That darned cat:The police log of the...

That darned cat:

The police log of the Sun newspaper, which serves the Seal Beach-Long Beach area, carried these incidents:

“Wednesday, Dec. 25--Disturbing the peace--PCH--12:11 a.m.--Two teenagers reported squirting water guns.”

“Sunday, Dec. 29--Violent cat--El Dorado Drive--3:15 p.m.--Vicious cat biting people.”

Crime is really getting out of hand. Too bad the teenagers with the water guns didn’t run into the cat.

DUELING STREET SIGNS: You can almost hear the sign-maker’s explanation for the Azure duo in Long Beach. “All I could remember was it rhymed with ‘hay’. . . .”

SELLER BEWARE: Here are 10 people we hope don’t buy the Los Angeles Dodgers.

10. Michael Ovitz: Obviously not a team player.

9. Al Davis: Don’t get Irwindale’s hopes up again for a stadium.

8. Aaron Spelling: Might move the team indoors--into his mansion’s game room.

7. Gil Garcetti: The Dodgers have had enough trouble winning the big ones lately.

6. Michael Jordan: Might attempt a baseball comeback.

5. Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.: We’d get tired of hearing him tell his players, “If the glove fits. . . .”

4. Bob Dole: No need to say what city he thinks the team should play in.

3. Sherman Block: Unless he promises to serve that high-priced chicken that the prisoners get.

2. Roseanne: Might sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” again.

And, finally:

1. David Letterman: Vin Scully doesn’t deserve to have his ratings fall.

MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS: A reader sent us an ad for a procedure in which the doctor evidently promises not to be evasive (even about his or her prices)?

FRIED FOOD FOR THOUGHT: In the L.A. Downtown News, Glen Creason eulogizes some downtown L.A. diners of the 1970s and 1980s--back in the days, he says, “before ‘good cholesterol’ and endoscopy, before Tagamet and Zantac. The days when chili-fries was a great idea.”

The dearly departed include Vickman’s, Yee Mee Loo, Pete’s log-cabin-style Grandburger, Superfish and the Atomic Cafe.

And, he has a warm spot in his heart--some might call it heartburn--for Corky’s, where he and other Herald-Examiner employees used to frolic. Once, Creason says, “in a scene worthy of ‘Twin Peaks,’ I sipped suds while a Mormon missionary played Ferrante and Teicher on the piano and Patty Hearst’s sister gave me a back rub.”

We, too, frequented these joints, including the Atomic Cafe on East 1st Street. We’ll never forget one exchange we had with a hip waitress there. We asked what flavors of jello were available, and she responded, “Red and green.”

miscelLAny

You still haven’t received your invite to the Clinton Inaugural? Well, if it gets lost in the mail, you can always fool your friends by buying some official Clinton Inaugural collectibles. They’ll be on sale Friday--everything from an official cuff link / tie-bar ($35) to ceramic beverage mugs ($15 each) and three-packs of golf balls and tees ($12 apiece). But they’ll only be at one outlet in Southern California--the Richard M. Nixon Museum in Yorba Linda. The gift shop there is bipartisan.