Is there really nothing left to steal? Nothing at all except for 21 tons of ketchup and mustard. An all-larceny Dudes in the News spectacular.
Given the massive number of robberies committed throughout the course of human history, one wonders: is there really anything new left to steal?
Money? Done. Vehicles? Check. Jewelry? Sure. Dignity? Endlessly.
It seems thieves have exhausted all fresh avenues of larceny, a point of great sorrow to criminal-watchers the world over.
We are bursting with joy, then, that today we may bring you robberies of a markedly creative sort. If genius is that rare quality combining talent and originality, then these bandits are of the highest rank in the criminal orders.
As you may know, a heat wave is convulsing America at the moment. Arizona, which normally sees summer temperatures somewhere between 110 and 125 degrees Fahrenheit, recently has experienced ones as high as 643 degrees. (This figure is approximate.)
It stands to reason, then, that in early July, Arizona thieves stole two five-ton air conditioning units. That they stole them from the Harmony Community Baptist Church at 1080 Boulder Drive, Mesa (population 462,486), however, suggests either an astonishing lack of morals or an exalted criminal giftedness.
The Arizona Republic reported July 8 that the bandits took the air conditioners shortly before services on Sunday, July 3. The paper noted that area temperatures the day before had topped 118 degrees.
Parishoners, then, were left to swelter. As Republic correspondent Laurie Merrill poetically—if alliteratively and redundantly—put it, “men and women fanned themselves with Bibles, just like in the days when congregants waved fans to generate gentle breezes as preachers preached.”
Imperturbable like most men of the cloth, Pastor Tommy Foster advised parishioners, according to the Republic, that church property is God-given. The criminals, therefore, “have stolen from the hand of God.”
On a more prosaic note, Pastor Tommy told the Republic, “Of course, we are going to report it to our insurance company.”
From the hand of God to, perhaps, the good hands of Allstate: would that solving truly existential dilemmas were so effortless.
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Thieves in Stockerau, Austria (pop. 15,513) may have been attempting to solve an existential dilemma—and creating art whilst doing so—when they heisted a semitrailer loaded with 21 tons of ketchup and mustard earlier this month.
Police told the Associated Press for its July 18 report that it’s likely the crooks were more interested in the trailer—parked northwest of Vienna (pop. 1,700,000) and valued at roughly 15,000 euros (more than $22,000)—than in its contents. But one wonders.
In Stockerau, according to the website PlanetWare (“Your Unlimited Travel Guide to the World”), there is a grove—that is, a tree-ish area—dedicated to the poet Nikolaus Leno (1802-1850, and no relation to the ghastly American talk show host Jay Leno). Does a grove in Austria serve the same purpose as a back yard in America—that is, as a halcyon site of summer bar-b-ques?
We do not know. But we like to think that perhaps there is an annual Nikolaus Leno Day celebrating the celebrated poet. It draws all of Austria (pop. 8,364,000) and its principal attraction is open-air bar-b-queing. This, naturally, requires a lot of ketchup and mustard.
Thieves in possession of same, therefore, would stand to make a pretty penny on the condiment black market, especially if they were able to throw in (for free?) a recently retired semitrailer in which to tote the contraband.
Of all the forms genius takes, surely this would be one of the most pronounced.
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Four customers, ages 17 to 21, at a Taco Bell in Westlake, Ohio (pop.: 30,331) forewent condiments in favor of art, or something very much like it, when they attempted to steal a painting valued at $157 from the restaurant.
A July 14 item in the police blotter of the Cleveland Sun News (“The Sun News Comes Out on Thursday”) reported that a Bell manager managed to recover the piece before the four suspects, one a former employee, made off with it.
The Sun News opted not to describe the painting, and so, alas, we shall never know whether it appealed to the young crooks based on its artistic merits or because they were, to put it colloquially, stoned to the tits.
Either way, stealing art from Taco Bell displays pure genius. The boasting rights about the source of its purchase alone would be reason enough to own it:
Q: Wow—a painting of a talking Chihuahua! Nice! Where did you get it—the Gagosian Gallery, in New York?
A: No.
Q: The Galerie Maeght, in Paris?
A: No.
Q: The National Portrait Gallery, in London?
A: No.
Q: Well, for God’s sake—where, then?
A: Taco Bell, in Westlake, Ohio.
Q: You are a moron.
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Those in Northborough, Massachusetts (pop. 6,617) who appreciate true artistry among the illicit and the immoral were likely delighted that, according to a July 20 report in the MetroWest Daily News, more than 100 street signs recently were stolen.
Not so much, alas, town leaders.
“Whoever is doing this is on my bad list,” a public works director with the labyrinthine name of Kara Buzanoski told the Daily News.
Police, of course, suspect teenage pranksters—the same kind that filched similar signs in town a few years back.
“People need to find a more interesting way to spend their time,” the police chief, who goes by the hail-fellow-well-met name of Mark Leahy, said.
Well, duh. Small town + teenagers + boredom = pranks. Will adults ever do the math?
To keep kids occupied, we propose having an annual Northborough town fair celebrating celebrated poets and other local notables. One of the festive competitions would involve groups of teens seeing how many street signs they could pinch and then return in a given amount of time.
For another, competitors would steal art, or “art,” from fast food restaurants, motels and the like. They would then pile it up and set it on fire as a favor to sophisticates the world over.
After the games, townsfolk would gather for burgers and hotdogs. They’d garnish them with mustard and ketchup squeezed from little plastic packages that, in a third competition, kids would have lifted from area eateries.
Genius, after all, must be nurtured, especially in the young. It is but a tiny leap from town fair to Harvard to Nobel Prize to, well, San Quentin, don’t you think?
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Dave Ford is a San Francisco writer whose work has appeared in Spin, The San Francisco Chronicle,The San Francisco Examiner, SF Weekly, The Advocate, and a host of other periodicals. He writes the blog Dave Ford, and is a certified yoga instructor who teaches at various venues in his home city.
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Illustration by Bion Harrigan. Bion Harrigan keeps his head firmly planted in the clouds and has done so since the earliest days of a youth misspent idly daydreaming, reading Mad magazine, and drawing scary monsters and super creeps. He continues to spend an inordinate amount of time daydreaming and drawing at his home in Maplewood, New Jersey.
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Other dudes, who, previously, have been “in the news”
Drug Addled Troubadours
The Catastrophe
The Weasel Wielding Warrior
A Pound of Coin
The Perils of the Pocket-Dial
Man’s Ebbs and Floes
The Blotto Blotter
How Do You Figure?
Behold! The Pickled Penis
Suckin’ Quarters and Shuttling Corpses