Vipers and buggy whips

Please step away from the Capitol: There are at least as many ways to get your 15 minutes of fame these days as there are people willing to humiliate themselves for the privilege on reality television. But to get a second 15-minute serving of fame, well, that takes money.

Or, at least it has for Darrell Issa. The millionaire congressman paid for his bonus 15 minutes by self-financing the recall campaign. But Issa’s $1.6 million investment isn’t likely to get him much more than that, as polls show his popularity falling somewhere between that of Peter Camejo and that weird high-school kid who’s running because his parents named him Michael Jackson.

But wait, you ask, when was Issa’s first 15 minutes? True, few of us had heard Issa’s name before this spring, but just about all of us had heard his voice. Yes, that’s Issa whose voice comes bellowing out of his Viper alarms, the ones that tell you to please step away from the vehicle. In one of his more Cal Worthington moments, Issa decided to integrate his own voice into the alarm systems that helped make him rich.

Of course, given his early run-ins with the law (see “Warning Shots,” SN&R Bites, May 15), the command to step away from the vehicle already had a familiar ring for Issa …

Too much junkie business: The first fax came in from Bill Lockyer’s office on Monday at 5:55 p.m.: “ATTORNEY GENERAL LOCKYER TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR ENFORCEMENT ACTION IN FIGHT AGAINST JUNK FAXES.”

Thank God, thought Bites, no more faxes about penis enlargement …

A second fax followed Tuesday morning at 11:28 a.m.: “ATTORNEY GENERAL FILES JUNK FAX LAWSUIT AGAINST FAX.COM.”

Great, thought Bites, one more VacuTech press release, and I’d have had a stroke …

Less than two hours later, a third fax rolled in at 1:24 p.m.: “ATTORNEY GENERAL LOCKYER FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST ONE OF NATION’S LARGEST JUNK FAX BUSINESSES.”

OK, thought Bites, I’m running out of dick-pump jokes …

A fourth fax arrived a few hours later, at 4:45 p.m.: “TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! ATTORNEY GENERAL LOCKYER TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR ENFORCEMENT ACTION IN FIGHT AGAINST JUNK FAXES.”

The action appears to have worked—at least to some extent. Nearly a week has passed, and Bites hasn’t received any more faxes about Lockyer’s battle with the junk-fax demon. As for the penis-enlargement faxes, they’re still coming, but they seem less annoying by comparison.

World’s longest setup for, of all things, a Mark S. Allen joke: If, like countless members of the SN&R staff, you tuned in to see our own Cosmo Garvin on Good Day Sacramento last week, you were treated to some truly witty repartee.

Not during the news segment itself, of course, though it was amusing to see Garvin, strangely awake and animated so early in the morning, revealing the secrets of Sacramento’s underground city. No less amazing was the appearance of sheer fascination that reporter Kari Alexander managed to keep up throughout the segment.

Alexander no doubt honed her skills in this area during her stint as a Celebrity Single aboard a recent KNCI singles cruise. (Kari’s male counterpart on the cruise, by the way, was none other than Wayne Johnson from The Bachelorette; you can see him getting a massage from Mellow Me Out staff at the event, at http://www.kncifm.com/photos/singlescurise/P2130043.JPG).

Nor did the clever banter come during the second segment, although a noted psychic came close when she announced that she felt a lot of “oriental energy” down there under the sidewalks of Sacramento.

No, the witty remark was delivered by none other than Mark S. Allen, back in the Good Day Sacramento studio. Segueing away from the segment, Allen took a little jab at KCRA’s venerable anchors Dave Walker and Lois Hart—who are hundreds of years old when measured in TV news-personality years (dog years times two).

So, asked Allen, have they found Dave and Lois’s buggy whip down there?