Teens in Toyland
It’s something of an open secret that “Teletubbies,” the PBS television series aimed at children too young to talk, has a cult following among teen-agers and young adults some of whom watch the show after considerable partying.
Videotapes are often projected onto huge screens at raves (wild underground dance parties).
Rhondi Ewing was nonetheless surprised on her recent visit to the FAO Schwarz toy store in New York. “I saw teen-agers and adults having their pictures taken in the boutique because there were life-sized Teletubbies (dolls) there,” said Ewing, director of brand management for Woodland Hills-based Applause Inc., which is producing Teletubbies toys for the first time for this Christmas season. “It was amazing.”
Communists in Long Beach
L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe had some harsh words last week for some of his Republican colleagues in Congress over their move to squelch the Chinese Ocean Shipping Co.’s bid to build a container terminal at the Port of Long Beach.
Knabe had accompanied a delegation from Long Beach to the Capitol last month to lobby on behalf of the Cosco terminal, a bid that was defeated in a House conference committee. The opposition was led by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, along with San Diego-area Republicans Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Duncan Hunter.
“When I went to the offices of these congressmen of my own party, I was given speeches on the dangers of communism,” Knabe told a group of local engineers last week. “I felt like a liberal when I came out of there. Believe me, that’s hard to do.”
Still Crusading
Joe Connolly has gotten plenty of publicity in recent years for being a crusader against graffiti in the Fairfax district. So who would have guessed he’d become a tagger himself?
The incident occurred on a vacant Pico Boulevard store, whose facade for years displayed the message “Graffiti no longer accepted here. Please find a day job. Thank you, Joe Connolly.”
Then, in late summer, the message changed to “Good-bye and thank you.”
That prompted local taggers to rejoice, as they concluded Connolly was moving away.
Then the message changed again, to “Hello, the building is going, not me.”
Shortly thereafter the building was demolished, leaving the street gap-toothed.
“All my gang friends and compadres thought I died or left or something. So I changed the sign to say, ‘hello, I’m still around,’ ” explained Connolly, who is now painting over graffiti from a stretch of walls along the Santa Monica Freeway.
