The Hate Crime

[Dear Booze]

Hate Crime: A usually violent, prejudice motivated crime that occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group. Examples of such groups include but are not limited to: ethnicity, gender identity, language, nationality, physical appearance, religion, or sexual orientation.

"Hate crime" generally refers to criminal acts that are seen to have been motivated by bias against one or more of the types above, or of their derivatives. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters.

For a couple of years, a couple of great years, life was easy. Money was tight, but everything else was grand. My routine was about as simple as it comes. Sleep until three in the afternoon, show up to my job as a bartender at five, work until about eleven or twelve, head to the Stardust Room to meet up with my buddy Steve and a small group of other waiters and bartenders, drink until two, head to my friend Steve’s apartment to continue drinking until about five, go home, pass out, and complete the cycle.

Typically, Steve and I would be pretty lit by the time we arrived at his place, so the next few hours were spent on the consumption of (what we called) maintenance drinks - beverages that maintained our drunkenness without causing us to get sick or pass out. It’s science.

We used to play a lot of Dominos and Trivial Pursuit back then, so many mornings between two and dawn were spent on maintenance cocktails and games. But every once in a while, we would get antsy and go out looking for something to do.
From time to time, we would take a Seven Iron and a bag of golf balls down to the LDS church located next door to the apartment complex where Steve lived and use their lawn as a tee box. We would take turns hitting the balls into traffic or over the parking lot towards a tract of single family residential units. I still love the way a golf ball sounds when it hits the metal roof of a patio cover!

There were a handful of other go-to late-night activities that we embraced and participated in on a fairly regular basis. None of them were super destructive, but were simply a product of the imaginations of a couple of really bored drunks. Stuff like breaking bottles and throwing all of the deck chairs into the pool at Steve’s apartment complex.

One thing that we really got a kick out of doing was something we called sign repurposing. We find large vinyl banners from commercial buildings and apartments. You know the ones. They long banners that say “NOW OPEN” or “$450 MOVE-IN SPECIAL” or “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT”. We would remove them and rehang them in a random yard of an unsuspecting residential neighborhood. We don’t know how the owners of these places reacted upon discovering the signs, but we had fun either way.

Steve’s apartment complex was a series of two-story buildings located in a garden setting with a collection of paths and walkways which winded through the buildings and led to a couple of swimming pools, a gym, a clubhouse, barbeque area and all of the parking lots. It was a pretty nice place. Each unit had its own private outdoor area too. The ground floor apartments had a nice little patio that were about 8 feet by fifteen feet and were fenced off from the common areas. The upstairs units had generous balcony spaces which were about the same size as the patio below.

One night, after a full night of work and drinking at the Stardust, Steve and I were walking from the parking lot to his apartment and we both noticed several pairs of hospital scrubs hanging over the fence of one of the ground floor apartment units. Without any thought whatsoever, I reached out and grabbed a set. One pair of pants and one top. Clearly, the resident of that unit was a nurse or had a job of some sort in a hospital or medical office. And clearly, he or she had washed the uniforms and hung them out to dry. And clearly, we were drunk and had no real plan about what we were planning on doing with these clothes. But we took them anyway.

Once inside Steve’s place, we were both giggling like a couple of retards. Still we had no plan.

I’ve said many times, “Sometimes when I’m drunk, I tend to find things that need to be broken.” I really don’t know why. But I do. And I accept it.

I took the burning cigarette from my lips and burned a hole in the crotch of the pants. Steve took his cigarette and burned holes in the front of the top – right about where tits would be located if someone was wearing the thing.

Over the next fifteen minutes, we took turns trying to outdo each other with ridiculous damage being caused to the medical uniform. Smiley faces were burned into the fabric, wine and other liquids were applied, and a Sharpie was employed to write absurd messages such as “FUCK YOU DOCTOR”, “I HAVE NO PATIENTS FOR PATIENTS”, and “FIRE ME, I’M A PEDOPHILE AND A NAZI” with a small swastika drawn over the word “NAZI”.

Eventually, we lost interest and found something else to occupy or time.

Just before dawn, I decided to head home to get a little sleep and prepare for another 24-hours of the same routine. I said my goodbyes, finished my drink and headed to the door. At the last moment, I grabbed the damaged scrubs and left. On the way back to my car, I hung the medical worker’s uniform back where we had originally found it several hours earlier. I giggled a little bit and then forgot all about it.

The next day was the same as every other day. Until I met up with Steve at the bar... He was worried and wanted to talk to me. “Let’s go outside and have a smoke,” he urged.

“What is it?... What’s up?” I asked. Steve was clearly rattled and it wasn’t normal for him to be rattled about anything. Generally, he was calm, cool and collected about everything. If the house was on fire, I always imagined him to say calmly, “well it looks like the house is going to burn down.” That’s just the way he was.

But not this time.

“You remember those hospital scrubs from last night?” he asked.

“Yeah, Why?”

“Well, as I was leaving for work today, the cops were at that apartment,” he explained.

“Oh shit.”

“Oh shit is right,” he said. They were talking to the owner as I walked past. And the owner is a black woman. Do you understand that we committed a hate crime?”

“But we don’t hate her,” I said, “we were just drunk. Why is it a hate crime?”

“Don’t you remember the Nazi shit?”

“Oh fuck.”

“Oh fuck is right,” he said.

He was right. We didn’t need to be racist for it to be a hate crime.

Although nothing ever came of it, this was one drunk incident that I still feel terrible about.

[Patchez]

On a lighter note, this reminded me of a drunken neighbor hood game my cohorts and I used to play.

This was back in the late '80s and early 90's. Our little neck of no where, a small town of 15,000 as well as the neighboring communities, seemed to be getting over populated by "carpeted sheep" yard ornaments.You know, 1/2" thick 10 or 12" planks cut in the shape of sheep with black or white carpeting "wool". It seemed to be the Target crowds answer to the WalMart crowds Pink Flamingos.

Anyway we would be stumbling around town on Friday and Saturday nights on our usual pub crawl. We'd hit 7 to 10 over about a 6 or 7 hour period. Sometime about halfway through someone would say, with a Slim Pickens a la Blazing Saddles voice. "Boys it's high time for some carpeted sheep rustlin'." We would then disperse on various routes toward the next bar. scattering across the neighborhood leading to the bar we would steal every carpeted sheep we came across. We would place them all around the entrance to the next bar or if they had a lawn out front, stand them up out there. The numbers have been 5 to around 50.

Kept us from being bored.

[oettinger]

One early morning I stumbled home from a nice bender and decided to visit the russian buddy in another town. Bought a bottle of vodka that I cleaned out on the 40 minute train ride and arrived at his place at around 9 a.m.

We directly headed to the grocery store to store up on beer. Just as we were paying I saw a lonely walker (or walking frame) standing in front of us. It had a cute little basket attached to it`s front and I quickly realized how helpful that thing would be helping us carry the beer and carry me.
But not to be an unmannerly thief I took the thing through the store and asked every clerk in sight if it belonged to someone. Most just shrugged their shoulders and mubled something like "don`t know, don`t care". Can I take it then? No replies. I even asked people in the parking lot, but they just wanted to get rid of me and gave me stupid looks.

Some 14 hours later we were again on the road to reload, this time to a nearby gas station. We left our latest acquiretment at the russian buddys place, figuering out someone might notice it. On our way there we were of course stopped by two cop cars, filled with like 5 or 6 pissed cops. Turns out there was an old lady in the store, pretty down after finding out her beloved vehicle was stolen. We were on security camera (yay I`m on TV mom look).
And really the two of us together look something like master-blaster from the stupid third mad-max movie. I`m twice his size, a bit heavy and have long hair. Starkly in contrast to the skinny, shaved head pitiful appearance he possesses. We were an easy target...
They looked all day for us and the russian buddy was getting into an argument with them to top it off. They got more pissed and took him to his place to retrive our treasure. I had to walk.

In the end we had to pay some 50 bucks and the case was from the desk, because we were college students heavily intoxicated and nothing malicious ought to be found in our actions. We surely anticipated something way worse. Fucking luck of the drunkards!

[oettinger]

Look what I found

[Dear Booze]

Look what I found

I recommend spray painting it bright orange. You know, to shake the cops and the true owner. Maybe add a couple stickers or something.

BTW the fact that it's full of booze did not go unnoticed. Nice job!

[oettinger]

It needs this:

and this:

and we`re done, stickers rock also

[Dear Booze]

Anyway we would be stumbling around town on Friday and Saturday nights on our usual pub crawl. We'd hit 7 to 10 over about a 6 or 7 hour period. Sometime about halfway through someone would say, with a Slim Pickens a la Blazing Saddles voice. "Boys it's high time for some carpeted sheep rustlin'." We would then disperse on various routes toward the next bar. scattering across the neighborhood leading to the bar we would steal every carpeted sheep we came across. We would place them all around the entrance to the next bar or if they had a lawn out front, stand them up out there. The numbers have been 5 to around 50.

Your activity should serve as an inspiration to young drinkers. I wish this would turn into a "thing". Some sort of worldwide movement.