Real public service TV:We all know the...

Real public service TV:

We all know the secret of fast-forwarding through commercials of TV programs that we have taped. But, until now, the TV stations themselves have offered no similar service for live programs.

Not, that is, until Thursday night, when someone at KCOP (Channel 13) hit the fast-forward button on several commercials during a newscast. Ah, the joy of seeing those product pitches zapped in a few seconds! KCOP anchor Tawny Little, for some reason, apologized for “technical difficulties.” Why apologize? We term it progress. And we think it’s one more reason that KCOP can call itself “Very Independent Channel 13.”

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THE ONCE-OVER, CHINESE STYLE: Wells Fargo has formed Wells Fargo HSBC Trade Bank in conjunction with a financial institution that has Chinese origins. So before the new offices could open in L.A. and El Monte, they had to be checked out by a master of the Chinese mystical craft of feng shui .

The master’s job was to make sure the site and the layout of the offices were in harmony with nature so that cosmic forces would be channeled to allow good luck and wealth to flow into the business.

“We had to move some furniture so that it was on the ‘dragon’ side of the building, which is deemed better for certain activities for the outdoors,” explained Wells Fargo spokeswoman Kathleen Shilkret.

By the way, the master, Kao Ming, didn’t have to travel far on this mission. He lives in San Gabriel.

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IT DOESN’T LOOK A DAY OVER 90: An all-day street fair and a cavalcade of antique cars will parade down Wilshire Boulevard today to celebrate the rue’s centennial. It was laid out--all 1,200 feet of it--in 1895 by developer Henry Gaylord Wilshire, who thought (what the heck?) he might as well name it for himself.

For understandable reasons, the celebration will not include a showing of the 1989 movie “Miracle Mile.”

As film buff Joe Cislowski points out, that film portrays Wilshire Boulevard being blown back to the Pleistocene Age by a nuclear attack. The movie stars Anthony Edwards (of TV’s “E.R.”), who inadvertently learns the missiles are headed his way when he answers a public phone at the La Brea Tar Pits. (The informant was calling elsewhere but dialed the wrong area code--a problem even then!)

Ironically, Edwards plays a musician who was performing in a benefit to save the landmark Pan Pacific Auditorium.

In real life, the Pan Pacific has since been destroyed by fire.

Probably had bad feng shui.

miscelLAny:

Joe Benvenuto and Esther Tyrell each sent us pages from a desk calendar that features this quotation for October’s Friday the 13th: “The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that’s the day you start to the top.” The speaker: O.J. Simpson.