Footsteps

You're tending bar alone in the quiet, tag-end of night, when your last customer, haggard and rumpled, leans toward you in the dim light and asks, "You ever find yourself walking down a dark street and you think you hear footsteps . . .? " Send the kids to bed. Those footsteps are spike heels on pavement and that's no ordinary ghost in Showtime's "Gotham," an adult horror feature that premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on that pay cable service.

Re Patrick Goldstein's March 10 article, " 'The Doors' and the '60s--A Fantasy": In the 1960s, many used drugs, some turning inward as did the teen-age Goldstein. But it was my experience that many more went outside in a successful effort to open their minds and become open to others, to do some good and have some outrageous fun. It wasn't a perfect era by any means, but it was mighty good. Nothing now compares. There is no alternative movement to circumvent the isolation and alienation of mainstream society.

Manny Ramirez insisted Sunday that a lot of teams "want to be in our shoes now," but the Dodgers don't seem comfortable in those shoes, their lead over Colorado in the National League West having melted to 3 1/2 games after a 3-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs at a fast-emptying Dodger Stadium. The Rockies finish a series against the San Francisco Giants tonight at home, so the Dodgers' margin could be three games by the time they open a three-game series Tuesday at Coors Field. A lead that peaked at 9 1/2 games on June 3 and was at nine games as recently as July 25 could be gone by week's end. Yes, the Dodgers are feeling the pressure of the Rockies' pursuit, and it's not a happy sensation.

Finally, we can read an article in The Times that appears to get a bit closer to the core of the matter. Eqbal Ahmad says that in violation of American laws prohibiting aid to countries engaged in proliferation of nuclear arms in areas of conflict, Israel not only has accumulated hundreds of nuclear bombs, but also has obtained missiles from the U.S. to deliver them anywhere it sees fit. Cleverly, the Israelis have painted the Middle East situation...

This letter is one person's reaction to all the outright lies we have been getting from our government lately. What is happening? What is our government doing that is so underhanded it cannot be honest with the American people? The Libyan government program was supposedly set up to confuse Libya about whether we are going to attack them once again--here we have one high official, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, saying it's OK to mislead an enemy this way and a second one, President Reagan, saying there was never any intention to misinform the American press.

We've seen plays done in all sorts of places: on sound stages, up in trees, down in quarries, through the rooms of a house, in full swimming pools. Paul Silverman's "Megabeth," however, may be the first production, though, to be set in the bottom of an empty one: the tarnished splendor of the quasi-Olympic-size indoor pool of Hollywood's Sunset Landmark Building. It is lined with dark plastic sheeting that makes it look like "a gigantic garbage bag (hefty, hefty, hefty)."

Clint Eastwood knows how to set a scene on screen or at Mission Ranch, his strikingly handsome hotel and restaurant in Carmel. The hotel, a historic property, has a multimillion dollar view of the sea and beautiful grounds to match. Magenta bougainvillea spills from balconies, flowering pots decorate porches, huge cypress trees shade buildings and lawns. You'd expect a room to cost $500 a night or more. So how about $120 a night? Hard to believe, especially in a pricey tourist area like Carmel.

BAKERSFIELD - Fernando Jara is something of a star in Kern County - and a mystery. From humble beginnings, Jara founded a program to rehabilitate drug addicts and felons on a five-acre farm. He is completing a master's degree at Claremont School of Theology and will soon begin work on a doctorate and a law degree. The energetic 37-year-old and his wife, a Kern County supervisor and rising political star, attended President Obama's inauguration in January at the invitation of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, will christen the new Royal Princess cruise ship in Southampton, Britain, on June 13, sharing a distinction that at one time also went to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher , who died this week. The duchess, the wife of Prince William, also follows in her late mother-in-law's footsteps by playing the role of godmother of a ship. Princess Diana christened the original Royal Princess in 1984, also at Southampton. Along with Diana and Thatcher, who christened the Regal Princess in 1991, Middleton shares the godmother distinction with actresses Olivia de Havilland, Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn, who christened other Princess ships.

Actor Brandon Lee, the 28-year-old son of the late kung fu star Bruce Lee, was killed Wednesday after a small explosive charge used to simulate gunfire went off inside a grocery bag during filming on a movie set in Wilmington, N.C. Lee, who many believed was on the threshold of stardom similar to that attained by his father two decades earlier, had been working on the $14-million movie "The Crow," produced by Edward Pressman and Jeff Most.