Friday, February 15, 2008 – Tiki Gone Bad

Some places are just creepy. This is Fantasy Island, 11434 West Pico Boulevard (at Exposition) in West Los Angeles. David Cotner in LA Weekly explains –

Fantasy Island, the former Polynesian-themed restaurant Kelbo's - with its Shipwreck Room, lighthouse décor, Hawaiian spare ribs and regular appearances by ur-organist Korla Pandit - is now a burlesque club cum sports bar. Here, the tattoos soundly outnumber the Tattoos, and the private dancers are pasties-only since alcohol is served. Some fantasy! At this sports-bar-crossed-with-naughty-strip-club, the lighthouse currently blares a Budweiser beacon, and blue-movie stars celebrating their latest adult opus make occasional appearances. There are plenty of lap dances, beer, buffalo wings, beer, basketball on the plasma, beer, billiards, beer and valet parking. Yes, I believe I’ll have another. Ironically for a gentlemen’s club, Fantasy Island lacks actual distinguished-looking men with top hats, tuxedos, cravats, monocles, pince-nez or walking sticks.

Personal reviews can be found at Yelp – and it is a landmark of sorts.  You can't miss it.  Two hours before noon on a Thursday morning it's all locked up, and disturbing.

This says it all –

But they do have birds –

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik