Gallery Oddity Behind the Scenes: Venice Beach Freakshow
August 6, 2010 - 11:31 am
Venice Beach has a reputation for being an outstanding location for people watching, but if you’d like to venture beyond the world of crazy tourists, eclectic beach vendors, Muscle Beach, and tattooed passerbys, walk through the doors of the Venice Beach Freakshow. It’s usually hard to miss. Todd Ray, who runs the operation with his son Phoenix, is often outside trying to lure people in with a sneak peak at one of his two-headed turtles. Once inside, you’ll find a world of wonders. The Venice Beach Freak Show currently houses an impressive array of two-headed and very much alive animals, over sixty strange creatures, and a continuously running live show with extraordinary acts such as sword swallowers, the Rubber Girl, fire eaters, the Electric Lady, and Larry the Wolf Boy.
Featured Gallery Oddity The Poetry Brothel Comes To L.A.
June 11, 2010 - 11:17 am
After years of bringing saucy poetry and art to the New York underground, The Poetry Brothel has sprouted a new branch right here in Los Angeles, under the guiding hand of miss M. Saturday saw *The Best Little Whorehouse in Los Angeles*, the *Brothel*’s second LA night in effect, with special appearances by Julia Voth and Clint Catalyst, music by Daniel Ribiat, as well as the art of Josh Burian-Mohr, Miss Withers, **and yours truly on display. Other performing poets included Laurel Ann Bogen, Tad Piecka, Jacqueline Lincoln (Simone A’ Clef), Beanie Manifesto, Richard McDowell, Jean Marie Spicuzza, La Fille, Tiger Moon, Peggy Dobreer, and Morrison Keddie, with burlesque by Red Snapper, Olivia Bellafontaine and Dolly Danger.
Oddity Auctioneering With The Great Unwashed
June 10, 2010 - 1:29 pm
On Wednesday afternoon, I went & did something I have been meaning to do for a long time: I went to an auction at the storage center in my neighborhood. It is an enormous space, 7 floors full of lockers where New Yorkers, who are typically low on closet space, can stash away their valuables or things they haven’t used in years. (Snowboarding gear, anyone?)
Oddity The Jolly Green Poodle
May 10, 2010 - 11:16 am
Los Angeles county: Home to the land of “fruits and nuts” as my father and other Midwesterners commonly joke. When I initially made the cross country trek from MI to LA, I settled into a job at the grand ‘ol intersection of Hollywood and Vine, which served as a daily reminder of my father’s affectionate nickname for my new city. Once settled in, I began to realize that these daily eccentricities go hand in hand with living in Tinsel Town and it became refreshing to encounter a daily dose of flair. For those that find themselves in the position of being able to walk the streets of Hollywood Blvd, this is an easy task to accomplish. Once you drive a bit into the suburbs, it becomes more of a game of Where’s Waldo, however…unless of course, you know where to look.
Featured Oddity Dinosaur Delights
May 4, 2010 - 10:01 am
Interstate 10 is an unusual stretch of road. As well as the requisite million different burger joints, & the now-defunct Spanky’s BBQ (RIP Spanky), there are multiple windmill farms (quite a beautiful sight to behold) & some major designer discount shopping. & then, of course, there are the dinosaurs.
Event Gallery Oddity The World Series of Beer Pong
April 23, 2010 - 10:55 am
I remember playing Beer Pong back in college as a recreational way to get my buzz on, but it has since taken on a life of it’s own. It seems to have gone from simply throwing a ping-pong ball into a cup, to a sophisticated matrix involving rules, regulations, and professional tournaments. Thanks to the help of organizations like BPONG.com, which caters to the needs of the beer pong community by offering amenities such as tournament information, an official beer pong store, and a beer pong players forum, this “drinking game” has turned into one serious sport. All across the United States, Canada, and even further overseas, beer pong leagues are popping up and everyone wants to make it to one place: The World Series of Beer Pong.
The World Series of Beer Pong, known to the beer pong community as WSOBP, is the largest and longest running organized beer pong tournament in the world. It was created “by beer pong players, for beer pong players,” according to the official WSOBP website. All games are played on official BPONG 8-foot tables and are regulated by official WSOPB rules. Last year’s WSOBP was the largest yet, with over 800 participants, representing 45 states, as well as Canada, all competing for the championship title but also, the whopping $50,000 pot. This year’s event is expected to have an even higher turnout and will occur on January 1-5, 2011 on the Las Vegas strip at The Flamingo Hotel and Casino. In order to participate, players have to buy into the event by December 10, 2010, or can win their way in at one of the official satellite tournaments.
Oddity The Best Of April Fools Day 2010
April 4, 2010 - 10:11 pm
April Fools day used to be a chance to play a gag on a few close friends. But with the power of the internet, a simple joke can reach the entire globe in the course of 24 hours. Here’s a few of our favorite online gags from yesterday’s mischivities.
Apple Swithes to Veranda (IDSGN)
With all the ongoing buzz about the iPad dropping this weekend, what a perfect time to mess with Apple. Considering that most Mac owners are the create types who immediately know that Veranda refers to a font, this is a gag that hit it’s target demographic.
Deadmau5 Hospitalised Following Fight With Felix da Housecat (Mixmag)
The key to a good April Fools prank is plausibility. Deadmau5 might be the newly crowned prince of American dance music, but rumors of him not being the friendliest rodent have been circulating for a while now. The only flaw in this gag was the off timing. Would it really take 5 days for news like this to hit the internet? Unlikely.
Pitchfork gives MGMT’s “Congratulations” a perfect 10.0 (Hipsterrunoff)
People have been making fun of Pitchfork’s rating system for almost as long as the website has been online. There’s even an entire site dedicated to critiquing Pitchfork’s reviews. Hipster Runoff’s mysterious Carls knows exactly where to prod the indie rock faithful, taking a jab at both their critical bible as well as one of the scenes biggest crossover bands.
Missing Manic Guitarist Turns Up Alive (BBC)
This is probably a clones site and not the actual BBC. Considering that Manic Street Preachers guitarist Richey Edwards disappeared in 1995 in a presumed suicide, this gag certainly had the element of surprise. But the overall taste of jesting about such a tragedy is questionable.
TextP (YouTube)
Some pretty big companies got in on the fun. Google changed their name to Topeka for the day, but this elaborate YouTube gag offering a system that converts video into a text-based stream to save the company money is both super clever and ultra-geeky.
Gallery Oddity Scoundrels, Oddballs, and Eccentrics : After the Noise in San Francisco!
March 2, 2010 - 11:59 am
With our Magnetic Fields coverage turning out to be a bust, we scoured the streets of San Francisco on a particularly gloomy Monday afternoon for a worthy replacement. I’d already seen some of the sights, so it was time to search for weirder ways to occupy the time. The mission: search for any rocks to turn over, and hopefully unearth whatever interesting, unusual and weird creatures Frisco had to offer. Despite it being a Monday, we got a little lucky after digging around all day.
Featured Film Gallery Oddity Bob Suicide Enters the Mysterious Musée Mécanique
March 2, 2010 - 11:54 am
After a night of club-hopping at San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival, there was a different kind of noise we needed. And what could have been better for a hangover than an endless stream of calliope music, along with the bangs and pings of pinball machines and harpsichord melodies? Bob Suicide led us from the ordinary world of sunlight-drenched, boardwalk tourist traps into one of the city’s cult gems: Musée Mécanique at Pier 45, right along San Francisco Bay.
Featured Oddity Death by Chocolate
January 13, 2010 - 12:49 pm
Ask anyone and they will tell you that I love things that look like things but are actually other things. Like Chocolate Weapons. I’m not a huge fan of actual guns, bullets or grenades. And I hope to never see any of these things up close ever in my lifetime. But the idea of chocolate anything peeks my interest, add the intriguing shapes of destruction and well, I think they just might have something here.
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