TAT CHANCE
David Winkelman, 48, was arrested in Davenport, Iowa, in September on a misdemeanor warrant, still sporting “The Tattoo.” In late 2000, Winkelman, reacting to a radio contest, had his forehead inked with the logo of radio station KORB, “93 Rock,” because he had heard on-air personalities offer $100,000 to anyone who would do it. Winkelman had the tattoo done before checking, however, and the disk jockeys later informed him that the “contest” was a joke. Winkelman filed a lawsuit against the station, but it was dismissed. Ten years later, the “93 Rock” format has expired, but Winkelman’s forehead remains forever marked.
CALIFORNIA CHURLS
For most of 2010, California’s dysfunctional legislature could find no acceptable tax increases or spending cuts to keep the state from going broke, and only in October did it manage to cobble together enough pie-in-the-sky bookkeeping tricks to create the illusion of a balanced budget. Nonetheless, the legislature has been busy. It created a “Motorcycle Awareness Month” and a “Cuss Free Week,” considered changing the official state rock, and made it illegal to use non-California cows in the state’s marketing materials—a decision that entailed five committee votes and exhausted eight legislative analyses, according to a September Wall Street Journal report.
PERFORMANCE ANXIETY
A September one-woman “dance” recital of performer-writer Ann Liv Young as a naked “Cinderella” at a theater in Brooklyn, New York, ran overtime because Young could not answer a scripted call of nature, which was to have been performed live on stage. According to an incredulous New York Times reviewer, Young sought tips from the audience to get her bowels moving but finally gave up and ended the performance. The reviewer cited the show’s “many layers of failure.”
ROBBER BALLS
The ski-mask-wearing armed robber who knocked off a Wendy’s in Atlanta on July 31 has not been apprehended, but police said he later called the store to ridicule the staff for having so little cash: “Next time, there better be more than $586.” (2) Ronald White, 35, was arrested in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, in July and charged with shoplifting, and was released after posting $400 bail. Only afterward did police realize that some of the money was counterfeit, but five days later, White was re-arrested when he returned to the station to demand a partial refund for “overpaying” the bail.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Donald N. Duck, 51 (arrested for DUI, Massillon, Ohio, June). Lord Jesus Christ, 50 (pedestrian injury, Northampton, Massachusetts, May). Tara Wang (marrying Austin DeCock in Moorhead, Minnesota, in October). Jerry Dick, 46 (pleaded guilty to indecent exposure, Greensboro, North Carolina, August). Kermit Butts, 26 (arrested in the slaying of Samuel Boob, Madisonburg, Pennsylvania, August). Cum Starkweather, 56 (arrested for prostitution, Springfield, Ohio, August).
PLAYING THEM FOR FUELS
In September, when Ms. Nomatter Tagarira was sentenced to 39 months in jail for fraud, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and several officials were hoping to close the book on an embarrassing episode. Tagarira had convinced them in 2007 that she had the ability, by chanting into a rock, to find diesel fuel in the ground and make it shoot to the surface. Of course, this could only be accomplished by Tagarira’s having henchmen behind bushes using a pump, but apparently it worked, as she was rewarded with a $2.7 million fee and given use of a 50-vehicle convoy for her dowsing missions. Her ruse was not discovered until a year later.
INCOMPETENT CRIMINALS
Larry Shawn Taylor, 18, was arrested in Seattle in September, having been rather easily identifiable when police stopped him. Two victims had reported being robbed by a man with “GET MONEY” shaved into his haircut on one side and “GET” tattooed on his right hand and “MONEY” tattooed on the left. (At least Taylor did not claim that someone else must have had the same configuration.)
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