Will he use the “I’m not a...

Will he use the “I’m not a crook” defense? West Hollywood police arrested a man who allegedly held up a bank the other day while wearing a Richard Nixon mask.

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Bad news for thrill-seekers: Downtown commuters who fantasize that they’re race car drivers will be saddened to learn that Caltrans has redrawn the lanes where a portion of the Santa Monica Freeway (10) spills into the southbound Santa Ana (5). No longer will drivers on the 5 experience the excitement of trying to avoid a collision as one of their lanes merges with one of the 10’s lanes. The lanes are now separate.

Luckily, other freeway adventure spots abound in the Civic Center.

There’s the trick of making the transition from the southbound Harbor (110) to the westbound Santa Monica (10) at the same time that drivers entering the 110 on the right are cutting across in front of you to get to the eastbound 10 lane.

And there’s the fun of roaring south on the Hollywood (101), then crossing over four lanes of traffic to reach the Harbor (110). A plaque should be placed there, noting that the maneuver was immortalized in the Joan Didion novel, “Play It as It Lays”:

“On the afternoon she finally did it without once braking or once losing the beat on the radio, she was exhilarated, and that night slept dreamlessly.”

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Speaking of rough stretches of road: In happier times, as the saying goes, the Kings’ 1992-93 press guide featured an intersection of Coach Barry Melrose and General Manager Nick Beverley (see photo). But Melrose was recently fired, following Beverley, who had previously been wiped off the losing Kings’ map.

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We prefer pure-breads: Bob and Ellen Hembat came across an ad for an animal whose ancestry seems to go against the grain, to put it mildly (see excerpt).

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Maybe they fear the fans will go on strike: The L.A. Dodgers are holding “Fan Appreciation Day” on Sunday--rather than near the end of the season, as is the usual custom. That’s good news for the three ticket-holders who are fortunate enough to win new Chevrolets in the drawing. In other years, the team would promote the event by having the cars driven around the field nightly for several weeks beforehand, thereby running up extra miles on the odometers.

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Fan un-appreciation: The Angels, by the way, held a similar drawing after their Wednesday opener and it turned out to be a minor fiasco. Many of the 50,000-plus fans had given up on the team and left long before the game ended.

Angels reps had to draw at least eight different numbers before someone claimed one prize--two plane tickets to New York. At one point, when it looked as though no winner would be found, emcee David Courtney quipped to the crowd: “Everyone think of a number between 1 and 50,000. . . .”

miscelLAny We didn’t realize that Downtown L.A. was so overcrowded with panhandlers until we spotted guys with outstretched hands by two different freeway on-ramps one recent evening near midnight.