Politicians jumping from the SS Los Angeles:...

Politicians jumping from the SS Los Angeles: One by one the big names are leaving--Gates, Reiner, Anton, Bradley. . . .

All but one.

Johnny Grant, the Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, says he’s staying in office.

In fact, he’s even considering a try for an additional post: Mike Woo’s City Council seat. Grant pledges that if elected, he would schedule all Walk of Fame ceremonies after council sessions.

Incidentally, there is no Honorary Mayor of L.A., unless you believe some of Bradley’s critics during his last term.

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L.A. is puzzling enough to visitors: No need to rush things but, in view of Mayor Bradley’s announcement, we wonder if United Airlines is ever going to take down the huge greeting from Hizzoner that seems trapped in a time-warp. It’s a portrait of Bradley with a message that welcomes arriving passengers at LAX . . . to the 1984 Olympics.

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Future Olympians? Andrea Rodriquez of Rancho Cucamonga and Byron Bergmann of Chino won individual heats in the Diaper Derby Contest at the L.A. County Fair, negotiating the 15-foot course in under three minutes.

In the finals, Byron defeated Andrea by three lengths. Handicappers pointed out that 10-month-old Byron was more experienced at race tactics since Andrea is just 9 months old.

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Speaking of kids: Alex Cardenas of L.A. found a local service station/mini-mart with what seems, at first glance, to be an unusual offer (see photo).

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We confess: On Wednesday, we mentioned a 6-year-old who came home from school and reported he’d written “on a machine that looks like a computer--but without the TV screen.” It was a typewriter, in other words. We misspelled his name, which is Solomon Walters. We want to apologize now--before he bangs out a letter to the editor on that contraption.

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Buzzwords from the past: The recent discovery of more than 20 Medflies in the San Gabriel Valley recalled, for us, the haunting lyrics of “Club Medfly,” a Caribbean-beat ditty by Ed Bissot. He entered it in the Only in L.A. Malathion Poetry/Song Book competition of 1990.

Follow the bouncing ball:

Come to the Club Medfly,

Where malathion fills the sky.

Come to the Club Medfly.

You can spray, you can pray

But the fruit fly won’t die.

In El Layyyyy.

miscelLAny:

Hugh Rawson’s “Wicked Words,” a dictionary of insults, doesn’t neglect L.A. The book asks: “What’s the difference between L.A. and yogurt?” Answer: “Yogurt has an active culture.”