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Oddities

Aliens Implicated in Mysterious Cattle Slaughter

Odds and Ends
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While the rest of us were carving up our turkeys for the holiday, it appears someone — or something — in southern Colorado was engaging in an otherworldly animal carving ritual of their own.
According to this Associated Press story, “a creepy string of calf mutilations” has left local ranchers and sheriff’s officials “mystified:”
“Four calves were [...]

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Saturday Matinee: Bigfoot Roams Elysian Park!

Odds and Ends
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A purported sighting of the elusive Sasquatch along the trails of Los Angeles’ oldest city park near Dodger Stadium. Obviously this little clip is intended as a spoof, but even if it weren’t, there’s a glaring flaw in the video that should raise astute Angeleno eyebrows.
Can you guess what it is? Here’s a clue: Look [...]

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Forest Lawn, the Ultimate Celebrity Neverland

Cryptic L.A.
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This week it was announced that pop-singer Michael Jackson will be laid to rest at Forest Lawn, Glendale, on what would have been his 51st birthday, Aug. 29.
Dateline>City of Angels can’t think of a more appropriate choice of cemetery, given how for nearly a century Forest Lawn has served as a virtual Neverland for [...]

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Altadena’s Weirdly Mysterious “Gravity Hill”

Cryptic L.A.
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Recently your humble blogger picked up a copy of the wondrously offbeat Weird California (left), a “travel guide to California’s local legends and best kept secrets.” Written by folklorist triumvirate Greg Bishop, Joe Oesterle and Mike Marinacci, the 2006 book devotes several pages to so-called “Gravity Hills” throughout the Golden State, including one in [...]

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L.A. in Quotes: Wigging Out to the Hollywood Plastics

Life in Angel City
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“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”
– Andy Warhol (1928-1987).
Thanks to out-of-town guests, I’ve been spending a lot of time around Tinseltown lately. For some reason this dingy wig shop along Hollywood Blvd. struck me as the perfect illustration for Warhol’s quote. [...]

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Old News: When Those Freaky Circus People Come to Town

Odds and Ends
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There’s a certain historical irony in this month’s return of Cirque Berzerk (left) to the Los Angeles State Historic Park with a schedule of weekend performances. Over a century ago, L.A.’s City Fathers faced quite a conundrum over how to prevent such big-top hijinks from disturbing the Sunday peace.
Reporting on City Hall’s daily antics, the [...]

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Banking on a Dead Horse in Silver Lake

Cryptic L.A.

For all Citibank’s Silver Lake customers know, their branch safeguards a mythic lost treasure.
But it’s not in the bank’s vault — at least not the one where the loot is kept.
That’s because the treasure in question isn’t gold or currency, but rather Old Blue, faithful steed of cowboy movie legend Tom Mix. And according to [...]

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More Old News: Trouble at the Ol’ Coronel Place

Odds and Ends
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If you’re a faithful reader of this blog, you’ve already met Antonio Coronel, 19th century L.A. mayor and leading citizen extraordinaire. Now it’s time to meet his widow Mariana, courtesy a news item carried by the Los Angeles Times 110 years ago this month.
Entitled The Coronel Mansion, the May 2, 1899, piece reports the  courtroom [...]

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Spirited Getups for the Easter Season

Life in Angel City

I like Halloween as much as the next person, probably more. But when it’s over, it’s over — right?
Not for the good people at the Spirit Halloween Co., who’ve become incredibly innovative in their attempts to keep the seasonal marketing going, and going, and going.
Back in October I purchased a hanging skeleton at their Silver [...]

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Col. Griffith’s Brush With the Cursed Grim Reaper

Cryptic L.A.

One of L.A.’s favorite ghost stories is the Feliz Curse, a hex allegedly placed on Griffith Park by a young girl a century and a half ago. Each Halloween, the story inevitably pops up in some newspaper or blog.
I’ve written extensively on many aspects of the curse (for example, here and here), but a little-known [...]

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Cryptic Sights: One Lulu of a Burial at Angelus-Rosedale

Angeleno Sights

They say you can’t take it with you.
Maybe not, but it sure can buy you one helluva sendoff.
Just ask Louise Maier, only daughter of the wealthy Joseph Maier, the Bavarian owner of L.A.’s Philadelphia Brewery in the late 1800s. When Lulu (as she was known about town) died in 1897 at the blossom age of [...]

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Rudy Valentino’s Cryptic DeLongpre Park Memorial

Cryptic L.A.

Hollywood is known for countless oddball pairings: Laurel and Hardy. Spanky and Alfalfa. Sonny and Cher.
But in my mind one of the oddest has to be Rudy Valentino and DeLongpre Park. There is no historical connection between the two. Yet here in the pocket park commemorating the famous floral artist Paul DeLongpre, you’ll find not [...]

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Surprise! Bigfoot “Discovery” Just One Big Scam

Odds and Ends

You’d think Sasquatch investigator Tom Biscardi would’ve seen this one coming. Certainly the warning signs were all there.
First, the two men who claimed to have discovered the over-seven-foot carcass in northern Georgia this past July couldn’t stick to a coherent story as to how they bagged it in the wilds, dragged it out, and iced [...]

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Fillmore: Southern California’s Newest “Hotspot”

Odds and Ends

Believe it or not, right now, the “hottest” spot in Southern California is someplace outside Fillmore in Ventura County, but unless you’re a thermogeologist, it’s probably no place you’d want to visit.
Experts are reportedly still baffled over the “thermal anomaly” that caused ground temperatures on a small patch of terrain to soar to more than [...]

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