California fruits, flakes, and nuts
Subtitle: true tales of California crazies, crackpots and creeps
By: David Kulczyk
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
ISBN-13: 9781610351942
Subjects: Criminals; Dissenters; Artists; Eccentrics and eccentricities; Biography; Inventors
Description: "They call California the Granola State -- a place where every inhabitant is a fruit, a flake, or a nut. They don't get any fruitier, flakier, or nuttier than the deviants, crackpots, and losers profiled in "California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts." A freewheeling catalog of misfits, eccentrics, creeps, criminals, and failed dreamers, "California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts" profiles 45 bizarre personalities who exemplify the Golden State's well-deserved reputation for nonconformity. "California Fruits, Flakes and Nuts" tells the history that gets cleaned out of respectable history books. In these pages, Gold Rush pioneers are revealed as murderous madmen; Hollywood celebrities are shown to be drug-addled sex maniacs; early hippies are just 1950s weirdos; and even seemingly ordinary Californians have a talent for freakish, crazy, and criminal behavior. From frontier lunatic Grizzly Adams (whose head was one massive wound after multiple bear attacks) to "I Love Lucy" star William Frawley (a racist, misogynist, foul-mouthed drunk) to legendarily awful film director Ed Wood and many more nutjobs and oddballs, "California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts" is a side-splitting look at the people who made California the strangest place on earth"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: [1] Pioneer Crazies; title: Grizzly Adams: John Adams, Calaveras County; title: Psycho Hooker: Ida Brewer, Sacramento; title: The Geek: Tom McAlear, San Francisco; title: Psycho Politician: David Terry, Stockton/San Francisco/Lathrop; title: Shanghai Chicken: John Devine, San Francisco; title: Voodoo Queen: Mary Ellen Pleasant, San Francisco; title: Elusive as a will-'o-wisp: James Dunham, Campbell; title: First in Flight: Lyman Wiswell Gilmore, Grass Valley; title: Crazy Cowboy: C.M. Jones, Sacramento; title: It's a Gas!: Edna Fuller, San Francisco; title: [2] The Rise of Southern California Nutjobs; title: Death by Ostrich: Billy Ritchie, Los Angeles; title: Little Miss Bohemian: Aline Barnsdall, Los Angeles; title: Silent Fall: Larry Semon, Los Angeles; title: In His Sister's Shadow: Jack Pickford, Los Angeles; title: True Square: Aimee Semple McPherson, Los Angeles; title: Grumpy Stooge: Jerome Horwitz, Los Angeles; title: Big Bill: Bill Tilden, Los Angeles; title: The Brat Wagon: Margaret Rowney, Van Nuys; title: Fraidy Cat: Samuel Horwitz, Los Angeles; title: Nature Boy: eden ahbez, Los Angeles; title: Rocket Scientist: Marvel "Jack" Parsons, Pasadena; title: Friday On His Mind: Jack Webb, Los Angeles; title: Genius in Angora: Edward Wood, Los Angeles; title: The Not So Little Rascal: Carl Switzer, Los Angeles; title: 20th Century Nostradamus: Jerome King Criswell, Los Angeles; title: A Brilliant Man: Hermann Schultheis, Los Angeles; title: Lovable Crank: William Frawley, Los Angeles; title: The Rebel: Nick Adams, Los Angeles; title: [3] Only In California; title: The Terror Bandit: Clarence "Buck" Kelly, San Francisco; title: Black and White and Read All over: Harry French, Alturas; title: Big Daddy: Eric Nord, San Francisco/Venice; title: The Educated Idiot: John Russell Crooker, Bel-Air; title: Firebug: Stanford Pattan, Glenn County; title: It's Friday!: William Liebscher, Fairfax, Marin County; title: The Gold Coast Princess: Karyn Kupcinet, West Hollywood; title: Shame on You: Spade Cooley, Willow Springs, Kern County; title: Fleecing the Flock: C. Thomas Patten, Oakland; title: The Grifter: Dorthea Puente, Sacramento; title: Taxed Out: Jim Ray Holloway, Sacramento; title: Savannah Smiled?: Shannon Wilsey, Los Angeles; title: Naked Guy: Andrew Martinez, Berkeley; title: From Russia, With Hate: Nikolay Soltys, Sacramento; title: The Gambler: Frank Gambalie, Yosemite National Park; title: Different Drummer: Jim Gordon, Los Angeles; title: The Panty King: Roy Raymond, San Francisco; title: The Tower of Wooden Pallets: Daniel Van Meter, Sherman Oaks.