Angry Santa

Here's a treat from weird news of Christmases past. Published in the Miami Herald, Jan 4, 1984:


Phillippi was arrested at his home, and police later recovered the Santa Claus suit.

The Bad Sleep Well

We've been alerted to the serial killer in Japan who's taking revenge for corporate fraud, as described in this article in today's NY TIMES. But what no one seems to have noticed is that we've already seen this scenario in a film. THE BAD SLEEP WELL is one of Akira Kurosawa's masterpieces, and details how a man whose father was killed by corrupt businessmen exacts his revenge. Here's the excellent trailer.

Cow-Costumed Woman Chases Children

We here at Weird Universe have been warning our readers for quite some time about the danger posed by cows who attack. (See here, here, and here.) It has now become apparent that this threat extends to women dressed up as cows.

Evidence: Michelle Allen of Middletown, Ohio was taken into custody for disorderly conduct that included chasing children, urinating on a neighbor's front porch, and causing traffic problems -- all while wearing a cow costume.

In case you have any desire to imitate Michelle this Halloween -- and I suspect many people will be doing so -- it looks like Amazon has a similar cow costume in stock.

(Thanks to everyone who forwarded us this story!)

Marvin Hewitt, Imposter

Sometimes it seems as if credentials-faking imposters are a wholly recent phenomenon, due to our contemporary insistence on the all-important documentation needed to get ahead. But of course, the human race has churned out imposters ever since the days of Baron Munchausen and prior, giving our pal Alex plenty of material for his Museum of Hoaxes.

I ran across a fifty-year-old case recently in Life magazine from April 12, 1954. The perp was one Marvin Hewitt, and he managed to masquerade as a college-level physics professor, among other positions!

You can read most of the article here. The ending, unfortunately, was missing from my issue of the zine.


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Follies of the Mad Men #15

[From Life for May 22 1964.]

Our booze appeals mainly to Eighteenth-century highwaymen.

Criminal Confession For Sale

Ebay seller "pepullperson" once committed a crime that he's never told anyone about. But for the right price, he's willing to tell you. He says he's doing this to make some money so that his "loved ones are taken care of." Bidding is currently at $20, so he's well on his way.

My guess: He'll confess to committing eBay fraud. But what if the police are the winning bidders?

The Virtual Museum of Car Crashes

So many, many incidents in our Weird Universe terminate in car crashes. Yet this Ballardian motif has had to wait until just recently to receive its proper grisly homage, in the form of Car Accidents dot com.

Massachusetts Mooks

For its small size, my home state of Rhode Island has plenty of weird news. But living nextdoor to Massachusetts grants me access to the Bay State's copious bizarre headlines as well. Consider these two recent events:

First, a fellow thought he could drive around with a large safe jutting from his trunk and no one would question him. He has since pleaded not guilty




Second, a would-be bank-robber felt that the best way to simulate an extortionate explosive device was by stuffing road flares down his pants.

$62,000 Blow Job--Unconsumated!

Never bring sixty grand in cash in a duffel bag to an assignation with a $30 hooker. Or if you must, then at least cut back on the cognac consumption beforehand.

Life Imitates The Simpsons:  The Sip Joint

As anyone who has endured five minutes of conversation with me knows, I'll often relate real-life events to The Simpsons. That show, like the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, has now reached a canonical mass such that you may find a textual reference applicable to any real-world situation.

Today's printed version of THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL offers me another such occasion. There's an article headlined "Police Raid After-Hours 'Sip Joint' in Silver Lake." Inexplicably, though, this piece is not online, so far as I can google. But the barebones of the tale is told in a subheading. "A 17-year-old male who was allegedly caught dispensing beer has been referred to the Youth Services Bureau for prosecution in Family Court."

An older article which is still available gives us this definition of a "sip joint."

"A sip joint, according to the police, is a place where a bar is set up — usually a house — for the illegal sale of alcoholic beverages at times when bars are closed."

Now, I've often been strapped for cash, but I've never once thought of setting up a tavern in my residence. Yet to geniuses like Homer Simpson, such a plan is their first instinct, as we saw at the end of this episode.

The term "sip joint" itself seems exceedingly rare, and perhaps limited to Rhode Island.

Can readers supply instances of this practice, and what it's called, from their own regions?

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.