Storefront Art: La Gioconda di Jose Roque Paint & Body

We've never been that interested in Da Vinci's painting La Gioconda. This lack of interest briefly grew into a loathing when this lady we work with - a dithering fat lady addicted to painkillers - started reading The Da Vinci Code and wouldn't shut up about it.

The loathing has mellowed but still, we just can't figure out why everybody cares so much about "the mysteries of the Mona Lisa": the model's true identity, or why she's smiling, or whether she's pregnant, or why the landscape behind her is crooked, or whether you can see her wearing a hat if you look at the painting wearing x-ray goggles. Mona Lisa, shmonalisa. We think the painting of the enigmatic "Michelle" near the entrance of Jose Roque Paint & Body (Occidental & Sunset Blvds.) is much more compelling.

Michelle, with pink roses and a red bandana. Michelle, green-eyed attractor of spray paint and hawks. Michelle, who has had the indignity of having "FUN BAGS" scrawled across her ample bosom by a random vandal, bearing the insult with a solemn gaze until someone comes to erase the words with flesh-colored paint. Michelle, lacking eyebrows just like her twin in the Louvre. Michelle, we would watch a movie about you even if Tom Hanks was in it with a funny hairdo. Bless you, Michelle. Bless you and your fun bags.