From Capone to cows in Buicks, sheep art to a self-shredding Banksy, and parking escapades to a porn problem for parents, this week was chalk full of the weird and wacky.
SKIN FLINT
A judge has ordered a western Michigan couple to pay $30,441 to their son for getting rid of his pornography collection. US District Judge Paul Maloney’s decision this week came eight months after David Werking, 43, won a lawsuit against his parents, charging that they had no right to throw out his collection of films, magazines, and other items. Werking had lived at their Grand Haven home for 10 months after a divorce before moving.
The judge followed the value set by an expert and additionally ordered Werking’s parents to pay $14,500 to their son’s attorney. “Frankly, David, I did you a big favour getting rid of all this stuff,” his dad said in an email.
‘WHO PUTS A COW IN A BUICK?’
Spotted in a car at a McDonald’s drive-through in Wisconsin: A cow — all of it. Jessica Nelson of Mosinee pulled into the drive-through at a McDonald’s in Marshfield and said she looked up to see a cow in the backseat of a Buick sedan three cars ahead of her. “I thought it was fake at first. Who puts a cow in a Buick? Then its whole head moved.” She quickly picked up her phone and shot video of the bovine, later posting it on her Facebook page with the caption, “A WHOLE FREAKING COW!!! Tell me you live in Wisconsin without telling me you live in Wisconsin.”
A PIECE OF CRAP
The South Florida house that gangster Al Capone owned for nearly two decades, and died in, is facing demolition plans, despite being in line for historic designation. The new owners of the nine-bedroom Miami Beach house plan to demolish it after buying it for $10.75 million this summer, replacing it with a two-story modern spec home with eight bedrooms and bathrooms, a Jacuzzi, spa and sauna.
One of the owners, developer Todd Glaser, says the home, which is about 1 m. below sea level, has flood damage and standing water underneath it, adding, “(It) is a piece of crap. It’s a disgrace to Miami Beach.” The gangster nicknamed Scarface bought the house for $40,000 in 1928 and it is believed to be where he plotted the notorious St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago. Capone died at the home in 1947 from a heart attack.
A HEARTFELT GOODBYE
An Australian farmer couldn’t go to his aunt’s funeral because of pandemic restrictions so he paid his respects with a novel alternative: dozens of sheep arranged in the shape of a love heart. Drone-shot video of pregnant ewes munching barley in a paddock while unwittingly expressing Ben Jackson’s affection for his beloved Auntie Deb was viewed by mourners at her funeral in the city of Brisbane in Queensland while Jackson was locked down at his farm in Guyra in New South Wales, 430 km. away.
“It took me a few goes to get it right… and the final result is what you see. That was as close to a heart as I could get it,” said Jackson, who started experimenting with making shapes with sheep to relieve the monotonous stress of hand-feeding livestock during a devastating drought across most of Australia that broke in the early months of the pandemic. “This heart that I’ve done for my auntie, it certainly seems like it’s had a bit of an effect across Australia,” he added, referring to emotional social media responses. “Maybe we all just need to give ourselves a big virtual hug,” he said.
BLUE PLATE SPECIAL
Florida drivers are now able to purchase new Walt Disney World license plates at their local tax collector’s offices. The blue-shaded license plate features a silver drawing of Cinderella’s Castle sketched with a “50” in the centre to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Orlando-area theme park this fall. So far 10,000 vouchers have been bought for the Disney World plates, by far the most of any of the 100 specialty license plates available, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Revenue collected from the sale of the Disney plates will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central and Northern Florida, a non-profit for critically ill children.
I DON’T LIKE SPIDERS AND SNAKES
A Maine landlord arranged for the rescue of 15 tarantulas and one python that had been left behind by a tenant. Animal rescuer Drew Desjardins was called to the apartment in Auburn and found that found that four of 19 tarantulas there had died and that the ball python did not have water. Desjardins said that he took the surviving animals back to his home and that they were doing fine. All the recovered animals are illegal in Maine and will be relocated. There was no word on the fate of the tenant.
BREAKING THE BANK-SY
A Banksy artwork that sensationally self-shredded just after it sold for US$1.4 million is up for sale again – at several times the previous price. Auctioneer Sotheby’s said that “Love is in the Bin” will be offered at a sale in London on Oct. 14. The piece has a pre-sale estimate of £4 to £6 million pounds ($7-$10.5 million).
It consists of a half-shredded canvas bearing a spray-painted image of a girl reaching for a heart-shaped red balloon. Then known as “Girl With Balloon,” the work was sold at Sotheby’s in October 2018. Just as an anonymous European buyer made the winning bid, a hidden shredder embedded in the frame by Banksy whirred to life, leaving half the canvas hanging from the frame in strips.
Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art, said “Love is in the Bin was born of the most spectacular artistic happening of the 21st century. When ‘Girl With Balloon’ ‘self-destructed’ in our saleroom, Banksy sparked a global sensation that has since become a cultural phenomenon.”
“Girl With Balloon” was originally stenciled on a wall in east London and has been endlessly reproduced, becoming one of Banksy’s best-known images.
RENOVATION COSTS PEANUTS
The beach-side landmark, Lucy the Elephant, is having all of its metal skin replaced because more than 50% of its exterior has degraded beyond repair. The six-story high elephant statue in Margate, NJ, will close Sept. 20 after architects determined it would be more cost effective to replace the metal siding than to try to restore it. Built in 1881, Lucy was saved from demolition and moved a short distance from its original location in 1970. The National Historic Landmark on the Jersey Shore is one of the oldest roadside attractions in US. The new overhaul will cost US $1.4 million with the target for reopening Memorial Day 2022.
CHALK THIS ONE UP TO SHEER STUPIDITY
Parking scofflaws unite! A woman with 14 tickets has won a major decision in a dispute over whether a Michigan city violated the US Constitution by chalking her car tires without a search warrant. In a novel argument, Alison Taylor’s lawyer said the Fourth Amendment’s ban against unreasonable searches was triggered when a Saginaw parking enforcer applied chalk marks and returned two hours later to see if the car still was there. Saginaw cited an exception to the Fourth Amendment, but a federal appeals court said it doesn’t fit.
“For nearly as long as automobiles have parked along city streets, municipalities have found ways to enforce parking regulations without implicating the Fourth Amendment,” Judge Richard Griffin said in a 3-0 opinion. “Thus, tire chalking is not necessary to meet the ordinary needs of law enforcement, let alone the extraordinary,” he said, while another judge admitted, “I haven’t gotten many parking tickets, only because I have a reserved parking spot.”
The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.