That's Entertainment!
One notably hypersuccessful YouTube channel (700,000 subscribers) features Mr. Lauri Vuohensilta of Finland pulverizing various objects (such as a bowling ball) in a 100-ton hydraulic press. "I think it's built into every person—the need to destroy something," Vuohensilta says. That channel is free of charge, but other entrepreneurs have created 24-hour pay-per-month websites and apps offering similarly specialized programming, e.g., "Zombie Go Boom" (actors taking chain saws to things; $5 a month), "Hungry Monk Yoga" (posing in orange robes while teaching martial arts; $15 a month), and "Lather Fantasies" (clothed people "excessively 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
Restaurants in Tokyo continue their vigilance for unique, attention-demanding animal themes to attract diners. Eateries showcasing tableside cats, rabbits, owls, hawks and even snakes have tried their hands, with the latest being Harry, offering food and drink—and 20 to 30 teacup-size hedgehogs for diners to fondle while awaiting meal service. The equivalent of $9 brings an hour of cuddling rights.
Fine Points of the Law
In some states, as News of the Weird has reported, visitors with the barest "right" to occupy property (e.g., invited in for one night but never left) cannot be evicted except by 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 away.)
• The two most recent instances of suspects who claimed that the drugs or paraphernalia found in their genitals during police searches were not theirs (but were only being stored there for other people) were Tiffany Flores, 23, arrested in Fellsmere, Fla., on April 5 with a crack pipe in her vagina, and Deondre Lumpkin, 23, arrested in Largo, Fla., on March 22 with crack cocaine "concealed beneath his genitals" (though he did admit owning the marijuana found in his car).
Smooth Getaway
The December burglary of the Halifax bank in Sale, England, drew attention even though the hour was just after midnight—because Jamie Keegan and Marc Shelton (both age 33) had tried to haul away an ATM, but it fell out the back of their van, producing calamitous noise (and sparks in the road). (Also, the ATM had an "out of order" sign on it, raising still another question about the efficacy of the crime.) In February the Minshull Street Crown Court sentenced the pair to 40 months each in prison. (Bonus: In court, Shelton helpfully corrected the legal record by reminding officials that the pair's crime was actually "burglary" and not, as written, "robbery.")
• The most recent suspect to have the bright idea to try biting off his fingertips (to avoid identification) was Kirk Kelly, wanted in Tampa for violating probation and picked up by police in February in Akron, Ohio. While being detained in Akron, he had begun to chew the skin off his fingers. Even if he had succeeded, he was easily identified as Kirk Kelly because of his body tattoos ("Port Tampa" and "813"—Tampa's area code).
More DIY Masters
Randy Velthuizen had lived in the house in Everson, Wash., for 20 years, but in April, he accidentally set it afire while attempting to kill weeds with a blowtorch. It was an uninsured total loss. "It just made downsizing a hell of a lot easier," Velthuizen says.
• In January, four units in an apartment house in midtown Detroit were accidentally burned out by a tenant attempting to kill a bedbug that had bitten him. He had tried to light it up, but by the time the flames were extinguished, he was badly burned, his and three adjacent units were uninhabitable and two dozen others had suffered water damage.
• Sex 'n' Veggies: Emergency surgeons at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Costa Rica removed an 18-inch-long "yuca" (cassava root) from the posterior of a 55-year-old man in April after one of the two condoms encasing it ruptured inside him. A photograph in San Juan's Diario Extra showed that the yuca had been carved into a phallic shape. Apparently, the man avoided what could have been catastrophic internal injury.
• Funeral directors who mix up bodies (either accidentally or, in some cases, fraudulently) are not uncommon, but Thomas Clock III of Clock Funeral Home at White Lake (Whiteside, Mich.) was charged with a bit more in April. Not only did Clock allegedly fail to bury the ashes of the late Helen Anthony in December (interring an empty box instead), but when the family asked for a specific burial date, Clock allegedly told them that no workers were available and that the family would have to dig the cemetery plot themselves—for which Clock helpfully advised using a "post hole digger." (And they did.)
Two News of the Weird All-Time Favorites
Obsessive litigant Jonathan Lee Riches asked a federal court in Billings, Mont., in April to somehow issue a well-meaning "restraining" order against Donald Trump—to force Trump out of the presidential race on the ground that he fears assassination. Riches wrote that he loves and adores Trump but suggested as a candidate John McCain (who is "less fiery").
• Mr. "Beezow Doo-doo Zopittybop-bop-bop," 34, was arrested in January for assaulting an Evergreen State College (Olympia, Wash.) police officer. Mr. Zoppitybop-bop-bop (originally, Jeffrey Wilschke) had made News of the Weird several years back with arrests under his new name in Wisconsin and Iowa.
Thanks this week to Sergio Brusin and Gary DaSilva, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.