12/09/2003: "Pacific Ghost Highway"
Music: Warren ZevonMood: One pot of coffee over the line
Looking for a Christmas present for that hard-to-shop-for person? May I suggest a visit to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s gift shop?
The shop, located in a corner room on the second floor of the LA County/USC Medical Center, rakes in $300,000 a year selling a selection of macabre souvenirs.
You can get a red corpse-toe ID tag with your name on it – or better yet, your boss’ name – for $5. Or maybe a garment bag that looks like a body bag, or one of the shop’s “cutting edge” office products, like an L.A. County Coroner mouse pads that declares, “We’re dying for your business.”
The shop also sells coroner windbreakers, coffee mugs, doormats and beach towels decorated with the outlined bodies. And, my favorite, plastic skulls that dispense business cards via a spring-loaded jaw.
Tasteful.
The shop is a natural final destination for people taking the L.A. death tour, visiting the places where folks like John Belushi, Marilyn Monroe and Robert F. Kennedy expired.
Not planning at trip to LA in the near future? There’s always the shop’s website, http://lacstores.co.la.ca.us/coroner/.
Be sure to tell them I sent you.
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Xmas autography: If you would like a book autographed as a Christmas present, send it, along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope, to: Michael Romkey, c/o The Dispatch, 1720 5th Ave., Moline, Ill. 61265. Be sure to include the name of the person for whom it's being signed.
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Selah.
