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Ffom
Ernie
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From a
Minnesoooooooooooooooota friend
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Happy
chemicals to you and youre, infidel
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The 2007
Peepalooza
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A Dave Barry
classic
Rabbit ears
get poor reception
BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Dec. 25, 1994.) Like most
people, you probably often ask yourself: ``What, exactly, are my legal
rights if I am wearing a bunny outfit?''
The answer,
you will be relieved to learn, is: ''It depends.'' To understand why
this is, let us first consider a 22-page legal decision filed in
October by U.S. District Judge David G. Larimer and sent to me by alert
attorney James G. Vazzana, of Rochester, N.Y. Here, according to Judge
Larimer's decision, are the Facts of the Case (and I want to stress
that I am not making ANY of this up):
On April 23,
1992, Timothy Wagner and John Payment were traveling on holiday through
western New York state. They stopped their van in a Cattaraugus County
town called Randolph to eat breakfast, and they noticed a little girl
in the restaurant. This, according to Judge Larimer, gave them an idea:
``The men
decided it would be a treat for the girl if one of them went to the
van, put on the Easter Bunny mask and walked to the window of the
restaurant to surprise the girl.''
It seems
that Wagner and Payment were traveling with (why not?) a large
papier-mache bunny head. Each time they entered a new county, one of
them would put on the bunny head and pose for a photograph next to the
county sign on the roadside. (Judge Larimer notes that ''They also had
a 7-foot stuffed dog in the van that apparently also posed for some of
these roadside pictures.'' )
So Payment
got the bunny head out of the van, put it on and waved into the
restaurant window until the little girl saw him. Then he put the bunny
head away and went back to finish his breakfast.
In some
towns, Wagner and Payment might have gotten away with this. But
Randolph is not ''some towns.'' Several alert citizens observed the
Easter Bunny; they thought that it might have been looking into the
windows of local banks. So a bank employee called the Cattaraugus
County Sheriff's Department, which sent two officers to Randolph to
investigate.
By then,
Wagner and Payment had left town, but one of the officers, Lt. Ernie
Travis, was able to trace Wagner's van from its license plate; he
learned that Wagner had a criminal conviction (which later turned out
to be related to income-tax-evasion charges).
So here was
the situation:
1. Two
strangers had been hanging around Randolph, and one of them had been
wearing a bunny head in a possibly suspicious manner.
2. One of
the men had been convicted of something.
3. There
were banks around.
Lt. Travis,
according to a deposition he gave later, as summarized by Judge
Larimer, concluded that ''the men were bank robbers.'' So he issued an
All Points Bulletin to apprehend the suspects, who were described as
``armed and dangerous.''
Wagner and
Payment were arrested at gunpoint by state police, handcuffed and
returned to Cattaraugus County. There the bank-robbery case against
them-- which up to that point probably looked airtight -- began to fall
apart.
For one
thing, as Judge Larimer noted in his decision, no actual bank had been
robbed. Also, Payment and Wagner did not flee, nor were they armed
(unless you count the stuffed dog). Also, as the judge pointed out,
robbers casing a bank probably would not wear a 2-foot-high bunny head
featuring ``enormous pink ears.''
''Generally,''
observed the judge, ``stealth is preferred when engaging in such
activity.''
So after a
couple of hours in custody, Wagner and Payment were released, and
everybody had a good laugh, and then Wagner and Payment sued for $2.1
million. Judge Larimer ruled that Lt. Travis acted improperly, and a
jury will determine what the damages are.
This case
reaffirms our fundamental right -- not specifically mentioned in the
Constitution, but clearly on the minds of the Founding Fathers -- to
look into bank windows while wearing bunny outfits. But that does not
mean that we have carte blanche (literally, ''hors d'oeuvres'') to do
whatever we wish. I have here a recent Los Angeles Times story sent in
by alert reader Cathy Perlmutter concerning a 35-year-old, 225-pound
man who dressed as a ''Samurai Bunny'' for Halloween, meaning that he
carried a wooden sword and had (I am still not making any of this up)
''a stuffed bunny on his head.'' This man was arrested on suspicion of
assault after he allegedly almost whacked off another man's ear with
his sword when the man asked if he wasn't too old to be
trick-or-treating.
So we see
from these two cases that there is a ''fine line'' between legal and
illegal bunny-outfit conduct, and the distinctions become even more
blurred when we enter the arena of wearing giant chicken heads or --
this can be a legal nightmare -- two-person horse suits. So in this or
any other legal matter, I strongly recommend that before you do
anything, you pay a qualified attorney to give you advice that neither
you nor he really understands. And make darned sure you register your
stuffed dog.
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Today's
Birthdays
On this day: "Playboy" magazine founder Hugh Hefner is 81. (Born 1926) Satirical
singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer is 79. (Born 1928)
Journalist
and activist Paul Krassner is 75. (Born 1932)
"Wild
Kingdom" assistant Jim Fowler is 75. (Born 1932)
Emmy
Award-winning actress Michael Learned is 68. (Born 1939) She won Emmys
for her work on "The Waltons" and "Nurse."
Country
singer Hal Ketchum is 54. (Born 1953)
Actor Dennis
Quaid is 53. (Born 1954) His credits include the movies "American
Dreamz," "Yours, Mine, and Ours," "Flight of the Phoenix," "In Good
Company," "The Day After Tomorrow," "The Alamo," "Cold Creek Manor,"
"Far From Heaven," "Traffic," "Any Given Sunday," "The Right Stuff,"
and "Wyatt Earp."
Golfer
Severiano Ballesteros is 50. (Born 1957)
Restless
Heart singer Dave Innis is 48. (Born 1959)
NBC
Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker is 42. (Born 1965)
Actor Mark
Pellegrino is 42. (Born 1965) His credits include the movies "The
Number 23," "Capote," "National Treasure," "The Hunted," and "Drowning
Mona."
Model
Paulina Porizkova is 42. (Born 1965)
Emmy
Award-winning actress Cynthia Nixon is 41. (Born 1966) She won the Emmy
for her work on TV series "Sex and the City." Her other credits include
the TV miniseries "Warm Springs" and the movies "Igby Goes Down,"
"Addams Family Values," and "The Pelican Brief."
Musician
Gerard Way is 30. (Born 1977) He's the frontman for the band My
Chemical Romance.
Musician
Albert Hammond Jr. is 28. (Born 1979) He's the guitarist for the band
The Strokes.
Actress
Keshia Knight Pulliam is 28. (Born 1979) She's best known for the role
of Rudy Huxtable on "The Cosby Show." Her work on the sitcom earned her
an Emmy nomination when she was six years old, making her the youngest
actress to have been in the running for the TV award. Her other credits
include the movies "Death Toll," "The Gospel" and "Beauty Shop."
Singer and
actor Jesse McCartney is 20. (Born 1987) His acting credits include the
TV series "Summerland" and the soap "All My Children."
Actress
Kristen Stewart is 17. (Born 1990) Her credits include the movies "The
Messengers," "Zathura: A Space Adventure," "Fierce People," "Undertow,"
"Cold Creek Manor," "Catch That Kid," and "Panic Room."
Actress Elle
Fanning is nine. (Born 1998) Her credits include the movies "Deja Vu,"
"Because of Winn-Dixie," "The Door in the Floor," and "Daddy Cay Care."
She's also the younger sister of actress Dakota Fanning.
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OK, move along, that's all there
is, move along please ....
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Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
--Woody Allen
Home is where the grab bars are.