Some People Just Have a Different Way of Dealing With a Bad Hair Day

Talk about a violent parting: The police log of the Irvine World News reported a citizen complaint of “vandalism to vehicle; window smashed with hairbrush by victim’s ex-girlfriend.”

Unclear on the concept: Scott Woods of West Hollywood sent along a snapshot of a type of apple that might be too large to bring to your teacher (see photo).

That’s comforting: Howard Lockwood of Lake View Terrace, meanwhile, found evidence that some brands of applesauce actually contain “real fruit” (see accompanying)--though you’ll notice that the label doesn’t specify what kind. Maybe the apples in Woods’ photo.

Trick, treat or . . . ? Long Beach’s Grunion Gazette carried an ad for a “Halloween special” involving colon therapy (see accompanying). What’s the Halloween connection here--another way of getting the stuffing scared out of you?

L.A. Insult of the Day: Santa Barbara News-Press columnist Barney Brantingham, discussing the concept of video cameras to monitor downtown pedestrians, says he knows just what they would show in his town:

“Homeless guys rooting through trash cans. European tourists asking how to get to the courthouse. Street musicians playing off-key for spare change. L.A. guys here with someone they wouldn’t want to be spotted with.”

Hey, I think you could also find some Oxnard guys there too.

Tiptoe through the tombstones: In the spirit of Halloween, Hollywood Forever Cemetery is opening up, so to speak, for its 17th annual series of walking tours today.

Co-curator Suzanne Cooper says the tours, which depart every 15 minutes between 10 a.m. and noon, will spotlight:

* Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926), “one of the big draws and, after all these years, we still find lipstick on his crypt.”

* Cecil B. De Mille (1881-1959), whose crypt “faces Paramount, presumably so he could keep an eye on the studio after death.”

* Carl Switzer (1926-1959), Alfalfa of the “Little Rascals.” Switzer’s father “is there too. His father has a strange-looking machine on his tombstone that looks like a gas pump with suction cups. We puzzled over it for years, until we found a friend who asked his widow. Her response was, ‘Well, I haven’t been to the cemetery for a while, but the Switzer Method was a breast enlarger.’ ”

* Actress Barbara LaMarr (1896-1926), “known as the ‘Girl Who Was Too Beautiful.’ According to legend, a judge told her that she should leave L.A. because of the lengths to which her beauty would drive men.”

Probably wielded a tough hairbrush too.

miscelLAny: This trial excerpt appeared in lawyer Charles Sevilla’s “Great Moments in Courtroom History” column in L.A.-based Forum magazine:

Defendant: Your honor. I would like to state for the record that I’m going to file a motion to dismiss the D.A. from the case because me and him, as you left us here to speak alone here, he was very derogatory.

Prosecutor: I wanted to make sure you didn’t steal anything from the court file.

*

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles 90012 and by e-mail at [email protected].