Your tax dollars at work:Thought you’d like...

Your tax dollars at work:

Thought you’d like an update on the condition of the Escalator That Couldn’t--the one in the L.A. City Mall that has been out of commission for more than two years.

In our last episode, you may recall, city officials, having studied the problem for innumerable months, had decided that they couldn’t fix it. It was either too high-tech or too low-tech--we forget which. Anyway, the city said bids would be solicited to have it replaced.

Well, we took a peek at the site the other day and noticed that the motorized steps had been ripped out of the concrete.

So we phoned Bert Hinkle, a superintendent of the General Services Department.

“A new one will be up and running in 60 days,” he said.

“Sixty days,” we repeated.

“Uh, give me 90 days,” he said.

Done.

KEEP YOUR DA*N PAWS OFF ME! The program for the play, “Sh*tty Day,” at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood, warns front-row patrons that one of the performers is an exponent of interactive theater (see accompanying).

IT’S NOT LIKE THEY ORDERED AN ANCHOVY TOPPING OR SOMETHING. . . . The magazine CACJ Forum, published by California Attorneys for Criminal Justice in L.A., reprinted a telephone conversation that occurred several hours after the FBI raided a psychiatric hospital under investigation for medical insurance fraud. An FBI agent phoned a pizza parlor and ordered 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda.

Pizza Man: You’re an FBI agent?

Agent: That’s correct. Just about everybody here is.

PM: And you’re at the psychiatric hospital?

A: That’s correct. And make sure you don’t go through the front doors. We have them locked. You will have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.

PM: And you say you’re all FBI agents?

A: That’s right. How soon can you have them here?

PM: And everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?

A: That’s right. We’ve been here all day and we’re starving.

PM: How are you going to pay for all of them?

A: I have my checkbook right here.

PM: And you’re all FBI agents?

A: That’s right. Everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.

PM: I don’t think so (click).

EVERYONE’S FEELING THE PINCH THESE DAYS: Victorville Daily Press columnist David Allen saw this startling shop sign in Barstow: “Evita’s Thrift Shoppe.”

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Maybe it’s a bow to Charlie, but the letterhead of The Entertainment Fellowship, a religiously oriented show-biz group, lists Father Bert Billet as “Chaplin.”

A different kind of dog warning at Hollywood’s Hudson Theater.