A Byte Out of Health Costs

Call it health care without Hillary.

A new computer game promises that players can revamp our health system sans First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The software is touted as a program that “gives you everything you need to remake the American health care system--except the First Lady.” Its slogan: “Hillary not included.”

The $29.95 game, backed by the Markle Foundation, purports to answer one key question: “Will you be reelected?”

Shaking Up the Market

With the Northridge earthquake only 2 weeks old, one would think the timing could be better to try to lease a house that rests on a single concrete pillar in the hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley.

But Sherman Oaks businessman Alan Fox is doing that, offering the famous Chemosphere house he owns above Studio City for $2,795 a month.

The octagonal home, which resembles a flying saucer, was referred to in the 1961 Encyclopaedia Britannica as “the most modern home built in the world.” It also was the setting of a murder in director Brian DePalma’s thriller “Body Double.”

According to an exec with Fox’s property management firm, the house suffered only a broken window in the quake.

Not a Typical Family Film

A bizarre ad has been running in the Hollywood trades that has a lot of people talking. It asks for $3.5 million for “tens of thousands of feet of original film & sound records” of convicted murderer Charles Manson and his followers.

Turns out it’s from Robert Hendrickson, who is selling his Oscar-nominated Manson documentary and additional footage. Manson is in prison, convicted of masterminding the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders.

An aspiring film maker then, Hendrickson, now an engineer, describes the footage as “2 1/2 years in which the cameras never stoped rolling.” He says his footage shows the dark side of Manson’s followers.

The sale comes on the heel of controversies over commercial exploitation of the murders, including the sale of T-shirts picturing Manson and the inclusion of a Manson-written song on the new album by rock group Guns N’ Roses.

Patti Tate, sister of slain actress Sharon Tate and an activist fighting exploitation of the murders, said she doesn’t know enough about what Hendrickson is doing to judge it, but she said the overall commercialization of Manson that is taking place bothers her. “They’re making a cult idol out of him. That’s wrong,” she says.

Briefly . . .

QVC chief and Paramount suitor Barry Diller on raising money for AIDS Project Los Angeles last week: “When I called this one or that big shot, they’re so thrilled I’m not asking for billions to help our financing (for the Paramount deal) that getting fifty or a hundred thousand dollars is a snap.” . . . A Northern California frozen yogurt maker is offering to replace yogurt spoiled during any earthquake- caused power outage. . . . A Washington firm says it will store your pet’s blood so Fido can be cloned if the technology arrives.