Source: Reuters
Blasphemy, Australian Style
We’ve heard nothing but good things about the Brazilians, a wonderful people who have a whole lotta fun during Carnivale, the Brazilians’ take on Mardi Gras. However, the fine people of Brazil do have their limits, and if you test them, you’ll be sorry.
An Australian, “Clive” discovered one of those limits during a vacation to Rio de Janerio. He and his mates visited the magnificent 100-foot statue of Jesus atop Corcovado Mountain, one of the city’s top tourist attractions. Clive and a few of his buddies made a journey up the mountain not long after Carnivale had ended.
Clive was a bit intoxicated—not big news—and so were his pals. And so when they reached the statue, they thought it might be a lark if Clive took off his clothes and posed under the statue, holding his outstretched arms in an imitation of the statue itself. Clive, apparently an exhibitionist sort, didn’t need much encouragement; he was out of his trousers in fairly quick order.
It was all good fun until an incensed Brazilian prosecutor, who just happened to be contemplating the statue at the same time, ordered the drunken lot of them arrested on the charge of committing an obscene act. The group was hustled off to a nearly police station, where they were held until they signed affidavits swearing that they would appear in court for their alleged crimes or they would never be allowed on Brazilian soil again.
Remember, if you act like a jerk, Jesus may forgive you, but the Brazilians may not.
Source: Reuters
Fence Frustrates Sloshed Swede
Sven’s” first mistake was visiting the young woman—or, should we say, attempting to visit the young woman. Sven, a Swede who lived in Oslo, Norway, had a thing for a Norwegian girl, and so he decided to make a social call on her. Unfortunately for Sven, he was drunk and it was late at night. The woman, not enthused about the appearance of an intoxicated Swede in her doorway, refused Sven entry. Well, Sven might have been besotted in more ways than one, but he wasn’t a complete jerk. Rebuffed, he turned to go.
And was immediately beset by issues. The gate to the young woman’s apartment building had closed and locked, and now he couldn’t get back out to the street. This is the point where a sober man might have sheepishly gone back and asked the woman to buzz open the gate; but remember, Sven wasn’t sober. Having been tossed aside once that evening, he was perhaps not looking for it to happen a second time. So he attempted to slip under the gate. No dice.
Now did he go back and ask to be let out? Of course not. Instead, he reasoned that his bulky clothes kept him from sliding under the gate. And so, off came the clothes, and back under the gate Sven went, only to get stuck. So now, we have a rejected drunk, naked Swede pinned under a gate. And there he stayed for several hours in the cold Norwegian night, contemplating love, the universe, and the night breezes on his naked skin.
Eventually, passersby discovered Sven and called the police to extricate him. In the meantime, a team of ace reporters had gathered at the scene to document the event as it unfolded; Sven, crafty as he was, begged the gathered newsmen to say that he had gotten trapped while trying to save a kitten, a story that would have been compromised—nay, deeply perverted—by his undressed state. Sven later asked the reporters to note that the woman he’d come to visit was “a real stunner.” It was indeed duly noted.
If this had happened in the United States, Sven probably would have been hauled into jail for public nudity, public drunkenness, and general gross stupidity. In Norway, they just told him to go home, take a shower, and sleep it off. So, if you’re ever planning to get stuck naked under a gate, you know where to go.
Source: Associated Press
Oh, It Was Hazardous Material, All Right
The Water Works employees of Erie, Pennsylvania, first believed something was up after they chased away a mysterious trespasser from the grounds of Sigsbee Reservoir, which contained 33 million gallons of water destined for the use of the good people of Erie. What on Earth would anyone be doing near a reservoir so early in the morning?
That’s when they saw it: a black bag on the walkway that went around the reservoir. In this day and age, mysterious trespassers and even more mysterious black bags left at reservoirs are not to be trifled with. Fearing sabotage of the city water supply, the Water Works employees called the police. The police ordered a lockdown of the reservoir and of the surrounding neighborhood. Four hours later, members of the local bomb squad discovered that what was inside the black bag was definitely biological, and if not lethal, at least stinky: a pair of, shall we say, aggressively used, soiled underwear.
So how did it get there? Well, we’re glad you asked. It seems that the night before, one “Terrance,” an 18-year-old, partied a waaayyyy too hard—so hard, in fact, that he passed through the many stages of drunkeness. First there’s drunk, then there’s falling-down drunk, which can quickly turn into falling-down-and-puking-your-guts-out drunk. Then it starts to get even uglier when you progress to falling-down-and-puking-your-guts-out-with-no-bladder-control drunk, and finally there’s one messy step beyond that.
Terrance went the extra mile to take that one step beyond, and as a result experienced a major party foul in his underwear. A sympathetic friend (who hopefully had a cold at the time) dragged him home, took him out of his violated attire, stuffed the dirty togs into the infamous black bag, and then hurled the bag over the fence onto the reservoir walkway. End of story.
Until the next morning, when Terrance remembered that the keys to his car were in his pants pocket. Whoops. Off Terrance went to retrieve the keys, only to be shooed away by the Water Works employee, who then found the bag and reported it. The local police and fire departments, the county emergency management team, the bomb squad, and the FBI were not at all thrilled to spend four hours of their life obsessing over what turned out to be a truly craptacular case.
Confronted by the police, Terrance admitted it was his underwear and eventually pled guilty to “defiant trespass,” a misdemeanor. His punishment? A fine of $500 a month for ten months to pay for the cost of the emergency services. That should cut into his discretionary income for drinking. Terrence’s remaining underwear is no doubt rejoicing at that bit of news.
Source: Associated Press, Erie Times-News, wjettv.com
Blessed Aren’t the Dumb
Ask yourself this question: if you were a man of the cloth, at what point in the following scenario would you plead for leniency from the police because of your special relationship with the Big Guy?
1.Sometime after you crashed your car but before police could evaluate you for intoxication;
2.After the cops began evaluating you for intoxication but before you punched one officer in the head when he wasn’t looking;
3.After slugging one cop but before the other officer dropped you to the ground;
4.After hitting the ground but before the paramedics had to strap you to a gurney because you kept cursing and spitting at the police;
5.It really doesn’t matter because after driving drunk, assaulting an officer, and resisting arrest, you could be Saint Paul and the cops would still be hauling your pious posterior into the pokey.
In the case of “Rod” it turns out that 5 was the correct answer. Early one June 2004 morning, Las Vegas police found Rod at the wheel of a car that had plowed into another vehicle; once the officers got Rod out of his car and started asking him questions, Rod decided it was in his best interest to punch one of the cops, because nothing says “I am sober” like blind-siding a member of the law enforcement community. After this came the takedown, the cursing, the screaming, and the restraint by the EMTs.
Somewhere along the way, Rod mentioned his calling. “He was saying, ‘I’m a Catholic priest! I’m a Catholic priest!’” said one officer who was at the scene, and indeed, Rod’s license showed him dressed in a priest’s collar. That’s Father Drunken Verbally Abusive Cop-Hitter to you, pal. But just because you’re a man of the cloth doesn’t mean that t
he Big Guy and the cops are going to let you off the hook. Rod’s blood alcohol count was 0.34, more than three times the limit.
“We’re calling it the case of the holy spirits,” said one police officer. Hey, now. You take down the drunks, pal. We’ll handle the jokes.
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Those Weren’t the Suds They Were Looking For
Like most countries that don’t actively promote alcoholism as a way of life, Sweden has strict laws about underage drinking. And like most countries where teenagers aren’t chained to their parents 24–7, Swedish teens will find a way to get a buzz when they want to. Just how far they’d go, however, wasn’t entirely clear until 2004’s Baltic Sea Music Festival in Karlshamn.
The first signal promoters got that something was amiss was when a 14-year-old girl at the festival was briefly hospitalized with stomach pains. It turns out the teenager had taken liquid soap from the portable toilets at the festival and put it in her soda. Now while one readily admits that teenagers can do any range of stupid things for dubious reasons, this particular action seemed stranger than most. It was then someone remembered a relevant fact about that certain kind of soap—namely, that it was 62 percent alcohol.
This prompted officials from Bajamaja, the company from which the portable toilets had been rented, to check their latrines. “I suspected something was wrong because the soap went like hot cakes,” said Anders Persson, of Bajamaja. Sure enough, the soap was gone—and by the end of the festival, many of the soap dispensers had been smashed. Those crazy kids. Who’d a thought you had to tell them not to drink soap?
Source: Associated Press
The Drunk Need Not Apply
You want to be a state trooper in Washington State? Here’s your first tip—apply only when sober.
“Paul” came into the State Patrol headquarters in Clark County, glassy-eyed and slurry-spoken, and asked for a job application. One of the troopers there suggested that asking for a job application from the police while intoxicated might not be such a great way to make a first impression.
Well, of course, Paul was indignant and denied this scandalous drinking rumor. Whereupon another trooper on the scene offered to give Paul a Breathalyzer test. Paul submitted and got a score of .095, comfortably above the .08 limit for legal intoxication. Oh, well, Paul said (or something like it), there was that Long Island Ice Tea he’d had; he quickly explained the fact that he hadn’t eaten in more than a day might have been why the drink was hitting him so hard.
This was the part where the troopers asked Paul how he’d gotten to the headquarters. He claimed that someone drove him. “Uh-huh,” they said, “Just remember not to drive home.” Ten minutes later, troopers saw Paul get into a car and drive off. Let’s just say the chase was not a particularly long one. He was given more tests, declared legally drunk, and ticketed. His sister had to come and get him.
“I guarantee he’s not going to get a job with us,” said Trooper Gavin March. “We’ve arrested drunks in unexpected ways and places before, but this one just blew me away.” No doubt the citizens of Washington rest easier knowing Trooper Paul will not be on the case.
Source: Seattle Times
The Really Stupid Quiz
Chug-a-Lug!
One is true. Two are false. You decide. Think of it as a sobriety test for your sense of reality.
1.Gibby’s Bar and Grill in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was doing a brisk business in its Green Machine Shooters—tangy, green-tinged vodka shots that Gibby’s owner Thomas Garvey claimed featured a secret ingredient that he did not feel obliged to share. Then suspicious local authorities snuck out one of the shooters to a local lab for a chemical analysis, whereupon it was discovered that the secret ingredient was ethylene glycol—the primary ingredient in antifreeze, which in large enough doses can cause kidney failure, brain damage, and death. “He claimed that he thought he was using a brand that had propylene glycol, which is not as toxic,” said a local law enforcement spokesman. “He didn’t quite get that serving antifreeze of any sort is just not allowed.”
2.Driving drunk will get you thrown in jail—but one computer whiz kid hopes that hacking while drunk will spare him the slammer. Albert Lee of New Haven, Connecticut, was arrested in May 2004 for authoring a variant of the “sobig” virus and sending it out on the e-mail systems of the world. Lee’s lawyer said his client, a computer science major, intends to plea not guilty because he released the virus while he was drunk. “We’re not disputing that he coded the virus,” said lawyer Jason Garcia. “But he did it as part of a class project on viruses. He would never have uploaded it if he hadn’t have been in judgmentally impaired state of mind.” Apparently, it was the booze pressing the “Send” button.
3.Not getting enough of a buzz from your booze? Perhaps you’d like to try a new drink produced in the Czech Republic—a flavored vodka where the added flavor attraction is not lemon, cherry, currant, or mint, but pot. Yes, it’s marijuana-flavored vodka! Why the Czech citizenry would want to sample the alcoholic equivalent of bongwater isn’t clear since they can’t get stoned and drunk simultaneously from just drinking the beverage. There is no tetrahydrocannabinol (better known as THC, the active ingredient in marijuana) in the vodka. The potable is actually made from hemp, pot’s industrial sibling with a very low THC content. So if you get the munchies after a couple of shots, chances are you’re just drunk and hungry.
Turn to page 329 for the answer.
Dim Bulbs in Bright Lights
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Our Dumb Guys: Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), collectively the core of the heavy metal group Spinal Tap
Our Story: Metal group Spinal Tap’s 1982 North American tour becomes progressively more chaotic as the band’s album release is pushed back, concert dates are canceled, and band members get on each others’ nerves. Interspersed with the road drama are individual and group interviews with the members, in which it becomes apparent that the rock and roll life style is not good for the brain cells.
Dumb or Stoned? Well, stoned is a given when dealing with heavy metal rock “gods” from 1982 (at one stressful point, David St. Hubbins allows that he might be more upset if he weren’t in fact so heavily sedated). The real question is, are these guys dumb because they’re stoned, or were they that way naturally?
High Point of Low Comedy: The performance of the song “Stonehenge,” in which a foot-high model of the famous mighty rock monument is in clear and present danger of being trampled by dancing dwarves.
And Now, In Their Own Words: David St. Hubbins’s deep response when asked if the Spinal Tap was near the end: “Well, I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how—what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.”
They’re Dumb, But Is the Film Good? It rocks. Even though it’s not the first “mockumentary” ever (as anyone who’s ever seen The Rutles will tell you), it’s certainly the best since it is the one to which all others are compared. Even real documentaries are compared to it—when Metallica released its 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster (in which the band members enter group therapy), the single most frequent comparison that film had in reviews was to Spinal Tap.
CHAPTER 4
Dumbing in the Family
No matter what side of the “Nature vs. Nurture” debate you fall on, it’s pretty easy to see that families can be a source of dumbness. Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, who do people spend most of their time with? That’s right, their families.
In a way it’s reassuring. The old saying is that “a family that plays together, stays together.” Families that act stupid together also st
ay together, and often in the same holding pen. That’s family dumbness for you!
So Happy together . . .
Here’s the first thing: of all the people to attempt a citizen’s arrest upon, an actual sheriff’s deputy is not one of them. “Adam,” a citizen of McMinnville, Tennessee, nevertheless attempted to arrest off-duty Deputy Lt. Stan Hillis for speeding. After pulling up behind Lt. Hillis’s parked civilian car, one thing inevitably led to another and it was Adam who was arrested, for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and evading arrest. In one of those interesting twists, this all went down right across from the local jail, so the deputy and Adam didn’t have far to go.
Adam’s one phone call went to his mom, “Abby,” who drove to the jail with 17-year-old son “Bret” in tow. Once they had arrived, Bret allegedly decided that it might be a fine idea to slap one of the deputies. And now, words of wisdom from Sheriff Jackie Matheny: “If you strike an officer, you’re going to jail 100 percent of the time.” And of course, Bret was conveniently and already there—another transportation problem easily solved.
Then Abby got in on the act. Having both her cubs in the slammer aroused Abby’s mother bear instincts. She allegedly became very loud and refused to obey the orders of law enforcement officials, otherwise known as disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Mama bear got caged, too.
So who was left in this family menagerie? Why, “Al,” the family patriarch. He showed up and also allegedly became very disorderly and uncooperative, so much so that out came the tasers—zap!—and now you had the entire family cooling its heels behind bars. That’s where they stayed for the next three hours before they made bail.
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