Synchronized Universe| The Strange Suicide of Ronald Opus

Strange Universe

March 23, 1994 RIP

Ronald Opus

Synchronized Universe| The Strange Suicide of Ronald Opus

March 23, 1994

It was the habit of the old man, when in an argument with his old wife, to grab his shotgun and wave it at her in a threatening manner.  Sometimes, he even aimed it straight at her and pulled the trigger.  That’s why he never put any ammunition in it.

They lived together in an apartment on the ninth floor of a ten story building with a son who witnessed these shotgun shenanigans many, many times.  So when the old lady cut off the son’s financial support, and unbeknownst to the old man, the son loaded the shotgun and waited.   He hated them both; two birds with one stone.

So imagine the shock for the old man when six weeks later, there he was, for the millionth time, waving that shotgun at his wife.  She was running past of one of the windows as the old man raised the gun and aimed it at her, incoherently ranting and trembling with rage… for the millionth time.  But for the very first time, as he pulled the trigger, a burst of buckshot came exploding out from the muzzle.  It was only because he was trembling with fury that he missed her and the shot went straight out the window.

The old man stood frozen in place as his mind struggled to process all that had just happened.  He knew that gun had no ammo, but that was the least of his problems.  His mind was stuck on something else; that the body of a man had flown by the window just as the buckshot flew through it.   He ran to the window and looked down to see the lifeless body of an apparently young man caught by a safety net at the eighth floor level.  The net had been left in place by a window washing crew that was coming to finish up the next day.

Which is why the young man, who was intent on committing suicide that day in March ’94, did not know the futility of his attempt  and did not expect a net to be there and thus jumped from the floor above the old couple.  He died, not from falling, but from the shots that came through the window just as his head passed… that came from a gun which was thought to be unloaded, but was surreptitiously loaded by an enraged son trying to murder his mother by making good use of his father’s cartoon like behavior.

It was later learned that Ronald Opus, our deceased jumper, had attempted on multiple occasions to arrange the murder of his own mother, and having failed, decided to part from her the only way he could.  He would have survived but for the other young man trying to kill his mother and some exquisite synchronization in our universe.

The irony of this is simply overpowering.    But alas, dear reader, this story is just an urban legend. It did sound unlikely, did it not?

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/accidentsmishaps/ss/ronald_opus_7.htm

Stranger than Fiction|The Knife

Stranger than Fiction

How often have you heard that truth is stranger than fiction?  There are so many bizarre true stories out there.  We think we understand reality, but we don’t.  There will be a collection of these true but stranger than fiction tales added over time, so take the RSS feed or add yourself to the subscribe list to receive email alerts as new articles roll out.  Enjoy-

Image via Wikipedia

This true tale took place in the year 1210, during the reign of King John “Lackland” of England and was recounted in an important book of those times, a book read by the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto IV.  The book is known as Otia Imperialia.

A woman was sitting at her kitchen table in Bristol, England.  Her husband, a sailor, had been gone for many, many months on a sea journey. She was startled to witness a knife come hurtling through a dormer window which embedded itself in the table just in front of her.  She stared at the knife.  It looked so familiar.  She knew her husband’s knife well and she knew it was his.  But how could it be?  She pulled it out and stored it in a drawer thinking to show it to her husband when he returned.  She knew it was his.  She knew it, but where had it come from?

When the sailor finally returned, his wife listened to his stories as she went to the drawer to fetch the knife.  She quietly laid it before him and his buoyant chatter  suddenly seized.  He stared, his eyes grew twice their normal size.  After some time, he was able to relate his astonishing tale that would at last explain where the knife had come from, but to this day, not how.

He told her “I was eating supper with the crew.  When I finished, I went to the side of the ship to wash my knife in the water but as I leaned over, it slipped from my hands into the ocean.”  The couple then compared the date and time of the wife’s incident and the husband’s loss of his knife.  The two events had indeed happened at the same time.   How strange is that?

Today’s recommended site:
http://www.unknowncountry.com

Was Amy Winehouse Channeling Janis Joplin?

Image via Wikipedia

Or was Amy Winehouse the reincarnation of Janis Joplin?

I was watching the “Back to Black” video and something suddenly struck me….was Amy Winehouse a reincarnation of Janis Joplin…Joplin’s evolution?  They both projected so much powerful  soul into their music.  Janis was harder, more fierce and energetic.  Amy was a more restrained and polished version of Joplin’s expression. Winehouse’s look was 1965, especially in the “Back to Black” video…the eyeliner, the beehive hair, the dress.  Joplin hit her prime in 1968 and by then, the look of the period had changed radically.  Janice adopted the hippie persona of her time.  But the voice…that voice.

Janis drank and drugged herself to death and Amy the same, both at age 27.  How odd….both at age 27.

Janis Joplin was the queen of rock and roll and the queen of soul.  She concentrated on songs from the blues category and sang them like no one else could.  Her voice had amazing range and you could feel that it was coming deep from the core of her.   She died from an overdose of heroin in 1970, just sixteen days after Jimi Hendrix.  Joplin’s  voice was described at the time as being “devastatingly original”.

And “devastatingly original” describes Winehouse as well.

Janice Joplin

So watch the two videos.  Maybe you will hear what I hear.  Enjoy…

(Hit the play button….walk away for a few minutes and let these videos load….then hit the replay button. Otherwise, the stop and start will drive you crazy)