The Amazing Chain Saw Juggler of Venice...

The Amazing Chain Saw Juggler of Venice Beach is working with automobiles these days.

Selling them, not sawing them.

“You have to grow,” explained Robert Gruenberg, 31, proprietor of Uncle Bob’s Park & Sell in Redondo Beach. “You have to move on. . . . Besides, it’s rather hard to juggle chain saws now, with only one hand.”

He was only kidding. Actually, Gruenberg felt underpaid during the eight years he performed his unique act on Venice’s boardwalk, depending as he did on donations from passersby. And while he has appeared on the Johnny Carson show and still occasionally performs stand-up comedy with his power tools, the fact is he hasn’t, well, cut it in the big time.

He’s the headliner, however, at Uncle Bob’s. The name is spelled out in neon alongside a giant cardboard cowboy. Gruenberg rents out spaces to individuals who want to sell their cars. They leave ‘em and he acts as a middleman.

Neighboring used-car dealers are jealous of his low-overhead operation, he claims.

“They go by and flip me off all the time,” Uncle Bob said.

He added: “But that’s OK. I got a chain saw.”

Gruenberg’s retirement has, of course, left a void at Venice Beach. Not to mention an opening in the lineup of street performers.

It’s only a coincidence, however, that police arrested a man over the weekend after he allegedly broke into a Department of Water and Power building and pilfered some chain saws.

The suspect was apprehended after he set off a burglar alarm. Police said he had two chain saws and three power drills in his possession.

And he wasn’t juggling any of them.

In our Dueling Signs competition, Justin Fishbein nominates the Bunker Hills traffic light post at 3rd and Grand, which features a “Danger” notice just beneath the box that instructs pedestrians to “push button . . . for walk signal.” L.A.’s pedestrians, a brave lot, mostly ignore the bottom sign, which has been there for weeks.

Latest anti-L.A. salvo comes from monologuist/actor Spalding Gray, who told a San Francisco audience:

“Health is the new drug in L.A. You go there and everyone is ready, ready, ready ! Nothing is happening, but they’re ready!”

Nothing is happening in L.A.? In the last week alone, police have arrested the man with chain saws from a DWP yard, another who was speeding on freeways with a boa constrictor around his neck, and a woman who was standing nude in a Laundromat and waving a toy pistol.

Like we always say at Only in L.A.:

You give us 2.2 minutes and we’ll give you the weird.

miscelLAny:

The L.A. River is used as a training ground by prospective RTD drivers, who practice maneuvering buses on its dry bed.