LA's most colorful characters in black and white • matt liberman, 2014-2017
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"Play golf, I don't always do, but when I do, miniature I prefer."
- Old Wise Man, photographed playing another round of mini golf at Sherman Oaks Castle Park in Sherman Oaks
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“I bet you kids are too young to know who once lived in there. Well, little boy in the metal suit and little girl in the tin can, it was not a bat who lived there but a BAT…MAN! You got it! The first ever Batman lived there a long time ago, so long ago people couldn’t afford decent special effects, so they just used words like KAPOW! BAM! and CLOMP! and BIFF! during fight scenes. It was rough back then.
Batman passed away recently. The old one, not Ben Affleck, don’t get scared. I met the old Batman (https://goo.gl/rqyycH) many times while giving my Superheroes for Seniors Tours™. Sometimes he’d just hop up on the bus in his tight grey suit, yellow belt, navy underwear and mask and just about give the old ladies a heart attack. He was such a nice man but very white. How do you say in your language…muy blanco? Anyway, you’re welcome to go in the cave, just watch out for the Batmobile — if it comes roaring out, you just might get run over!”
- Thomas Taylor Thomas of Thomas Taylor Thomas’s Tours photographed talking to little Ivanka Lucy Ruiz and her brother Ricky Ruiz at the Bronson Caves in Griffith Park
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"Creepy neck guy over there is my scene partner from Acting/Scientology 101 at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. We went to this sleazy Burbank motel this morning to do scene work, rehearse the brutal Gandolfini/Arquette brawl from the film True Romance. We hired a 'lady of the evening' to play the prostitute Patricia Arquette part, just for authenticity.
Anyway, one thing led to another and yada yada, and I'm not saying things got out of hand, but I am saying I ain’t going back to prison, especially for some dumb acting assignment.
Jesus, now I see that crazy pimp is back, sending out major SP (Suppressive Person) vibes. He's gonna want to know about his girl. Maybe it's time to get the hell out of town, give New York theatre a try. Wish me luck! All praise Xenu!"
- Ex-con/thespian J. Elroy Sanfordson (with “Creepy Neck Guy”) photographed at the Safari Inn in Burbank
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"I'm attempting the ultimate city dive today, surpassing both Echo Park Lake and the Beverly Hills Electric Fountain. I’m testing the sheer fortitude of my emphysema suit to do the L.A. River, the mother of all pollution. You wouldn’t believe the junk I've seen here so far -- leaky breast implants from the early nineties, a 'For Your Emmy Consideration: Fuller House' billboard, two half-eaten Dumpnuts™ (last year’s dumpling-donut sensation!), a rusty old knife with 'Orenthal' engraved on the handle.
Maybe this isn't one of the fifty greatest rivers of the world, maybe it's no Amazon or Nile or Congo. But do those rivers run parallel to both an In-N-Out Burger and the studio where they filmed Gilligan's Island?“ - Perry Pickles Jr. photographed city diving in the San Fernando Valley
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"ROOAAARRRR! Happy birthday to me! I'm here at Travel Town, where my dad has taken me for every birthday since I was five. Look at these cool old trains! How can you not love this place!
When I'm older I want to be a railroad engineer and drive trains and wear overalls and have my own little space where people can't point and make fun of me for my hair condition. Only then, when people no longer stop and stare, will I be truly seen as the born leader I am!" - Harry Hartounian photographed at Travel Town Museum in Los Angeles
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"Back in the day, before the hipsters and ironists took over, they ran decent pictures here. Honestly, who programs this crap?"
- Chester T. Foggbottom III, Entertainment Reporter/Film Critic at The Daily Derisive, photographed at the New Beverly Cinema in the Fairfax District
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"Without a car you're nothing, and I just want to be something." - Johnson Filardy, one of the city’s many struggling homeless, photographed at the Studio City Hand Car Wash
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“Oh my, Oscar Sunday! That’s me, Tony Hadley, part-time actor/full-time seat filler, taking my annual pilgrimage to the Hollywood Sign on the holiest of days in the world of entertainment. This time I made it to the top! I’m on top of the world!
I wonder who I might seat fill next to tonight! Not Meryl again and, dare God, keep me away from that hot-head Mel Gibson. Maybe it’ll be Emma Stone -- oh, that be would lovely! I could sweep her off her feet and we could dance in one of L.A.’s many empty streets. Someone once told me in an audition that I looked like Ryan Gosling...if he had dumped his head in his own sick for three days. This town can be so bitterly cruel. Yet, I do persevere!
Maybe I’ll start a jazz club or put on my own dreadful woman show. Apparently that’s all you need to make it in this town! Oh, City of Stars, la la la la la...oh, whatever the hell those lyrics are!”
- Tony Hadley, RADA trained actor/seat filler, photographed at the Hollywood Sign
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"You enter this raining room and the water parts for you, like Moses and the Red Sea, only upside down and less religious. I see this piece as a grand sociological experiment, getting people to pay good money to leave the gorgeous California sun to enter a dark and humid room filled with people taking selfies. Being a respected member of the art world I was allowed a few minutes in here alone, if you don’t count that guard over there.
Overall, I feel this piece is impressive, but I'm not sure I can fully endorse any work of art that requires a plumber be on call 24/7."
- Jim “Three Eye” Berger, Art Historian and Guinness World Record Holder for Most Actual Art Seen in a Single Day by a Single Living Creature, photographed in Random International's Rain Room at LACMA
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“It was champagne wishes and caviar dreams every night at Spago back in the day. When this restaurant opened on Sunset you might see Jack and Orson hanging out in back with the Laker girls or overhear Madonna and Sean Penn screaming at each other in the restroom. The late great talent agent Irving ‘Swifty’ Lazar held the biggest Oscar parties in the old location and Spago was where Richard Simmons threw that infamous double birthday bash for Charles Nelson Reilly and Rip Taylor. (They say people were picking confetti out of their tighty-whities for weeks!) It was like Hollywood Squares every night at this place in the eighties, back when Wolfgang was just an inventive, eccentric Austrian chef living the American dream and not just another brand selling overpriced sandwiches in Terminal 7 at LAX.”
- TMZ guide Foster Kane photographed at Spago Beverly Hills
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“I call up Caruso late last night. ‘Clear the place!’ I say, I’m coming in!’ So now I have this place all to myself and don’t have to bother with the paparazzi or the riffraff from Des Moines or Milwaukee or wherever, all the oversized tourists with those big Price Is Right nametags stuck on their chests, looking like cattle wandering around, gawking at me, getting in my way.
It’s the only way I can shop like a regular person. It’s the only way I can pretend I’m just like everyone else.”
- Azure Wyndham, socialite and star of the hit reality series Azure in La-La Land, photographed at The Grove
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“I gotta say, it’s hard to be fat in this city.
I’m an emotional eater. I eat and eat and get sadder and sadder as I get fatter and fatter. I used to be thin. I used to be a marathon runner. Now I get depressed even going to the gym, seeing all those fit people around me on the treadmills and elliptical machines, lifting weights, hip hopping and spinning. I usually end up alone in the gym snack bar, drinking a smoothie and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
I’m a good guy – I used to be ‘a catch’ as they say – but when I look in the mirror these days I’m not sure why anyone would like me.
It’s hard to be fat in this city.”
- Cecil Chubbs, photographed at Original Tommy’s Hamburgers on Beverly Boulevard in Westlake
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“I’m the traveling troubadour, ambling and rambling high above the city. I’m Taylor, Browne, Kristofferson, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, all rolled into one. I’m forty years late, or right on time, depending on how you figure.
That’s what I tell myself when I’m in the canyon, strumming along in the cool California breeze. It doesn’t even look like LA up here. It just looks like heaven.
Been working on a new ballad called ‘Studio City Shaman.’ It’s all about peace and love. But isn’t it all, you know?”
- Cheryl “Moonbeam Daisy” Bullock-Wilshire photographed walking the Coldwater Canyon Park Trail (just behind the headquarters of the environmental organization Tree People)
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“This heavily armored woman to my right pulls me over on Colorado, a ‘citizen’s arrest’ for ‘driving erratically.’
I whine like a broad trying to get out of a ticket. ‘But I’m just a little old lady from Pasadena.’
‘THE Little Old Lady from Pasadena?’ she says, angry. ‘No one meaner? The terror? Driving fast and hard, like in the Beach Boys song?’
Damn! She got me!
So, why did I not admit then and there that I was, in fact, Morris Pinkus, the great geriatric neophyte stand-up comedian, and not a sexy, vivacious cougar? Why did I not confess that I’d stolen that decrepit Oldsmobile from one of the Mexican orderlies at Sol de la Perra Assisted Living?
Because this was an Oscar worthy feat of improvisational acting! Being able to convincingly portray this little old lady was worth a few hours in the slammer, even at my advanced age. I figured the food there couldn’t be worse than at Sol de la Perra. Maybe they even served tacos in jail.
‘Yes!’ I proclaimed loudly, ‘I am THE Little Old Lady from Pasadena and there’s no one meaner and I proudly give the one-finger salute to both you and this godforsaken town!’”
- Morris Pinkus photographed being dragged by former cop Babette Feetes past City Hall to the Pasadena Police Department
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“I did a city dive in Echo Park Lake about a year ago and have been steadily moving west since. Because of my bad emphysema I have to wear this suit, so I’m one of the few people who can just dive into city water whenever, wherever without worrying about getting (any more) sick.
People feel like this Beverly Hills fountain might be dirty, that beneath any abundance of wealth must be something seriously sordid, but a mixologist friend assured me it’s all just Fiji Water in here. Fiji Water with a twist of lime and an ounce of condescension.”
– Perry Pickles Jr. photographed in Beverly Hills at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica
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“Did Harvey send you?! You can’t go anywhere these days, not lunch at The Ivy or a walk down Bedford or even shop at the Country Mart without TMZ just showing up. I remember the days when a fabulously wealthy and famous actress could recover from her cosmetic surgery without the paparazzi being everywhere you needed to be.
Do not -- I repeat, DO NOT be here exactly two weeks from today to see the unveiling of my gorgeous new face. That would be a travesty, you people getting such high ratings for invading my privacy like that. Now please just leave me alone!”
- Anonymous Movie Star photographed at the Brentwood Country Mart in Brentwood
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“Today I’m gettin’ married to this fine, bearded Brawny paper towel hunk of a man on my right while my lyin’, promiscuous pig of an ex-husband stands on as best man. BEST MAN! I don’t think so after his bein’ in that whole Will Rogers Park bathroom scandal. His one demand in the divorce was to be best man at our weddin’. Pure, utter foolishness! I’ll never know what was in that Colt 45 I was drinkin’ the day I met him!
Let me tell you about this funky little church behind me. At one time Ronald and Nancy Reagan got married here. Can you dig that? So, you ask, why are me and this fine Brawny hunk of a man gettin’ gay married here. Yes, we are both proud members of the SCLCR (the Studio City Log Cabin Republicans) but that is beside the point I am tryin’ to make. Let me speak, will you?!
When Ronald and Nancy were married here in 1952, the famous actor William Holden was the best man. (A much better best man than my lyin’ pig of an ex-husband.) I firmly believe that in the Reagan weddin’, the actor William Holden was not just the best man but also the groom, as in for Ronald Reagan. This would’ve been a big scandal in the fifties, gettin’ gay married, especially in the San Fernando Valley. I believe Nancy’s utter disregard for the gay community during the Reagan years was really her jealousy towards the lovin’ relationship that Ron and Bill had before Mr. Holden’s unfortunate passing.
So, in essence, I theorize that Ronald Reagan was our first gay widower President. There, I said it...though I could be wrong.
Is there anyone else around beside my lyin’ pig of a ex to catch the bouquet?”
- Maurice Fancy photographed with Ron Worthington Ford at the Little Brown Church in Studio City
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