Pay Attention, Students ...

I on San Diego

THE LEFT COAST: Somebody tell The Wall Street Journal last month’s earthquake in Chino Hills did shake things up a bit around here. But it didn’t rearrange our coastline. Writer June Fletcher, in her feature on housing developers building “Custom McMansions,” found a fine example northeast of here, where, she wrote, “Robin and Dan Locke decided to build a 9,000-square-foot, one-of-a-kind home on the 21⁄2-acre oceanfront lot they own in Temecula ...”

GOING DOWN: Sometimes, the news isn’t just in the news columns. A recent Sunday Union-Tribune carried two big ads in the paper’s front section that told the economic tale of the times. One was a Leisure Living home store quitting business; the other was a liquidation sale for San Diego’s 10,000 RVs motor-home dealership — also going out of business.

INFLATION? Meanwhile, newspapers themselves are gasping for breath. Joe Brown passed a sign of the times as he was motoring north on U.S. Route 1 along the coast of Maine. Stopped at a restaurant for lunch, he spotted a rack containing copies of a statewide weekly newspaper called the Free Press. Atop the rack was a notice that read: “THE FREE PRESS COSTS 50 CENTS!”

SAN DIEGO SHUFFLE: With San Diego Councilman Scott Peters termed-out this year, the staff is beginning to stray. Peters’ former chief of staff, Elizabeth Kinsley, has moved out to Montezuma Mesa as chief of staff to San Diego State University president Steve Weber. Joining lame-duck Peters for the short haul: MaryAnne Pintar, who served as chief of staff to former mayor Susan Golding. Meanwhile: Former U-T reporter and San Diego Magazine contributing writer Rachel Laing has taken over as mouthpiece for Mayor Jerry Sanders with the exit of Fred Sainz ... Two-time Tony winner Des McAnuff, who quit La Jolla Playhouse for greener Canadian pastures (the Stratford Shakespeare Festival), is going Broadway — again. He’ll direct a new production of the Frank Loesser musical classic Guys and Dolls, set to open next spring ... Nostalgia fix: Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow (Leave It to Beaver) and Lou Ferrigno (Incredible Hulk) have been tapped for November’s Mother Goose Parade in El Cajon ... Collecting $53.40 at the Del Mar racetrack ticket window on a $5 long-shot bet: county treasurer and tax collector Dan McAllister, who swears the $5 was his own money ... Smoked out at the Comic-Con convention in San Diego by a reporter for People: director Guy Ritchie, who told the magazine his marriage to Madonna was “fine — as far as I’m aware of.” ... Mayor Sanders has a neat way to ensure nobody — including the city attorney and the press — can subpoena his personal e-mails: He doesn’t do email. Doesn’t have an e-mail address — office or home.

ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID? Going into the pre-season, the Chargers could take heart that they were once again Las Vegas favorites to win the AFC West. Alas, they came up second to win the 2009 Super Bowl — behind the New England Patriots.

INTO THE FIRE: San Diego’s Sam the Cooking Guy caught a nice big break — or maybe not — with his recent appearance on the network ratings behemoth Today show with Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. But chatty Kathy and her sidekick were a bit verbose for Sam, who scolded them for upstaging him on the kitchen set. “Can I talk?” Sam barked. “I watch this show every day, and everybody has issues with a lot of chatter back here. Pay attention one minute!” That stopped Gifford for almost a minute, but she clearly wasn’t charmed. And then, Sam attempted a recovery. “I can hear the crew backstage going, ‘This guy — it’s his last day here, for sure,’ ” he quipped. “Well,” Gifford shot back, “the crew’s been around here a long time — because they don’t talk to us like that.”

FAMOUSLY: When Steve Leach called Anthology supper club owner Howard Berkson to say he was bringing his dad to dinner and the Arturo Sandoval show, Berkson recognized the name immediately. Steve’s the brother of Berkson’s old law school buddy Rick Leach. What Berkson didn’t know was that their father is Robin Leach — that Robin Leach — whose post-show critique was worthy of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: “Food was brilliant; wine list stellar. The show was fabulous, and the venue — you would find this sort of place in the 1950s, not today. No place like it.”

FINAL WORD: Former mayor/senator/governor Pete Wilson was in San Diego for the recent unveiling of a statue in his honor outside the redeveloped Sofia Hotel on Broadway. Also honored: Jerry Trimble and the late Ernie Hahn, who, along with Wilson, get credit for the dramatic redevelopment of downtown. In an aside, Wilson weighed in on the grand jury report suggesting the merger of the Centre City Development Corporation (which he spearheaded) with other development agencies like the troubled Southeastern Economic Development Corporation. CCDC was created to focus specifically on downtown; a merger would defeat the purpose, Wilson said. “It’s a crappy idea.”

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