Dweezil Zappa

What gives you hope? Rosie Flores, singer/songwriter: "I travel around the world and I get hope from seeing kindness from strangers from shore to shore. Can all this hatred we hear about in the world be real, I wonder? Sometimes I can close my eyes and imagine world peace and the day when people can live and work and laugh together in harmony, without caring what race, religion or background we come from."

The Scene: The Arena Club in Hollywood Monday night at the premiere party for "The Spirit of '76," a time travel comedy about the all-too-recent past. The movie, from Commercial Pictures, is set in the era of boogie fever and the Ford-Carter debates, and stars '70s icons David Cassidy and Leif Garrett.

The Scene: The world premiere Thursday at Mann's Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard for Morgan Creek and Warner Bros.' "Freejack." The film, a sort of "Blade Runner" with more pyrotechnics, stars Emilio Estevez, Anthony Hopkins and that well-worn though undiminished Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger. A party, hosted by executive producer James Robinson, followed at the Beverly Hills honky-tonk, Asylum.

It was 30 years ago that Gary Sinise and partners Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry founded Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. "It was January 1974, and I had just graduated from high school," Sinise recalled in a telephone conversation last week. "We were just a group of kids in a basement. Now, we've been around for 30 years, our organization has grown, and we have a strong board of directors. "Now," he added with a laugh, "we play golf." Indeed.

The Scene: The Golden Monkey nightclub in Santa Monica Thursday night, where the Pollack Media Group threw its annual bash for record honchos and radio executives from around the country. The highlight of the evening was a performance by Spinal Tap, the P.D.Q. Bach of heavy metal bands. The Entertainment: Like the Commitments and the Partridge Family, the group began as a fictional creation and proved so popular that promoters transformed it, Pinocchio-like, into a real, live band.

Sure, the Getty Museum has been accused of acquiring looted works of art, but when Dave Middleton of Rancho Mirage arrived for a visit, he was still surprised to see yellow "crime scene" tape there. Turns out the cops weren't involved. The tape was part of a promo for the exhibit of a Manhattan crime photographer who called himself Weegee. Well, la-di-da: Robert Lieberknecht Jr. of Carpinteria spotted an area where you won't find any discount stores (see photo). "Duh!"

For some reason, movie star Jack Nicholson has a penchant for teeing off on Ventura County golf courses. Nicholson took a swing around Ventura County links in the summer of 1990 at the Ojai Valley Inn, while directing and starring in "The Two Jakes." Though the movie didn't get very good reviews, on Monday Nicholson was in fine form at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, during the third annual Hard Rock Cafe Celebrity Charity Golf Tournament.

It was former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman's first Los Angeles visit in 13 years, and most of the fickle locals who promised to attend his party (Lara Flynn Boyle, Dweezil Zappa, Little Richard and Dennis Hopper) didn't show. But it hardly seemed to matter. The Oct. 24 gathering at Bar Marmont was more like a reunion of old hippies than a Hollywood fete. Wyman's three precocious little girls (ages 8, 6 and 4), dressed in scarves and fairy costumes, flitted among the adults.