Crime and Punishment

A young
man named Len was stopped recently for an illegal left turn on Vermont
Ave. and, when it turned out he didn't have his driver's license, the
officer ran a routine check on him over the police radio.

Back came the word that there was an outstanding warrant against him for overparking in a one-hour zone, and he was instructed to follow the gendarme to the downtown jail.

Len
said he didn't remember any such parking citation and had never
received notice that the warrant would be issued, as is procedure, but
he was booked anyway.

BUT THE REAL SURPRISE was to come.
He was placed in a cell with several smudged characters and after
getting oriented, he asked one huge gentleman what he was in for.
"Assault with a deadly weapon," he said. Another was there for
burglary, a third for selling narcotics.

Then Len was asked why he was there and he said "Overparking."
They thought he was trying to be funny and they didn't think he was. He
finally convinced them but, as the crime reporters put it, mayhem was
narrowly averted.

::

A YOUNG MAN named George drove his girl named Grace to a wonderfully secluded spot overlooking the ocean at Point Fermin
the other night and, as they chatted about the weather and other
things, she suddenly inquired suspiciously. "Say, how did you happen to
find this place?"

"Oh." he replied. "I used to come up here with my buddy to watch the submarine races."

::

PARDON
The people in the Middle East
Eat shish kebab at every feast,
They have no cows, no lowing herds,
They have no whey but lots of Kurds.
-G.L Ertz

::

AS EVERYONE who has ever applied for a job with the federal government knows, he must fill out a Form 57.

The
other night a gal named Kathleen noticed the attendant in the powder
room of a luxurious Hollywood saloon was hard at work on an
official-looking form and asked, "Making out a 57?"

"No, ma'am," was the reply, "a 58."

Puzzled, Kathleen looked closer and — sure enough — it was a 58 — a form 1040 for last year.

::

OVER A
second cup of coffee a group of Hollywood writers were moaning about
how dull things were and wondering what they might do to liven up the
world a little, and one of them, MartinRagaway reports, said brightly, "Hey, why don't we park a Ford in Dinah Shore's driveway!"

::

JUNE MAY BE Daily
Month elsewhere, but a sign on the Great Western Livestock grounds off
Atlantic Blvd. states clearly it is Daily Month. Perhaps it is an
inadvertently typographical reminder to June brides to start checking
on June grooms from the start…And a poolside sign at a Santa Barbara
motel, BillLathan reports, states, "No laughter or other unnecessary noise." In other words, be grim when you swim.

::

MISCELLANY — How would you like to be the announcer when the Five Keys, a vocal group, plays the Austerbaljarbio
Theater in Reykjavik, Iceland, May 1-10?… Nice line by Jim Backus at
the Hollywood Women's Press Club Men's Day lunch: "He had the
personality of a cup of lard" … No truth to the rumor. Bob Manners
says, "that M. Chevalier will sing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" as
the theme music for "Lolita" when it is filmed … Now don't forget,
Dorris Hellman reminds, when Daylight Savings begins Sunday, April 26,
it's "Spring forward, fall back"…Correction: It's people who cross
the equator, not the international dateline, who becomeShellbacks.

Prize for Pungency

Every year
the San Francisco Chronicle has a crayon drawing contest for
youngsters. Top prize is $25. Among this year's entrants was a bold,
impressionist drawing of a pig delivering the Chronicle to a farmhouse,
sent in by Roselita Gomez, 11, of Elk, Cal. It didn't win.

A few days after the winners were announced the contest editor received
a letter from Roselita stating bitterly, "You work and work and work
and all you get is a kick in the pants." (She used another word.)

It was the feeling of the staff that no one had ever said it better and
they chipped in and raised $35 — $10 more than first prize — and sent
it to Roselita.

Now when a discouraging word is heard in the Chronicle city room, the
complainant is warned he better be careful or he'll develop a "Gomez
complex."

ONLY IN L.A. — A girls' group planned a hayride and one of
them called Information and asked if there were any horse stables in
the area. "How do you spell the last name?" the operator asked … A
downtown editor received a printed invitation requesting "the pleasure
of your attention" to a TV program — with an RSVP. If this is living
modern he doesn't know if he can stand it.

::

SPRING IS FOR THE BIRDS

— Guy Mullen

::

THE PHONE RANG at William Adams'
home the other night and a recorded voice told him he had won a set of
carving knives sponsored by a vacuum cleaner company and asked when he
and his wife would be home for a demonstration.

Fascinated by such salesmanship, he phoned
the number given in the message and reported that he was unmarried.
This disqualified him, he was told. "We only give out knives when there
is a demonstration to both husband and wife," the lady said severely.

The remark haunts him.

::

PITY THE poor, confused writer in an era like this.

Weekly Variety has this item: "It's an
open secret that Hollywood is giving originals the brush." In an
adjoining column, this: "After a period of decline the original screen
story is coming back to Hollywood."

::

THERE'S A STORY going around about a boy
who unaccountably stopped talking. His parents took him to one
psychiatrist after another but he failed to respond. Then, one night at
dinner, he exclaimed, "My bread is not buttered!"

The parents excitedly called in the neighbors. Everyone waited to hear his next words. Despite coaxing, he remained silent.

"Johnny," his mother soothed, "We know you
can talk. But why in the world when you started talking again did you
say such an unimportant thing as 'My bread is not buttered'?"

"Well," he replied, "up to now everything has been all right."

::

AT RANDOM — A man pushing a market
shopping cart on Imperial Highway in Downey was waving a red kerchief
to ward off motorists, who honked anyway … Some City Hall saboteur is
sending out disparaging comments about Norrie [Mayor Norris Poulson — lrh] on office memo
stationary … Ivan Nemo hasn't quite recovered from a sign on Highway
395 between Riverside and Escondido, "Eat and Gas 500 Feet"… Radio
people are talking about the interruption on a religious program last
Sunday on KHJ. As the minister said, " And God said…" the announcer
broke in with, "This is a SigAlert bulletin!"

Clever, These Hollywooders

Not
long ago a producer, director and writer drove to Santa Barbara for a
preview of their new movie. On the return trip, around 2 a.m., on a
lonely stretch of Highway 101, they ran out of gas. It can be
stipulated that it was a dark moment.

They started hiking and
came to a motel, roused the landlady, and asked if they could use the
phone. She was furious at being disturbed and said no, the phone was
only for the use of tenants.

Could they rent a room and then, as
tenants, use the phone? No, she said emphatically. They weren't going
to get around her by any such sneaky procedure.

THEY WALKED BACK to the car and finally flagged down a passing motorist who drove them to a gas station. Along toward dawn they got home.
   
Now,
when they're out around 2 a.m, usually at a party, they phone the motel
and when the landlady answers sleepily they say "Sorry, wrong number"
or even naughtier things.

One of them recently scored a
climactic triumph. He phoned her from Washington, D.C., and claims that
for a moment he had her convinced the White House was calling.

::

PAY NO attention to Bill Graydon,
the ad man. He claims he took a wrong turn at the open house of IBM's
new western headquarters on Wilshire Blvd. and came upon a technician
working on the open back panel of a huge computer. Was it a maze of
coils, wires, transistors, fuses and whatnot? Nope, just ants, millions
of them, adding, subtracting and eating holes in the punch cards.

"It's tough on the ants," Bill says, "but I guess you can't stop progress."

::

FOR NON-VOTERS
He who will not speak will find he's spoken for
By spokesmen who may make decisions he'll deplore.
-William Baffa

::

DEATH OF
Frank Lloyd Wright recalled to publicist Lee Pitt the time the
iconoclastic architect came to Houston and met the press in the much
ballyhooed Shamrock Hotel.

First question asked was, "Mr. Wright, I'd like to ask what you think of the design of this hotel?"

Wright glared at him and snapped, "Why?" and walked away. Shortest press conference Lee Pitt, then a reporter, ever covered.

::

TRAVELERS WHO cross the international dateline in the Pacific are inducted, in a gag ceremony, into the Ancient and Honorable Order of Shellbacks.

 Well,
the men who go under the polar regions in atomic submarines also have
an organization — the Ancient and Honorable Order of Blue Noses.
Robert E.Waddell, electronics mechanic at Autonetics here, who was
aboard the Skate when it was in the Arctic Circle for 35 days and under
the ice for 12 days, reports their noses are painted blue, theirmouths and throats sprayed with blue liquid and they are required to eat a blue meal. Vegetable coloring, let us hope.

Furthermore, those who go under the pole become members of the Polecats in an even more gruesome ceremony.

::

FROM GOV. Brown's Library Week proclamation: "We need to read in order to toughen
and make resilient the intellectual vigor with which we face our
problems; expand our mastery of the scientific revolution in which we
live; enlarge our understanding of the other peoples of the world;
renew our spiritual and cultural heritage; rededicate ourselves to the
ideals of a free society." And to escape television.

::

AT RANDOM —
People who weren't afraid of lung cancer say they'll quit cigarettes if
the 3-cent tax on them goes into effect … Russ Morgan, just returned
from a tour with his orchestra, reports a coffee shop in a small Texas
town had an item on its breakfast menu, "Three-minute eggs at your own
risk." He didn't order them … The Dodgers were rained out at Vero Beach, snowed out in their opener. Next spring, Les Wagner thinks, maybe they should stay home. We need the rain.