Paul Zaloom's cabinet of curiosities

Paul Zaloom is obsessing over a World War I gas mask on EBay. He ultimately loses the bidding -- "It went for $500," he later explains -- but the defeat hardly detracts from the 600-square-foot West Hollywood guest house in which he lives, an ode to the "grotesque, gnarly and weird."

By Lisa Boone

June 6, 2009