Mr Tiny's Neighborhood Watch: The Haunted Houses of West Adams

Once home to the brightest stars in early-Hollywood's firmament (think Theda Bara, Fatty Arbuckle, Norma Talmadge, Buster Keaton), the area of Los Angeles known as West Adams, while full of historic charm, includes a veritable graveyard of decaying mansions and haunted houses.

As scared as I am of manufactured gore (see: every horror movie ever made), I am equally unafraid of the "supernatural."  Ghosts, spirits, and their ectoplasmic kin just don't bother me...I mean they literally do not bother me.  When the witching hour settles in and most guests have left the party, every friend I have is able to regale the remaining crowd with multiple ghostly encounters.  I, on the other hand, sit there quietly thinking, "You should have an electrician check your breaker box" or "Maybe you have a squirrel in the attic."  I have never had a spooky experience that couldn't be explained by an overactive imagination or the forgetful placement of keys.  The fact is, I'll have a ghost story when I actually see ghost.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that I am inviting a demonic possession or anything, but you can classify me as a supportive non-believer; I believe that you believe ghosts are real.  I am the guy that would happily take the opportunity to spend the night in a "haunted house," more afraid of roaches, wayward hobos, and spotty cell reception than visitors from beyond the grave.  Here is just a small, real estate sampler of West Adams' phantasmal finest.

Given that this house is regularly used for filming (most famously for the show, Six Feet Under, according to my brother), my guess is that the rooms have been thoroughly saged, exorcised, and whatever else superstitious Hollywood believes one must do to banish specters.  I'm not saying I wouldn't pee a little if the lights started flickering, but I would love to spend the night in a house with such enticing attic space .

While only one fearless cat remained on the porch, this house is in the running for world's-
biggest, feral-cat condo.  It is clear that someone - or maybe something - is sustaining the
herd, as the side porch is littered in styrofoam plates crusted over with bulk-buy cat food.

Living in Southern California, the land of one million single-story ranch homes, houses like this - even in its current condition - are awe inspiring.  To see a haunted mansion of this magnitude, we usually have to visit Disneyland.  The eerie grandeur of the neo-Classical architecture, highlighted by the seriously-peeling paint job, is done no favors by the rotting baby doll on the front porch???  I admit that if I had the chance to spend the night here I would probably go into shock - albeit of the anaphylactic variety (cat dander is practically deadly to me).

I love this house!  Like a long-forgotten lodge found in the most deeply-wooded area of my imaginary version of the Black Forest, this freaky fairy-tale house reminds of me the one belonging to Shelley Winter's in Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (an early-'70s, Victorian retelling of Hansel & Gretel).  I would spend my night in this house searching for secret passageways and underground tunnels...and maybe hysterically sobbing in a corner (I told you that I have an overactive imagination)!

Without even setting foot inside, it is undeniable that these houses are creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky.  Given the all-together-ookiness of West Adams' many old mansions, it seems like a more apt spelling might be West Addams; any one of them could have easily stood in for television's coolest manor of the macabre.

The theme from The Addams Family

Do you have any haunted houses in your neighborhood?  Are you afraid of ghosts?  Do you have any scary stories that you tell in the dark?  Would you willingly spend the night in one of these houses?

Cheers!

Mr. Tiny

Pole-toberfest II: Return to Pierogiville

With a proper Polish princess as a distinguished member of the wacky tacky adventure team, the opportunities for cross-cultural exploration are both frequent and fun.  Getting restless remembering our "Doin' the Dozynki" exploits of last year, we excitedly donned our butter-stained pierogi bibs and headed for  Our Lady of the Bright Mount (Southern California's premiere Polish parish) for the 2014 Los Angeles Polish Festival.

Now we know why Warsaw is the capital city.

I've said it before but it shouldn't go unstated that, as a regular attendee of our local German club, card-holder of our members-only Asian grocery store, patron of the southland's two European marketplaces, and investigator into the local Dutch club, it is clear that I am in the midst of a chronic cultural-identity crisis!  The only thing my family had that tied us in any tiny way to our Yugoslavian ancestry was "Toshka," a mac-and-cheese/mashed potato hybrid dish that my great-aunt made on special occasions (I have found zero substantiation anywhere online to verify the authenticity of the more-than-likely-midwestern foodstuffs).  With every new dip into the Polish pool, however, I feel like I'm moving in the right easterly-European direction; now an old pro on the festival circuit, I knew that my mission was to find and document the three "F's."

FOOD
The line for pierogies was so long that I could only capture the first third in the picture.
Exhausted by the wait, we soon gave up on sampling much of the Polish cuisine -
except for my preferred prune-filled Polish pastry, the paczek (it doesn't look like
 much...actually it kind of looks like turd but it is really good).

FASHION
I believe this is what is referred to as the Polish Tuxedo.
Cynthia was quickly taking style notes for next year's festival.

FOLK DANCING
Without question, my favorite Polish dances are hip-hop, the tango, and the Zorba...
Wait, those aren't indigenous to Poland?  Well, it looks like some of these dancers were
experiencing a cultural identity crisis of their own.  Seriously, there was a Polish hip-hop
number with a routine that culminated in the king of Greek dances - it was AWESOME!

As much as I enjoyed our one-day excursion to Mother Polonia, I was even more excited by the festival venue.  On the grounds of an Edwardian-era estate, I had heard whispers that the beautiful house once belonged to a Hollywood movie star.  I figured that it must've been a star of Polish descent who deeded the enormous estate to the church upon his/her death.  After doing some investigating, I learned that, rather than Pola Negri or Theda Bara, the true owner of was one of Hollywood's most infamous legends.

Fatty Arbuckle lived here (a fourth F)!!!
Clad in high-fired terra cotta block, the Vienna Secessionist-style house was completed in 1910.
Unfortunately, the only access to the interior that we were granted was the basement bathroom/library (a brilliant, if completely un-photogenic, combination).  The terraced backyard has enough remaining details to have our wacky tacky imaginations running riot thinking about the amazing parties thrown here.

This adventure was definitely a "twofer" - Polish festival and Hollywood house hunt all in one!  I was thrilled to find that the fourth "F" of our festival experience stood for Fatty; sometimes it feels good to know that you're not the only fatty waddling around.  Neither fatty, Arbuckle nor Tiny, claims any Polish lineage, but His Holiness loves us just the same.  Dziekuje, PJP II...see you next year!

Our Lady of the Bright Mount Parish

3424 W Adams Blvd

Los Angeles, CA

(323)734-5249

polskaparafiala.org

Cheers!

Mr. Tiny