Jack Karlson - Tumblr Posts
Two important things to understand about about Jack Karlson raised by the comments:
He was an amateur actor.
He absolutely was not innocent.
Jack Karlson made his living for most of his life as a con artist. When he got arrested, it's true he had no idea what he'd been arrested for...because it could have been any of the many warrants he had out for him (including FUCKING ESCAPING FROM PRISON), so he fell back on the routine that had served him in his career as a conman - that of a bloviating, dramatic, histrionic patrician. It ingratiated him to people, made them laugh. You never knew where the character ended and where he began - which is the way he liked it.
In this case, it genuinely was a case of mistaken identity and Jack was released, but he was back in prison within a year of the famous video. This stretch would be his last, though, and he went straight afterwards, spending the last three decades of his life making an honest living as an ACTUAL artist.
Never has one man spawned so many memes in such a short space of time. Shine on, Jack, you crazy diamond.
(Yes, this is me. Yes, this is my shirt. Yes, I bought it the moment I learned he had died. Yes, it's my favourite part of the video.)
Have you seen the news?
National day of mourning 😞
