Arrest stories

[martin ewen]

Good idea rex, Jugglermat if you could cut and paste yours here, I'll put a couple of mine up shortly (these things take time)

[Rex Boyd]

Well for the record....

I was in Boulder, Colorado around 1991. I arrived at the weekend and wanted to work using my amp just for one or two bits of music in the show. The city required performers to have a permit for using amplification which was free and easily attainable, but only during weekday office hours. I wasn't going to be in Boulder for very long so I decided to chance it on the Saturday rather than wait for Monday for a permit.

Having said all that the REAL reason for my arrest was probably when I wasn't entirely co-operative with the police officer who was questioning me after my show. He slapped on the cuffs and dragged me off to jail leaving all my props and belonging still on the pavement. Thank God another performer (Dave the memory expert guy) was there to gather my things and come get me out of jail. I was just able to give him my car keys before I was escorted away.

So I was in jail for a couple of hours and it was about as unpleasant as a fairly nice doctor's office waiting room. I heard from Dave that jail in New Orleans is no where near as nice. I don't think I'd risk it in that city.

By the way I had a fine to pay to the city of about $90 which I insisted on paying in the one dollars bills I had collected from the same show even though they tried to make me pay with some other form of currency. I think they actually would have preferred a credit card. But hey that's Boulder for you.

Rex

[le pire]

Ok So Dan (from the Dan Show) and I were hanging around the men's toilets at this park in Los Angeles and... whoa wait a minute you mean being arrested for busking! Ooops.

etienne

[Daniel Craig]

HEY!

Etienne, I told you to keep that under wraps. I don't want any kind of enforcement officer enforcing force on my defenseless form....

... and it was Miami, not Los Angeles.

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

1986, Fall. I'm in Texas, riding forever across 900 miles with a youthful-energy-meets-blissfull-ignorance attitude, and a 90-pound backpack to prove it. I've left my life behind without a clue, homemade wooden prop box bolted to the back of a blue Honda 650: Florida first, and then West to (eventually) California, where I will see Chuck, in Balboa park, ride a 20-foot unicycle and thus achieve instant temporary humility.
Austin, Texas, bohemian window in a cowboy-booted house. Whiff of lilacs in a southern whirwind of wet dog. Gas tank near empty, I decide to busk, and find that Third Street, if memory serves, is the right place. The right time, I am to find, is at about three am on that particular Thursday, because the bars let out, and the much-needed fives flow into the hat of my fiery, torchy, foolish-busker-meets-clever-beggar routine. Cash is flowing in, drunks are laughing, the only blot on the horizon is an annoying flower-seller who distracts potential clients. Darn locals.
Busking is legal in Austin, or certainly was. Fire, however, was not, at least that was what I was given to understand by the rather polite police officer who told me I could continue, but the fire was out. Ahh, the mind of the young. Surely, thought I, after 20 minutes of fruitless clubbing, surely this cop had bigger fish to fry, and had moved on. Surely, should he return, he would tell me in no uncertain terms that I had blown it, and could no longer busk, and must now hit the highway, head bowed in remorse, 20-25 bucks to the good.
Disobeying a police officer was what I was charged with, and if you've never felt the chrome bracelet around your wrists I say do it tonight. I've been fortunate enough to wear the chrome on three occasions. The life force that courses through you invigorates, and cannot be subdued. You make instant friends. "ROSE MAN, STRIP MY BIKE!" I yelled to the loathsome creature, and I was off.
72 hours is a long time to spend with 7 guys in a metal room. Especially when there is a grate in the floor enabling one or two of your group to carry on loud conversations with the 7 gals in the cell downstairs. I could see the future fireside cocktail chatter, three nubbinses on the knee: "Oh, we met in jail. He was a floor above, but you know Jerome, what a talker". More than one sigh escaped my "I'm off for the freedom of the road" lips. I almost quit cigarettes.
POING! Freed on an obscure "72 hours without seeing a judge and you're boosted" clause, I hoofed it to the front desk, where I was given the nicest note I have ever received, except for the one from Stacy Hotelling in fifth grade, telling me that I was handsome. "I've got your stuff." Address and number included. Not all rose merchants, it seemed, were mercenaries. Brotherhood prevailed, rose man shimmered over the goods without so much as a hint at a reward, the bike was untowed, and I swiftly rolled, 72 hours to the bad, 17 bucks to the good, forgetting entirely about the incident, until I recieved a notice to appear, many months later, which I politely, but firmly, disobeyed.

[Peter]

Taxi, your story reminded me of when I was traveling thru Texas many years ago, back in the 70's. I had some scars on my face from combat in 'Nam and wore a beard to hide the scars, however, in that time anybody with a beard was a hippie.

Well driving from Phoenix AZ to Minnesota cuz I had transferred to the University of Minn I was driving across Texas when I was passed by a Sheriff's car, the deputy glanced over at me and saw the beard. I was in deep shit. He continued on but pulled over about 10 miles ahead and waited for me. When I went by him he hit the red lights and pulled me over. Well he asked for my driver's licience, my car registration, why was I driving thru Texas, why was I driving in his county, etc. Then he asked very calmly for my draft card. When he asked he put his hand on his pistol, ready to pull it out. Thank God I had it on me. I showed him first my vet's hospital patient ID then my draft card. He took me into the little diner down the road and bought me lunch cuz "You look like hell with that fur on ur face, but ur a vet so lunch is on me."

Nothing to do with busking but that was Texas in the "draft card burning" days.

[AJJames]

good thread rex, looking forward to everyones arrest stories ,especially martins .
well there are many to choose from, the one that springs to mind as most surreal was this...
Travelling through italy , late december 98, broke down on some coastal cliff edge road, had no money as had been nearly arrested for busking in milan and turin, so I had to give this mechanic who towed us off the coast road a brand new mini disc player ( they were worth a few hundred quid back in 98),
I decided to try and play in the local town to buy back my m.d player and get the hell out of italy. my partner toni and I walked into town with our acro mat, music and fire props, we waited till evening then when the streets started to look full , we knocked a few shows out and we rocked this little town (chiavari) ,they hadn't seen anything like it, now normally i would have done a few shows and left but we needed to krank out the shows so we could leave italy and buy back my mini disc player,
There was a pharmacist infront ,and his shop entrance was being obstructed by our crowd ,he had a genuine right to come and have a word with us , but instead of asking us if we would stop or move or pull our crowd off the shop front he decided instead to adress the crowd, he stood in the middle of our circle and started berating the crowd ,angrily and hysterically shouting at our audience ,which was met with typical italian animated discussion that soon escalated to a scene resembling the LA riots!
, the pharmacist (still wearing the white lab coat) starts picking up our props and trashing them. Normally I am a very proactive and find it difficult to just let events unfold , i'm a too much of a control freak , but this evening , i was lost for words or actions, it was like watching it happen to some one else.A police car then pulled up and bungled us and our props into the back and drove us to the local station. When we got there , there was a queue of people there wanting to give statements on our behalf, they and we thought we were being arrested for performiong and causing a riot. But we were sat down in a nice room and given some essential advice about performing in Italy ,the police had only wanted to get us out of there, by the end of a friendly hour long chat, we were invited to dinner by the police sargent and told that florence was the place to go, as the city police there issued permits not fines.
we never did buy back my mini disc player but the van was fixed ,we had enough money for fuel and road toll to Florence , so we headed there and made a killing over christmas on a permitted pitch with no psyco pharmcists.

[jester]

Contempt of Court

In Sept 2003 I was arrested and charged to appear in Salisbury Crown Court on a charge of contempt.

The reason I was charged was because the previous day I had arrived to answer a call for jury service. When I got there my name was not on their list but as I had a summons they wouldn't let me go.

Then they had 36 people and they only wanted 15 so they shoved us all in a room as big as my lounge with not enough seats and a broken coffee machine and would not let us leave.

After 2 hours I asked what was going on as many of us were getting nausious and the usher told us that the judge was too busy to sort out the numbers and we had to wait.

I had left my 3 year old boy at Preschool and he had never spent the whole day there before. So I told the usher that he took precedence and that I was going to excuse myself if the judge wasn't going to sort it out. I left.

I rang the court that afternoon and they told me that the jury was not required the following day.

On the Tuesday a policeman came with a summons to appear on a charge of contempt. But when he found out that I had not actually walked out on a trial decided not to actually arrest me on condition that I go to the court myself to face the judge.

When I got there I was treated like any other criminal. I sat in the dock and we had all the pomp and the wigs and gowns and ceremony.

I like fancy dress. That's why I decided to attend in my Jesters outfit and show them what contempt really is.

I shouted at the judge and expressed my disgust at his using the police as his telegram boys and leaving too many people in a small room. He forgot that I was on trial here and started to make excuses which I duly tore into. He told me it was procedure and I told him that he was a crown executive and could not hide behind procedure. In the end he ended the session and stormed out.

One of the journalists in the lobby said they had never seen anybody shout like that at a judge and get away with it.

I am reliably informed that I am the first Jester to appear on a charge of contempt of court since Archie armstrong over 300 years ago.

During the next ten days I think he began to forgive me because I made him laugh a couple of times. I was even forman of the jury for one trial.

Obviously I served as a juror in conventional dress, for the sake of the defendant, not the crown.

[martin ewen]

I got arrested in Paris once...it was funny.

[Butterfly Man]

What did you get arrested for ... impersonating a comedian?

[martin ewen]

Paris is in France. Which is a country at the northernmost border of Europe where civilization ends. (Near where Britain begins). I had driven up after working in Barcelona and Ibiza, a lovely drive except the one night spent low on gas parked outside a closed gas station in the middle of the Pyrenees (mountains between Spain and France). It was very cold and being the wide-eyed optimist I am I owned nothing but thin shirts to stave off the temperature which to put it mildly, was a tad frosty.

That in itself would have been problem enough but the hitchhiker I had with me was some Latin dude who had the strangest affliction in that as soon as he fell asleep every ounce of viscous fluid in his body immediately made its way to his sinus and the back of his throat such that hideous unearthly mind-bending noises burst from him at volume. I’d wake him up, he’d apologize go back to sleep and, seconds later the imitation of close quarter military jets taking off and landing would resume.
It was a measure of my desperation as I sat there next to the most horrifying snorer in the world while shivering uncontrollably that I tried to knock myself out by bashing my head against the steering column. The first blow was definitely committed and stars swum but sadly I was still among the living so before I could regain what miniscule sense I originally had I mustered my stupidity and had another go…..It was unsuccessful and now I had added a raging headache to the twin discomforts of noise and temperature to create a memorable French trinity of woe.

The rest of the trip was comparatively uneventful. Arrived in Paris, earned the hotel money the evening I got in and resumed my Paris pattern of daytime pitch a block from the Pompidou and night-time pitch in the Latin Quarter.

The daytime pitch was my own; a series of arches with apartments above formed the entrance into a large square. The edge of the square used to be a lane as was still labeled with a street sign. (More about that later) In the middle of the square was a dry fountain where junkies hung out and the arches themselves formed a passage for locals and tourists to pass to and from a nearby subway entrance, various lanes and side roads towards the square and a large underground shopping center beyond. It had a good flow and I would work there a couple of hours a day, the crowds impeded no one and all was well.
I would do my thing, which consisted of outfrenching the French in the distain dept and being for all intents and purposes just a wee bit dour.
They lapped it up and one of my better memories was an old woman on the 3rd floor of the apartments above me opening her window after a show and lowering a 20 franc note that she had stuck on a peg and tied onto the end of a long string.

This was towards the end of the season, round October and what I didn’t know then was that many European countries do immigration sweeps about this time to clear their cultures of summer straggling cling-ons who would otherwise add demands to their socialist but finite social welfare systems.

Over the heads of my audience, approaching in the distance I spotted a gaggle of French Guardia, 8 in all with a couple of muzzled dogs and a guy hanging behind wearing a Clouseau overcoat who was obviously the semi-singular half-brain behind the operation.
The Guardia are the utility overalled Dobermans of the French police force who are selected for their single-minded zeal and unquestioning obedience. (Much like low-level gangsters or Orks)
I suspect that at the training academy they hang bright shiny objects at the entrance on recruitment day and select for the Guardia those found transfixed by them who additionally have ‘HATE’ tattooed on their knuckles. ADD and amphetamine addicts are especially prized.

They were darting about snorting and peeing on posts, the junkies scattered, still they caught some, handcuffed them and made them sit on the ground. They were a bit of a distraction actually as my audience kept glancing over at the competitive drama.

From about 100 yards away they turned and looked at me then as one turned to their over coated keeper who nodded.
They rushed towards me, their knuckles bleeding as they dragged at their feet, the audience parted with an indignant distain and they surrounded me barking a threatening gibberish I could only presume was French.

‘Gibber gibber’ they barked…I stared at them…’Gibber gibber gibber growl’ they barked louder, (one of them had dropped to all fours and was licking another’s testicles while whining)

Remember earlier I mentioned that where I was working had been a road and still had the street sign? Well the sign was just feet away so I tottered over to it and smiled and pointed.
‘Avenue du Innocents’

Well I thought it was funny and so did my audience but unfortunately it sent these guys into a furious apoplectic rage.
Howling, they surrounded me and in a stunning piece of improvisation pushed me over.
Two got in front of me and four got behind and the two in the front pushed and the four at the back caught.
(It was like being back at clown school doing a warm fuzzy trust exercise accept it was half a world away from home and being done in public by evil intentioned state Orks)
Mercifully the four at the back actually caught me and lowered me roughly to the ground.

They still had a couple of problems; I was 12 foot long and couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
Inaction to these people is like sunlight to Vampires however so one of the catchers stomped round in front of me and grabbing a stilt, tried to simply yank it off.

I moved about 3 feet. He tried again. I moved another 3 feet. My audience were muttering darkly. I obviously speak no French but remembering how much is shared by common cultures I tried saying ‘Impossible’ with a heavy French accent, ‘Empossaabeelle’ I cried as he pulled at my leg a third time. (With diminishing enthusiasm I had to note.)
The audience had at this point become brave and abusive having had to watch their clown being dragged around the pavement by morons.
The semi-singular half-brain Clouseau-clone now entered the fray in a sort of “try and nip this surrealism in the bud” way and in halting English asked me for my passport.
Now that’s a simple enough request but unfortunately I lead an impossibly complicated life.
I did in fact have my NZ passport on me but I had entered the country with my British passport.
Therefore my NZ passport would have no record of me having ever entered Europe and as such I thought it best to answer, ‘No, It’s at my hotel.’ Which it was.
So I was encouraged constantly and quite vocally to get my legs off.
As I was unwrapping the gaffer/duct tape one of the Guardia pulled out an evil blade and slashed at the top of my stilts helpfully.
Carrying my shoes (no time to put them on apparently) my stilts, my gear and still with my makeup on I was led, surrounded by my honor guard to a grill windowed bus parked round the corner that was now almost full of what looked like Algerian refugees.
We headed off to the main Parisian police station where I was first put into a single cell and searched. They found my NZ passport and told me that if I’d shown that to them they would have left me alone but now as I had already entered the system they were obliged to process me and having got my hotels ph number they would ring them and put me in a holding cell till a copy of my English passport was faxed to them.
(At least I think that’s what they said)
So I was then chucked into a room full of swarthy, Algerian, junkie neer-do-wells still with smeared whiteface and shoeless. A few of them recognized me and tried to chat but sadly we had nothing in common but our criminal records. Still I was unmolested and sat quietly which was probably one of the best things to happen to me all day.
Eventually it was all resolved, the police said that the hotel had stuck up for me sending a copy of my passport and additionally giving me a bit of a character reference. I put my shoes on and left went straight to my night pitch to make up for loss of earnings and the next day I was back at the Avenue du Innocents.

[jester]

Enjoyable as ever Martin.

Very funny. And very scary. I actually beleive that you would smack you head against the steering wheel to induce sleep.


Here's a tip though. The french police don't mind NZ but they absolutely and almost without exception dislike the English.

[le pire]

...they absolutely and almost without exception dislike the English.

just like everyone else in the world.



I'M JOKING!!! IT'S A JOKE!!! Really, I mean how can you dislike a people who eat "Spotted Dick" for dessert?



etienne

[em]

i have never in the history of being a Brit eaten a spotted dick.

I was always told by my mother "if its got spots on it, send him down the clinic". I have always taken this piece of advice very seriously.

We don't drink warm beer either.

[le pire]

Em,

I just read "Street Arts: A Users Guide" about the British street theatre scene and there are a couple of really nice mentions of Stickleback Plastus.


Actually Tesco noticed that Spotted Dick wasn't selling like it has in years passed, and thought it needed an image change-- so certain stores started calling it Spotted Richard.

No one was fooled.

I'll post an arrest story in my next post to stay on topic...


etienne