Class, please be seated: Journalist Susan Vaughn...

Class, please be seated: Journalist Susan Vaughn reports that people using the rest rooms in the cafeteria at Santa Monica College receive a Spanish lesson piped in by loudspeaker.

“I’ve been taught how to speak to a dentist, how to order at a restaurant, how to count to 100 and how to catch a bus,” said Vaughn, who is taking a class at the college.

School spokesman Bruce Smith said that the classroom with stalls was the idea of President Richard Moore, who encountered a local Italian

restaurant with a similar setup for Italian drills.

Vaughn has noticed that the Spanish lessons seem to encourage conversation, though not always in Espanol: “I heard one woman say, ‘I wish they would do French. I’m sick of Spanish.’ ”

Let’s patch that roof!The menu at the Epicentre describes the restaurant’s vichyssoise as “chilled cream of potato and leak soup.”

The year of spending dangerously: Speaking of the Epicentre, have you noticed the trend toward scary-sounding establishments around here? You can, if you dare, choose from among the Shark Club in downtown L.A., the Piranna Room in Venice Beach (“don’t eat the fish”), the Crocodile Cafe in Pasadena, Typhoon in Santa Monica and Cafe Gale in Beverly Hills, not to mention the Hurricane Men’s Shop in Hollywood. Too bad Ptomaine Tommy’s succumbed in Belmont Shore.

Well, he has been read the riot act: During his monologue, Jay Leno said: “Why doesn’t someone tell Daryl Gates he has the right to remain silent?”

Already bored with Perot? One-time UCLA student Russell Hirshon, who is running for President of the United States, lists among his qualifications: “Harley Davidson Motorcycle Aficionado . . . World Traveled Photo Journalist . . . Good Bartender.”

Hirshon, a performance artist, says his real goal is to encourage people to go to the polls. “If you don’t vote,” warns one of his slogans, “I just might win.”

Or he could run for President: Anita Bennett of Marina del Rey noticed a man at the Santa Monica Boulevard exit of the San Diego Freeway holding a sign that said: “Available actor. Will work for S.A.G. membership.”

miscelLAny:

Ex-Malibu resident Harry Reems, the porno star of “Deep Throat,” has renounced the movie business and moved to Park City, Utah. He’s now a real estate agent.