Ted’s Great Adventure

Receiving relatively little attention in the big deal involving the agreement by Time Warner Inc. to buy Turner Broadcasting System Inc. for $7.4 billion is the fact that the Atlanta Braves baseball team will have a new owner for the first time since entrepreneur Ted Turner purchased it in 1976.

Turner’s zany antics involving the Braves--some promotional, some clearly spontaneous--are what first made him a national celebrity back in the late 1970s, something Turner acknowledges in the recent book “Citizen Turner” by Robert Goldberg and Gerald Jay Goldberg.

In their book, the Goldbergs recount the early days of Turner’s ownership. Among the highlights:

* Turner once served as the team’s batboy.

* After losing an ostrich race with a local columnist, Turner complained: “One lap. How the hell can you determine the fastest ostrich in one lap?”

* Turner once pushed a baseball with his nose around the infield before a game. His nose and face were so bloodied that they took weeks to heal.

* Turner, owner of Atlanta’s Channel 17, ordered the word Channel sewn on the back of the jersey worn by pitcher Andy Messersmith, who wore number 17, to advertise his station.

Just Lower the Window Cover

Here’s one solution to the problem of people leaving early from a screening of a movie they don’t like.

Proving there isn’t much a small film festival won’t do to get noticed, the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival will begin in November by screening its first movie on a flight from New York to Florida.

Those already in South Florida will be flown first to New York, then back on the screening flight.

No word yet on whether there will be a $3 charge for the headsets.

Invite Your Alien Friends

It’s that time of year again for the Original Los Angeles Whole Life Expo, a convention at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton and Towers that blends commerce with such things as past lives and alien abductions.

The convention, which starts Oct. 8 and costs from $13 for a one-day pass to $165 for a “VIP” ticket, includes a lecture by a man who “died twice and received profound revelations of events that would shake the world by the year 2000.”

There’ll also be a talk by the director of the “Close Encounter Research Organization,” who plans to “provide an in-depth analysis of the abduction experience, including a fascinating and compelling slide presentation depicting personal abduction experiences” by aliens.

Another lecturer on time travel is scheduled to discuss how he was “pushed through the time/space continuum” in 1943 as part of “The Philadelphia Experiment,” which he claims is a top-secret government experiment in time travel that continues to this day.

On a more earthly level, a man who “channels spirit teacher Alexander” plans to advise people on why they should self-publish their various revelations.

The main reasons: To maintain creative control and “keep the profits.”