I thought I might share my personal favorite items from the last year, for you.These first two came from an October column titled "You're Driving me Crazy:
ick-up truck home. So he enlisted the help of his friend, 48 year old Ed Marzinske. And when they were pulled over by the cops Harvey argued that because he was just steering while Ed operated the gas and brake pedals, he wasn’t technically “driving” the truck. But the cops arrested both men for DUI noting that, one, they were both technically “driving” the truck, two, they were both drunk, three, neither man had a current valid license, four, this was Harvey’s third DUI arrest and Ed’s second, and five, Harvey has no legs. Well, at least they weren’t “blind drunk”.You might think that the solution to the problem of HBW – humans behind the
wheel – would be modern technology, but you would be wrong, considering the determination and perseverance of humans. The classic proof of this "never-say-die" and "never-say-wait-a-minute-let’s-think-about-this" tendency of humans must be the story of Paula Ceely, a 20 year old student at Birmingham Collage who in February of this year decided to visit her boyfriend in the tiny Welsh village of Hebron, Carmarthenshire. And, since she had never been there before, Paula borrowed her boyfriend's SATNav unit, which is EuroSpeak for the Global Positioning System, system.
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Speaking of the SatNav unit Paula said later, “I just followed the directions it was giving me”, which might well be the e
pitaph for future generations of humans. For, as darkness and a blinding rain closed in on this night Paula dutifully followed the SatNav directions down a lonely and dark country lane, which ended at a white farm gate. At first she thought she had been directed to a dead end, but according to the SatNav this was the correct address. So Paula climbed out into the downpour, swung the gate open wide, drove through, and then stopped again and thoughtfully closed the gate behind her. Then to her surprise she noticed a second gate, so she pushed it open as well. And it was at this moment that Paula heard the approaching train.
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It was the 8 pm passanger express headed for Swansea, going 60 mph, 
and Paula had just parked her car right across its tracks. She had time to think about leaping into her car and driving it to safety, but luckily before she could try the several hundred ton express train smashed into her Renault Clio, slicing off the engine block and sending the broken hulk spinning half a mile down the track as if it had been kicked by a pissed off King Kong. Paula said later, 'The crossing wasn't shown…there were no signs at all and it wasn't lit up to warn of an oncoming train.”
*
Well, true, but there six signs at the crossing, including 
the instructions “STOP”, and “Phone Before Crossing”, which appeared on two separate signs. But, I guess Paula was expecting her borrowed SatNav unit to scream in an alarmed voice, “Paula, what the hell are you doing? There’s a train coming! Get the hell off the tracks!”And until some human invents something that does that, we humans are going to be on our own, God help us.
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And then there was the October story of the two slefish idiot stock brokers, I called, "An Idiot For A Client":
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Hedge fund manager Stuart Sugarman was pedaling his little heart out in ‘Spin Class’ at the Equinox Gym in Upper East Side of Manhattan,(“Initiation” fee $5K, membership 5K a year). He was also 
grunting like Tim Allen in a testicle clamp and shouting things like “You go girl!” This pissed off stock broker Chistopher Carter who was struggling to burn off a few carbs a bike or two away (In fact, some who witnessed the following confrontation say that Sugarman was working so enthusiastically 
he actually bumped into Carter’s cycle). After politely asking Sugarman to “shut the fuck up” a couple of times, and being dismissed by Mr. Sugarman,who alledgedly said “This is spin class; Grow up”, Mr. Carter then dismounted his bike and violently shoved Mr. Sugarman and his bike into the wall; thus proving the admonition to “grow up” was not taken seriously by either of these idiots.
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Stock Broker Mr. Carter then returned to his pedaling, and so did Hedge Fund Manager Mr. Sugarman - for another 45 minutes, but presumably with his big fat mouth shut this time. It was not until a few minutes after 
class that Mr. Sugarman says he started to feel neck pain. He then called for an ambulance (on his own cell phone). Should I think it odd that the gym, filled with trainers, did not offer to help or place the call for him? In any case, during his two week stay at Lenox Hill Hospital (during which time he allegedly required a 3 hour operation on his spine) Mr. Sugarman was informed (by phone) that his gym membership had been cancelled. Insult to injury, I guess.
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Mr. Sugarman’s lawyer (ah, you knew he had one!) came out swinging, calling the assault a case of “spin rage”, and Mr. Carter’s 
lawyer (and you knew he had one, too) called the press conference by Mr. Sugarman's lawyer an attempt to build a civil suit. The New York Post headlined the story, “Gym Victim Is Wheely Angry”, along with a picture of Sugarman in wheel chair and a neck brace, as if he was made up for a remake of “The Fortune Cookie”. But the Manhattan D.A. would only charge Carter with a misdemeanor assault, and I predict that in hte end at least one of these idiots is going to end up suing his own lawyer.
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And finally, my personal favorite from this past year - the column, "A Little Drink Between Friends".
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I would say there was little mystery about what first attracted 58 year old alcoholic Michael Warner to 42 year old bartender Tammy Jean Warner. 
But call it kismet or addiction attraction; who are we to question whether these two middle aged gin soaked Texans truly loved each other when they married in October of 2002? Still, a grand jury had no doubt that 16 monts later Tammy Jean bought two bottles of sherry with malice aforethought and intent to murder Michael. Tammy Jean could assure the police that, as the French might say, “Les l’evres qui touchent le liquior, ne toucheront jamais le mein”, or, as they translate it down in South Texas, “Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine”.
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It was on the morning of May 21st,, 2004 that the 911 call to the Lake Jackson paramedics came in. What they found was Michael 
Warner, in bed and dead as a drunk. An autopsy would reveal that he had died from an alcohol over-dose, with a blood alcohol level of 0.47, six times the legal limit to drive in Texas. And within a week a judge had ruled that Michael had died intestate, meaning he had left no will. So his machine shop and his new quarter of a million dollar life insurance policy, to a total value of $317,691.00, went to his widow, Tammy Jean Warner. Was it motive enough for murder?
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Michael had a daughter from a previous marriage and she had seen her father's will barely a month before his d
eath. But now it had vanished. She told Lake Jackson detective Robert Turner that her father had ulcers and an acid reflex condition, which would have made saying “bottoms up” very difficult for him. True, the toxicology screen was pretty conclusive, but the fatal levels were so high they also puzzled Detective Turner. Why didn’t Michael pass out before he reached that lethal limit? How, Detective Turner wondered, could such a sick man ingest that much alcohol? Turner made the decision to seek a court order to exhume Michael’s body and do a second autopsy.
*
What they found blew the door right off the wine celler. Michael’s large intestines were badly inflamed and it 
was the opinion of the coroner that Michael was the victim of a deadly enema overdose. Detective Turner was shocked. This case gave a new meaning to the term, “high colonic”. Up until this moment, Detective Turner must have thought that "Sherry Enema" was a porn star, not a homicidal device. He admitted, “I heard of this kind of thing in Mortuary school in 1970, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of someone actually doing it”. It was a development that raised a number of questions, not the least of which was what the hell kind of training is Lake Jackson giving their police detectives?
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The story Tammy Jean was now telling only made things murkier. She swore under oath that she had destroyed the ‘missing’ will 
a month before Michael’s death, at his request. And she insisted she had not bought the two bottles of sherry; she had only accompanied Michael when he bought them. And Tammy Jean swore, “There’s no way I could have gave(sp) my husband that enema, no way.” However, she now added, Michael was addicted to them. “His mother used to give him enemas all the time, and he started to depend on them. He did coffee enemas, he did Castile soap, Ivory soap…He had enema recipes." And his mother's obsession allowed Micheal to bypass his acid reflex.
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The Grand Jury didn't like the smell of her story. In May of 2005 they 
indicted Tammy Jean on a charge of Criminal Negligence and "Attempt to defraud" by destroying her husband’s will. Detective Turner contended that “She knew that if he continued to absorb alcohol…it would kill him. We are going to prove that she gave him the sherry and that she knew he wasn’t supposed to have any, and that it could be detrimental to his health, and she gave it to him anyway.” If convicted Tammy Jean faced up to 2 years in jail and a $50,000 fine. Pending trial she was was released on $30,000 bail.
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But now the prosecution had second thoughts. As Brazoria County D.A. Jeri Yenne, saw things, 
“It is as if I were dying of lung cancer and you bought me cigarettes”, which was a fair analogy if you considered constipation the equivalent of a cough. Six times the trial date approached and each time the trial was postponed. At first Tammy Jean insisted she had not administered the fatal flushing, but eventually she bent under the weight of evidence. Still, she always maintained it had been a consensual colonic. “He’d open the clamp and take in want he wants, how much he wanted, and then he’d close the clamp and lay there until he wanted more and then he’d open his clamp back up.”
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When Michael said “pucker up” was Tammy Jean motivated to consult a 
divorce attorney or a plumber? Did they ever invite friends over for a few drinks? These were questions that would never be answered. Clearly prosecutors felt that Tammy Jean’s version of events had an unpleasant air about it, but they could never find proof that the missing "will" had ever been signed or executed or even existed. And in the end, on August 31st of 2007, the D.A. pulled the plug. All charges against Tammy Jean Warner were dropped
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The relieved widow described her late husband to the Houston Chronicle this way; "That's the way he went out and I'm sure that's the way he wanted to go out, because he loved his enemas." Or, as Alphonse Allas put it, “Mourir, c'est partir un peu” (To leave is to die a little, but to die is to leave way too much).
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HAVE A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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