he’s trying to obtain permission from the East German Consulate for a paint job that would be performed by two Americans, two West Germans and two East Germans.
Good thing he doesn’t have to get permission from Great Britain. LeFevre, you may recall, is the guy who celebrated the Duchess of York’s visit to L.A. for a British arts festival a couple of years ago by setting out a banner that portrayed Fergie and Queen Elizabeth as bag ladies.
Whatever the fate of the wall, the pole’s staying up.
A Long Beach municipal judge dismissed charges against Ski Demski, who had been accused of violating a noise abatement statute by flying a 47-by-82-foot U.S. flag from a 132-foot-tall pole in his front yard.
Judge Gary Hahn said the city had failed to comply with its own ordinance by neglecting to set up a designated noise control office to oversee alleged violations.
“I feel like a free man again,” said Demski, 60, a longtime gadfly who ran unsuccessfully for mayor by campaigning on a motorcycle with a parrot on his shoulder.
Not so happy was one neighbor who had complained, “People are kept up all night by the noise. The flag flaps even harder if it’s wet. . . . We’re only asking that he bring it down on wet and windy nights.”
No word on whether city officials will give up. They’ve been trying to bring down the pole since 1982.
Highlighting today’s Great American Smokeout activities, a character who calls himself Jim Mouth will attempt to set a world record--and to demonstrate how disgusting he looks--by smoking 151 cigarettes at the same time in a Hollywood pipe shop.
As a warm-up, students at Huntington Park High built a giant cigarette box, then had a county firefighter knock it down Wednesday.
And second-graders at Jackson Elementary School in Pasadena lopped the pipe off of an 8-foot-tall Santa.
Now about that belly, Santa. . . .
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