Nanette Gonzales

Cannibal! The Musical performed by students at Cortines High School's Theatre Arts Academy

​The first two rows of the black-box theater at Ramón C. Cortines High School's Theatre Arts Academy have been designated a "splash zone," so before the play can begin, the audience members seated there are given giant trash bags with a warning to cover up. They put them on, laughing and curious. It's as if the audience for this high school musical is about to go through a tornado drill.

Not long into the first act, though, it becomes clear: Holy shit, they are not messing around. Onstage, a small team of travelers is lost when a maniac comes bursting out of nowhere, tearing off one man's arm and beating another guy with it, before biting big chunks out of their necks. Blood streams everywhere, in upward geysers and undulating sprays, against the black floor and all over the front rows of the sold-out crowd of 180 gape-jawed observers.

Toto, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. Hell, these students make Sweeney Todd look as wholesome as The Sound of Music. In Cannibal! The Musical, Cortines students sing and dance their way through a seemingly endless parade of dismembered limbs, slit throats, impalements and even bear traps -- along with seven gallons of fake blood.

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YouTube/HellflowersinLA

The artist in question

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Paul Abramson, the UCLA psychology professor who helped spearhead our sex issue (on newsstands tomorrow), has a YouTube channel called Hellflowers in L.A., in which he examines various crazy characters in our fair city.

After the jump, check out one of his videos, on a woman who creates paintings of penises. Yes, penises. (We did say he helped with the sex issue.)

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Nanette Gonzales

Patrick Davis, Brawler

​With a fit build and a face that's equal parts Ryan O'Neal and Ralph Lauren model, Patrick Davis looks like a dude who'd play beach volleyball, or audition for "handsome" roles in TV commercials. Scratch the surface, though, and you'll find a fearless brawler who can transform in the blink of an eye from a mellow, endearingly spacey soul to a whirlwind of hard-swinging fists.

"It was never like someone would step on my shoe and I'd be, like, 'Let's fight, bro,' " says Davis, 42. "It was more like somebody would shove me in a bar, and I'd be, like, 'Hey, calm down.' And he'd be, like, 'What are you, Mr. Tough Guy?' "

As it turns out, he was Mr. Tough Guy. After about 35 street fights -- many in L.A. -- he was hit with the inspiration to combine his bloody, bare-knuckle hobby with his mostly deferred dream of being a writer. He self-published Fighteytown: An Auto-Fight-Ography, the self-deprecating story of an overprivileged underachiever told through the prism of his often ridiculous fights.

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Paul T. Bradley

Dr. Neil McLeod toasts Robbie Burns, kilt and all...

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One of the frustrating trials and tribulations of contemporary culture is, of course, the obligatory Facebook birthday wish. From the thought-free exchange of a computer reminding you that your fourth cousin thrice removed has again made it around the sun, to the process of cutting and pasting "Happy Birthday, bro!!!" from the previous wall post, but adding that extra exclamation for effect -- it all really takes automated well-wishing to a new low.

Thankfully, there's a birthday tradition that will undoubtedly never be so pedestrian, because, frankly, Facebook can't cut a haggis. We're speaking, obviously, about the Burns Supper, a two-centuries-old birthday bash for Scotland's favorite son and national poet, Robert Burns. And, yes, even thousands of miles from his homeland, expat Scottish Angelenos and Celtic culture vultures celebrate at least once on the week surrounding Burns' January 25 birthday.

The folks at Atwater Village's 90-year-old Tam O'Shanter restaurant and their appointed toastmaster, Dr. Neil McLeod, have been doing this event for more than three decades. On top of last night's event, Dr. McLeod will do this whole rigmarole dozens more times before Monday.

So, uh, what about that haggis?

We'll get to that in a second.

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Zach Dilgard

History Channel's Full Metal Jousting premieres on Feb. 12 at 10 p.m.

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"Why are cowboys cooler than knights?" Gary Kuchan asks himself, cradling the plastic pint of beer he's just picked up at a Honda Center concession stand. "Knights got their fair share of tail, don't get me wrong, but not like a cowboy."

Over ten thousand spectators clad in Wranglers and Stetsons like Kuchan found themselves at the Professional Bull Riders' (PBR) Anaheim Invitational last Saturday night pondering the difference, if there is one, between growing up wanting to be King Arthur and growing up wanting to be John Wayne. When the succession of scrappy men clinging to bucking bulls broke for intermission, two mounted knights in 85-pound suits of armor trotted out to demonstrate what some tout as the Next Big Thing in extreme sports: full-contact jousting.

"You wanna see two Canadians beat the living snot out of each other for your entertainment pleasure?" snarls former World Championship Jousting Association president Shane Adams, the burly, pony-tailed host of History's new reality show, Full Metal Jousting, which premieres Feb. 12. His friend Tim Tobey (aka Sir Timothy of Shrewsbury) and Tobey's 20-year-old son Aaron (aka Sir Lawrence of Essex) ease into position on their steeds, raise their 11-foot wooden lances and prepare to charge each other at 25 mph.

"Everybody wants to see someone get injured," PBR Arena crew member Seth Skurja says.

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Paul T. Bradley

Jenn and Ti and the delicious Occupy Karaoke calendar.

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Karaoke maxim: There's more to life than karaoke, you know, but not much more. --Occupy Karaoke participant Ti, with help from Morrissey

"So, have you heard of these kids who are doing karaoke for 25 days in a row? Occupy Karaoke?" we ask a fellow bar patron.

We're in the Atwater Village watering hole Bigfoot Lodge last month, on the hunt for a cabal of karaoke partisans.

"No. That sounds lame," replies the beefy patron.

"You think so? I'm kind of hoping they've got some singing chops," we rebut, taking exception with his negativity.

"If there's karaoke here tonight, my wife and I are leaving -- I can't stand that shit." He retorts, after ordering two double whiskeys on the rocks. Oof. We hope they're not driving.

Karaoke is a polarizing enterprise, apparently, and we still have yet to find the crew responsible for taking that polarity to the next level -- they haven't responded to our emails, phone calls or smoke signals and we're scanning the crowded digs looking at faces and checking them against O.K.'s tumblr photos. No luck.

They tweeted they'd be here, and so far no one knows what the heck we're talking about -- we're even scanning for their signature advent calendar. Have we been duped?

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photo by Colin Young-Wolff

Occupy this...or that...or whatever you damn well please.

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Twenty Eleven has been a year of occupies. Occupations. Occupitudes. You get the idea.

Sure, the Occupy Wall Street movement has only been around since September, but since then we've been occupying all manner of whatnot like there's no tomorrow (thanks to the Mayans, there actually might not be one in 2012). We've even been occupying all the bizarre intangibles that the internet and the clever asses behind it can come up with.

Here are the 50 craziest. If you make it to the end, there's a page you can lick that tastes like blue raspberry Kool-Aid.

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Michael Decker's Fetal Ring, a ring of disembowled E.T. dolls

​Yes, this is art. The standout piece in 29-year old Los Angeles artist Michael Decker's current show at Steve Turner Contemporary is the one with the disemboweled E.T. dolls stuck on a wire ring. It's called Fetal Ring. It is bizarre.

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​Need a break from all the credit card-maxing, house-lighting, bad party-attending and general seasonal stressing? Why not try something outside of the gift box this year? Here, five festive, somewhat freaky holiday haps in town that are anything but cookie-cutter Christmas confections.

5. Charles Phoenix's Retro Holiday Show
The holidays are really all about nostalgic accoutrements and rituals. And nobody knows nostalgia -- especially in L.A. -- better than Charles Phoenix, a Cali institution known for his enlightening Disneyland tour guides and kitschy slideshow presentations (see image above). Charles Phoenix's Retro Holiday Show is always a hoot. Phoenix "roasts and toasts" mid-century family life and style during the holidays via old photos and oddball commentary that meshes the wit of Awkward Family Photos with a genuine zest for the season that maybe only St. Nick himself could match. Dec. 18, 7:00 p.m. at REDCAT Theater,
631 West 2nd St.
Downtown. www.charlesphoenix.com

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​Ever had questions about Hell, Satan or various and sundry demons? Then TV writer Martin Olson's Encyclopaedia of Hell: An Invasion Manual for Demons Concerning the Planet Earth and the Human Race Which Infests It will prove most edifying, as it sheds some much-needed comedic light on the dark side.

Purporting to be a detailed manual for demons who are invading the Earth, with a truly encyclopedic glossary of terms featuring often hilarious definitions, fastidious, Sears catalog-Gothic artwork by Tony Millionaire and Mahendra Singh and interesting cosmological stories and sidebars, the comedy is close-to-the-vest and sophisticated enough that the exceedingly pious and godly may still take offense at its flirtation with the Satanic and demonic.

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