Flying high after swing and a miss

Picture this scene: Jack Nicholson has just flubbed a golf shot from the rough and is so angry that he reaches up and grabs some vines hanging from a tree. But the vines yank back, lifting him into the air, where he flies helplessly for a few seconds.

It didn’t happen in one of his movies but in real life on the 12th hole at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.

As he told Golf Magazine, whenever he plays there now, his friends call it the “Tarzan hole.”

The usually reclusive 70-year-old actor sat down for a long interview with the magazine about his adventures on the links.

He even discussed the 1994 incident in which he wielded a golf club to smash the windshield of a driver who cut him off in traffic, noting that “in the midst of the madness” he did select a club he never uses, a 2-iron. (The case was settled out of court.)

Nicholson, who shoots in the 80s, owes some of his success to his private driving range: his backyard, from which he launches hundreds of shots into an adjacent canyon.

The impact area “looks like a planet peppered with golf balls,” he said. But it’s not an uninhabited planet.

“One time,” he added, “I lashed a ball and a homeless guy came running out of the weeds, yelling.”

Trusting souls

In Bhutan, Marna Geisler of Santa Monica found it interesting that entrants to a temple don’t have to worry about having their ammunition or explosives permanently taken away (see photo). But what about Nicholson’s 2-iron?

Mystery of the Day

Hmm, a sign that says it’s OK to drink water out of a lake but dangerous to swim in it (see photo)? Well, Gary Minkin of Granada Hills points out, it is in Alaska -- in bear country.

Need some kind words?

Ruth Hartman of Oxnard found a restroom where you can always get some “congratulations” (see photo).

Low finance

Elias Papachristos of Marina del Rey spotted a television ad that falls in the “you get what you pay for” category (see accompanying).

Idle thought

Dennis Drissi of Oxnard wonders if the writers’ labor stoppage has gone on for so long because the strikers refuse to put anything in writing. (Hey, just asking.)

Telemarketers of the future?

Huntington Beach police were notified about four pushy youngsters who set up a lemonade stand in the street, the Wave newspaper reported. A motorist made the complaint because the stand “makes the neighborhood look bad and because they yelled, ‘OK, don’t stop -- who needs you?’ ” when she didn’t purchase a drink.

You know there’s been a breakdown of law and order when the cops get a call about a lemonade stand.

miscelLAany

To celebrate their 50th anniversary in L.A., the Dodgers have entered a float in the Rose Parade and are offering fans the opportunity to buy a ticket (priced at $75 or $85) to sit in a special Dodgers grandstand and receive a ticket to a 2008 game.

Since we’re talking about Dodger fans, Janice Hough of Palo Alto presumes that most of the people in the special grandstand will have exited an hour before the parade ends.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com