Man naps in portalet
This is Gil Duff of Cincinnati, Ohio. On Monday, he got drunk in a public park and took a nap in a portable toilet. Again. Apparently, that particular toilet is his own capsule hotel. His pants were up, suggesting that he went in specifically to catch some z's. From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
Link (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)Police arrested Duff, 45, at 3:45 a.m. Monday inside a portable toilet in Sycamore Township’s Bechtold Park – the same place they found him on April 22, snoring so loudly he caught the attention of a bike cop. When that officer swung open the toilet door, he found Duff on the john with his pants up, an open beer by his side.
the latest
latest episodes
and why is this posted?
Hey!! This guy is stealing my thunder. I... errr... slept in a portapottie at Burning Man in 2004.
I was just doing my small part for the evolution of consciousness.
Up next: alcoholic homeless man recontextualises park bench as impromptu bed in avant-garde performance piece.
It's Eddie Van Halen!
OHIO
This citing isn't clear - so I just thought I would point out: This guy was just released from jail a few days ago for being arrested - why? Sleeping in this very portolet. He gets out of jail, gets drunk- then goes back into the SAME Port-O-Let to snooze. What a dill-weed.
I just don't understand why this is an arrestable offense. Wake him up and send him home! He wasn't driving or operating heavy machinery, he wasn't molesting anyone in the park and wasn't exposing himself (drunk or otherwise) to other people.
He got drunk, got sleepy and found a place to take a nap. No wonder the courts are in such backlog.
"This elevator only goes down. And someone made an awwwwful mess down there." -- Abe Simpson.
i understand it's not the most comfortable place to nap, but is it really agin the law to sleep in a portalet? if so, why?
I don't know about you guys, but my olfactory senses don't nap when I do. How this guy can sleep in an enclosed booth less than 18 inches above a large container of urine and feces (and who knows what else) is beyond me.
Agree with #6, though -- why he was arrested for assaulting his own nostrils is beyond me.
Do I really need to be the first to ask who hasn't done this?
You've got to be pretty damn drunk to fall asleep in one of those. The smell is enough to make you ill most of the time.
I'm with #1.
My mom sends me useless stuff all the time, but I don't feel the need to share it with the world. David, just because your relative feels the need to share this poor guy's humiliation with you, does not mean you have to help broadcast the guy's humiliation to the world. The cops are the ones who should be humiliated here for arresting someone who wasn't doing anything to hurt anyone. This is almost as offensive as the hard lemonade mix-up incident. These cops seem to have little too much time on their hands...
every experience i've had with port-o-johns has been along the lines of "let's get this over as soon as possible". and to everyone yelling at david for posting, maybe he was trying to point out the colossal waste of time by ohio's finest? probably not :)
Pinching the winner of the Eddie Van Halen look-alike contest for sleeping in a portable toilet is indeed a colossal waste of time - unless there was a line up outside.
@ Whiners,
Why don't you cut and paste the mission statements for your blogs here so that we can get a better sense of what guidelines you'd like BB to adopt? It's hard for us to comprehend superior ethics without specific examples.
This is (sadly) seriously how I got through grad school. Okay, it wasn't a portajohn, and I didn't have an open beer container with me...
I have narcolepsy (was at that time undiagnosed... got a lot worse before it was figured out) and I discovered that a clean(ish) public toilet, anyway, is my best friend. I may not have been able to take a long enough snooze that I could avoid falling asleep on the ride home from school, but I could at least avoid being so out of it tired that I couldn't walk to the train station.
I think it takes, probably, a special kind of drunk to fall asleep in a portajohn. And I'm betting after spending a few minutes or so in there with the beer container open, "less filling" probably won out over "tastes great."
He didn't toodle-oo off to sleep in there, he PASSED OUT in there. Remember some of those places and times....
Now Im just curious, but no one else has mentioned this particular line from the story:
...the same place they found him on April 22, snoring so loudly he caught the attention of a bike cop. When that officer swung open the toilet door, he found Duff on the john with his pants up, an open beer by his side.
I for one do not think that its constitutionally right for Cops to investigate strange noises in the Port-O! There is something wrong with that situation!
uh, why is this posted?
Just a chance to publicly humiliate someone? :(
@ #8 -- I don't think it was sleeping in the port-o-let per-se that got him in trouble. The Enquirer article cites a single misdemeanor that I'm guessing was probably "drunk in public" or "sleeping in public".
nd @ ntns -- ddn't rlz th Bng ndd tds...
What are you people moaning about! This is hilarious! Forget the fact that the guys name is "Gil Duff" which is an Awesomely funny name and the fact that "Duff" is the beer from The Simpsons (the guy seems like a real life Barney). Forget that and you've still go a guy who likes to get drunk and sleep in portajohns! If you can't find the absuridist humor in that, THAT IS SAD!
-s
Guiness74@6: Ever see the TV show COPS? That whole show is premised on incidents like this. You're thinking of "The Andy Griffith Show," which was canceled about 45 years ago.
Loving the "why is this posted?" comments on every post today.
Well, the subtitle of Boing Boing is "A Directory of Wonderful Things".
I don't see anything wonderful, or even interesting, about this news snippet.
There needs to be more hazing within Internet communities. Hazing has been shown to make people value their groups more - as in the military, fraternities, sports teams, etc. It helps people from diverse backgrounds form close and lasting bonds.
So I propose that every time we see the comment "BB claims to be a directory of wonderful things! How is this a wonderful thing?" we all do a shot.
So I propose that every time we see the comment "BB claims to be a directory of wonderful things! How is this a wonderful thing?" we all do a shot.
Drinking game? No drinking game? Drinking game? No drinking game? Drinking game!!!
I was wondering why this was posted here too, but only because I thought it was a lame story... (What *is* the point, really?) I had no thought of ethics, nor do I care.
#23 & 24:
What, do you want us ALL arrested for passing out in a Portalet?!
ogre
toadies?
ya wanna go?
"Can't get enough of that wonderful Duff!"
I can't believe I was the first to think of that!
Didn't y'all know? It's illegal to be poor in O-H-I-O!
My drinking cabinets are bare. Can this become a weekly thing, so I have time to stock up?
The superloo where Polish migrants are fighting to spend the night for 20p
Last updated at 00:22am on 04.05.07
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23394886-details/The+superloo+where+Polish+migrants+are+fighting+to+spend+the+night+for+20p/article.do
Polish immigrants are coming to blows for the privilege of sleeping in public lavatories at a cost of just 20p per night.
Cleaning staff and businesses near a new block of six conveniences have complained of fights among the labourers.
Residents have told how workers turn up each evening at the £246,000 octagonal building in Hackney, East London, carrying sleeping bags and building tools, to snatch a few hours' sleep before heading off to work again next morning.
@21 EH
Unfortunately, I have seen COPS. And the idiots on that show (both sides of the badge) are part of the reason I don't watch reality television.
I didn't ask why this was posted. I don't care why Boing Boing posts things. I imagine they thought it was funny or ludicrous or both and they thought we would too. My question is why the guy was arrested. And I'll allow for the public drunkenness because let's suppose he's not sleeping, but belligerent...then it's a whole other matter. However, I think that this could've been handled differently.
I disagree that my view of the world is Mayberry-esque. But a little less Orwellian couldn't hurt.
S sm hmlss slps n crppr, nd BgBng psts hs pctr.
Grt pst, jrks.
Article indicates repeat offender for getting drunk in the park numerous times. This may be a post for the comments themselves, as I agree the subject matter is otherwise fairly uninteresting. Except for that guy's hair.
#16
That was the first thing I thought of, too. When I was undiagnosed (I've got Narcolepsy, too) I would take naps in public bathrooms as well.
I wonder if this guy has the same problem?
I think it's a sad state of affairs when people are being arrested for what is, essentially, the choice to NOT endanger themselves or anyone else, while drunk.
This guy could have gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle, or tried to "walk it off" and wandered into a busy intersection, or chosen one of a host of other deangerous activities to do while intoxicated.
But instead he chose to sleep it off in a small, enclosed, safe place that only fit one person: him. So let's arrest him!!!
Sheesh.
I need someone to figure the odds for me. If thirty-six people have posted comments in a thread, what are the odds of three of them having a condition that affects one person in ten thousand?
NixyChick, ThatOtherGirl: I've done it too. The pins and needles afterward are something awful. I did most of my on-campus sleeping in an area of the student union called the Quiet Room, which had good soundproofing, a thick plush carpet with padding underneath it, a lot of big soft squooshy chairs, and a "no noise" policy. Around finals time it looked like the study hall in Sleeping Beauty's castle.
I think the real question here is whether Gil Duff has ever been thoroughly tested for narcolepsy or other sleep disorders. If he's not homeless but he's repeatedly falling asleep in public places, I'd say it's indicated.
Randy, Velocity Girl: is that a good enough reason for you?
Didn't we figure that tens of thousands of people read the comment threads? Let's try a sample post about a guy getting arrested for squeezing through a tennis racket and see how many Ehlers-Danlos people we get.
This post about someone sleeping somewhere public is really pertinent considering the current housing crisis and predictions of recession and layoffs.
Man sleeps on train tracks
Comcast man naps in customer's house
Man sleeps on fridge
Between 2:30 and 3 a.m., a renegade group of six men and women walked across the street and lay down on the sidewalk. They were issued summonses for disorderly conduct and released
Homeless kids recommends having a book and nice closes and sleeping during the day."
Police reveal their code of conduct: a newspaper that was ''touching their body'' would not
violate the code, but the person could be arrested if the same newspaper was ''one inch away. a person sitting on a park bench with a coat around the shoulders would be in
violation of the section, but would not be in violation if the coat were zipped''
Remember to keep the newspaper touching your body. In any case have a good night tonight.
You messed up the link for the one I actually wanted to read! Repost the Code of Conduct bit, please.
These code of conduct info came from testimony by several New York Cops and may be outdated.
URL:
http://www.urbanjustice.org/pdf/press/nytimes_22nov99.pdf
Thank you very much. What stood out for me was this little gem.
"Streets do not exist in civilized societies for the purpose of people sleeping there," mayor Giuliani said. "Bedrooms are for sleeping."
...He should have followed with, "Let them eat cake!"
no AGENT 86 giuliani should have finished by saying "I'm a misogynist ghoul with severe intimacy issues and a panache for lying thru my teeth. but alas he just keeps talking.
#38, Teresa
I need someone to figure the odds for me. If thirty-six people have posted comments in a thread, what are the odds of three of them having a condition that affects one person in ten thousand?
Hmm, the unexpected results of combinatorial statistics ...
The odds of exactly 3 people having the condition is 0.22 (ie 1 in 5)
The odds of 3 or more people having the condition is much higher 0.712 (about 3 in 4)
The odds of nobody having the condition is only 0.0225 (2 in 100)
Sorry, wrong figures. The probability is 0.0000000071 (1 in 140 million) for 3 in 36 persons. Not much difference for 3 or more persons.
The probability for 3 or more persons in 10000 is still only 0.08 (1 in 12)