No Need to Parade Their Wares

Many participants in the annual Belmont Shore Christmas Parade are companies whose colorful floats symbolize what they sell. One Long Beach company, however, is entering nothing more than a banner in the Sunday event. Understandably. It’s The Rubber Tree, a store that offers adult sexual items.

IF THE CABLE BOX FITS, YOU CANNOT ACQUIT: Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran can be seen in a promotional spot on New York television, warning viewers that it’s against the law to receive cable TV without paying for it.

It’s heartening to see that he’s interested in seeing cable pirates pay for their crimes.

A BONE TO PICK: Jon Cavanaugh of Sherman Oaks noticed a piece of meat advertised in a flier that prompted him to write: “Despite my doctorate in biological chemistry and years of research in molecular biology, I’ve never encountered a bone in boneless steak.” (see accompanying)

He added, as an aside: “This ‘round steak’ is elliptical at best and actually seems more rectangular than anything else.”

CLERKS SAY THE DARNEST THINGS (CONT.): “I think I’ve encountered the same video store clerk who sent your reader to the adult section to find ‘Naughty Marietta,’ ” wrote Kathryn Krumm of L.A. “I was directed to the adult section when I asked where I could find the Bette Davis classic, ‘All About Eve.’ ”

WELCOME TO . . . UH, UH: Gene Borson was flying from Zurich to LAX on Swiss Air--but which LAX?

“When no movie is being shown,” Borson explained, “Swiss Air alternately shows a map that indicates the position of the aircraft and shows the altitude, speed and location (city) of the aircraft. As we traveled down the Central Valley of California, various cities were identified. We approached the coast, and the indicated location was Malibu. We turned inland, and Beverly Hills was indicated.”

And Beverly Hills was still shown as the location when the plane landed.

Well, why alarm the passengers that they’re actually in L.A.?

A LONG WAY FROM YOKNAPATAWPHA: More than half a century ago, William Faulkner wrote a short story, “Golden Land,” that contained this description:

“The sun, strained by the vague high soft almost nebulous California haze, fell upon the terrace with a kind of treacherous unbrightness.”

Yup, it was L.A.

The story chronicles the problems of a rich, alcoholic real estate agent whose daughter, an actress-wanna-be, is making such tabloid headlines as “APRIL LALEAR BARES ORGY SECRETS.”

Haze, real estate and orgies are, of course, timeless elements of the Southland. But one statistic gives away the fact that the story is set in the 1920s, not in the 1990s. The family lives in a “select residential section” of Beverly Hills--in “a $100,000 house.”

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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is selling a monogrammed stress-reliever to its employees for $4.50. (see photo). You squeeze the thing and feel better. But why not offer it to MTA riders, as well? It would be just the remedy when you’re stuck at the bus stop, waiting to take that tardy MTA bus to work.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.