Fat City

THERE ARE ONLY A FEW PLACES LEFT IN this country where our culture cracks wide open and you can get a pure, distinctly American experience. The Washington Monument comes to mind; so does Ellis Island in New York Harbor. These places reverberate with a living national mythology. This is the way Sandy Katz felt when she came to Fat City.

I would tend to agree with Streep that there are probably different rules for Hollywood actors and actresses regarding salary. However, if I made half of what Dustin, Robert or Jack makes, I would be in fat city. Meryl, give us a break. Your perspective is way out of focus. KAY OKRAN, Sherman Oaks

An effort is under way to get people in the Iron City to stop eating like steelworkers. The state has joined 100 companies and two drug store chains in sponsoring the Pittsburgh Community Health Challenge, which will offer about 52,000 of the companies' employees and other members of the public a 10-week analysis of their eating habits.

Reporter Roger Bingham is becoming TV's main emcee of cute science, never passing up an opportunity to dress up a difficult idea with a visual joke or a groaner pun. Even before "Fat City," his report on all things overweight, begins tonight (7:30, KCET Channel 28), we can feel the approaching attack of the puns. And sooner than you can say spare tire , Bingham is walking in a tire yard to accent a remark about middle-aged paunch.

Jenny Craig in person is a better ad for her weight loss program than the image that comes across in commercials, where she appears to have a heavy face and matronly figure. Actually, at 57 she's slender enough to be a model: 5-foot-5, 122 pounds, youthful and vivacious, with lively brown eyes and tousled raven hair. Full of energy, she says it is a quality she requires in all who work for her. But Craig does not come on strong.

"Kisses of the Enemy" is a swirling parable about the rise and fall of a 600-pound Australian dictator. A cabal of U.S. financial and strategic interests puts him in office. Once he begins to confuse his usefulness with power, they remove him. Rodney Hall, a novelist and poet of strong and unmistakable voice, is not simply doing a variation on the cautionary tale of power corrupting and then corroding itself.

**** "Fat City." RCA/Columbia. $69.95. PG. Vintage (1972) John Huston, this story of a pair of boxers, Tully (Stacy Keach) and 18-year-old Ernie (Jeff Bridges), eking out their lives in gyms and barrooms on the fringes of Stockton, hasn't an ounce of fat on it.

This city is the fat capital of the Soviet Union, with about 40% of the city's 9 million residents overweight, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda said Thursday. The newspaper said that 25% of the 290 million Soviets are considered overweight. One in five Soviet children are considered too fat and medically endangered. Pravda did not give any exact figures for what doctors consider to be overweight but it did say Moscow was way out of line compared to the rest of the country, with 3.

Fat City, the bizarre-looking Pacific Highway landmark that is trimmed with enough neon to illuminate a small town, lately has been making efforts to establish itself as a serious practitioner of contemporary cuisine. The most recent of these would be the hiring of executive chef Brian Ashe, who brought with him an impressive list of credits that includes a stint as executive chef at Los Angeles' venerable Scandia.