oddball, weird, assorted: July 2008 Archives

A massage parlor offering massages by "lovely Asian girls" and "professional and cute Asian girls." has run afoul of the Duarte City Council, according to a story by Nathan McIntire.

I love this paragraph from the story, which is still being edited:

Duarte Acupuncture Center is listed as an "erotic massage parlor" by an online escort listing service. Reviews from patrons posted to that site describe sexual acts that were allegedly performed there.

Well, no wonder they are in trouble ...I'll post a link to the story when it goes live.

A guy accused of stealing posters outside a Michigan movie theater had an interesting get up. he was dressed as the Joker. Seems the cops got the last laugh, making him pose for a mug shot in character. He doesn't look too happy to me though.

Here's the story from Three Rivers Mi:

THREE RIVERS -- An overzealous Joker fan was taken into custody Sunday morning after attempting to steal movie posters and other items, police said.

Spencer Taylor, 20, of Three Rivers, was arrested on felony larceny and malicious destruction of property charges after trying to steal memorabilia of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" at the Three Rivers 6 theater.

Taylor was dressed in  makeup resembling the "Joker."

 

Apparently an argument led to this. Four people were injured. One seriously. Here's the story:

WEST COVINA - The DJ at a house party was arrested early Sunday after he allegedly stabbed two people and hit two others with his car, authorities said.

Luis Perez, 23, of Baldwin Park was arrested shortly after the incident and was booked on suspicion of attempted murder, West Covina police Lt. Marcos Plebani said.

The alleged attack occurred about 2 a.m. at a house in the 1600 block of West Louisa Avenue, he said.

"He slashed one person in the back yard, then stabbed another person multiple times in the front yard," Plebani said.

A 26-year-old man was hospitalized with three stab wounds to his stomach and lower chest, said West Covina Fire Department Capt. Jim Rudroff.

The injuries were initially believed to be life threatening, however the wounded man was expected to survive after undergoing surgery, police and fire officials said. Another man suffered a superficial stab wound but did not seek treatment from fire officials.

Brian Day reports that the so-called "vampire" pre school bandit has been caught in a park in Temple City.

Our original post said:

Suspect Scott Raymond Lopez broke into Montessori Academy preschool, 1030 E. Merced Ave., ransacked it and urintated on the floor on on Thursday, July 10, 2008. Equipment was found piled up as if the burglar had intended to steal it, however nothing but food was believed to have been stolen.

We're not sure what sort of food you can steal from a pre school. I'm guessing "Teddy Grahams." Tania Chatils said it was more likely carrot sticks --since the school is a "Montessori" academy.

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A police lieutenant in Daytona Beach was fired over accusations that he threatened slower emergency response times if he was not given complimentary specialty Starbucks coffee drinks.

Story here.

From Fox News 

NOVI, Mich. --  A 33-year-old Clarkston man faces two 20-year felonies after authorities say he arranged a meeting for sex with an online contact he believed was a 14-year-old girl and showed up wearing a T-shirt that read: "World's Greatest Dad."

Daniel Allen Everett was arraigned Tuesday in Novi district court on charges of child sexual abuse and using the Internet to attempt child sexual abuse.

Magistrate Andra Dudley set bond at $50,000 cash.

Meth inspections!

Worried about squatters using your failed real estate investment as a meth lab?

This guy has the answer. He's the meth inspector.

One of the latest concerns in the Northern Utah real estate marketplace is Meth-Lab contamination, and we can perform this sample testing service for you in a timely manner. The financial liabilities are real and they are stacked against whoever currently owns the property. Until the laws are changed, it is buyer beware.

<snip>

Wonkette has a copy of a letter sent by U.S. Rep. David Dreier to constituents in the 26th Congressional District.

Here's what Wonkette says:

Everybody in California's 26th congressional district got this crazy-ass ALL CAPS hand-written freakout from beloved conservative bachelor David Dreier today. You can read the second page of ALL CAPS "MUST DRILL 4 OIL AT SEA WORLD OR ISLAMO FASCISTS WILL KILL KILL KILL" in the comments of basically all blogs everywhere.

I think the reference to the second page is a joke. BTW, here's what folks in Washington think about the San Gabriel Valley: (this comes from the comments to the same post)

You East Coast Wankers have to realize with what you are dealing.

California's 26th Congressional District is way out in the San Gabriel Valley, where it's hot as hades; there are no jobs; real estate values are in the toilet, and EVERYBODY has to DRIVE to get someplace else that is more semi-habitable, e.g., L.A.

So the Fine Folks From The 26th would approve shoving a Hughes Tool Co. diamond-studded drill bit up the behind of a cherubic 9 month old baby if they thought it would bring gas prices down.

If you don't believe me, consider this: Rancho Cucamonga is one of the larger "cities" in the 26th. (I kid you not.)

And the demographics look like this:
Median Household Income: $68,968 (most of which is generated by meth labs)

8.4% are below the poverty line (that's the National poverty line. Applying California Cost of Living standards, it's more like 40%

Occupation:

17.3% blue collar (i.e., no teeth bikers who buy the meth)
70.7% white collar (tweeker lab techs)
As of 2002, there are 639,088 people in the 26th District of California.

35.4% are registered Democratic (White trash)
46.4% are registered Republican (More white trash)
5.2% are African American (Running scared from The Man)
16.7% are Asian-American (Running scared to school)
24.4% are Hispanic (Running scared from La Migra)

David Dreier is PERFECT for them.

LA Observed points to a post on Eater LA labeled as a "serious rant." Here's the gist: Some moron at the County Health Department has decided that the mustard at Philippe's is "unsanitary."

As far as I know (and I have several T-Shirts to prove it) Philippe's has been in business for 100 years -- since 1908 to be exact. County officials and city officials eat there often. So what happened? Did some health inspector not get invited to lunch with the boss and decide to take it out on the restaurant?  That's my guess.

Any attack on this fine eating establishment is an attack on all of us who love french dip and sawdust floors.

Here's the rant:

Blasphemy! From one angry French dip lover: "Who's the stupid idiot in the health department that forced the removal of the Mustard pots on the tables at Philippe!? Are they serious? A 100 year old tradition out the window because of some by-the-book bs! Seriously?! If it was good enough in 1908, it's good enough for 2008. They have a squeeze-ee bottle at the counter with little paper cups you can fill up. But really. Come on! After 100 years, NOW it's unsanitary

Moe-Squatch beats Moe-Dini 13 votes to 11 votes. Way to participate!

Here's the seven other suggestions:

Abused

Moe Trouble than he's worth

pendejo

Hedeir Nomo

MOE

moe'z-gone wild

Moe mentum

YUCK!

This from the Portland Oregonian by way of the Associated Press:

The University of Washington says its computer keyboards will now be cleaned weekly, after a student research project found high levels of fecal coliform bacteria on some of them.

The students found the bacteria on keyboards at two busy areas on the Seattle campus -- Odegaard Undergraduate Library and Mary Gates Hall. Fecal coliform is a bacteria found in fecal matter.

 

Most nights, the night editor Kate Kealey, or the night cops reporter Brian Day will send me notes on criminal activity in the SGV and Whitter that we need to check on in the morning.

Here's last night's note:

Heard over the scanner reports of a man that doused himself in gasoline and threatened to set himself on fire. Made a few calls to track it down. Sheriff's San Dimas Station is handling it. All the watch commander could do was confirm it, say that they were handling it and that it happened in the 4300 block of Bell Chase Avenue in unincorporated county area near Covina. He was still waiting on a briefing from the lieutenant, which wasn't going to happen until later.

Just noticed this among the comments on Curbed LA after writing a column on tagging and graffiti in early June:

You have spouted a lot of innuendo about graffiti and graffiti writers - but where does all of your wonkish knowledge come from?

I'd ask the same question of Frank Girardot, but he's probably doing bong rips in his editorial office and high fiving his interns for laying the smack down on the menace of unsactioned wall painters.

If these people didn't write their name all over your visual landscape, would you even know or care that they existed?

Moe the missing chimp continues to elude searchers. Friday will be the two week anniversary of Moe's escape from Jungle Exotics, a Devore company that provides animals to the entertainment industry, and searchers have yet to find any trace of the mischievous chimp. 
That's not to say there hasn't been Moe sightings, one of the first unconfirmed sightings occurred at a nudist camp near Jungle Exotics.  This Sunday two separate calls to the California Highway Patrol reported a monkey, or a man in a monkey suit, running in and out of traffic near Big Bear.
But Michael McCasland, the man heading up search efforts for Moe's owners, St. James and Ladonna Davis, still believes Moe is hiding in a canyon directly behind the enclosure from which he made his Houdini-like escape. McCasland, and area wildlife experts agree that a chimp could live for weeks or even months in the San Bernardino National Forest, that is if he didn't fall victim to a rattlesnake bite.
McCasland is urging concerned Moe fans to donate money for a helicopter.  McCasland believes that flying through the canyons will scare Moe out.
As for me, my money is on Moe turning up in a NJ train yard.

The e-mail I received Sunday from my former colleague Phil Drake ended simply:

"P.S. Did they ever catch Moe?"

Monday morning it was the first thing I asked our intern Thomas Himes, who has been on "Moe Watch" almost since coming to the paper from his Ivy League university in Pennsylvania.

When another reporter questioned my news judgment, I responded, "How the hell did the Washington Post get access to the search for Moe? We've got to stay on this."

About 30 minutes later, Thomas told me the closest thing to a Moe sighting over the long Fourth of July weekend was reports of a man in a chimp suit running in traffic near Big Bear.

"Yeah," he said. "Someone said they saw a man dressed like a monkey off the side of the road. Or, maybe it was a monkey. No one's sure."

The story of Moe the chimp has grown to legendary proportions over the past several years. In the 1970s and '80s he lived with St. James and LaDonna Davis at their Vincent Avenue home in West Covina.

The chimp starred in "B.J. and the Bear" - a TV take on Burt Reynolds' "Smokey and the Bandit" - with a monkey!

As one of several chimps who played Bear, Moe and his human companion B.J. outwitted the dimwitted Sheriff Lobo in episode after episode.

After a run-in with the West Covina police in 1998 and a biting incident the next year, Moe was removed from the Davises' house and placed at the Animal Haven Ranch near Bakersfield.

Then, on Moe's birthday in 2005, the Davises were mauled by two jealous apes as they delivered a birthday cake to their beloved chimp. St. James lost his nose and his testicles defending LaDonna from the berserk animals.

Moe was moved again. This time to Jungle Exotics in Devore.

A few months ago the Davises were in the news again, when LaDonna's purse was stolen from a shopping cart at a Target store. They held a press conference with super attorney Gloria Allred and a few days later the suspected purse snatcher was caught.

Moe's story is big enough that the Washington Post, famed home of Woodward and Bernstein, paid reporter William Booth to travel to Devore last week and discuss Moe's latest misadventure with the Davises.

Booth's editors sent him here during a historic presidential election. He was given the assignment to cover a missing chimp at a time when oil and gas prices have reached all-time highs.

The hunt for Bin Laden has dragged on for years. The Iranians are about to go nuclear. Foreclosures are on the rise and banks like IndyMac of Pasadena are near collapse.

Yet, the Washington Post, the paper of record in our nation's capital, has assigned a reporter to write about an escaped monkey.

There's a good explanation though.

"Usually, a piece about an escaped chimpanzee is catnip to news editors, especially over a long holiday weekend. Like a good shark attack (or poodle-eating alligators or lurid panda sex), your missing-chimp story is a leafy green perennial of the news business," Booth wrote.

I'll second that.

Monrovia seems to be in a lot of news stories these days. From NBC in San Diego:

Authorities want to talk to the mother of one of two girls, ages 12 and 8, who disappeared from San Dimas with their foster parents' car.

Two girls, ages 12 and 8, were reported missing Monday from their foster home in San Dimas, along with their foster parents' car, which the older girl may be driving, the sheriff's department reported. Sheriff's investigators said the girls may have been abducted, and since the older girl's mother, identified as Iris Pineda Zavala, of Monrovia, cannot be located, that may be a possible lead in the case

 

Correspondent Thomas Himes, who is interning here for the summer will be providing periodic Moe the Chimp updates for Crime Scene. He said there's been reports of a man wearing a chimp suit having been sighted in Devore, near where search and rescue teams are looking for Moe

Here's his first update of the day...after this Tom is on his own ...

Moe's trail has grown cold. Four dogs were brought in to search for the missing primmate this past weekend, but have yet to find a scent.

"We just need a break, a sighting, a print, something." Michael McCasland a spokesperson for Moe's owners said."We're comfortable the dogs will be able to find him if they can pick up his scent."

Searchers are hoping for volunteer helicopter pilots to assist in the search over the next few days.

"We really need helicopters to fly up there and scare him out of the Canyons," McCasland said.

What would a Moe update be without a link to another site: Here's what Lassie, Get Help has to say about poor missing Moe, (quoting the Washingotn Post):

Usually, a piece about an escaped chimpanzee is catnip to news editors, especially over a long holiday weekend. Like a good shark attack (or poodle-eating alligators or lurid panda sex), your missing-chimp story is a leafy green perennial of the news business.

A longtime subscriber from Walnut called this morning to say she's had enough of Moe the Chimp. Here's a short transcript of what she told me:

"I think we've had enough of Moe on the front page I'd like to see world events on the front page I dont' think it should be that way.
I'm a long time subscriber in Walnut and what's important in this world today is our safety not Moe the Chimp. We need other news on the front page and Moe needs to go inside the paper.

Meanwhile, Moe's adventure through a nudist camp is heating up the blogs. Here's a sample:

A "Morning Zoo" show in Florida had this headline, Toilet-trained chimp on the run in Calif. Forest. Here's the link to WFLS.

Monkeys in the news goes with the nudist and rattlesnakes angle here. 

Trials and Trebulations has this story: "Moe and the US Celebrate Freedom"

Blogger Jessica Hardy reprints an Associates Press article then takes it to the Davises and Jungle Exotics:

Let's talk about the chimp being subjected to summersaults or better yet jumping through hoops of fire or riding on an elephant's back wearing a dress and some lipstick. With the name Jungle Exotic, I can only imagine what else might be going on between animals. If I was being molested for human purposes, I'd rather die in the wild too.

 

This from an IM after this story appeared on the net.

OK I know you HAD to have something to do with getting "NUDE" and "MOE" together in the same headline
Sex sells, and sex mixed with runaway chimps sells even more.
I think you guys have officially taken the whole Moe thing a little too far.

<snip>

Hey Frank, I think I spotted Moe!!!
He's turned up as a ... hemorroid. he's just like one, because you just can't GET RID OF HIM.
there's your next Web update..

*looks like the "Diary of  Nudist" blog  is uncovering more connections in this latest report.

 

 

 

Moe the chimp has taken over the blog-o-sphere. Here's some other views on West Covina's favorite simian:

TMZ.com says "Monkey Flee, Monkey Do."

Overlawyered has some interesting links and a comprehensive legal history of the Moe story.

Monkeys in the news, a blog that does just what it promises; ie; puts monkeys in the news.

As Maine goes is moe-tivated by the coverage;

Huffington Post gets in on the act.

The Chum Slick ("written by an actual shark")  praises St. James and LaDonna Davis for their commitment to Moe.

While we can't really endorse the housepetification of wildlife, we admire the Davis's commitment to Moe. Most people don't even have that kind of commitment to their own children. We hope Moe is safe in the overdeveloped "wilds" of Southern California.

Brian Day on Chimp Patrol today reports how the public can help in the search for Moe the Chimp:

*Park a car on Cajon Boulevard and keep watch for Moe with binoculars.

*If the chimp is cited, do not approach. Immediately call the San Bernardino County Animal Care and Control Program at (800) 472-5609.

*Stay clear of Jungle Exotics, 16215 Cajon Blvd., so Moe is not scared off should he try to return.

*Be on the lookout for chimp tracks or other evidence that Moe has been in the area. If found, report them immediately to animal control.

Reporter Brian Day is on "Chimp Patrol" today. He's keeping track of all the moving and shaking going on in the search for the missing marsupial monkey  ape.

Meanwhile the powers that be here in the newsroom are thinking of ways to capitalize on Mo Mania

"We can market shirts, coffee mugs, kites, commerative dvds with outtake videos, mouse pads;  mice shaped like Moe," said one skilled marketeer.

"Yeah and when people order it we tell em we can't find it ...it's missing," said another brilliant newsroom mind.

Meanwhile, I'm unveiling our official Chimp Patrol logo -- its at left.

Web readers are giving us differing opinions about Moe the Chimp coverage.

Crime Scene readers seem in favor of the coverage, while readers of the home page are against it.

We'll keep on top of it throughout the day and may consider switching to coverage of CM Punk.