High Finance

Talk is not only
cheap, it's frequently boring. But once in a while, if you listen
intently, you catch an offbeat fragment that is profound or wonderful
nonsense or raffishly realistic.

Mike Molony, who helps cover Hill St. cafe society for this corner, the other day captured a little beauty.

A
character known as Mac was eloquently exhorting several acquaintances
to drink up and rush back to their jobs or if they didn't have one to
get one.

Mac is the happy recipient of a regular unemployment
check, and he doesn't conceal his hope that this desirable way of life
may continue. He refers to himself as a ward of the state.

BUT HE HAS BEEN READING about
the shortage of tax money, and in his confused way he fears that unless
enough people keep working and get deducted the unemployment fund might
get depleted and his payments would possibly be lowered or the checks
even bounce, a thought that horrifies him.

 Mac's crusade has not
been an outstanding success. His crafty colleagues have the same ideas
about the joys of unemployment that he has. However, he claims one
convert, a fellow known asHardrock. Cynics by the way, insist Hardrock had to go to work anyway because he was broke and his pals had become, as the word is in Calcutta, untouchable.

Mac interrupts his impassioned oratory now and then to say to Mike, "Not you, kid," Mike has a steady job.

::

TO PUT IN BLUNTLY

Mother's Day is for the purpose
Of honoring those who used to burp us.

– HELEN MITCHEL

::

A MAN FROM San
Francisco, urging the 1,000 Junior Chamber of Commerce members
convening in Santa Monica Auditorium to hold an upcoming meeting in his
city, offered as inducement a wonderful night out on the town, a
fashion show for wives, light opera and a chance to see the
"pennant-bound Giants." The explosive roar from Dodger partisan almost
blew him off the stage. The delegates later voted to go to San Diego.

::

SPEAKING OF the jaycees, Headlines, the L.A. Junior Chamber publication, committed this oopser
in announcing a meeting next week for new members at a Beverly Blvd.
restaurant: "Two rooms will be used for the reception with one for the
bar and the other for the orientation session. The bar will remain open
for those who wish during the indoctrination."

::

 AS SOME people
collect stamps, coins and rocks, others preserve and cherish phrases
which show up in print. The weekly Rocky Mountain Herald, published in
Denver by Tom and HelenFerril, has become a clearinghouse for this offbeat pastime.

An L.A. subscriber who collects "do hereby's" reported in delight that our mayor had committed one. After a few whereases he said, "I do hereby proclaim this Folk Dancing Day."

Understand one "do hereby," considered rare, is worth two "shark-infested waters" on the open market.

::

MISCELLANY — For two weeks, Louis Chazaro reports, a chicken has been living happily in the shrubbery on an "island" on San Bernardino Freeway just off Aliso St. It was there yesterday, as usual, oblivious to the 5 p.m. bumper-to-bumper traffic … Watch out for Bob Ritchey. He tells of a chamber-music group that played a Mozart piece so badly the audience booed and the group went into Haydn.