The proletariat will rise. And then go away.
July 13, 2007 4:53 PM   Subscribe

 
I tried to think of a wittier link title, but MSNBC's stole the show.
posted by Alex404 at 4:54 PM on July 13, 2007


Very Jean Valjean. Or Callahan.
posted by darksasami at 4:58 PM on July 13, 2007


There is a place on the internet called The Beb, that this is truly West of.
posted by ORthey at 4:59 PM on July 13, 2007 [2 favorites]


(what?)
posted by ORthey at 4:59 PM on July 13, 2007


He couldn't manage to steal a kiss? Lame.
posted by googly at 5:03 PM on July 13, 2007


Thank God, it wasn't "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."
posted by ericb at 5:03 PM on July 13, 2007 [3 favorites]


I wonder if he was stoned on weed and when the people were unexpectedly nice to him was simply unable not to be nice back.
posted by motty at 5:03 PM on July 13, 2007


I am pretty sure that Buñuel made a movie about this.
posted by nasreddin at 5:06 PM on July 13, 2007 [2 favorites]


Curses! ericb.

The first thing I asked myself was if the robber was a panda.
posted by Hicksu at 5:06 PM on July 13, 2007


I need to get some of that wine.
posted by IronLizard at 5:06 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


I wonder if they're just those kind of people--like, they were all so at ease and enjoying themselves and happy to begin with, and offering the wine was a masterstroke and not the usual or expected reaction to a gun to a kid's head, which totally put the guy off his stride anyway, so he figured what the hell?
posted by amberglow at 5:11 PM on July 13, 2007


Hah, saw this on the Metro section of the Post today on my way to work. Great story.

I wonder how many people would shoot if potential victims responded unexpectedly to their threats like that. Fear is such an encoded response it must've completely boggled the guy, sober or not.
posted by landedjentry at 5:15 PM on July 13, 2007


Reminds me a little bit of a story I read in Adbusters' letters section, years ago. I'm having a little trouble remembering the details, but I remember the jist of it. An older man was walking through Chicago late at night and was held up by a young black man with a handgun. The frightened older man had only a few dollars in his wallet, but offered to walk to his ATM with his mugger to get more. On the way there, his young mugger began crying and apologizing, saying he was only trying to feed his wife and child and hadn't been able to make money any other way. They got to the ATM and the older man made the maximum $300 withdrawal and gave it to the young man. The young man gave him his gun.

On his way home, the older man threw it in the Chicago River.
posted by churl at 5:18 PM on July 13, 2007 [11 favorites]


Don't know if the robber was a grammarian, ericb, but since "jumbo shrimp" and "Camembert cheese" was being served, perhaps he was a fan of oxymoronic and redundant victuals.
posted by rob511 at 5:18 PM on July 13, 2007 [3 favorites]


love that story too, churl.

(you have to be a really good judge of character and instant assessment to get away with this kind of thing tho, i think--or totally unafraid of death or something)
posted by amberglow at 5:20 PM on July 13, 2007


Just goes to show: if you're having guests over, don't scrimp on the wine and cheese! Get the very best you can afford! Your guests (and any shotgun-toting hooded Germans who may also happen to show up) will appreciate it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:22 PM on July 13, 2007


Hmmm. My two buck Chuck would've probably gotten me killed.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:26 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


Germans?
posted by trip and a half at 5:28 PM on July 13, 2007


"There was this degree of disbelief and terror at the same time," Rabdau said. "Then it miraculously just changed. His whole emotional tone turned — like, we're one big happy family now. I thought: Was it the wine? Was it the cheese?"

Was it the meth?
posted by tkchrist at 5:29 PM on July 13, 2007


"Damn! That's good wine!" Yeah, Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry. I got to get me some of that shit.
posted by CCBC at 5:30 PM on July 13, 2007


Nobody's mentioned that Fark had this story @ 12:20PM?
posted by wendell at 5:31 PM on July 13, 2007


"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

Given he was in the zone and ready to blow a kid's head off in the interests of robbery, hearing that must have pushed some kind of hard reset switch in the guy's mind, sending him back into a beneficient, pre-lapsarian bonhomie.
posted by Drexen at 5:34 PM on July 13, 2007


I like the stoner theory, but I'm more ready to believe that it was someone who was fairly new to the whole 'robbing people at gunpoint' and was scared shitless. When someone did something that violated the well established movie script that he was following in his head, it became easier to just abort.

Or maybe he had no intention of harming anyone, he just really was craving some cheese. I mean, we've all been there, right?
posted by quin at 5:34 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


/opens a bottle... just in case...

We always need a reason to have an open bottle of good wine... now I've got mine...
thanks!
posted by HuronBob at 5:47 PM on July 13, 2007


Um... hello? Who are these investigators and why doesn't this ring true?

They also dusted for fingerprints — so far, to no avail.

In the alley behind the home, investigators found the intruder's empty crystal wine glass on the ground, unbroken.


Were they holding the glass for him?
posted by Roger Dodger at 5:50 PM on July 13, 2007


Germans?

Uh, sorry, that was supposed to be "gunmen". I guess I was thinking about Germans. How utterly odd.

Senility creeping in? No. No. Can't be...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:50 PM on July 13, 2007


This story begs the question: is there any problem alcohol cannot solve?
posted by JeNeSaisQuoi at 5:53 PM on July 13, 2007 [7 favorites]


I read it as German too, flapjax. It just seems like the kind of thing they would do.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:00 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


An elderly friend of my parents woke up in the middle of the night a few years ago when they heard a crash downstairs. Leaving the lights off, she quietly walked downstairs and realized that someone was in her living room, robbing the house. She turned on the light, and he whipped around to look at her. She said, very softly, but sternly, "I'm disappointed in you." The man waited a moment, put down everything he had taken, said, "I am, too," and walked out of the house empty handed.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:08 PM on July 13, 2007 [18 favorites]


God damn liberals! I'm just waiting for some armed criminal to run into one of their houses! What the hell are they going to do? Defend themselves with wine and cheese? "C'mon robber, how about a group hug?"

Like that will *ever* work!
posted by eriko at 6:12 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


Maybe we can air drop a few hundred thousand cases of Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry in Baghdad and Gaza and the warizstan area of Pakistan. Can't hurt...
posted by Skygazer at 6:16 PM on July 13, 2007


Hmmm. My two buck Chuck would've probably gotten me killed.

Maybe not, miss lynnster!

Just yesterday -- California's Wine Surprise -- Trader Joe's 'Two Buck Chuck' Named Best Chardonnay at Prestigious State Fair!
posted by ericb at 6:22 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


Maybe we can air drop a few hundred thousand cases of Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry in Baghdad and Gaza and the warizstan area of Pakistan. Can't hurt...

That's fucking brilliant! I'd love to see what the local Muslims would think after we oh so thoughtful (and completely ignorant) Americans carpeted them with alcohol.
posted by Alex404 at 6:22 PM on July 13, 2007 [2 favorites]


Well, with any luck they would drink it. Or we could come up with an aerosolized form.
posted by IronLizard at 6:25 PM on July 13, 2007



Maybe we can air drop a few hundred thousand cases of Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry in Baghdad and Gaza and the warizstan area of Pakistan. Can't hurt...


Ummmm... no...did you just graduate from the George W. Bush school of diplomacy?
posted by geos at 6:26 PM on July 13, 2007


Cool story churl, although I think in the end it only adds to the escalating spiral of fish-on-fish violence.
posted by JHarris at 6:39 PM on July 13, 2007


My first thought was, are they sure he wasn't a ghost?
posted by kimota at 6:42 PM on July 13, 2007


Hello, officer. This open bottle of wine? Strictly for self-defense. You can never be too careful.
posted by lekvar at 6:56 PM on July 13, 2007


That's fucking brilliant! I'd love to see what the local Muslims would think after we oh so thoughtful (and completely ignorant) Americans carpeted them with alcohol.

We can say it is distilled from the blood of Jews.

Ummmm... no...did you just graduate from the George W. Bush school of diplomacy?

George W. Bush School of diplomacy? HA HA. Teh awesome funny.


Anyhow, be it culturally insensitive I still think it would beat dropping bombs.
posted by Skygazer at 8:23 PM on July 13, 2007


I feel like this worked because you're generally going to be pretty alone and desperate to turn to waving guns around and robbing people.

There have been times where I've wanted some kind of human contact so severely that, if someone had told me that all I had to do was wave a gun around to get a hug, I probably would have given it a lot of thought.
posted by blacklite at 9:06 PM on July 13, 2007


churl: I know that story, too, but I didn't read it in Adbusters. I think it was a Chicago Trib or Sun-Times columnist, or a story that a Chicago columnist published.
As you can imagine, it's probably almost impossible to Google.
posted by dhartung at 10:09 PM on July 13, 2007


it would beat dropping bombs

Ever been clocked in the head by a bottle?

Ever seen a bottle of vintage Clos du Mesnil explode?

Ever eaten a crepes suzette?

Dropping alcohol on Iraq would be an unholy act of savagery!
posted by five fresh fish at 10:14 PM on July 13, 2007


Yeah, he was probably just really, really lonely. Money isn't everything even for mindless, bloodthirsty criminals (tm). "Cha Cha" certainly deserves an award for such generosity. I'm not sure I would've offered the gunman a glass of the good stuff.
posted by nixerman at 10:19 PM on July 13, 2007


Ever been clocked in the head by a bottle?

Yes.

Ever seen a bottle of vintage Clos du Mesnil explode?

No. Gimme a minute....

Ok, yes.

Ever eaten a crepes suzette?

Maybe. I don't know what her name was, but I think the last name sounds right.

Dropping alcohol on Iraq would be an unholy act of savagery!


Perhaps. But only insofar as providing booze in bulk doesn't actually encourage drinking.

Ensuring that there is huge amounts of alcohol in-country, and that it's verboten, though the police might 'turn a blind eye to speakeasies', is the best way to use booze as a weapon.

I mean, let's just take the U.S. prohibition and make it work for us overseas.

Next, will give them swing! (and if the idea of someone in a full burka swing-dancing doesn't make you smile, you are a cold SOB)
posted by quin at 10:38 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


The real hero here was the Camembert, and it's time someone said so.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:56 PM on July 13, 2007 [1 favorite]


All you need is love.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 12:29 AM on July 14, 2007


And another glass of wine.
And some smelly camembert.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:17 AM on July 14, 2007


A friend of mine was mugged for his wallet.

When he asked the mugger what he needed the money for, the mugger told him booze.

So he offered to buy the mugger a bottle if he'd let him keep his wallet.

The mugger agreed, put away his weapon, and a bottle was purchased from the closest liquor store.

The moral of the story is: muggers like booze.
posted by bwg at 4:27 AM on July 14, 2007


Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry-blue?
posted by public at 4:40 AM on July 14, 2007


Just for once, it would be nice if a gunman burst out of a party and got a hug.
posted by Kikkoman at 6:05 AM on July 14, 2007


Sommeliers everywhere are smiling.
posted by Skygazer at 8:24 AM on July 14, 2007


Happiness is a Warm....
posted by Skygazer at 8:34 AM on July 14, 2007


Only in California could the phrase Prestigious State Fair not cause all within earshot to burst out laughing.
posted by Partial Law at 9:38 AM on July 14, 2007


> As you can imagine, it's probably almost impossible to Google.

As I can attest, in fact.
posted by churl at 6:22 PM on July 15, 2007


I read it in the Guardian on Saturday but I thought it was a wine company's advertorial.

He drank the glass and said "Damned, that's good wine," and it was!
posted by Geezum Crowe at 9:03 AM on July 16, 2007 [1 favorite]


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