While some of us have been galumphing around the country in search of fun and fossils, the world continues to spin its multifaceted tale. Events of consequence occur daily, profound happenings which alter and illuminate our times. The New York Times will tell you all about them, we were meant for better things.
We have come to present arcane information which would otherwise be lost to the ages. Tales of derring-do, stories of unlikely events of total inconsequence, humorous anecdotes the likes of which the Times would never mention. Where else would you learn of Scandinavian smack peddlers, voracious nose tumors or people named Uwe (no, he does not have brothers named Dewey and Louie). Do you run from scorpions instead of gathering them up in a little net for safekeeping? Are you looking for a Yucatan box turtle? Planning on driving your golf cart on 1-95 in Brevard County, Florida? Keep reading. The Flying Pie has news for you.
Ma Barker Lives
An 81-year-old Danish woman, who was not Bill Killeen in drag, was arrested recently at a Warsaw airport on her way from Africa to Canada. The bust was for suspicion of illegal possession of heroin worth over half-a-million dollars. Customs officers at the ambitiously-named Frederic Chopin Airport decided to check the poor woman’s baggage after becoming suspicious of “her itinerary and uneasy behavior,” whatever that is. They soon discovered packages containing eleven pounds of H under a false suitcase bottom. “Grandma, we told you it would never work.”
The nice lady, traveling from Malawi and Kenya through Doha and Warsaw, denied any wrongdoing, as well she might. Family members, she protested, had given her the suitcase with gifts for relatives in Canada, or so claimed one Aleksandra Skrzyniarz, a preoccupied spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office who was otherwise busily searching for more vowels to add to her surname.
The unnamed perp has been detained for three months and placed in the nana wing of the Warsaw Confinement Center. Under Polish law, she faces up to 15 years in prison for illegal possession of narcotics. “If convicted, she will retain tea and quilting privileges,” promised Ms. Skrzyniarz. “We’re not monsters here. By the way, would you ask Vanna to ship me an e?'”
Stop, In The Name Of Love!
Those crusty, unfeeling Germans are at it again. When, oh when, is the Deutschland going to hire a good P.R. man to boost their image and stop the self-inflicted pain? This time it’s an iconic lighthouse at the northern port of Bremen that offends, tilting a bit sideways on its way to a sure fall. Public broadcaster Radio Bremen quoted the head of the water police, Uwe Old, as saying that nothing could be done to save the lighthouse. “The old girl will be history in the coming days,” he said. Authorities have meanwhile banned ships from entering the Geeste River at Bremerhaven due to the risk posed by the leaning lighthouse, which is located at the end of a stone jetty that has long required repair.
Now, hold your pferde there, Uwe. What do you mean nothing can be done? Look at the mileage those Italians over in Pisa have gotten with their little trophy. Are Italians suddenly smarter than Germans? What happened to that vaunted Teutonic technology? Observers from French and Spanish chapters of Lighthouses ‘R’ Us are on the scene and peeved amighty at the disdain shown one of their brothers. “What do you do when your parents get old—shoot them?” ask Pierre Lavalier, a bit agitated. “We will stand in the path of this carnage. We will not allow this lighthouse to merely be tossed in the recycle bin! It’s a matter of principle. D’aillers, since we’ll be here for awhile, did anyone remember to bring the wine?”
How Ya Gonna Keep Him Down On The Farm…
Gary Busey lives, and not subtly. The 78-year-old actor may be on his way out but he’s certainly not going quietly. Busey was charged in late August with two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact, one count of attempted criminal sexual contact and one count of harassment for groping fans at the annual Monster Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Hey, what do you expect at a monster show—hand puppets? The charges did not state what costumes the fans were wearing but aver that Princess Leia was not involved. Busey was a celebrity guest at the affair.
Gary’s been a strange boy for a while now. He might have a good excuse. On December 4, 1988, he was severely injured in a motorcycle accident in which he was not wearing a helmet. His skull was fractured and he suffered permanent brain damage. By 1996, he was publicly riding the Jesus Train, calling his bike wreck a result of a cocaine overdose. One year later, Doctor Littlejack Horner removed a cancerous, plum-sized tumor from his sinus cavity.
During the filming of Celebrity Rehab in 2008, Busey was referred to psychiatrist Charles Sophy, who attested that his earlier brain injury had likely weakened his “mental filters,” causing him to act and speak impulsively. Sophy recommended the actor take valproic acid and Busey agreed.
Showing continued bad judgment, Gary endorsed Newt Gingrich for president in 2011. Maybe the juice finally kicked in because he later withdrew his endorsement. In 2015, he endorsed Donald Trump for president but refused to discuss his reasons or further talk about politics. Looks like valproic acid can only do so much. Too bad. Busey was lights-out playing the title role in the 1978 film, The Buddy Holly Story, nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. With each nomination, recipients get groping privileges for one year. Don’t look now, Gary, but you’re 43 years past your sell-by date.
Have Talons, Will Travel, Reads The Card Of A Hawk….
His fast beak for hire ‘neath the calling wind…A soldier of fortune is the bird called Paladin. Okay, he’s really called Pac-Man, but that’s a sappy moniker for an enforcer. I mean, who’d be impressed by a tough guy called Mack the Spoon? They don’t write songs about Moderately Unruly Leroy Brown, right?
Anyway, (ahem) “Pac-Man” is a Harris hawk who has taken up residence at San Francisco’s El Cerrito del Norte Metro station where he’s on the lookout for Bay Area Rapid Transit abusers. A little pigeon poop here, a little there, it all adds up. Pac Man patrols three days a week, starting at the bottom level entrance before scoping out the platforms. And don’t think the pigeons haven’t noticed the new gun in town. Ricky Ortiz, a falconer with Falcon Force and Pac Man’s handler claims “It’s a sea change with the pigeons. He ran off half of them within the first week and the others are keeping their distance.” To keep Pac Man from feasting on pigeons and rodents (bad visuals), Ortiz keeps tastier snacks on hand.
The big bird is a smash hit with commuters. Rider Bethany Campbell recently posed for a photo with Pac Man to send to her family. “I have folks in the Midwest and South. They already think everything in the Bay Area is weird, so this is hilarious to them. I was actually scared the first time i saw him in action but now I think he’s great!”
Pac Man. Remember the name. Long live his fame and long live his glory and long may his story be told. “SCREECH!”
A Stinging Rebuke
Remember when you were a kid and nosy adults used to ask what you wanted to be when you grew up? How many answered “A scorpion milker?” That’s what we thought. Otherwise, your parents would have covered you with bubble-wrap and shipped you off to divinity school. Apparently, noone checked in with Metin Orenler, though. Little Metin grew up to become a scorpion farm operator in Sanliurfa, Turkey, where he milked a few every day. Older and wiser now, he has employees to pry loose the expensive venom. If you don’t think scorpion juice sounds like much of a product, you’re wrong. Orenler is buying a big boat next year.
Turns out a single scorpion produces about two milligrams of venom and a lab is able to obtain about two grams daily. Metin’s farm, which opened in 2020, now houses over 20,000 scorpions of the Androctonus turkiyensis persuasion. In case you’re an uneducated boor, the AT clan was identified as a distinct type in an article published in a leading scorpiology journal in 2021, so there.
“We both breed the scorpions and also milk them,” Orenler says. “We freeze the venom that we obtain as a result of the milking, then we turn it into powder and sell it to Europe.” The venom, which is exported to France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland, is used to produce cosmetics, painkillers and antibiotics, Metin reported. He avowed that one mere litre of the venom is worth $10 million. How big is your new boat then, Mr. O.? He points to a ship in the distance belonging to a local diamond merchant. “Twice the size of that one,” he smiles. “It takes the sting out of all the difficult work.” Even in Turkey, they’re always looking for a straight man.
Somebody Turn On The Thackersignal!
A California man who is no relation to Will Thacker has been arrested and charged with smuggling more than 1700 wild animals into the United States, including 60 reptiles hidden in his clothing. That’s seventeen hundred, folks, about the same total as the population of Trenton, Florida, though likely twice as charming. Is this lax customs control or what? How do you get past customs with snakes wriggling around your pants legs? Are they just afraid to look further?
Jose Manuel Perez of beautiful Oxnard, Cal entered pleas to two counts of smuggling and a charge of wildlife trafficking. What about the rest of them? Prosecutors said that from 2016 to this February, Perez and several accomplices used social media to smuggle animals, including baby crocodiles, Mexican beaded lizards and box turtles from Hong Kong and the Yucatan into the United States. Perez paid accomplices a crossing fee to drive animals from Mexico to El Paso, Texas where he had them shipped to his family’s Ventura Country home and sold them to customers throughout the U.S.
He also made some three dozen trips south of the border himself to pick up animals and was arrested on February 25 while trying to enter the country with 60 reptiles hidden in bags of his clothing. Think of the fun time authorities had opening those surprise packages. The smuggled reptiles were worth approximately $739,000 according to somebody who knows how to figure these things out. Perez promptly fled to Tijuana but was soon captured and returned. He could face up to 20 years in federal prison for each smuggling count when he’s sentenced on December 1. Somewhere in Chichen Itza, the box turtles are smiling.
Maybelline, Why Can’t You Be True?
Some days you just feel like driving your golf cart on the interstate. An unnamed 58-year-old Florida woman we’ll call Doris was in the mood recently, zipping up a handy ramp onto busy I-95 in Brevard County. Wishing to remain sufficiently hydrated, she toted a 750 ml bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey along with her. This was quite amusing to a semi driver who spotted the woman driving in the middle lane until she realized Doris was on the verge of passing out. The lady trucker used her vehicle to nudge the golf cart to the shoulder of the road.
Once the dazed Doris was stopped, her benefactor grabbed the keys as the wobbly cart driver tried to motor away. Florida Highway Patrol troopers soon arrived at the scene and seized an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire Whiskey, which is not recommended for amateur drinkers or interstate travel. Doris, alas, is now facing misdemeanor charges of disorderly intoxication, resisting an officer without violence and golf cart abuse.
Trooper Dave of the FHP commented, “There’s a right way and a wrong way for intoxicated golf car ladies to negotiate our roadways. When sufficiently compromised, always stick to the right lane and do not let your minimum speed fall below 40 miles per hour. Otherwise you’re good.”
A big Thank You and a tip o’ the cap to Trooper Dave.
That’s all, folks….
