Dan's Papers - October 31, 2008

Here are some more interesting stories, opinions and stray thoughts from my bag of newspaper clippings.

A 47-year-old man died in Venice, CA on August 17. His name was Dave Freeman, and he was the author of the best selling book that came out a few years ago called 100 Things to Do Before You Die.

He did many of these things himself. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain; he attended a voodoo séance in Haiti; he went bungee jumping on the Island of Vanuatu, where that sport had its beginnings - the natives called it "land diving"; he swam with the dolphins in the Florida Keys; and he went out on safari in Botswana, photographing lions and tigers and elephants.

He died when he slipped on a rug while walking across the living room in his Belle Air condo and banged his head, or so said his father, Roy Freeman, to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times.

Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas billionaire, made $75 million last week when his elbow accidentally damaged a very valuable painting he owns.

The painting is by Picasso, was painted in 1932 and is his rendition of his mistress, Marie-Therese Walter. Wynn bought the painting in 1999, from an art dealer named David Nash for $48 million. He kept it on his living room wall for the next eight years. And then, on September 30, 2006, he was showing it off to some guests when he tripped and fell into it, making a cut in the canvas with his elbow.

At the time, he had been in contract to sell it for $139 million to another collecter. But now, apparently, it was ruined. The story got a whole lot of publicity at the time. Appraisers came in and said it was now worth just $85 million. And so the buyer walked.

But Wynn had insured the painting with Lloyds of London. A year later, a settlement was made, with Wynn getting approximately $75 million.

But at the same time, Wynn was trying to have the damage repaired. It took Manhattan art restorer Terrence Mahon four months, carefully realigning and reweaving the threads of the canvas and then sewing them together, then retouching where the tear had been. He was paid $90,500 for his efforts. And a consultant he hired was paid another $21,700.

Today, it is almost impossible to see where the tear had been. Wynn has brought it back to hang on his wall, and appraisers now say it is worth even more than the $139 million that the buyer had failed to follow through on.

So Wynn still has the painting and he also has $75 million from Lloyds of London. All because of an errant elbow.

On September 23, Deputy Sheriff Robert Howard was patrolling the Long Island Expressway when, near Exit 53, he observed a woman driving a Ford Explorer SUV pull into the HOV lane with a plexiglas passenger in the seat beside her.

When he speeded up to go past, the passenger became a quarter inch thick. And when he slowed down to let the Ford pass him, the passenger again became a quarter inch thick. He pulled the woman over and gave her a ticket for not having two people in the vehicle to gain access to the HOV Lane.

"It's never been a problem before," the woman said. "I've had him with me for over a year."

The best story I've been saving up, however, is this one.

In Batavia, New York, on August 11, two men got into an altercation about a chair at a wedding taking place at the Batavia Inn.

One of them was the groom. And the other was a friend, who was also a police officer in that town, and, to end the dispute about the chair, arrested the groom, 45-year-old Timothy Cole, and led him off to the police station in handcuffs.

The arrest had nothing to do with the altercation. According to the arresting officer, there was a warrant out for the arrest of Cole for failing to obey an order of protection that had been taken out against him on June 1 by a woman in town.

The woman was the bride. And they were getting remarried. Fortunately, the arrest took place after the marriage ceremony had finished, or they would both still be single today.