Black Market for Transvestites Had Designs on Best of Labels

All dressed up and nowhere to go.

* There’s always a local angle. And sometimes it’s quite kinky.

A 19-year-old Oceanside man is among three men arrested in Maryland on charges of robbing boutiques at gunpoint to get fancy women’s clothing to sell on what cops believe is a transvestite black market.

The three are suspected of fashion thefts in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Philadelphia, taking designer gowns by Chanel, Giorgio Armani and Yves St. Laurent.

“They only took the best,” said a police spokesman. In their last heist, one of the gunmen was wearing a dress.

* On Oprah Winfrey’s show, Betty Broderick described San Diego as a community where masses of middle-aged men are suffering mid-life crises. A forty-fiveish fellow disagrees:

“I think Betty is entirely wrong, and so does my 19-year-old girlfriend.”

* Yes, Meredith Baxter stayed slim as Betty during the TV movie, but there was a commercial for Weight Watchers. Call that half a (meat) loaf.

* The talk in Hollywood is about a possible Betty movie sequel, focusing on the trials and prosecutor Kerry Wells (“a woman prosecuting a woman for murder”) and again with Baxter as Betty.

Producer Ken Kaufman says Baxter is interested and that the idea of her gaining weight to be more Betty-like “is under consideration.”

* Bob Davidson notes that San Diego is having “the only drought in history with horrible flooding.”

* “In the Deep Woods,” a television movie about a serial killer with Anthony Perkins and Rosanna Arquette, began shooting this week in San Diego.

Planned: three days in various offices in the downtown Bank of America building, then Boney’s Market on University Avenue and La Mesa.

When it hits the screen, locals may have trouble finding landmarks: San Diego is subbing for Connecticut.

* Lawn signs paid for by the Navarro campaign and posted in Ocean Beach, where passions about the sewage spill are high:

“Ron and Susan Don’t Surf So They Don’t Care. Clean It Up in ’92. Peter Navarro for Mayor.”

No Batteries Needed

Birds, license plates and other things.

* The BMW bird?

The mockingbirds of University City are said to have learned to imitate the sound of car alarms: whoopwhoopwhoop. . . * Cold comfort.

The recent Winter Olympic Games apparently did little to spark interest in the “Olympic Training Center” vanity plates.

At $100 a pop, the plates are supposed to help a San Diego-based foundation pay back a $15-million state loan to build an Olympic training site in Chula Vista.

In fact, weekly sales drooped a little during the winter games: 20 and 26 during the two weeks of big TV exposure. Compared to about 30 a week in the months prior, a Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman says.

(Overall sales have been modest; 3,400 pairs since the start, January, 1991.)

* Alfred Egendorf of San Diego has been reading the grocery ads.

He’s knows what orange juice and pineapple juice are made of, but he’s nervous about baby juice.

* Calling all cars.

The saga of Tiffany, who has an X-rated message on her message machine and promises to send you a picture and more for $10, continues.

Tiffany’s telephone number is now popping up on pagers of unsuspecting souls, placed by their fun-loving friends. The guy calls the number and gets an unexpected earful.

Among those who’ve gotten Tiffany’s number on their beepers are several plainclothes cops.

Happy Workers

The job market.

* Help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union-Tribune for an attorney for a workers’ compensation company:

“Must be willing to work long hours for low pay & few benefits in an oppressive atmosphere. If you possess these masochistic characteristics, send your resume . . . .”

* Meanwhile, a telephone tape at the Les Girls flesh parlor in Midway assures job applicants:

“Les Girls is run by the dancers. We don’t have managers, barmen or doormen trying to put the make on us. This keeps our boyfriends and husbands happy. And dancers with happy home lives become better dancers.”