San Diego Magazine / May 2000 / The Big-City Shuffle...

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The Big-City Shuffle...

ONE SMALL STEP: In our January pre-election feature, San Diego Magazine sought to rank the mayoral candidates on leadership qualities. By our admittedly subjective criteria, environmentalist Jim Bell ranked lowest. But then the survey was conducted before his somewhat personal revelation rather late in the campaign. When asked during a candidates’ forum to cite an instance when he’d demonstrated decisive action, Bell talked about his commitment to helping solve the population explosion. When he first realized the magnitude of the problem, he said, he was 27 years old. And he went right out and got a vasectomy.

POLITICS TOO: During the long San Diego mayoral primary, retired banker Peter Q. Davis managed to engage in a civil debate with all of the other candidates—despite some old history. Back in the ’70s, Davis told reporters, when he was starting out at Bank of America, he repossessed the car of a young political upstart. He couldn’t have known then, he said, that the upstart would be one of his opponents in the 2000 race for mayor. Davis also recalled the day he repossessed the car of a former Chargers hero—a 6-foot-5, 275-pound defensive tackle. “It’s days like that,” Davis sighed, “when you have to decide if you really want to be in the banking business.”

LIKE NO BUSINESS: The big-budget film Traffic, shooting in San Diego this spring, followed a rocky road to final casting. First, George Clooney was announced as the lead. Then Harrison Ford. Then Kevin Costner. Finally, when filming commenced, it was Michael Douglas in the lead. Douglas’ costar is his girlfriend, Catherine Zeta-Jones, who’s 30 years his junior and pregnant with his child. (But no truth to the rumor spread by a film commission wag: Zeta-Jones did not accept the role only because Douglas promised to take her to Legoland.) ... Three TV series are currently filming in San Diego: Invisible Man, 18 Wheels of Justice and Cover Me. Meanwhile, pilots for another five series are shooting here: Road Hogs, Adrenalin Run, Fortunate Son, Further Adventures and Meatloaf: To Hell and Back. (I’m pulling for Meatloaf.)

TRY, TRY AGAIN: The Learning Annex—that bastion of lifelong learning—is out with its May class schedule. And it’s offering a pair of courses that take opposing approaches to surmounting financial troubles. One is titled “How To Improve Your Credit Rating.” And in case that doesn’t work, there’s this one: “How To Hide Your Assets and Disappear.” The course description: “Create a fail-safe way to vanish without a trace. Establish a new identity and credit history. Hide from asset-recovery and skip-tracers. Live well, cheaply and anonymously, away from the heartaches and hassles of your previous life.” No, J. David Dominelli is not the professor.

ENTRE NEWS: At the Old Globe Theatre, where the musical stage adaptation of the hit movie The Full Monty has its world premiere this month, they’re no longer talking if it’ll go to Broadway. Now it’s when it goes to Broadway. And the best guess is October ... Relatively happy fallout from the most-recent gas-gouging by the big oil companies: San Diego Trolley ridership is running 36.5 percent ahead of last year’s pace ... It goes with the territory: In a recent Web poll by the mayor’s office, 65 percent of respondents believed immigration officials could access their Census responses ... Despite last season’s last-place finish in their division, the Padres were expecting this to be their second-best year ever for season-ticket sales. Best year: 1985, the year after they won the first of their two pennants.

SAN DIEGANS’ INK: Rose Marie Starns, the indomitable and irresistible mainstay of the San Diego Hotel-Motel Association, was upbeat as she faced lung surgery last month at Scripps Hospital. “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she said. “I’ve got too many people I gotta get even with.” ... Veteran San Diego radio deejay Harry “Happy Hare” Martin also dabbles in the promotions business. Which sort of explains his new letterhead. It’s just his phone number and his title: The PromoSapien ... Comic actor Bill Murray, the newest member of Pauma Valley’s landed gentry, is gaining a reputation across North County as a fat tipper. After dinner one night at Fish House Vera Cruz in Carlsbad, Murray reportedly left a $100 tip for the waiter. On a total dinner tab of less than $100 ...

LAST WORDS: It’s former Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin’s description of an old friend’s perennially vexatious wife: “She’s the kind of woman who goes through life demanding to see the manager.” ... Darren Omstead, on a misfit stockbroker colleague: “This guy’s parked diagonally in a parallel universe.” ... Performance evaluation of a local high-tech company administrative assistant: “This employee is depriving a village of an idiot.”

Listen for Tom Blair’s weekday radio reports on KOGO (600 AM), mornings at 7:25. And look for his column on the Internet at sandiego-online.com. Items for the radio or magazine column may be e-mailed to tblair@sandiego-online.com.