For our second to last installment of the 2010 Curbed Awards, we consider the year's strangest events, kookiest characters, and plain biggest assholes.
Most Hated: Were you stuck in traffic in October? Or ever? It was probably Imperial Stars' fault. The poor man's Insane Clown Posse stopped traffic one morning on the 101 near Sunset, climbed on their truck, and performed their awful, awful music, supposedly for charity. They were charged with felonies.
The Flush Offense Award: In January the district attorney launched an investigation into City Councilmember Richard Alarcon's living situation--he was registered to vote and claimed to live at a house in his district in Panorama City that appeared to be vacant. Alarcon claimed his family left the house after a squatter broke in, and was indicted in August. In October, we learned via grand jury testimony that daily water use at the house had been low enough "for either two toilet flushes in a 24-hour period or a single shower of a minute and a half."
The American Apparel Time to Move to Highland Park Award: In January, reality show producers advertised on Craigslist for "Silver Lake's rich, wealthy, hipster GUYS and GIRLS 21-30 whose personal style is homeless chic...You must also hang with a racially diverse, intriguing group of friends who all live in Silver Lake." We haven't heard another word about the show, so it's possible the producers gave up and went in a more housewivesy direction.
The Most Badass Badass Who Ever Badassed Award For Achievements in [Attempted] Badassery: Poor Ke$ha. She tries so hard, just look at that dollar sign in her name. This year she dissed Echo Park while eating its food and pretended to cover up the Hollywood Sign while dressed like a polar bear. Isn't she adorable?
The Chutzpah Award: Real estate agent Ernie Carswell lost the listing for the much-in-the-news 138 acre parcel on Cahuenga Peak in February 2009, but he still kept talking about it in the press. He neglected to mention to both Curbed and the Los Angeles Business Journal that he didn't actually rep the land while waxing on about its developability.
The Daniel Day-Lewis Award For Achievements in Acting and Eccentricity: Vincent Kartheiser did his best this year to distinguish himself from his Mad Men character Pete Campbell. Besides letting his hair down, he told the Guardian that his house in Hollywood didn't have a bathroom (he used his neighbors') and that he had recently tried to steal a boulder out of Topanga Canyon to make a new sink. Somewhat less confusingly, he doesn't own a car and was Metro's biggest celebrity booster.
The Best Defense is a Good Offense Award: A Downey man accused of real estate fraud tried to handle things the old-fashioned way--he made voodoo dolls of the prosecutor and investigators and "dunked [them] head down in cups of water with pins in the eyes." He was found guilty on seven counts.
The Fall Down Go Boom Award: Thank you, ABC, for running out of gameshow ideas and saying "Eff it, let's just throw some stuff off a building in downtown LA."
Most Heartwarming GentrificationWatch: In November, prolific hooper Philo Hagen stripped down as he hooped through downtown. Would you have seen that kind of merriment on Broadway ten years ago?
· Curbed Awards 2010 [Curbed LA]