The Year in Weird: The 10 Most Insane News Stories of 2011

If you’re at all familiar with FilmDrunk, you probably know the drill: we normally report the film-related stories, but if there’s a weird story out there, you can bet we’ll find the film-related angle, no matter how tenuous. Or, we’ll just ignore our mandate completely so that we can post a funny headline. Hey, that’s just how we roll. If keeping it real is a crime, send me to prison. And put me in the realness section, I can’t hang with the rest of these phonies.
So, in honor of those stories so nutty that posting them was its own justification, here they are, the craziest stories of 2011.

ADDITIONAL AWARDS PRESENTED AT AN EARLIER CEREMONY
Before we get to the insane stories, there were some other fantastic stories that don’t quite qualify as “insane.” We presented those earlier at a private event in front of select media and cats in funny costumes.
CUTEST NEWS STORY: Baby Asian Mr. T.
Who could forget that 2011 was the year that we were introduced to Scout, the adorable infant whose ingenious father had a vision that chubby baby fat would make perfect muscles? Scout has grown up a bit, she’s walking now and impersonating Jared Allen, but if there’s one thing that we’ve learned, it’s that chubby Asian babies are the cutest ever, and if you’re lucky enough to have one, you should absolutely dress them up in hilarious costumes and take pictures of them before they get old enough to stop you.
CUTEST CRIMINAL: New Zealand’s Breaking and Entering Seal

If there’s any type of breaking and entering that could happen to a person that’s better than a fur seal that crawls into your house and falls asleep on the couch, I’ve yet to see it.

My God, that seal is the Baby Asian Mr. T of the animal kingdom. And as if it couldn’t get any better, the seal crawled into the front seat of the animal control van and cranked up the radio. He’s every children’s movie screenwriter’s fantasy come to life.
SEXIEST NEWS STORY: Larry Jamison, Rape Van Photographer

If there are two things in this world we love, it’s rape vans (relax, it’s just a type of van, much like “wifebeater” is a type of shirt) and vintage photography. So when we discovered that rape van driver Larry Jamison was ALSO a master of vintage photography, it was like opening a Christmas present only to find an otter in a birthday hat inside to indicate that it was also our birthday. And the world would never be the same.

BEST HEADLINE: “Libya Ferrets Out Ghadafi’s Taint”

Well that’s just thorough reporting right there. Great job, Washington Express.

The Year in Weird

Back in October, Al-Ahram reported that an Iraqi gang attempted to kidnap Mohammed Bishr from a marketplace in Egypt. Their motive? They wanted to make a porno with the Saddam look-alike Bishr as the star. According to Bishr’s son, the same guys had previously offered him $300,000 to do the porno, but he had refused, because he apparently thinks his private parts are made of rare platinum and rubies, or maybe he just has really ugly balls. But once he’d refused the money, the gang reverted to the old Latin drug gang motto, plata o plomo, which of course means “silver or jizz?”, meaning accept a bribe to do a porno or we’ll extract the money shot by force. Sadly for them, Bishr fought his way out of the van, and they never got to make a porno with a Saddam look alike, pass it off as genuine, and sell it to the media, as was their plan, perhaps the most complex get-rich-quick scheme in the history of crime.

NUMBER 9: Man with fabulous mullet tries to kill his girlfriend with an exploding dildo.

On New Year’s Day last year, Terry Allen Lester here was accused of planting an explosive in a dildo intended for one of his ex-girlfriends. She must’ve been a real prize for him to have that kind of sour grapes, because with a mullet like Lester’s, I imagine you’d have to beat the pussy off with a tire iron. “Your honor? The only thing I’m guilty of is having a righteous neck warmer.”

WASECA, Minn. (WCCO) — A Waseca man is accused of planting an explosive device inside a sex toy intended for one of his ex-girlfriends.
37-year-old Terry Allen Lester has been charged with felony counts of creating an explosive device and making terroristic threats.
The incident was reported on New Year’s Day. Authorities said Lester had been staying with the apparent intended victim and another woman. He had been forced to leave the apartment by the landlord but left behind bags, one of which contained a container marked “Christmas Gifts.”

I imagine he had an earlier plan that involved convincing the girl to stand on a giant “X.” “Come on, babe. It’s a surprise.”

Lester allegedly mentioned to one of the two roommates his intentions, so they reported their suspicions about the bags to police.
The criminal complaint says police found a sex toy inside the package that had been modified with gun powder and buck shot, which were connected to a trigger inside the battery port.
Police say the device was missing a key starting element, but it still could have exploded. . [MICBSLocal]

Unfortunately, I can’t find an update on whether Mr. Lester was convicted. A good lawyer could’ve gotten him off though. Who’s to say he was trying to hurt her? Maybe she was just a tough old broad, hard to please, like a female Nick Nolte, and a dildo filled with black powder and buckshot was just the kind of thrill she was after.

NUMBER 8: Man caught trying to marinate live cat in the trunk of his car.

Not to be outdone by the creativity of dildo gunsmith Terry Allen Lester, Gary Korkuc of Cheektowaga, N.Y was caught on his way to Buffalo with a cat marinating in his trunk. A live cat, a car trunk, and crushed red pepper — it was almost the perfect basket ingredients for an episode of speed-freak Chopped.

The animal was found in a liquid mixture of oil, crushed pepper, salt and other ingredients. Korkuc told police it was in preparation for a meal.
The cat, a male, survived. Several baths cleaned him of the concoction, and he seemed to be in good health otherwise, said Erie County SPCA spokeswoman Gina Browning.
Korkuc, 52, appeared in Buffalo City Court, where he is charged with felony aggravated cruelty to an animal and several traffic charges. [Reuters]

He apparently changed his story later, because another report of the incident has him telling a different story:

“It had miscarried and that was its blood and I was taking it back over to ASPCA when they stopped me,” he said.

And if you were reading that first block quote closely, you know that there was one major problem with this explanation: the cat was a neutered male. Nice try, Gary Korkuc. May your culinary adventurousness be better appreciated in prison.  “Ooh, he made a mousseline out of phlegm and spiced it with rat droppings, very creative.”
Number 7: Rooster stabs man to death at a cock fight.
In the ultimate man-bites-dog story, back in February, a cock stabbed a dickhead. Jose Luis Ochoa was pronounced dead in Delano, California (central Cal represent!) as a result of a “sharp force injury” to his right calf during a cock fight. But every story has a happy ending, and the rooster went on to win all of his matches that night.
On a sidenote, “BLED TO DEATH AT A COCK FIGHT” would be a pretty badass headstone.
NUMBER 6: “Attorney challenges woman to naked sword duel”
In August, we heard about Terry Lee Locy, a (where else) Florida lawyer who seemed to be channeling the spirit of fellow unhinged lawyer Dr. Gonzo. First he got in a drunken fight with his girlfriend, lifted a mirror off the wall, and tried to hit her with it. This backfired when she grabbed the hook the mirror had been hanging on, and threw it at Locy and made his head bleed. He went to the shower to wash off the blood, and when he came back (still naked)….

a nude Locy handed a sheathed sword to his girlfriend and said, “You’re going to need this,” the court document states.

And there you have the difference between a duel and a fight. Duels have a sense of decorum.

Locy then retrieved a larger sword, pulled it from the sheath and told her, “I’m going to kill you,” the affidavit says.
Hibbs wrote that after the woman tried to run away, he “slammed” her onto the living room couch, where he punched her several times. She managed to free herself and call 9-1-1.
The girlfriend told investigators that Locy left the house with the sword. He was still naked. [FloridaToday]

Of course he was. Crime is clothing optional at best in Florida.

NUMBER 5: Ren faire dad punishes teen stepdaughter with 2-hour sword duel.
In October, we met Yelm, Washington’s Fremon Seay, who met his stepdaughter’s decision to go to a party without permission with the ultimate punishment: historical reenactment. (With a name like “Fremon Seay,” he was destined to become a LARPer).

According to police, the teen was forced to dress in armor and fight her stepfather with a wooden sword for two hours. Police also said the stepfather beat his stepdaughter with a tree branch prior to the duel. Investigators said she collapsed from exhaustion. [MSNBC]

The evil emperor pulled that same dirty trick on Maximus. That’s just unfair gladiating. Seay and his wife were brought up on charges, though it’s unclear whether they were convicted. Either way, it reminds me of the old saying, “every time medieval armor clangs, a saucy wench learns her place.”
NUMBER 4: Dwarf who played Gordon Ramsay in porn eaten by badgers
In September, we learned of the untimely passing of a dwarf Gordon Ramsay look alike, whose half-eaten corpse was found in an underground chamber in Wales where the Ministry of Agriculture had been gassing badgers. At the time, suicide had not been ruled out. Movie producer Dexter Yamunkeh said: “Percy was a little guy with big problems.”
Later, it turned out that this story wasn’t true at all, and seems to have been concocted out of whole cloth by the Sunday Sport, based on one picture they saw of a dwarf who sort of looked like Gordon Ramsay. It’s a fake story, but it still makes this list, because come on, points for panache. Any jackass can make up a story about a dwarf pornstar who looks like a celebrity, it takes a brilliant tabloid mind to first invent the dwarf look alike pornstar, then kill him off in a gassed badger suicide. The Sunday Sport takes this year’s fake story Pulitzer by a mile.
NUMBER 3: Guy who threw hot dog at Tiger Woods says he was inspired by the movie Drive.
31-year-old Petaluma native (I’m somewhat disturbed that Northern California has featured more prominently than Florida on this list) Brandon Kelly gets my “Insane News Personality” of the year award. That’s because back in October, Kelly threw a hot dog at Tiger Woods as he was leaving the seventh green at CordeValle Golf Club near San Jose during the Frys.com Open. He later gave the following interview:

“I threw the hot dog toward Tiger Woods because I was inspired by the movie ‘Drive,’” Kelly said. “As soon as the movie ended, I thought to myself, ‘I have to do something courageous and epic. I have to throw a hot dog on the green in front of Tiger.’” [SantaRosaPressDemocrat]

I’m a firm believer that the punishment should fit the crime, and I think Brandon Kelly’s punishment should be to write a feature-length screenplay as a vehicle for Crispin Glover.
NUMBER TWO: ‘Bangbus’ pornstar arrested with a dead goat and three live ones in his van.
If you’ll remember, last year on this list, a male porn was featured prominently after he went on a sword rampage and ended up getting tazed off a cliff to his death on live TV (“…and I think to my-self, what a wonderful woooooorld…”). Not to be outdone, Raul Armenteros, aka Ramon from Bangbus, not that I would know who that is of course, locked up his spot on this year’s list in July, when Miami (ha!) police were called to his van by what passersby thought were the cries of a child. Turns out it wasn’t a child at all, just a few kids, and Armenteros was arrested with “8 roosters, 4 guinea hens, 4 pigeons, 4 goats (three live, one dead) and 1 duck” in his van. I hardly see why the hen’s race should matter, but the important thing is that somewhere in Miami, a man’s walking around with two turtle doves in his ass.
I’m still waiting for someone to do a follow-up story, because f*ck the debt ceiling, what I really want to know is what he was planning to do with all those animals. It’s 2011’s greatest mystery.
NUMBER ONE: “Man eats coke from brother’s butt, dies.”
I hate to poke fun at a man’s death, but COME ON. Even I have to admit, it gets a little less funny when you hear all the details:

A case of brotherly love in South Carolina turned deadly after a young man agreed to eat cocaine hidden in his older sibling’s buttocks, then died of an overdose.
Deangelo Mitchell [right] is seen in a police car video guilting his brother into ingesting the illegal substance because, he is heard saying, “I can’t get no more strikes.”
The 23-year-old and his younger brother, Wayne, were pulled over by police for a busted tail light on Nov. 30 in North Charleston, according to ABC News 4.
The pair was handcuffed and put into the back of a squad car, police said. The video then shows Deangelo panic over his arrest, and beg his brother to help.
“Eat that sh*t, so I can get out,” he says in the video. “One of us gotta do it, you the only one that don’t have any strikes… You my little brother… I’m gonna get life.”
The 20-year-old eventually gives in. Deangelo can be seen removing something from his backside, then Wayne leans down and eats the drugs, police said.
“I love you, bro,” Wayne says in the video after consuming the narcotic. [NYDailyNews]

Well that’s kind of a bummer– aw, dammit, I was even trying to avoid a butt joke there. Still, for bringing “butt coke” into the vernacular, Deangelo and the late Wayne Mitchell easily earned the top spot on this list. The younger sibling also deserves brother of the year honors, for being the kind of guy who would literally bend over backwards to eat the coke out of your butt to keep you from going to jail. Ironically, the elder may still end up getting his third strike, as he was charged with involuntary manslaughter (you can’t spell “manslaughter” without “laughter!”) in his brother’s death (which seems wildly unfair). It’s a Shakespearian tragedy, when you think about it.
So when you take your drink on New Year’s Eve, pour one out for all the crazy bastards who died or had to post bail on hot dog throwing and goat abuse charges, just to make our lives seem a little better.

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