While few L.A. suburbs are immortalized in...

While few L.A. suburbs are immortalized in hit songs--”The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” is an exception--a surprising number have nonetheless inspired composers.

The salutes range from “Culver City, I Love You” and “Reseda, Little Flower of the Valley” to “Let’s Sing to Glorious Glendora.” (The City of Commerce has come part way with a television advertising jingle that goes: “Who was that I saw you with last other night/At the Com-Merce Casino?”)

But the City of Industry somehow has been overlooked.

Now, however, film composer Arlon Ober has finished an album about the Southland, “City of Angels,” which includes a cut, “City of Industry.”

Ober says he chose the industrial village (pop. 400) in the San Gabriel Valley because “I wanted to get away from that Westside thing--laid-back L.A., the surf, blond kids. I wanted to give the album a rounded picture.”

He describes the tune as “very surrealistic,” utilizing “mechanistic images and sounds, futuristic-sounding bases, primordial screams, that sort of thing.”

It’s also an instrumental--well, you try rhyming something with “City of Industry.” Besides, who needs words to describe the town when a few primordial screams can do the job?

Traffic in L.A. may be worsening. Air pollution and crime seem as bad as ever. And the Raiders can’t find a quarterback.

Who cares? Certainly, not the folks at Places Rated Almanac.

In their rankings of American cities, they’ve moved L.A. from 38th best (1988 poll) to 15th in their latest survey.

San Francisco is No. 2.

It’s a political version of an Old Timers Game. Ed Meese, a U.S. attorney general during the Reagan Administration, will debate George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate on “Justice in America” next Thursday at USC.

Some students seem less than excited about the old war horses.

One sophomore told the Daily Trojan: “I’m from Italy and I’ve never heard of them, so I won’t go.”

Others complained that the $18,500 package deal for the politicos would have been better spent on university clubs.

However, John Golob, of the campus Program Board, said: “They were a lot less expensive than some others.” He pointed out that pundit William Buckley and ex-President Jimmy Carter wanted $20,000 each, while Reagan demanded $50,000.

Incidentally, Meese and McGovern, though 180 degrees apart ideologically, are represented by the same agency.

Perhaps you read that the Kings’ Wayne Gretzky, seeking not to commercialize an historic moment, turned down a $100,000 offer to say, “I’m going to Disneyland!” after he broke the league scoring record.

Michigan fullback Leroy Hoard took a different approach last Jan. 2 after he led the Wolverines to a 22-14 victory over USC in the Rose Bowl.

Hoard cried: “I’m going to Tijuana!”