Tim Grobaty: Chalking up a legend

FERNANDEZMANIA ON THE SIDEWALK: We thought when we wrote about professional ad-buyer and D-list celebrity aficionado Peter Fernandez that the whole matter would be over with and we could go back to our usual job of uncovering corruption at every level. And we're mad at ourself because we really should know better by now. Subjects like Peter Fernandez of San Fernando City (What's Hot!

, Oct 23, 2006, et al.) and Long Beach's Midget Town (What's Hot!, Feb.

9, 2004, et al., ad naus.) are subjects that are bound to re-pop up every few years, or even every few months, as readers continue to drop in, saying, in effect, "Sorry I'm late.

Did I miss anything?" Our Fernandez column is only a bit more than six months in the morgue and we're already getting e-mails wondering anew "who is this guy?" Quickly: He's a waiter who lives in L.

A., goes to a lot of shows and concerts (mostly free), poses with some of the performers in those shows/concerts for a photo, and pays to publish those photos and attendant florid captions pretty much every Sunday in the Press-Telegram's Memories section. We don't get mad at him.

His ad money keeps our kids in fancy clothes. Lately, Fernandezmania has spawned a cult following

of people who have built shrines to him (at Club Broadway), people who have submitted ads based on the Fernandez boilerplate (see the next Memories section on Sunday) and, lately, people who have immortalized him in chalk. OK, strictly speaking, you can't be immortalized in chalk, which is among the most mortal of media in the art world, but the Fernandez spirit was at least captured, however fleetingly, by local artist John Wysocki, at the annual Belmont Shore Sidewalk Chalk Art Contest, organized by Justin Rudd.

The inexhaustible Rudd, in fact, was the co-star in Wysocki's work, which featured a depiction of Rudd and Fernandez, the latter in the never-changing pose that is his signature, plus the Fernandezese caption: "Peter Fernandez, of San Fernando City, with Justin Rudd, a whiz organizer, interpreting a visual explosion of chalk twirling from the sidewalks of Belmont Shore under puffy peaceful spring clouds." Wysocki, of Bellflower, rendered the chalk art with assistance from his sister Jeannette Moran, of Long Beach. "My sister and I have been following Fernandez's ads for several years," says Wysocki, a professional artist whose paintings we've recently discovered at The Picture Show Gallery in Seal Beach.

He specializes in such local seaside landmarks as Sam's Seafood, Point Fermin, the Seal Beach Pier and our favorite store in America, the Dolphin Market, on Ocean Avenue in Seal Beach. You can check out his work at www.johnwysockiart.

com, or at the Picture Show, 231 Main St., Seal Beach. YOUR WEEKEND PLAYLIST: May 1 was May Day, our dog Jimmy's 9th birthday and the fourth anniversary of Mission Accomplished!

Come on, let's have cake! And let's listen to this week's playlist, which doesn't celebrate May or our dog Jimmy, but, rather, that other thing. 1.