People and Events

Usually their job is to protect and serve.

Tonight they’ll be out there to block and tackle.

Fifty of the LAPD’s guys in blue are warming up Florida’s Orange Bowl stadium tonight in the pigskin-and-the-pigs classic, rubbing shoulder pads with the combined Miami and Dade County police forces a week before the Super Bowl teams take the field.

The Pig Bowl, as the officers have named it, is a big one for LAPD’s Centurions, who have a 19-4-1 record in 10 years of lesser inter-cop scrimmages. Tonight’s will be broadcast live on several sports cable programs, whose color commentators will have to scrounge for background data, like “in regular season play he’s sacked six crack dealers” or “so far this season he’s gained 382 kilos on the ground.”

Naturally, there is absolutely no money being bet on this game; these are officers of the law.

But a gentlemanly wager--now, that’s altogether different. At stake on those terms are a case of California wine, put up by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, versus a crate of Florida stone crabs offered by his Miami counterpart. Winner eats all.

To parents who caved in and bought your kids what they whined for, this medical alert:

“Nintendo Neck.”

The Los Angeles County Chiropractic Society is seeing a lot of the ailment among youngsters who “spend too much time hunched over the popular video gam,” and complain of neck and shoulder muscle strain, even poor circulation from playing too long.

As the chiropractors noted, adults who use computers have some of the same problems. Except our video game is called “Work.”

Don’t worry, Bee happy.

In the context of the lack of formidable opposition to Mayor Tom Bradley’s reelection, someone asked Bee Canterbury Lavery, the city’s chief of protocol, how she was doing.

Said Lavery: “Read my smile.”

The New Year in the Big Orange has not begun auspiciously for a soft drink named Slice.

First there was the Rose Parade, when Slice’s expensive float broke down under the weight of eight tons of water designed to circulate in a tropical waterfall--the first float in memory to miss the parade.

A few hours later, there was the Rose Bowl game when some of the promotional plastic seat cushions provided to fans by Slice ended up being hurled at members of the Michigan Wolverine band by piqued USC fans.

And this week, strike three: Their hired blimp, moored at Ontario International Airport, was, well, sliced to bits by screaming Santa Ana winds, which left shreds of the blimp’s nose anchored to the anchor pole.

Of the Southern Cal catastrophes, spokesman Tod MacKenzie says with Pollyanna cheerfulness, “We were certainly getting a lot of press coverage.” Still, in the tradition of trust but cut the cards, the company has a second blimp heading for the Super Bowl. They are keeping it “safe and sound--on the East Coast.”