Actor’s Audition Went to the Dogs

Adrienne Omansky informed a student in her city-sponsored acting class for seniors that Pacific Bell was holding auditions for a commercial. Alas, the student, Harold Fink, misunderstood the name of the company. When he showed up at the casting office, he said he was trying out for a Taco Bell commercial. By coincidence, Taco Bell happened to be interviewing that day for a takeoff on its Chihuahua series. Later, when Omansky asked Fink what kind of competition he faced, he responded, “You mean the French poodle or the Labrador?”

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FORE! In an announcement about the Sherwood Country Club, Jeff Page of Glendale noticed that the Thousand Oaks course had received an unusual accolade (see accompanying). I don’t mean to question Golf Digest’s judgment, but I’m not sure that golfers have any new curses.

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‘98 IN REVIEW: As we begin our review of the year, we start with a shot by Robert Warriner from last January (see photo). From the look of the surroundings, you couldn’t blame the sign maker if he or she was preoccupied with the word “cool.”

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF “PSYCHO”: One of the strangest aspects of the original “Psycho” (1960) is the opening scene where viewers are shown what is supposed to be a sleazy love affair between Marian Crane (Janet Leigh) and her worthless boyfriend. Why? She’s single. He’s divorced (and griping about the alimony he’s paying). Why are these people meeting secretly in a grungy hotel room? Even stranger, the circumstances are the same in the remake, set in anything-goes 1998. An inconsistency that’s almost as difficult to explain as why anyone would stage a remake of the movie at all.

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IS IT ALL A CLEVER PLOT? In his doomsday book, “Ecology of Fear,” author Mike Davis asserts, among other things, that Southern California has the most ferocious rainfall on Earth, the most tornadoes in the nation, the most fires in the nation (in one downtown area), and, well, you get the idea. Richard Harris of Pasadena isn’t upset, though. Rather, he says, “we should all applaud” the fact that Davis’ “imaginative book” is “being heralded on the other coast as gospel truth.” Why?

“It should keep people from moving here,” Harris said. You know, I’ve wondered if that might not be Davis’ real motive. After all, he lives in Pasadena as well.

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MORE EVIDENCE: Longtime Angelenos are well-known for poking fun at their own town, or at least for laughing along with L.A. jokes that they hope will be taken seriously elsewhere. (If only the darned Rose Parade weren’t shown in near-perfect weather every year!) Plus, there is the attitude that a city of L.A.’s stature doesn’t really need to brag about itself--as our haughty neighbor to the north feels obligated to do. The late Bay Area columnist Herb Caen used to say: “Criticize San Francisco to a San Franciscan and you’re starting a fight. Criticize Los Angeles to a Los Angeleno and you’re starting a conversation.”

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NOT THAT WE DON’T HAVE A FEW QUAKES . . . Harriet Ward Miller of L.A. sent along her traditional (post-’94) “Big Kid’s Letter to Santa”:

Dear Santa: Don’t forsake us

‘Cause our chimney went the way

Of countless thousand others

On that 6.7 day

We since have stuccoed over

And cleaned up where loose bricks fell

So if you have some gifts for us

Please, Santa, ring our bell!

miscelLAny:

In its January / February issue, Gear magazine declares that “Los Angeles is the most likely place for a famous musician to die.” On the other hand, the magazine could find the names of no famous musicians who had died anywhere in either South or North Dakota. Wonder how Mike Davis’ “Ecology of Fear” missed this category?

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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.