March 4, 1958

A midtown resident was awakened at 2 a.m. recently by a woman
screaming outside his apartment. He rushed to the phone and called
police.

Before he could fully give the circumstances he was
asked his name and phone number. For reasons of his own he refused to
give them.

The request was politely repeated. "What’s that got
to do with it?" he demanded. "I gave you the address, didn’t I? She’s
out there now, in distress of some kind. Isn’t that enough?"

He was reminded that he wasn’t being cooperative. "Forget it!" he snapped, and hung  up.

"From here on," he told me over the phone, "I don’t care what happens. I’m never going to call them again."

He
was reminded that the people on the police complaint board were merely
following procedure and that they receive many calls from
mischief-makers, practical jokers, cranks and crackpots.

"I don’t care," he said, "I’ve had it."

That’s today’s stalemate. By the way, I wonder what happened to the lady who was screaming.

THE POLITICAL season
is upon us and this is to report that a 234-foot electric dredge two
miles offshore is creating a breakwater at L.A. Harbor to be used as
dock space. The huge, dragonlike monster with its two-mile
"tail"–pipe, that is–will remove "approximately 1,440,000 cubic yards
of muck from the bottom of the ocean to form the new land area,"
according to the newsletter Expediter. That’s a lot of muck. Anybody
want to try for 2,880,000?

ONLY IN
Santa Monica–Someone recently painted "Jesus Saves" on a retaining
wall on the Pacific Coast Highway just north of Sunset Boulevard. A
short time later it was changed to read, "Jesus Saves at Bank of
America." As Neil McDonald passed a few days ago men in business suits
were painting out the last four words. Next week, Security?


THE WAY Frank Goldberg
tells it, a retired businessman bought his own bleak little island and
a broken-down, three-master vessel and was showing the surrounding bay
to some friends. It was rocky, forbidding and almost inaccessible,
prompting one friend to whisper to another, "How can he possibly sail
in this bight?" Cracked the other, "If you think this is bad, wait’ll
you see the boat. Believe me–his barque is worse than his bight."

QUOTE & UNQUOTE — Everyone
has heard someone referred to as a "musician’s musician" or an "actor’s
actor" or a "ballplayer’s ballplayer." Well, Rudy Cleye heard a patron
in the Blarney Castle remark loftily, "I like to think of myself as a
beer drinker’s beer drinker" … Freddie Shaw: "When juveniles start
calling them Boy Scout shivs instead of knives that’s when I take to
the hills" … Scotty Rosenberg: "I must be getting old. I can remember
when people used to count up, not down."

AT RANDOM —
A returned traveler reports a dress shop in Arizona has a sign, "The
Bustle–Deceitful Little Seat Full." And a restaurant, "If you don’t
like the way this place is run, pay the owner $100,000 and run it to
suit yourself" … Alan Ferber claims he listened to TV for three hours
the other night without once hearing the phrase, "And now a message
from our alternate sponsor." Hard to believe … In step with the trend
toward horror movies, a one-shot magazine, "Famous Monsters of
Filmland," is on the stands. Sample title: "Every monster has a ghoul
friend." My, my … If a Redondo Beach lady hadn’t seen it she wouldn’t
have believed it, but she did–a youngster putting soy sauce on ice
cream.