He calls himself a “guerrilla artist.” But...

He calls himself a “guerrilla artist.” But to the city Bureau of Street Maintenance, Robbie Conal is just another member of the litter-ati.

In fact, bureau inspector James Washington says the city will bill Conal for the cost of peeling off his latest works, about 1,000 posters showing a somber President-elect George Bush and the caption, “It can’t happen here.” The word “here” is stamped on Bush’s forehead.

The Venice artist’s previous posters, featuring such subjects as President Reagan, the Nicaraguan Contra rebels and television evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, were removed from city property at no charge.

But Conal, 43, has continued to ignore warnings that the city isn’t his gallery and instead has pasted up his posters on traffic switch boxes, bus shelters and other public property during middle-of-the-night forays.

For his part, Conal recently apologized for any inconvenience he’s caused city workers but added: “I don’t feel I’ve broken any of the higher laws or principles on which our democracy is founded.”

Eye-catching newspaper ad from a Wilshire-area apartment complex: “Rent today and we’ll throw in a few original Picassos, Renoirs and Rembrandts.”

What they mean is a free one-year membership to the County Museum of Art.

The weekend motorcycle accident in which actor Gary Busey suffered serious head injuries while riding bare-headed has heated up the controversy over whether helmets should be mandatory.

Keith Ball, the editor of Easyriders Magazine, said Busey’s “life may actually have been saved” by Busey’s opposition to helmet legislation. The magazine asserted that Busey might have been “seriously paralyzed or killed by neck injuries” had he been wearing a helmet.

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Hawthorne) introduced a helmet bill Monday. And county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn on Tuesday introduced a motion urging the Board of Supervisors to endorse the proposal.

“This is not an issue of free choice,” Hahn said in his motion, which will be voted on next week. “We all must bear the health costs that result from treating serious motorcycle injuries through increased insurance premiums and increased public health costs.”

When Hahn noted Busey’s opposition to helmet laws at the board meeting Tuesday, colleague Mike Antonovich commented: “He tackled that law head-first.”

Some spectators groaned at Antonovich’s comment.

Epic Records sent out a press release listing the Lakers’ Magic Johnson among the celebrities gathering at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night at Spago restaurant to honor one of its clients.

Actually, at that hour, Johnson was among those athletes gathering for the tip-off at the Lakers-Clippers game at the Sports Arena.

When a network of residential real estate brokers put out a report listing La Jolla’s homes as the most expensive in the country, the insult was too much to bear for Beverly Hills, the city where clothes shops require reservations and the post office has a valet-parking service.

A survey conducted by local real estate man Mike Silverman found that homes in Beverly Hills sold for an average of $1.8 million between August and November, compared to a modest $1.1 million for La Jolla.

Silverman said he feels better now.

When Civic Center workers complain that they often run into strange sidewalk characters on the way to work downtown, they’re usually talking about street people. But when private security guards broke up a fistfight Tuesday morning near the corner of Spring and 2nd streets, the combatants were in business suits.

The action began, a guard said, when one of the men was called a name. He promptly slugged the other--after dropping his briefcase.