A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by.He gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, 'Perfect timing.You're just like Frank. Passenger: 'Who?' Cabbie: 'Frank Feldman.. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time.' Passenger: 'There are always a few clouds over everybody.' Cabbie: 'Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star andyou should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy.'Passenger: Sounds like he was something really special. Cabbie: 'There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacksout. But Frank Feldman, could do everything right. Passenger: 'Wow, some guy then.' Cabbie: 'He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoidtraffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treata woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back evenif she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too - He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman.' Passenger: 'An amazing fellow. How did you meet him?' Cabbie: 'Well, I never actually met Frank, he died and I married hisf**kin widow.
Little Johnny walked into school thirty minutes late. "Sorry I'm late, teacher," he said, "but I didn't get my f*�king breakfast." "Johnny, we don't use language like that in school! Go stand in the corner!" She then continued the geography lesson. "Who can tell me where the Canadian border is?" she asked. No hand went up except Little Johnny's. The teacher ignored him and asked again. Still no takers, so she reluctantly called on Little Johnny. He replied, "He's in bed with my Mom and that's why I didn't get any f*�king breakfast!"
BARTLESVILLE, Oklahoma -- Bartlesville Police are investigating the death of a 10-day-old baby. The infant's mother, Lyndsey Fiddler, has been arrested for second-degree manslaughter.
Police officers were called to a downtown apartment at 7:42 p.m. Thursday after receiving a 911 call. When they arrived, they found the infant dead inside a washing machine, having been put in there with clothes and gone through an entire wash cycle.
Bartlesville Police Chief Tom Holland says in his 40 years of police work he has never seen or heard of anything like this.
"I started in Fort Worth and have walked into apartments with seven dead bodies, seen terrible crimes, mass murder, even," Holland said.
Police say an aunt of the mother went over Thursday night to check on Fiddler and her three kids and found a terrible scene.
"The mother was asleep and she had trouble waking her and heard the washer out of balance, clanging, so went to lift the lid so it would stop and in the washing machine, saw the baby," Holland said.
Records show Fiddler has had many run-ins with Bartlesville police. She's been found guilty of larceny, assault and battery and many times for failing to show up for court.
She's also been stopped several times for speeding, driving without a license and not having her kids in car seats.
She was arrested in April for possession of a controlled drug, when she was four months pregnant. She got a one year suspended sentence and 10 days in jail, but didn't show up for court.
Fiddler's family tried back in June when she was pregnant, because they were so concerned about her drug abuse, to get her parental rights revoked, but it didn't happen.
Now, a terrible tragedy has occurred that has devastated not only her family, but also the emergency responders.
"I know the detective, he's a veteran detective who was taking photos at the hospital and he had to step out for awhile. He's got three girls," Holland said.
John Houser, A Bartisville paramedic, tried to save the baby on the way to the hospital, but it was too late.
"Terrible. I don't even know how to describe it," Houser said. He said she was so tiny when he lifted her into the ambulance, that it just broke his heart.
The infant's body has been turned over to the state Medical Examiner's Office.
Fiddler is currently being held without bond, and authorities say a bond hearing will be scheduled for this weekend.
Can a musical instrument that's been around for more than 300 years be truly cutting edge?
Maybe, if the instrument is the musical saw.
The musical saw is basically the same as handsaws found at the Home Depot. In a pinch, one of those can be used to make music.
However, to get the most range, it helps if your saw is made out of bendable metal. That's because the saw is played by sticking the handle between the knees, holding the blade in an "S" shape and playing it like a violin.
Bianca Lara switched to the saw from the violin and says the biggest snag came when the teeth sliced her fishnets.
In the hands of a master, the saw can sound beautiful, almost like a human voice. In fact, sometimes it's confused for one, according to Bianca Lara, a self-proclaimed "sawist" who adopted the saw six months ago after she saw the possibilities.
"I was playing the saw the other night with my band, Gypsy Groove, and the chef thought a human was singing," Lara told AOL News.
Lara, who enjoys playing less-appreciated instruments such as the toy accordion and glockenspiel, picked up the saw as her personal mission and swore not to play it in public until she hammered out "Ave Maria," the song that all "sawists" should play, in all the keys.
But she wasn't able to hold out that long.
"I have to play it at shows," she said. "People love it."
Lara is trying to take the saw to places it's never seen.
"I do it with a lot of hot jazz -- I don't believe it's ever been played in that genre," she said.
Well, there's a reason for that, says Natalia Paruz, who is considered the Jimi Hendrix of the musical saw.
"[The saw] is really best on slow ballads with lyrical melody lines," said Paruz, who is known as the "Saw Lady." "For instance, you can play 'Flight of the Bumblebee' on the violin, but not on the saw -- it's too fast."
Lara admits she didn't realize how hard the saw was before she started.
"Since I played violin, I thought it would be easy, but it's not transferable at all," she confessed. "On a violin, you use the bow over a certain area, but with the saw, you're moving it up and down while bending the saw.
"I literally had no tone for the first month. I had to use a mallet instead of a bow to find the sweet spots."
Natalia Paruz has played the saw professionally for 17 years and is considered the Jimi Hendrix of the instrument.
Once she was ready to play in public, she hit another snag -- literally.
"The teeth on the saw point towards the player, and I wore fishnets to the first gig and it got stuck on the hose," she laughed.
Although Paruz and Lara are women, the saw has long been a male-dominated instrument.
"It started about 300 years ago by lumberjacks who discovered that the big two-man saws could be used for music," Paruz said. "There really isn't a place of origin; it seemed to have popped in different places at the same time."
Unlike the olden days, when the saw doubled as a tool for work during the day and an instrument for play at night, Paruz believes it takes a special kind of person to play the saw.
"It's certainly not an instrument your mother makes you play," she said.
Paruz found the saw at a low point in her life.
"I was a dancer and worked with Martha Graham, but when I was run over by a car, that put an end to that," she said. "My family took me to Europe, and when I saw a man playing the saw, it was the first time I was excited about something besides dance."
That was 17 years ago, and now Paruz is carving out a lucrative career performing with everything from country and folk bands to classical quartets and even commercials.
But that isn't enough for her.
"One of my goals is to start a musical saw school, because they don't teach this at Juilliard," she said.
And there's not a huge market for them either, according to Mary Kay Dawson, owner of Mussehl & Westphal, America's biggest manufacturer of musical saws.
"We sell a few hundred a year," she said. "Last year was good, but this year is slow."
In a good year, the company, based in East Troy, Wis., sells about 500 saws, which come in a kit that sells for $86.
"There's a segment of people who would laugh at it," Dawson admitted. "But many people love it."
Especially people like Lara, who is a now a saw addict, jonesing for her next fix.
"I'm saving up to buy a $600 saw," she said. "I just got an $80 donation from a Canadian I met through Facebook, so now I only have $520 to go."
Certainly not the Storm Lake man who steadfastly refuses to claim the $2 million he has coming to him from the state.
State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald currently holds $207 million, plus 2 million shares of stock, that belong to 823,000 different people and entities.
In addition to six- and seven-figure sums waiting to be claimed by Iowans, the Treasure Hunt holds unclaimed cash for some of Iowa's most high-profile citizens, including money owed to first lady Mari Culver and U.S. Rep. Steve King.
It's a mix of cash, stocks and property that insurers, banks, utilities and other companies have been unable to deliver to the intended recipients. The property has been turned over to Fitzgerald's office, which has, in turn, tried to track down the intended recipients as part of the Great Iowa Treasure Hunt program.
By far, the person who stands to gain the most from the Treasure Hunt program is an 85-year-old man living quietly in Storm Lake. County records indicate he has lived in the same $68,000 house for the past 33 years. He's fairly active and in recent years has been seen driving his 1990 Buick LeSabre around town. By all accounts, he's aware of the fact that the state is holding money for him - a lot of money - but has no intention of claiming it.
All told, the state is holding $1,632,427 in cash, plus stocks valued at $446,874, for this man. The Des Moines Register is not identifying him by name because he could be vulnerable to financial exploitation.
"We have made overtures to him," Fitzgerald said. "And we've had plenty of feedback from people in Storm Lake. He knows the money is there. It appears to be a situation of him not wanting to be bothered."
Deputy Treasurer Karen Austin says the office has talked to the man through an attorney who has indicated the man has no desire to claim his money. "From our perspective, of course, it doesn't really make sense," she said.
