The awards show really hit the fan:...
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The awards show really hit the fan: It looks as though there’ll be no Hollywood ending for the financially beleaguered Golden Raspberry Foundation. Bandini Fertilizer has turned down a request to sponsor the foundation’s Razzies show, which dishonors the worst stinkers on film.
“Bandini was the logical sponsor but they didn’t seem to understand why we were even calling,” said free-lance writer John Wilson, who founded the Academy Awards parody after seeing one too many Sylvester Stallone movies.
“This is our unlucky 13th year,” said Wilson, whose group of film buffs traditionally holds a formal ceremony complete with film clips. But this year, its Worsts will be announced March 28 at a “guerrilla press conference.”
Wilson explained: “That means we set up somewhere, invite the press, try to get the thing done in 15 minutes and then skedaddle before the authorities kick us out.”
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Blue Line boogie: We rarely plug songs, but we were taken with Michael Mitacek’s “On the Right Track,” partly because he sent us a free copy. It’s an ode to L.A.’s light rail system.
Follow the bouncing train now, as we warble:
Standing in the open air, about to climb aboard
A brand new form of travel begins to pick up speed
As waves of eager passengers are leaving from Long Beach
Step aboard, step aboard, the future is on time . . . .
The only rapid transit hit we can recall is “MTA,” by the Kingston Trio, about a poor soul trapped aboard a Boston bus because he can’t come up with the exact change for the fare.
The Blue Line equivalent of “MTA” would be about the traveler who can’t get the Metro Rail ticket machine to accept any of his dollar bills.
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Arresting episode: It’s surprising that jury candidates for the Rodney King trial were cautioned not to watch Wednesday night’s rerun of “Dragnet” on Nickelodeon.
As “Dragnet” buffs will recall, the episode begins with Joe Friday telling an angry group of minority residents that police brutality is not a problem.
Later, a black motorist is stopped by police after running a stop sign, then flees when told he is about to be arrested.
“I know how the cops treat people,” he says. “You get me down to the jail and I get beat up.” But Friday talks him into surrendering and, after they arrive at the station, Joe gives the suspect a friendly pat on the shoulder.
Oh, yes--the two-decade-old episode was set in the LAPD’s Foothill Division.
Pac Bell, contact directory assistance: A rose is a rose, but Ron Harris of Culver City was surprised to see Gardena come out smelling like a flower in Pac Bell’s directory map.
Get with it, Pac Bell. Step on board!
miscelLAny:
Hollywood’s first celebrity, according to author Jim Heimann (“Hooray for Hollywood”) was Paul de Longpre, whose early-century Moorish mansion was famous for his studio and his gardens. De Longpre was a watercolorist.
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