Weird Wild Stuff

Words by Shelton Hull

It’s been a very busy summer and a very weird summer, but we don’t need to tell you that; you’ve probably got your own weird stories to tell. Let’s jump right in, with one caveat: No politics! Not because we’re apolitical — quite the opposite. We could easily fill this space with the weird wild stuff happening in politics on the local, state, national and even international level, but that would take up all of our allotted space, and you, the reader, would probably just quit on us about halfway through. So we’ll keep it light, and we’ll let the politicians roast themselves.

We’ll start in Florida, as all columns about weird news are required to do. Police in Miami were just doing their job when they approached a man at an Aventura dog park to ask him about some kind of civil matter. Details are unclear, but it was basically a courtesy call. The person they were talking to, however, was clearly agitated by their presence, and that interaction quickly went way south (almost to Key West, lol), to the point that he assaulted one of the officers. This happens a lot, but not usually this way, because the perp’s weapon of choice was his actual dog, which he threw at the officer’s chest. Thankfully, the officer was wearing his vest, so he was unharmed, but the poor pooch hurt his paw. The man was not charged with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest or any other serious charge. But this is Florida, so the animal cruelty charge will stick.

Here’s another one about animal cruelty — not cruelty toward animals but cruelty inflicted by them … or at least they think so. Drones are becoming ubiquitous in American life, whether used by photographers and media, police and military, or just regular civilians, everything from pizza delivery places to drug dealers. The NYPD has a whole-ass fleet of them, as well they should, and some are equipped with inflatable rafts, for the benefit of beachgoers who may need rapid response and emergency aid; they’re also used to watch out for sharks, rip tides and, of course, terrorism. That’s a fairly benign use, unlikely to upset anyone. Well, you try telling that to the American Oystercatcher, a fairly diminutive shorebird that weighs less than two pounds on average, but which have emerged as the primary opps for NYPD’s drone squad.  Apparently they think the drones are some new type of bird and a potential threat to their nests, so they choose violence. And they’re taking no chances: the drones are much larger and heavier, equipped with rotors that will kill them on impact. So they use gang tactics, mobbing the drones from all sides at once. No birds have died, yet, but they’ve been smoking that drone pack all summer.

As a general rule, Catholic priests are banned from sexual relations of any kind. Now, there have been many exceptions over the years, and we’ve seen a lot of that stuff play out in the media. It’s usually no laughing matter, but maybe this is: A Catholic priest in Wisconsin is suing a popular dating app for selling his personal data, which was then used to expose his chronic non-celibacy, thus leading his ouster from the church. As you can probably guess from the delicate lead-in to the punchline, he’s suing Grindr. This particular priest was the top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops until 2021, when a bunch of weirdos bought the Grindr data and used it to out gay priests — which is awful, but he, of all people, should’ve seen it coming.   

Niagara Falls is famous for many things, but it’s most recently famous for Pepper the parrot, whose foul mouth and fancy feathers caught the fancy of fans across the Empire State. We can blame Andrew Jackson, who spent a big part of his retirement teaching his own bird so many dirty words that it had to be removed from Jackson’s funeral for ruthlessly roasting the humans. The white-mouthed Amazon had more than 400 adoption applicants at first, now narrowed to just 10, all of whom are nuts, by any objective standards. Pepper has not yet cursed out his new owners in Olean, but it’s just a matter of time. 

Speaking of parrots, let’s close with a story about the city’s namesake, Andrew Jackson, whose second wife Rachel was gifted an African grey parrot named Poll, which he inherited upon her death in December 1828, just 14 days after he was elected president. He lived another 17 years, and he taught the bird to curse in that time. Poll was allegedly removed from Jackson’s funeral, because he couldn’t stop cursing at people, which he would’ve surely appreciated.