Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: So how’d it taste?
Dec 5, 2024, 7:00 AM | Updated: 1:18 pm
FILE - Artist Maurizio Cattelan's piece of art "Comedian" hangs on display during an auction preview at Sotheby's in New York, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Associated Press)
(Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Associated Press)
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SALT LAKE CITY — Turns out it’s a story about generosity! From Honolulu to Houston to Herriman, the entire world stared in disbelief at the banana duct-taped to a blank wall. Oh yeah… Herriman. A listener tells me her daughter heard my minute about the $6 million banana (minions), and it was only then she understood why kids at Herriman High were duct-taping bananas to the walls of the school. That’s how big this banana story was. Minions?
And on Thanksgiving, while you were digesting turkey, the guy who bought that banana ate it. Crypto Bro Justin Sun from Hong Kong stood before reporters in a trendy black suit and consumed the yellow crescent of fruit worth 300 times its weight in gold.
But the banana has left a bad taste in the mouth of an elderly street vendor.
When Sotheby’s needed a fresh banana for the auction, they sent a staffer to a fruit stand outside their New York headquarters where a 74-year-old street vendor sold the banana to Sotheby’s for 25 cents. The vendor, a vision impaired immigrant from Bangladesh who’s never had money. Lives in a basement apartment with four other men, and toils at this fruit stand for 12 hours a day, for $12 an hour.
Shah Alam was told by a New York Times reporter that a banana he sold was peddled again the same day for $6 million dollars, and he began to cry. So confused, he asked: Those who bought it… do they not know what a banana is?
Look. We all got a chuckle about an overpriced fruit that sold for $70,000 per calorie, but now we also learn about generosity. A GoFundMe for the nearly blind street vendor has raised $20,000. More money than Shah Alam has ever seen in his life.
Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X.
