Once the door shuts, he starts screaming to the top of his lungs to the people in the car about about something, some sort of pre-robbery speech. Then says it’s a robbery and pulls out his hand and it’s in a brown paper bag...The punchline being that the guy then claimed to be doing some kind of street theater piece and segued into a spiel for donations to some shelter for urban outdoorsman.
Note to theatrically-minded activists in New York City: If you branch your program out to places like Atlanta or Indianapolis, that would be a splendid way to get your ass shot. If you would like a donation from me, then cut your hair, dress up like a respectable citizen (preferably with a shirt that involves buttoning in some way), and ask me politely. If you jump out of the bushes yelling "Boogety-boogety-boo!" with your hand in a paper sack pointing menacingly at me, I might not get the joke in time.
If the street performer was lucky, they'd hear only the snicking of safeties.
ReplyDeleteCan I reinstate my argument for the banning of NY'ers again? I think an invoice should be drawn up for ammo expenses in the southern states dealing with morons like this that move down here. I am all in favor of some fence keeping in their zoo. Just sayin'...
ReplyDeleteI once remarked to an acquaintance that My People don't do "surprise parties". She was puzzled.
ReplyDeleteOnce again NYC demonstrates that natural selection has been abrogated there...
ReplyDeleteSounds like a major-league Darwin Awards contender right there.
ReplyDeleteRemember that Documentary from the Future that got Time Warped back to us, "Escape From New York"? The was a reason that Manhattan was fenced off to protect the rest of us, now wasn't there? So, if we take some of that unused Stimulus money, and start dredging the East River...
ReplyDeleteTam -
ReplyDelete"...then cut your hair, dress up like a respectable citizen (preferably with a shirt that involves buttoning in some way), and ask me politely."
If they can do that, then they can ask politely for a job from the first employer that is hiring.
:-)
Josh
"Boogety-boogety-boo!" ?
ReplyDeleteI thought it was
"Pooky, Pooky, Pooky!"
Isn't "street theater" synonymous with unemployed nutzo with history of dependence on illegal substances?
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily, no. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_theatre )
Artist can be weird for all different reasons. Or they might just be crazy bums. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference,
Isn't "street theater" synonymous with unemployed nutzo with history of dependence on illegal substances?
ReplyDeleteThey might just be alcoholic native American woodcarvers with a history of assaulting cops...
IOW, the substance doesn't have to be illegal...
Dunno...acting in what could be considered a threatening manner might get you arrested, even in NYC. Street Theater or not.
ReplyDeleteIf it looks like a threat, acts like a threat and talks like a threat, I'm likely going to treat it as one.
Wasn't there an airline flight from (IIRC) Spain to Italy in the 1970s where a hijacker took a stewardess hostage? The passengers beat him to death.
ReplyDeleteMr. Street Theater is living in that same comfortable bubble that tells Blue State urban types that the power never goes out, that the police can always keep order, and that all Right Thinking People® will chuckle knowingly to themselves at he sophistication of his "performance".
Hope he stYs in the NYC bubble.
Any day where I go to bed with air going in and out of the usual places is a good one. Acting like that is certainly to the prejudice of those expectations.
ReplyDeleteJim
In July 2004 I was at a military school at a small post just east of Oakland. 4th of July rolled around and we had a "training holiday." One of the students was in fact stationed at this tiny post, but he knew his way around San Francisco and offered to guide those of us from elsewhere around the city during the big day. I'd never been there so I joined the group who hopped the BART and went into SanFran.
ReplyDeleteLong story short, we were walking along the street that parallels the bay. I forget what it's called but it's where you go to see the tall ships, the WWII submarine and tender tied alongside a pier, Fisherman's Wharf and all that stuff. As I walk past what I take to be a sort of dead, dried-up shrub, it (the shrub) jumps straight at me and yells RRRRRRAAAAAHAAAHHHHH!!!!!
I'm from Indiana where shrubs just don't do this sort of thing. I'm also short and unlikely to prevail in a fair fight. So I do what any self-respecting puny Hoosier would do in such a situation. I punch the shrub as hard as I possibly can. It falls down with a thud.
Turns out dead shrubs in San Francisco have noses. And hands. And bear a remarkable resemblance to panhandlers.
All of a sudden, I have a small, shocked crowd of Bay Area hippies going, "Dude, you hit the Bush Man!" "Why'd you hit the Bush Man, bro?!" and so forth pace Jeff Spiccoli.
The Bush Man, you see, contributes to the Bay Area economy in the following productive fashion. He does what he did to me, to random passersby; and the gag is, if they flinch or jump, they owe him a dollar. I was informed this by the increasingly indignant but as yet non-violent hippies aforesaid.
Again, I'm from Indiana and we just don't have bushes (or people masquerading as bushes) employed in this fashion. I walked off with no intention whatsoever of giving my money to a man who half-scared me out of my wits, and the hippies (and, presumably, the Bush Man) went their way mumbling curses about folks from west of the Sierra Nevadas or something.
I was never so glad to be a Hoosier in my whole entire life.
gvi
My parents who live some two hours away from me came for a visit. I gave them a key to my apartment for future use. Afterwards I reminded her that I live alone, work overnight and sleep during the day and that it was always best to call before just "dropping" by.
ReplyDeleteLooking puzzled she asked why?
I reminded her that it wasn't advisable to come stumbling into my apartment with the new key less they find themselves staring down the business end of my .45
Till this day some seven years later, they have nerve just "dropped by" without calling first.
The only thing this story was missing was the guy being dressed as a clown. "Insane Clown Posse" also comes to mind.
ReplyDelete"mumbling curses about folks from west of the Sierra Nevadas"
ReplyDeleteThey were mumbling curses about themselves? XD
Old joke:
ReplyDeleteLiberal walking down a street in a bad area with his family in tow. Minority gent with a knife jumps him and say "Give me everything you have, NOW!" Said loon starts swinging wildly at frightened lib and his family.
Liberal gent thinks, "Is it my money he wants, or social justice?" "Should I talk to him, try to reason?" "Perhaps if I let him kill me, he'll leave my family alone". Liberal gent gets killed, family gets whittled on.
Southerner walking in a bad neighborhood with family in tow. Same scenario with the crazy gent. Eight loud bangs, followed by clicks as the magazine is switched out. Comment by teenaged daughter, "Nice group Daddy". "Was those the Silvertips or the new Federal hollerpoints?"