Forget Hip. In This Neighborhood, Eccentricity Rules

By ROB A. CAMPBELL

March 31, 1996 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

It’s a cold gray noon between storm fronts, and atmosphere hangs heavy over the two-block stretch of Vermont Avenue between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue. Regulars sit at the counter of George’s Coffee Shop, impersonating an Edward Hopper painting. Down the street, two dozen trios of cherubs are getting a new coat of gold spray-paint outside the Armitage Restaurant. At the no-name Japanese restaurant nestled between the Los Feliz movie theater and what was once Chatterton’s bookstore, locals jockey for position at the counter as a table patron finishes telling a story to her friend: “So I said, what do you want me to do, rip out my heart and give it to you?”

Actually, the no-name restaurant has a name, Mako. It’s just that the name doesn’t appear anywhere on the premises. You have to ask.

A lot of Angelenos feel the heart of this neighborhood went missing when William Koki Iwamoto, owner of Chatterton’s, died of AIDS in March of ‘94, leaving his celebrated store to the whims of a flailing economy. But a bold new sensibility had already begun to manifest itself through several small businesses in the area, taking Iwamoto’s lean toward the alternative several steps further. Today, the area bristles with the same off-kilter energy that coalesced on Melrose Avenue in the early ‘80s, but while Melrose has become overcrowded and under-cool, Vermont has managed so far to keep ahead of the cutting edge.

Of course you can’t live out on the edge by broadcasting how cool you are, which is why the area still remains a secret to many. The area’s population is multiethnic and its atmosphere is decidedly low-key and unglamorous. It’s a place where anything goes except the contrived idea of what’s “hip” as foisted upon us by the media.

If you’ve been around for a while, you probably know about the Onyx Cafe, which manages to be the most authentic coffee house in town without really trying. And everyone knows at least one person who has gone to the Dresden Room to hear Marty and Elayne raise the roof with their full-bodied interpretations of standards and not-so standards, including the most spine-tingling version of the Captain & Tennille’s “Muskrat Love” known to man. But the heart of the new Vermont Avenue lies in a string of stores between these two venerable establishments.

Y Que? (So What?) is a jolly red cavern of new and vintage toys, kitsch and cultural marginalia. Co-owner Tracy James (accompanied by her friendly dog, Asbestos) says she mostly buys out supplies of old stock from warehouses or defunct manufacturers. This may be the only place in the world you can pick up a Sharon Tate poster, a bottle of Haitian love drops, a squishy eyeball, the Electric Company LP (featuring Rita Moreno and Victor Borge on the hit, “Punctuation”), a complete set of “Welcome Back Kotter” dolls and a giraffe skull at $375, which seems sort of cheap for how huge it is.

James says the store has started to attract a lot of serious collectors and some Japanese visitors who buy her unique wares and sell them back in Tokyo. But most of her customers are loyal locals.

A couple of doors down, Amok Books caters to an enthusiastic clientele from all over the world. Founder and owner Stuart Swezey specializes in “extremes of information” and counts writers J.G. Ballard and William Burroughs, the surrealist and dadaist movements and Noam Chomsky’s ongoing “anarchist critique of the power structure” among his influences. Books on subjects such as true crime, self-mutilation, deviant sex, conspiracy theories and how to make your own psychedelic drugs challenge casual shoppers to obliterate their ideas of reality, taste and control, and attract connoisseurs of the obscene, obscure and unfathomable.

A similar philosophy is employed at Mondo Video A Go Go, which shares a space with Ana Medina’s Archaic Idiot a few doors down from the bookstore. Mondo Video’s co-owners Chris Middleton and Robert Schaffner say Medina is the most discriminating vintage buyer around. Her bizarre collection includes eerie porcelain doll heads, clothing only for the most committed anti-fashion vintage mavens and a selection of 1940s pornographic ink blotters.

In the same spirit, Mondo features the most dizzying array of subversive, obscure and just plain sleazy videos in the known universe. Middleton and Schaffner say it’s the result of a life-long passion. They, too, have clients flying in from around the world to satisfy their particular filmed fetishes, though some have to remove all the labels from their purchases due to decency laws in their home countries.

“We have a knack for pissing people off,” says Middleton, who reports that she and Schaffner were lured to Vermont Avenue from San Pedro when Swezey moved Amok in, which shares a lot of Mondo’s clientele. “Vermont is the anti-Melrose,” she adds.

“The older people in the neighborhood used to think this was sin city,” says Schaffner, but points out that everyone seems to be getting used to each other. Besides his constant, feverish search for new stock, he also produces his own videos and hosts free “drive-in” movies behind the store when it’s warm enough. Don’t miss the Father’s Day weekend UFO festival, complete with an open mike for all you believers.

Before you’re abducted, better pick up some intergalactic leisure wear from the Ministry of Aesthetics, which features clothes in brightly colored unwholesome fabrics by local labels Serious and Mondorama. Staffer Tammy Hobbs says the idea behind the look is to “always go into the future; try not to go back in the past.”

And that’s no mere fashion statement. On this short stretch of Vermont Avenue where the local piercing and tattoo joints have usurped the usual bar and Laundromat, and small businesses cater to mind-expanding idiosyncrasies, those have become words to live by.

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The Unusual Suspects

Here is a directory to the Vermont Avenue neighborhood between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue.

* Mondo Video A Go Go & Archaic Idiot, 1724 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 953-8896

* Ministry of Aesthetics, 1756 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 665-1735

* Amok Books, 1764 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 665-0956

* X-Large/X-Girl (clothing), 1768 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 666-3483

* Y Que, 1770 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 664-0021

* Ultralux (vintage clothing), 1761 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 666-8294

* Onyx Cafe, 1802 N. Vermont Ave., (no listing)

* Half Off (clothing), 1806 N. Vermont Ave., (213) 665-1526

* Mako, 1820 N. Vermont Ave., (no listing)