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L.A. Bizarro: The All New Insider's Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd, and the Perverse in Los Angeles
The cult classic is back! More than 10 years after pioneering the gonzo guidebook genre, this all-new edition of the beloved #1 best-selling guide to bad taste L.A. has been fully revised. Packed with 75% new material, L.A. Bizarro boasts scores of fresh discoveries plus original photos presented in luscious, lurid color. Connoisseurs of the weird and wonderful, Anthony Lovett and Matt Maranian steer readers into a world of culinary curiosities, morbid museums, sexual sideshows, and dipsomaniacal dives. From pet cemeteries to piata district, hundreds of odd and outr delights are laid bare for visitors and Angelenos alike.
368 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 1, 2017
Only clever turns of phrase save this thoroughly nasty, snide and crass guidebook from the ignominy of a one star rating.
June 25, 2012
The title of this book is not misleading. In over 300 pages, writers Anthony Lovett and Matt Maranian give you a humorous look at a number of oddities that exist in L.A.'s underground, overground, regular ground, and everything in between...
The book is divided into provocative chapters titles like "Enjoy Life, Eat Out More Often," "Pressing The Flesh" and "Afterlife, Then What?"...taking you through...say...off-the-wall restaurants you may or may not have heard about...that which they either love, or despise. They rave about the restaurant and cafe at Ikea, for example, wax poetic about downtown L.A.'s Clinton Cafeteria, and absolutely despise the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant chain at Universal City Walk. In chapter 2, entitled "Dipsomania," the authors list some of L.A. seediest, scariest and coolest dive bars...including The Canby in Reseda...a lovely dump of a place my band in played a few years ago...The "Pressing The Flesh" chapter includes soft core B-movie legend Russ Meyer's house, an S and M bondage facility called Lady Hillary's Dominion, as well as a trip to a foot massage parlor called Reseda Foot Relaxology...
The Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan California libraries are explored in full detail (down to the gift shops) in the fifth chapter, called "Kulture Schlock." Also in the chapter is a look at the late Famous Monsters founder Forrest Ackerman's old mansion...which housed the largest collection of horror and science fiction memorabilia in the world. We also get to learn all about the world's largest painting...which is located at L.A's famed Forrest Lawn cemetery. The chapter labeled "Afterlife, Then What? features several places where famous people died, a billboard that displays an account of all the deaths that year from people who smoked, the truth behind the legend of "Dead Man's Curve," a pet cemetery for the elite, as well as the charming museum near my home called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.
In a chapter entitled "Go Away", the authors give us a tour of L.A.'s secret nude beaches, take us on a helicopter tour of the city, tell us about a museum which fiercely disputes Darwin's evolution theory called the Museum of Creation and Earth History, and gives us tips on how to obtain illegal drugs in Tijuana pharmacies. Also of note, is a huge store in Littlerock called Charlie Brown Farms that sells hamburgers, barbecue sandwiches, salads, smoothies and pie shakes....PLUS...human skull replicas, life-sized canons, life-sized animals and life-sized Betty Boop figures, Nazi medals and paraphernalia, dolls of all kinds, lots of lots of marbles, 1000 different kinds of candy, plus a variety of Christmas items sold year around. Take THAT Wal Mart!
The book ends on a sad note, discussing all of the great oddities and tourist traps and cool L.A. landmarks that have been closed for one reason or another...such as the Sambo's restaurant chain, the legendary Trader Vic's, Law Dogs...a place that sold hot dogs AND gave legal advice, the Ambassador Hotel and Coconut Grove, the Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard, The California Alligator Farm, a restaurant called Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel...owned, operated, and hosted by the guy who played "The Skipper" on TV's Gilligan's Island...as well as a poorly managed and highly dangerous Orange County animal park called Lion Country Safari.
L.A. BIZARRO is a truly strange mixture of the mainstream, and the disgusting. Authors Anthony Lovett and Matt Maranian are clearly not shy telling it like it is...warts and all, when it comes to the bizarre and the truly disturbing. Their prose is written with great humor...using the same slap-dang punch of a stand-up comedienne...part social commentary, part making fun of this or that person, or that place. Some of their writing was funny, yet they occasionally go too far. In particular, I felt left out much of the time when Lovett and Maranian would consistently use obscure references in their humor of people and things I had no clue about.
For example, on page 20 in a discussion of a restaurant in Granada Hills called Casa di Pizza...they write: "it just didn't seem as magical as we remembered it. Then again, when one is talking about a Technicolor memory fueled by powerful chemicals, reality is going to be a disappointment. That's the first thing they teach you in the Owsley Academy for Boys." Huh? The WHAT academy? I don't get it. Yet having just looked it up right now on the internet...I see that the authors were referring to Owsley Stanley, who according to Wikepedia: "is a former underground LSD cook, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD." Great. Raise your hand if you happened to know that one. Is it wrong that I miss references to world-renown LSD cooks? Shame on me! Damn my lackluster education! Unfortunately, Lovett and Maranian litter the book with tons of ridiculous references like that...all in the name of good humor. Yet they fail to understand that the humor is lost completely if no one knows what the bloody hell you are talking about.
Despite my frustration with some of the writing, I did get a big kick out of L.A. BIZARRO. The book gave me an inside look at some places I'd perhaps like to visit some day (i.e. L.A. Conservancy Broadway Theatre District Tour)...and others that I would not go near with a 50 foot pole (i.e. Pink Cheeks anal bleaching center). L.A. BIZARRO gives you an education into a world that you are most unlikely to forget...featuring the good, the bad, and the heinously ugly. It's not an easy read at times, yet if you can get through it all...you'll learn a thing or two.
The book is divided into provocative chapters titles like "Enjoy Life, Eat Out More Often," "Pressing The Flesh" and "Afterlife, Then What?"...taking you through...say...off-the-wall restaurants you may or may not have heard about...that which they either love, or despise. They rave about the restaurant and cafe at Ikea, for example, wax poetic about downtown L.A.'s Clinton Cafeteria, and absolutely despise the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant chain at Universal City Walk. In chapter 2, entitled "Dipsomania," the authors list some of L.A. seediest, scariest and coolest dive bars...including The Canby in Reseda...a lovely dump of a place my band in played a few years ago...The "Pressing The Flesh" chapter includes soft core B-movie legend Russ Meyer's house, an S and M bondage facility called Lady Hillary's Dominion, as well as a trip to a foot massage parlor called Reseda Foot Relaxology...
The Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan California libraries are explored in full detail (down to the gift shops) in the fifth chapter, called "Kulture Schlock." Also in the chapter is a look at the late Famous Monsters founder Forrest Ackerman's old mansion...which housed the largest collection of horror and science fiction memorabilia in the world. We also get to learn all about the world's largest painting...which is located at L.A's famed Forrest Lawn cemetery. The chapter labeled "Afterlife, Then What? features several places where famous people died, a billboard that displays an account of all the deaths that year from people who smoked, the truth behind the legend of "Dead Man's Curve," a pet cemetery for the elite, as well as the charming museum near my home called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.
In a chapter entitled "Go Away", the authors give us a tour of L.A.'s secret nude beaches, take us on a helicopter tour of the city, tell us about a museum which fiercely disputes Darwin's evolution theory called the Museum of Creation and Earth History, and gives us tips on how to obtain illegal drugs in Tijuana pharmacies. Also of note, is a huge store in Littlerock called Charlie Brown Farms that sells hamburgers, barbecue sandwiches, salads, smoothies and pie shakes....PLUS...human skull replicas, life-sized canons, life-sized animals and life-sized Betty Boop figures, Nazi medals and paraphernalia, dolls of all kinds, lots of lots of marbles, 1000 different kinds of candy, plus a variety of Christmas items sold year around. Take THAT Wal Mart!
The book ends on a sad note, discussing all of the great oddities and tourist traps and cool L.A. landmarks that have been closed for one reason or another...such as the Sambo's restaurant chain, the legendary Trader Vic's, Law Dogs...a place that sold hot dogs AND gave legal advice, the Ambassador Hotel and Coconut Grove, the Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard, The California Alligator Farm, a restaurant called Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel...owned, operated, and hosted by the guy who played "The Skipper" on TV's Gilligan's Island...as well as a poorly managed and highly dangerous Orange County animal park called Lion Country Safari.
L.A. BIZARRO is a truly strange mixture of the mainstream, and the disgusting. Authors Anthony Lovett and Matt Maranian are clearly not shy telling it like it is...warts and all, when it comes to the bizarre and the truly disturbing. Their prose is written with great humor...using the same slap-dang punch of a stand-up comedienne...part social commentary, part making fun of this or that person, or that place. Some of their writing was funny, yet they occasionally go too far. In particular, I felt left out much of the time when Lovett and Maranian would consistently use obscure references in their humor of people and things I had no clue about.
For example, on page 20 in a discussion of a restaurant in Granada Hills called Casa di Pizza...they write: "it just didn't seem as magical as we remembered it. Then again, when one is talking about a Technicolor memory fueled by powerful chemicals, reality is going to be a disappointment. That's the first thing they teach you in the Owsley Academy for Boys." Huh? The WHAT academy? I don't get it. Yet having just looked it up right now on the internet...I see that the authors were referring to Owsley Stanley, who according to Wikepedia: "is a former underground LSD cook, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD." Great. Raise your hand if you happened to know that one. Is it wrong that I miss references to world-renown LSD cooks? Shame on me! Damn my lackluster education! Unfortunately, Lovett and Maranian litter the book with tons of ridiculous references like that...all in the name of good humor. Yet they fail to understand that the humor is lost completely if no one knows what the bloody hell you are talking about.
Despite my frustration with some of the writing, I did get a big kick out of L.A. BIZARRO. The book gave me an inside look at some places I'd perhaps like to visit some day (i.e. L.A. Conservancy Broadway Theatre District Tour)...and others that I would not go near with a 50 foot pole (i.e. Pink Cheeks anal bleaching center). L.A. BIZARRO gives you an education into a world that you are most unlikely to forget...featuring the good, the bad, and the heinously ugly. It's not an easy read at times, yet if you can get through it all...you'll learn a thing or two.
February 15, 2016
I found this book to be very interesting... Even though I was born & raised in L.A. There many things I knew about and many more that I didn't.
There are restaurant reviews of some restaurants that I've been wanting to go to.
There are odd facts:
* The Church @ Rocky Point with the huge cross & very weird fake boulders was once a part of Spahn Ranch
* Van Tassel Airport has been resurrected and turned into a place of meditation w/ singing crystal bowls
* The story behind the mural of Happy Pigs at the Farmer John pork slaughterhouse
* That the drug dealer John Holmes helped to rob got revenge by forcing Holmes to watch his partners in crime be bludgeoned to death
* The true stories of Dead Man's Curves #1 & #2 on Sunset Blvd.
* There is a place you can go to learn how to be a Slave and/or Dominatrix
* The story of the man who owned the Original Dracula cape (which I was photographed in) and other valuable Hollywood movie collectibles
* The story of the underground street in San Pedro
* The two best BBQ eateries in L.A. one Texas style & the other Missouri style
I was enthralled......
There are restaurant reviews of some restaurants that I've been wanting to go to.
There are odd facts:
* The Church @ Rocky Point with the huge cross & very weird fake boulders was once a part of Spahn Ranch
* Van Tassel Airport has been resurrected and turned into a place of meditation w/ singing crystal bowls
* The story behind the mural of Happy Pigs at the Farmer John pork slaughterhouse
* That the drug dealer John Holmes helped to rob got revenge by forcing Holmes to watch his partners in crime be bludgeoned to death
* The true stories of Dead Man's Curves #1 & #2 on Sunset Blvd.
* There is a place you can go to learn how to be a Slave and/or Dominatrix
* The story of the man who owned the Original Dracula cape (which I was photographed in) and other valuable Hollywood movie collectibles
* The story of the underground street in San Pedro
* The two best BBQ eateries in L.A. one Texas style & the other Missouri style
I was enthralled......
July 2, 2011
Picked up this book while in LA -- initially used it as a travel guide of sorts, and proceeded to read it cover-to-cover once we got home because the writing is so darn funny.
I found it amusing how many of these sites we'd happened to visit in the past without even knowing they were qualified as some of LA's most bizarre. Dunno what that says about our family's travel tendencies.
A few places I read about and would love to visit in the future:
Vince's House of Spaghetti
Clifton's Cafeteria
94th Aero Squadron
Formosa Cafe
Kinokuniya Bookstore
Adventure in Postcards
Chicken Boy
Sheriff's Dept Museum
Los Angeles Conservancy Theatre District Tour
World's Largest Painting at Forest Lawn Memorial Park
See Thai Elvis Perform
Skeletons in the Closet Gift Shop
Cinespia Cemetery Screenings
I found it amusing how many of these sites we'd happened to visit in the past without even knowing they were qualified as some of LA's most bizarre. Dunno what that says about our family's travel tendencies.
A few places I read about and would love to visit in the future:
Vince's House of Spaghetti
Clifton's Cafeteria
94th Aero Squadron
Formosa Cafe
Kinokuniya Bookstore
Adventure in Postcards
Chicken Boy
Sheriff's Dept Museum
Los Angeles Conservancy Theatre District Tour
World's Largest Painting at Forest Lawn Memorial Park
See Thai Elvis Perform
Skeletons in the Closet Gift Shop
Cinespia Cemetery Screenings
February 21, 2009
This updated edition of the bestselling original is even better than the first. It will be coming out in 2009, but I'm really lucky and I've already read it. It's smart, hilarious and full of new material as well as updates on some of the favorites. If you hate Los Angeles, you'll learn to love it with this guide book to the obscure, absurd, and/or perverse places you never dreamed could exist. If you love Los Angeles - you must be a tourist - and therefore, you will also get a huge benefit from reading this book!
April 27, 2015
I love this book with all my heart.
Los Angeles is a town of crazy weirdness that no other city possesses. Even if you don't want to use this book as a tour guide for LA just get your hands on it to read about places and things you could never imagine.
Color pages, indexes, and insanity awaits you behind the pages of this jewel.
Los Angeles is a town of crazy weirdness that no other city possesses. Even if you don't want to use this book as a tour guide for LA just get your hands on it to read about places and things you could never imagine.
Color pages, indexes, and insanity awaits you behind the pages of this jewel.
December 14, 2009
Still my favorite book about L.A. And this is a new, massively updated edition.
March 26, 2010
Discover the truly bizarre and virtually unknown sites in LA
May 4, 2015
Way too many off-color jokes about trans folks in this book for me to rate it any higher. C'mon book people.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews