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Men in dresses behaving badly
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Sept. 23, 1999 |
According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, police acting on a tip arrested Donald Ray Johnson, 30, on Friday morning. "Police say he has donned dreadlocks, tank tops and pigtails to go by the names of Donna, Duck, Co-Co and Lisa at different times," said the newspaper. Johnson's alleged crimes (and past arrests) were unimaginative, dull even -- forging checks, stealing purses, arson, carrying a concealed weapon -- but his genius found expression in other aspects of his life. The Times-Picayune referred to "mug shots of Johnson in female attire ... [dressed] as Donna he sports long hair or as Co-Co he dons cheerleader attire with pigtails and tank top." You've got to hand it to Johnson. Just when everyday street crime has reached the depths of dreariness, here comes a refreshing innovator to breathe life into the vocation. His Co-Co character, in particular, sounds like a winner. Let's face it, moral judgments aside, any old garden-variety thug can throw on a satin evening gown and pair of pumps and grab some unsuspecting granny's handbag, but Johnson, with his inspired visual reference to an American icon -- the revered pom-pom girl -- has reinvigorated the endeavor with admirable theatrical abandon. And at 5 feet, 10 inches and 185 pounds, Johnson as Co-Co must be a vision, albeit a sobering one. The local press has christened Johnson "the RuPaul of Robbers" and the police believe he may be just one of several cross-dressing bandits in the area. At the time of his arrest he was not in drag, and though he was in the middle of braiding his hair when the heat closed in, the term "pigtails" did not show up in reports. Also this week, further indications of disturbing Amish restlessness came to the fore. The Akron Beacon Journal's Tuesday edition reports that a "17-year-old Amish boy was charged yesterday with driving under the influence after allegedly passing out at the reins of a buggy, which then hit a police car" near Cleveland. The youth was evidently mondo-blotto, as the cops turned on their horns and sirens while beside the buggy and couldn't get him to check back into consciousness. The horse pulling the buggy, however, was wide awake and took exception to the cops' clever technique, veering off the road and into their car. Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, where reality and fiction are so closely intertwined that few discern the difference, a stalker reminiscent of "The King of Comedy's" Rupert Pupkin was in court this week along with the object of his attentions, Jerry Lewis. Gary Benson, one-time boyfriend of Lewis' one-time housekeeper, has nearly completed his six-year sentence for felonious bird-dogging of the comedian. He's been ordered to stay away from Lewis as a condition of his release. Writing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Peter O'Connell says the judge "warned Benson that this prohibition includes everything from e-mail to skywriting." Ironically, Lewis, master of puerile tedium and hero to the French who has refused to give the rest of the world any peace for more than four decades, was annoyed by the presence of the press at the courthouse. "Here come the piranhas," O'Connell quotes Monsieur Lewis remarking when reporters approached. "Get a day job." Skywriting?
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