You better watch your happy home

There seems to be a lot of talk this week about whether any of us know the true nature of any of our neighbors. Some guy might seem like a normal dude who you’ve lived near for years, even eaten barbecue with, or he might seem a little creepier because you could have sworn you saw three naked women on leashes in his backyard (but maybe that was your imagination, because the cops didn’t seem to care much about it when you called them to report it). How do you know where the bad people are?

Hopefully you’ll have another neighbor who will post helpful signs.

Then again, maybe that sign is referring to the dark nature of the pointy succulent behind the fence, not the neighbors. There seems to be a cactus nearby that has been labelled in much the same way.

(No, I wasn’t about to go up that walkway for a better picture of the sign. Just trust me.) Oh wait – I guess it is the neighbors they are talking about.

Yep, looks like it’s definitely the neighbors who are evil.

But which ones, exactly?

I’m just glad I don’t live in this neighborhood. Oh wait; I’m petsitting across the street next week. This should be interesting.

New printer capabilities

It seems that Rik Martino has upgraded from a Sharpie to a printer. It also seems that Rik Martino is angry. Again.

I personally don’t have a problem with pigeons, but maybe Rik could work on cultivating something that doesn’t provoke so much ire in the neighborhood. Bees, perhaps? Pet rocks?

Thanks for the photo, Ebun!

Gorilla marketing

The first thing you should know about www.gorillaupskirts.com is that it does not appear to actually have any upskirt shots of gorillas. Neither does http://www.gorillaupskirt.com, which is the website that the flyer featured on http://www.gorillaupskirts.com directs you to. So don’t get all excited about it, because you’ll be disappointed.

The next thing you should know is that http://www.gorillaupskirts.com enjoys posting fake flyers and posters. I of course can appreciate this concept, but unfortunately I feel that a lot of the posters suffer from veering too far off from the look of the signs they’re intending to parody. When they’re no longer fake sales pitch posters, but just weird posters, they lose their charm for me. But why am I even critiquing these? Their maker’s intention is just to provide a little mirth on an otherwise dingy street, and at that, he most definitely succeeds.

And some of signs, of course, are really good:

Or maybe I’m just a sucker for wife jokes. More wife jokes please, http://www.gorillaupskirts.com!

via Neatorama

Lost pig

There is a character in my part of town named Rik Martino. I’ve don’t think I’ve ever seen Rik, which seems strange because I used to work across the street from where he daily buys several pounds of birdseed, and apparently he is enough of a public curiosity that the LA Times did a brief article about him.

I only know of Rik by his flyers at the corner of Rowena and Hyperion. Sometimes the flyers are advertising his services as a bodyguard and process server. Sometimes they are photocopies of fake newspaper articles hyping his movie star potential. Sometimes they are angry screeds directed at people he believes are trying to poison the neighborhood pigeons. It seems that there are some people in the neighborhood who don’t find his flyers as interesting as I do, because here’s his latest:

I know it’s dated 2/5/11, but it was only posted last week. Also, it appears that he is trying out a new spelling of his name. I’m not sure if there is a significance to either of those things. Anyway. Good luck, I guess, Rick.

Don’t wait until the last minute

The Christmas decorating process of Castle Grayskull down the street started out great. Last week a thirty-foot tree was delivered and installed outside the house, and the zebra on the roof was moved onto some scaffolding close to the tree. At some point, what appeared to be a smaller blue tree was positioned on top of the big tree. Oversized strings of lights arrived. Also, a red lightbulb was placed on the zebra’s nose. And then, I don’t know what happened.

Maybe a neighbor complained about the size of the tree. Maybe it was breaking some city ordinance. Maybe it fell over in all the rain. Anyway, it disappeared, as did the light on the zebra’s nose. A regular-sized tree showed up in its place temporarily, and then the original tree reappeared after it had been cut down to half its original size. It’s not much of a Christmas spectacle any more. My idea to not take photos of the Castle Grayskull Christmas decorations until they were finished was not a good one, it turns out. Oh well.

At least I got all my Christmas shopping done.

Image via The Hairpin

Sources of the conflict

For one to attempt any successful peacemaking measures for the impending human versus primate war, one must study the history of interactions between the parties. I think we have something here:

Miss Cellania of Neatorama doesn’t believe this is a real piece of printed ephemera, but I think it would be foolish to so quickly dismiss it.

Old squirrels’ tale

I went with a few friends wandering around some more abandoned houses this weekend. It seems to be becoming a habit with me. At one of the houses, a friend found something of Fancy Notions interest having to do with the weather.

So smart, those crickets.

I believe it because it is absurd

If I live to be 100, I will never be able to visit all of the historical markers placed in the West by the crackpot preservationist/html abusing fraternal order E Clampus Vitus. I probably will never even make it to all of the ECV plaques in Southern California. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.

This weekend I went to Burro Schmidt’s Tunnel. The tunnel was really good – it’s not every day that you get to walk through a nearly half mile long granite tunnel dug by a tubercular native of Rhode Island. The thing I liked best, however, was Burro Schmidt’s outhouse.

There were a lot of pictures of Shirley Temple in there too, but I didn’t get any good pictures of those – it was still pretty stinky in there.

As for the actual living quarters, they weren’t too shabby either in terms of printed ephemera, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The last photo here is kind of a mystery to me. Burro Schmidt lived and worked alone for about fifty years, and most of his immediate family died before he even set off to California. So who sent him that Christmas card? Could it have been his donkey companions Jack and Jenny?

It’s springtime, Craig

Recent commenter MK noted that she found Fancy Notions while doing an online search for King George of Hollywood. Now, I recently swore off reporting about the flyer-posting antics of King George, but MK’s enthusiasm put me in a bit of a relapse frame of mind, especially since King George has added a new wrinkle to the story involving Judi Dench’s failed attempt to Face-Off™ King George himself.

I’ve got to stay strong. You won’t rope me in again, King George. I already spent too much time trying to fit Liza Minnelli, Jeff Foxworthy, and Christina Aguilera into your family tree. It’s impossible. You are insane. I’m going to do something better with my time. I’m going to go find my new friend Craig and have some fun.

It’s a nice blustery springtime day. Maybe we’ll have a picnic and fly kites at the park.

Rats.

Goodbye, George

It is with some sadness and some relief that I must announce I won’t be following the exploits of King George of Hollywood any more. This decision was the result of some personal reservations (I was feeling that perhaps King George was on Brian DePalma’s payroll in the efforts to drum up interest in a Face-Off remake), and also of some discussions with Benny, who felt that George was rather boring in comparison to some other Hollywood types like the Button Lady (who once put a curse on me, incidentally) and the Dollhouse Hat Guy.

The final determination that my decision was a sound one was made when I actually saw King George, however. I was on my way to work, and there he was waiting to cross the street at Franklin & Highland. How did I know it was him? He was wearing a large name tag that said “KING GEORGE.” Naturally.

Much to my chagrin, King George of Hollywood bore no resemblance to King George III (pictured here purfled in minever), King George VI of the House of Windsor, or even No Limit Records recording artist King George. He was wearing a suit, it’s true; other than that, however, he was a very unremarkable 40-year-old crazy person. King George of Hollywood was such a disappointment, in fact, that I am not going to post the photo that I took of him. I’ve moved on.

And who, you may ask, can possibly fill George’s shoes? Meet Craig.

More from Craig later.