Man Bottles Up the Smells of Success

You can find a magic potion called Make Opposing Lawyer Stupid at the Indio Products Company. Or a cologne called Go Away Evil. Or, if you’re not a cologne type, a floor wash called Go Away Evil.

It goes without saying that Indio Products, located on Manchester Boulevard, is deserving of the mention it receives in Saul Rubin’s new book, “Southern California Curiosities.”

Indio Products owner Martin Mayer offers more than 7,000 products, not that any of them have brought him good luck where it counts. “Every time I go to Vegas,” he told Rubin, “I lose.”

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Curiosities (cont.): Some other quirky stuff celebrated in Rubin’s book:

* Lucy’s Laundromat, Sunset Boulevard home of weekly stand-up comedy acts before a small audience of enthusiastic regulars (and puzzled laundry-doers). The Wednesday night program is titled “All Washed Up.”

* Studio City’s Caioti Pizza Cafe, whose balsamic-vinegar salad dressing is “rumored to send overdue pregnant women into labor” since it allegedly did the trick for a diner in 1993. About 50 pregnant women a week trek to the eatery, Rubin writes.

* Weekly outdoor film screenings on a mausoleum wall at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The most recent feature: “The Long Goodbye.”

* The world’s loudest finger-snapper, a distinction held by Pasadena’s Bob Hatch, who can reach 110 decibels (“the noise level of a rock concert” -- and probably just as melodious).

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Reaching out: In this big, dehumanizing world, I think we all appreciate the personal touch. So, I was pleased to see that nice storefront greeting for Herb (see photo).

And let me add a couple of my own:

To Sall, I say congratulations on receiving a 1997 Toyota (see photo).

Hugh, good luck on the church sale -- and thanks to Kathy Yuki for alerting me (see accompanying).

Finally, Irving, not to be a scold, but if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times not to attempt a left turn at that intersection in Culver City (see photo). I know Sall wouldn’t.

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Food for thought: Randall Bart of Metropolitan College of New York doesn’t want people to get the wrong impression about John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792). I wrote that Sandwich is believed to have created the snack of the same name so he could eat and gamble simultaneously.

But Bart replied that, while Montagu did gamble, he was actually “a workaholic. He didn’t like to interrupt his work to eat, so he had his servants bring him meat and bread, which he ate at his desk.”

If Montagu is the reason many bosses -- and their employees -- eat lunch at their desk, I’m afraid I have less regard for him than ever.

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miscelLAny: Jed Donahue, who once ate 30 doughnuts in eight minutes, will be one of the top contenders in the Winchell’s World Donut-Eating Championship on Wednesday night at the L.A. County Fair. Another entrant is Rich LeFevre, even though he’s the world chili-eating champion. Guess he’s looking for some dessert.