One notably successful YouTube channel features Lauri Vuohensilta of Finland pulverizing various objects (such as a bowling ball) in a 100-ton hydraulic press. Said Vuohensilta, “I think it’s built into every person — the need to destroy something.” One can watch that channel free of charge. But some entrepreneurs have created 24-hour pay-per-month websites and apps offering similarly specialized programming — for example, “Zombie Go Boom” (actors taking chainsaws to things; $5 a month), “Hungry Monk Yoga” (monks in orange robes teaching martial arts; $15 a month) and “Lather Fantasies” (clothed people shampooing each other’s hair”; $20 a month). An April Wall Street Journal report noted that the “lather” channel “sounds kinkier than it actually is.”
Recurring Themes
— In some states, visitors with next to no right to occupy property — for instance, someone who was invited in for one night but never left — cannot be evicted except by a court order, which might take weeks to obtain. In April, owners in Flint, Mich., and Nampa, Idaho, were outraged that nothing could be done quickly to remove squatters from their vacated houses. The Nampa squatter produced a “lease” that, though fraudulent, was enough to send the sheriff packing. — In the burglary of the Halifax bank in Sale, England, Jamie Keegan and Marc Shelton (both 33) tried to haul away an ATM. But it fell out of the back of their van, producing calamitous noise and sparks in the road. In February, the Minshull Street Crown Court sentenced the pair to 40 months each in prison. In court, Shelton corrected the legal record by reminding officials that the pair’s crime was actually “burglary” and not “robbery,” as the court had stated. — Kirk Kelly, was wanted in Tampa for violating probation and was picked up by police in February in Akron, Ohio. While he was being detained in Akron, he tried to bite off his fingertips to avoid identification. Even if he had succeeded, he would still have been easily identified as Kirk Kelly because of his body tattoos — “Port Tampa” and “813” (Tampa’s area code).
DIY Masters
— Randy Velthuizen had lived in a house in Everson, Wash., for 20 years. In April, he accidentally set it afire while he was trying to kill weeds with a blowtorch. It was an uninsured total loss. Mused Velthuizen, “It just made downsizing a hell of a lot easier.” — In January, four units in an apartment house in midtown Detroit were accidentally burned out by a tenant attempting to burn a bedbug that had bitten him. The fire got out of control. By the time the flames were extinguished, the tenant was badly burned; his and three adjacent units were uninhabitable; and two dozen others had suffered water damage. — In April, Thomas Clock III of Clock Funeral Home in Whiteside, Mich., was charged with failing to bury the ashes of the late Helen Anthony and interring an empty box instead. When the family asked for a burial date, Clock allegedly told them that no workers were available, and that family members would have to dig the cemetery plot themselves. Clock advised them to use a post hole digger, which they did.
Restaurants in Tokyo continue their quest for animal themes that will attract diners. Eateries have showcased table side cats, rabbits, owls, hawks and snakes. Recently, Harry offered food and drink along with teacup-size hedgehogs diners could fondle while waiting for service. A fee of $9 earns a diner an hour of cuddling.
Updates
— Obsessive litigant Jonathan Lee Riches asked a federal court in Billings, Mont., to issue a restraining order against Donald Trump to force Trump out of the presidential race. Riches says he fears Trump will be assassinated. — The 34-year-old man who calls himself Beezow Doo-doo Zopittybop-bop-bop was arrested in January for assaulting an Evergreen State College (Olympia, Wash.) police officer. Zoppitybop-bop-bop (originally, Jeffrey Wilschke) has made News of the Weird in the past with arrests under his new name in Wisconsin and Iowa. — In April, the Sacramento Bee revealed that University of California-Davis officials had spent at least $175,000 in scarce state higher-education funds in an effort to scrub the Internet of references to the 2011 incident in which a campus police officer pepper-sprayed the faces of restrained, helpless protesters. The public relations venture was part of a campaign by the school’s chancellor, Linda Katehi, to rehabilitate her image after cutbacks to academic programs. Critics argue that any attempt — ever — to scrub news from the Internet is futile.
A News Of The Weird Classic
Newspapers in Sweden reported in January, 2012, that two of the country’s most heinous murderers apparently fell in love with each other at the psychiatric institution where they were housed. Following a 26-day Internet-chat courtship, they decided to marry. Isakin Jonsson (“the Skara Cannibal”) was convicted of killing, decapitating and eating his girlfriend. Michelle Gustafsson (“the Vampire Woman”) was convicted of killing a father of four and drinking his blood. Said the love-struck Jonsson to the newspaper Expressen, “I have never met anyone like Michelle.” The pair will almost certainly remain locked up forever. But Gustafsson wrote that she hopes they will be released to live together and “have dogs and pursue our hobbies: piercing and tattoos.”
Jail Is Hell
The eye-catching Vietnamese model and Playboy Playmate Angie Vu complained to the New York Daily News that her five months in jail in Brooklyn have been “torture” and “cruel” because of her lack of access to beauty care. Vu is fighting extradition to France for taking her 9-year-old daughter in violation of the father’s custody claim. She will stay locked up until a federal judge rules on the matter. Among her complaints: she’s “turning pale” in the “harsh light”; she lacks of “Guerlain’s moisturizer”; she’s been unable to look at herself for months because glass mirrors are prohibited. At least, she told the reporter, she has found God in jail and passes the time reading the Bible.
Questionable Judgments
England’s Brighton and Hove City Council issued a directive to parents of new school students (as young as 4) that called on them to mark the gender identity they prefer for their children. The council noted that any child who was identified as something other than male or female should leave the space blank and consult with officials. Critics said school should be for developing identities, and not for declaring them so early in life.
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