Vampire tale set in Gardena goes for higher stakes in Manhattan

A half-century ago, Richard Matheson wrote “I Am Legend,” a novel about a Gardena man who encounters an invasion of vampires. Really -- and I’m not referring to that city’s gambling casinos.

Now I read where Will Smith will star in a movie version of the tale, reset in New York City, the rationale apparently being that Manhattan has more nightlife than Gardena.

No telling how good/bad the movie will be, but Matheson’s novel is hugely entertaining. At one point he writes: “The vampire may foster quickened heartbeats and levitated hair. But is he worse than the parent who gave to society a neurotic child who became a politician?” A question as relevant as ever, even in the era of term limits.

Everything but vampires: Writer David Allen e-mailed me that the season premiere of TV’s “24” involved “a suicide bomber on a Metro bus in front of the Disney Concert Hall, a U.S. airstrike on an L.A. residence believed to house a terrorist mastermind, [hero] Jack Bauer being handcuffed in the dry L.A. River and an attempted suicide bombing of Union Station by a Red Line rider.”

Allen concluded that, despite what some folks say, “Downtown L.A. really is booming.”

In a more lyrical mood: Elizabeth Lent of Pasadena noticed a newspaper story that seemed to be about cowboy singers (see accompanying).

Low finance: While discussing a bill with an AT&T; customer service rep, Bob Rawitch learned that he had a credit of one penny. “I told the rep not to bother with it since, among other things, it would cost 39 cents to send and who knows how much in labor,” he said. “ ‘That’s not my department,’ I was told, and the rep guessed the additional refund would be sent anyway.” And it was, of course (see accompanying).

Rawitch, a former boss of mine, still has my best interests at heart. He said that if I wasn’t interested in writing an item about the check, “I’ve endorsed it so you can cash it.”

Speaking of corporate claptrap: “For more than a year, CitiCard has been sending me applications for an account, each emblazoned with ‘LAST CHANCE’ across the envelope,” wrote Will Rogers of Burbank (see accompanying). “I was reflexively shredding them week after week until I came up with the idea of saving them to see how many last chances a guy can get.

“Since October, I’ve been given seven last chances. Perhaps this year they’ll start adding, ‘We really mean it this time’ and, in 2008, ‘No kidding around now, really, this is it.’

“If only my wife gave me this many last chances.”

miscelLAny: “Halos and Pitchforks,” a readers’ sound-off column in Carpinteria’s Coastal View News, carried this endorsement of a local nail parlor: “It’s nice to enter a place that is clean and, when you leave, doesn’t gossip about you.” But how can you be sure?

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 [email protected].