If it peels, bruises and comes in a bunch, Ken Bannister has something that looks, smells or tastes like it.
These are a few of 15,500 items you can find in his Banana Museum :A banana phone. Banana pajamas. Banana-flavored toothpaste. Banana warmers from Germany. A banana nose. Banana Christmas lights. Banana popcorn.
Bannister's prize is the "Petrified Banana," a black and shriveled specimen discovered in a friend's closet five years after disappearing. For the past 15 years, it has hung framed in the museum.
Yes, Ken Bannister has some bananas - today, and every day. He is a man with a peel, and a mission.
"I don't think it's ludicrous. I think it's entertaining," says the banana curator who prefers to be called "Bananaster."
And in fact, the Banana Museum and its sister organization, the International Banana Club, are not chiefly about fruit. They are about laughter.
Bannister wears yellow slacks and a teal polo shirt emblazoned with a 16-inch, smiling banana. When he greets a visitor, he clutches a spent banana peel in one hand and a banana golf putter in the other.
"I think it's crazy. I love this. I get so wound up talking about it. I'm just an old-fashioned guy who believes in the need to keep people's spirits up, to exercise one's sense of humor daily."
His museum, he says, is sorely needed "in a world gone bananas."
Bannister, 56, sells photographic equipment in his other life. He is married and a father of three and says his family fully supports his role as banana booster; the family puts away six to eight bunches a week, and during a recent interview Bannister ate three.
In the late 1970s, Bannister got a roll of 10,000 Dole banana stickers from a stevedore, and started giving them out at trade shows. In exchange, people started giving him banana stuff, and he needed a place to put it.
His Banana Museum, which opened in 1975, is a total banana experience. Yellow claptrap is strewn on tables, nailed to yellow walls and piled high on a yellow couch. It smells faintly fruity near the "Notions" section.
An aging stereo blares banana songs. "I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones," "My Wife Left Town With a Banana" and the classic "Yes, We Have No Bananas" permanently top the charts here.
Most of the museum's visitors (admission is free) are members of the International Banana Club - the bunch that built this collection.
Bannister, the club's Top Banana, awards degrees in "bananistry" based on members' contributions of banana gizmos, and on their attitudes.
For a $25 lifetime membership fee, members get an iron-on transfer, a bumper sticker and a self-chosen nickname, preferably one that lends itself to a memorable acronym. Los Angeles resident Paula Borchardt's handle, for example, is B.A.B.E. - Banana Admirer, Banana Eater.
For a master's degree, a member needs 100 "banana merits" or BMs; 500 merits earns a "Ph.B."
"He's a real kick, this guy," says Pat Curry, a Ph.B. known as the B.L.D. - Banana Laugh Director, so named because his high-pitched giggle has kept Bannister laughing for 15 years.
"He'll come in here and throw a banana at me," Curry says of his Pasadena fast-food restaurant, "and we'll start laughing. My laugh gets him going, he gets me going. It's kind of a mutual deal."
In extremely rare cases, members are awarded instant doctorates for extraordinary acts or contributions.
Geri Lorenzo of Tulare earned the distinction recently by collecting thousands of stickers found on bananas from around the world.
But the most spectacular act of bananistry came 11 years ago with the "human banana flambe."
L.S.B. - Lee (Wadell) the Stunt Banana - earned a Ph.B. on the spot at the 1984 annual Banana Club Picnic and Games by setting himself on fire, running 50 yards and throwing Bannister a burning banana with a message inside: "I want my 500 BMs and my degree."
And so the man who says he wants his ashes sprinkled across a banana plantation slowly builds his shrine and tends his flock - 8,500 members around the world, 436 degree-holders.
Already, however, he has become a sought-after character. He extols the virtues of bananas at grocery store lectures and has appeared on several national talk shows.
In October, Bannister signed an agreement with a Chatsworth company to produce a line of T-shirts, night shirts and other clothing with his patented banana logo on them.
Bannister reminds his audiences that the "pulpy, elongated, curvaceous, maligned fruit" is also the world's most perfect snack.