Its L.A.-philes sometimes take flight

Ostrich Ink (www.ostrichink.com), a Los Angeles-based nonfiction webzine, constantly reminds its readers that while life in Los Angeles may not be a television cliche straight out of “Entourage,” it’s still pretty weird.

The site is an “every-three-weeks compendium of interesting true stories and interviews by the young and trod-upon of Los Angeles,” writes Kyle Buchanan, the website’s creator and editor in chief. While the site publishes photos and other artwork, first-person narratives are its staple, usually written with a pinch of cynicism and a dash of humor that only Hollywood living can render.

Scour the site’s archives and contents to find the diamonds in the rough. The piece “Body Movin’,” by Adam Marsh, chronicles a nighttime ride-along with a guy who delivers dead bodies to mortuaries around town. Marsh describes dropping off his first (and only) body: “The cold is not [the] first thing I notice as I walk into the mortuary. It’s the smell -- an antiseptic ointment mixed in with a little locker-room funk.... And there they are, naked bodies laid out on gurneys in various states of decay, toe tags uniformly dangling from the creepy-looking dead feet.”

In “The Homeless Haircut,” author Anna Scott calls a number in the LA Weekly for a homeless hairstylist who cuts hair on the streets of Hollywood. She gets a haircut on the second-floor walkway of a strip mall at the corner of Sunset and La Brea -- and loves her new ‘do. About her stylist, she writes: “He doesn’t look homeless -- at least, not the crazy shopping cart kind of homeless. He looks like a Silver Lake hipster.”

Ostrich Ink writers also have interviewed many local legends and up-and-comers, including James St. James, the ‘80s club kid whose book “Disco Bloodbath” was turned into the 2003 film “Party Monster”; writer Jerry Stahl (“I, Fatty,” “Permanent Midnight”); and L.A.’s favorite billboard girl, Angelyne.

The 2-year-old site now attracts about 20,000 visitors monthly. Readers get a fresh, albeit sometimes twisted, perspective on life in La La Land -- and we’ll bet they’re still willing to move here.