Guess You’ve Got to Give the Man Credit

Did you know one of the backers of a pro football franchise here is a world record holder in one financial category? California builder Eli Broad made the biggest credit card transaction of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

In 1995, Broad charged a $2.5-million Roy Lichtenstein painting titled “I . . . I’m Sorry” on his American Express card. (Do you suppose he was asked to show a picture ID?)

Anyway, I was thinking. The NFL says that L.A. isn’t offering to pony up enough money to make a franchise viable. Hey, American Express is one credit card that doesn’t have a limit, right? Hmmm.

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KEEP THE CHANGE: If the backers won’t put up more money, the NFL says that more public funds must be contributed for L.A. to be granted a franchise. If I were negotiating on behalf of L.A., I’d say no. There--that’s my two cents. I’m willing to contribute that much personally.

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AREN’T FEATHERS A PROBLEM? Kathy Braunstein of Culver City came across a market whose chickens are grown in the service deli (see photo).

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THANKS FOR THE WARNING: The word “vile” in a cologne ad caught the eye of Jean Sandiford of Van Nuys as well as Cindy and Jim Bell of Woodland Hills. “Is that Eau de Locker Room?” asked the Bells (see photo).

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ON THE ROAD: Kent Rasmussen of Thousand Oaks found a bit of unintentional bathroom humor in a parking lot in Cambria (see photo).

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WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT: On the Golden State Freeway, Jerry Clark saw a plumbing truck with this slogan: “Where a Flush Beats a Full House.”

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A REMINDER THERE’S NO FREE LUNCH: The item here about the City Hall lunch for public employees that ran short of food brought a note from Norman Nielsen of Highland Park.

“I was reminded of the time then-City Councilman Art Snyder invited constituents to a local park for a free steak dinner and, incidentally, a political speech,” Nielsen said. “Following the event, I was preparing to leave when I noticed a commotion in the barbecue area. A late-arriving constituent, who had missed the speech, was insisting he was still entitled to a free steak.

“Councilman Snyder, always the consummate politician, deferred the matter to committee (the volunteers who had done the cooking). There the matter was quickly settled in accordance with the time-honored dictum, ‘If you can’t do the time [listening to the speech], you don’t get the prime [cut].’ ”

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HE SAYS HE’S FLAT RIGHT: Wendy Maag of Lancaster points out that one person who didn’t join in the celebration over the 30th anniversary of NASA’s moonwalk was Charles Johnson, president of the Flat Earth Society.

Johnson, also a Lancasterite, believes the entire space operation is a hoax. He told the Antelope Valley Press that the moon landings were “faked in the meteorite crater in Arizona. NASA’s in the business of entertaining the nation.”

When I interviewed Johnson years ago, I asked: “If the world’s flat, how come nobody has fallen off?” His answer: “Nobody has reached the edge of the world yet.”

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Well, I’m off to teach at a journalism workshop at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for the next two weeks. I’m sure San Luis Obispo is nowhere near the edge of the world, though it is close to Atascadero.

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at [email protected] and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.