One-eyed cat and Long Beach celebrity Likho celebrates 15th birthday
Elizabeth Kobliha knows her one-eyed cat Likho has more friends than she does. So much so that on his 15th birthday last Saturday, the sidewalk outside her downtown Long Beach store where he spends most of his time transformed into a makeshift fair.
There were vendors selling peach cobbler, watches, hot dogs and offering tattoos and face paint. A DJ spun records in celebration.
“He’s a very good businessman. We’ve got stickers, T-shirts, keychains, and buttons [of him], and it all goes under his account, his name,” Kobliha said of the cat.
-
Share via
Before Likho roamed the 7,000-square-foot Long Beach Vintage Etc, there was Apollo. The “big rag doll” came in with health problems but was the perfect shop cat. Apollo, a Maine coon who died at 13 following a seizure a year after his arrival in 2015, had curbed the shop’s mouse problem and brought “so much love and energy.”
Similarly, Likho, a one-eyed Russian Blue, also was ailing when Kobilha took him in at 8 years old, but she wanted him anyhow.
“I always wanted to open my own shop so I can have a shop cat,” Kobliha says, adding she was inspired by bookstores with cats “just chilling.”
Vendors line the sidewalk for Likho’s birthday party. The cat is a local celebrity.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
In 2016, Kobliha was swiping through Facebook when a video stopped her scroll. In it, a woman inside of a hoarder’s garage bobbed a feather toy in front of Likho, who jumped up to catch it.
The post was made by Sia Barbi in collaboration with animal rescue group Stray Cat Alliance after the cat had been abandoned at the Hancock Park home. During the early ‘90s, Sia and identical twin sister, Shane, made waves in the fashion and pop culture worlds, often modeling for Chanel, Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier. Their rise to fame began after the Los Angeles Times covered a Sunset Boulevard billboard featuring the twins wearing little clothing that had been causing car accidents.
“Guys of a certain generation would get very hot and bothered over them,” Kobliha said of the Barbi twins. As they exited the modeling industry, they pivoted into animal activism and volunteering for rescue groups and trap, neuter and return programs for cats.
Elizabeth Kobliha holds her cat Likho. When she opened her vintage store, she knew she wanted a shop cat just like chill bookstore cats.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Kobliha wanted to adopt Likho, but first he’d need a $3,000 operation to remove an infected eye, paid for by the Stray Cat Alliance.
“They took care of everything, then we had to wait because he had to recuperate,” she recalls. “The whole time I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, what if it doesn’t work out? What if the cat gets here and is just absolutely bonkers?’”
That fear was for nothing. Likho, who lives at the shop full-time, acclimated within a day. “He has been a beautiful addition ever since then,” Kobliha says.
He’s since become the face of the shop, with a mural dedicated to him outside to welcome customers. That was done by local muralist LaJon Miller, who worked on another on the sidewalk during Likho’s party.
“I got adopted into it,” he says of the Likho fandom. “He’s been my muse on this street for a while. … He just roams around the store, chills, does his little nap thing, and hangs out with everybody, so he’s very social.”
Likho has never harmed the centuries-old objects in her shop, Kobliha says, but he has spooked suspected ghosts.
LaJon Miller, who calls Likho his muse, paints a portrait of the cat on the sidewalk outside of Long Beach Vintage Etc.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Kobliha believes ghosts once connected to shops at the 1922 building — a former patron of a grocery store shamed for his obesity and a former furniture shop owner who died by suicide — still roam her store’s stalls.
“We see shadow figures … there’s a certain area where they pass back and forth. They don’t do anything, but they’re scary as hell,” Kobliha says of unusual sightings. “Likho is very protective, and we do feel really safe when he’s around.”
“It is a little weird, though, when he’s sleeping, and then suddenly he will jump up and look around,” she adds.
Likho’s biggest fan may be a man named Dom Gomez. He lives within walking distance of the shop, and tends to visit after long shifts at a restaurant aboard the Queen Mary. He stopped by the birthday party wearing his work uniform: a white, button-down shirt and black slacks. His hair slicked; his hands behind his back.
Likho’s face graces merchandise at Long Beach Vintage Etc like this fan.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
When he speaks of Likho, he speaks with a tender cadence and dignified countenance, as if he were his own.
“Time flies, you know?” he says, smiling, of visiting Likho over the years. “He gets a lot of love from all the ladies that work here and myself … he has a lot of fans. I don’t know who’s more famous, Muhammad Ali or Likho the Cat.”
On a previous birthday, Gomez wanted to get Likho a gift. He settled on a kid’s denim jacket he modified for a cat with a patch for the Cure on the back but, regrettably, it was a “little too big.” Next year, he’ll give it another shot with a sweater.
“That’s my little buddy right there,” he says. “Today is a special day. I didn’t know a cat could live that long, but I think he’s still got a lot of energy to live … maybe another 100 years, I hope.”
