Not a Creature Was Stirring, Except . . .

Arthur Eisenman still can’t get over the Christmas surprise that he found--not under his tree, but under his windshield wiper. It was a parking ticket (see accompanying). “My car was six inches into a red zone,” Eisenman said. “What Christmas spirit from the guys and gals who ‘Protect and Serve.’ ”

The ticket was written at 1:48 Christmas morning. Obviously, Santa wasn’t the only one making the rounds then.

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THOSE VICIOUS ATTAX ON LAX: “Fly WinAir Out of Long Beach Unless You Really Enjoy the 405,” says a billboard in the Long Beach area. It’s an obvious reference to the fact that Los Angeles International Airport is a drive of several miles on the dreaded San Diego Freeway. Still, this billboard takes a more subtle approach than that used by another Long Beach airline a few years ago (see photo).

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THINKING AHEAD, WAY AHEAD: Let’s make a resolution for 1999--no more talk about Y2K. Anyway, after noticing the small print on a bag of popcorn (see accompanying), Jean Bannigan of Burbank is thinking about Y3K.

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BEFORE THERE WERE KILLER BEES: Radio historian Don Barrett’s Web site carried a reminiscence of an unusual promotion. It was during a strike by newscasters and disc jockeys in 1961 (the station then played Top 40 rock music). Trying to find a way to explain where the deejays were, then-program director Chuck Blore said he “came up with the idea that the B in KFWB was missing and all the deejays were out looking for it.

“I got ahold of this beekeeper in Pasadena and asked him to release 10,000 bees. . . . He was to paint gold wings on five of them. So we went on the air and said all these KFW-Bees are lost and if you find a KFW-Bee and it has gold wings, you win $10,000.”

But after several days, nobody had claimed the prize. Blore called the beekeeper and told him that the gold ones had failed to appear.

“I knew that,” the bee man responded. “They all died.”

Now I’m not saying KFWB should stage a similar promotion as Killer Bees arrive here, but it’s something to keep in mind.

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NAME GAME: Pete Kohl of Hemet points out that a branch manager of California Shirt Sales is named Suzzy Coats.

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CAST OF ONE THOUSAND: A book by four New Jersey journalists, “1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium,” purports to present the ultimate VIP list for the last 10 centuries. (To answer your first question, yes, Elvis is on it--No. 352). The book pegs, as the No. 1 most influential person of the millennium, Johann Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press. The reason I bring up the list is that Los Angeles is represented, and by another giant of the mass communications revolution. Ranked No. 937 is the popularizer of the nude centerfold: Holmby Hills’ Hugh Hefner.

miscelLAny:

Long Beach seems to be in its own time zone. The fireworks extravaganza that was supposed to usher in 1999 in Queensway Bay started at 12:20 a.m. New Year’s Day.

Of course, that was an improvement on last year’s performance. The 1998 pyrotechnics show started at 12:30 a.m. New Year’s Day. So when will the city’s Y2K fireworks extravaganza begin? Elvis only knows.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.