A jug of wine, a loaf of...

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and a background check of thou: The brochure for Cain Investigations of Temple City says the agency will “go undercover to uncover scam artists, gigolos and nymphomaniacs. Don’t be the next victim of blind love!”

*

Scratch and gasp: Tom and Laurel Rombouts of Redondo Beach noticed a gold star on the cover of the July issue of Venice magazine at a newsstand--on every issue in the stack, as a matter of fact. They thought it might be “some sort of distribution code similar to the much discussed little stars on the cover of Playboy.”

Still curious, the two inquiring minds did a bit of detective work and found that “some careful peeling” revealed that the name of a well-known actor had been misspelled (see photos). Another Hollywood cover-up.

*

But, back to Playboy: Ah, those stars--the ones that used to appear on the cover of Hef’s mag. They gave rise to all sorts of myths and won a place in the book “Rumor,” by Hal Morgan and Kerry Tucker.

The authors said that “some thought the stars were Hugh’s rating system” of the Playmates of the Month. One variation held that stars inside the letter ‘P’ meant that that issue’s Playmate was Hef’s new friend.

Morgan and Tucker researched the matter and found that the stars were nothing more than a regional distribution code. We’d like a second opinion from Cain Investigations.

*

More evidence of the real estate decline: Erika Hiramatsu of West L.A. saw an ad in UCLA’s Daily Bruin for a restaurant that was offering a discount on its dinners “plus free desert.”

*

Stupid psychic tricks: T.C. Cirillo of Lakewood entered a magazine contest and, as an experiment, gave the name “W. Cirillo” to see how fast his name “would be sold.”

Sure enough, a few weeks later he received a letter from another concern, a Prof. H.P. Wellington of Future Forecasters in Livingston, N.J. The professor gave Cirillo the astounding news that there was “at least $9,777 in cash” waiting for him. And it would cost Cirillo only $20 in “processing fees” to have the group instruct him on how to get the dough.

Why him? Well, the learned Mr. Wellington explained that he had conducted a “controversial experiment (Project X711) in psychic phenomena,” asking seven psychics to “focus on a single individual (unknown to any of them) currently living in the Lakewood area.

“They were instructed to write down the name of the individual they had focused on. . . . The end result was amazing! The name that was written down was your name. . . .

“W. Cirillo.” Surprise.

miscelLAny:

We couldn’t end the week without a “Heidi” item. A national publication is recalling the 25th anniversary of a previous scandal that dragged the name through mud. Yes, the November issue of Sport magazine reports, it was on Nov. 17, 1968, that NBC angered thousands of viewers by preempting the final minute of a crucial NFL game between the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets to show the movie “Heidi.” No arrests were made in that case.