I know it's early but this story is already a finalist in the "best" story of the year category.
Meet Sir Giorgiro Clardy. Now if you go by the title of this post and a name like Sirgiorgiro, if by some miracle you haven't already figured that this is the aforementioned pimp, I don't know what to say to you. For the love of God, his name is SIRGIORGIRO! If that's not pimp-tastic, I don't know what is. But pimpin' is hardly S.G.'s only business -- Mr Clardy's rap sheet contains 20 counts of promoting and compelling prostitution, 11 counts of robbery, 5 counts of assault, 5 counts of witness tampering, 1 count of theft and 1 count of tampering with physical evidence. And all that happened before his master opus of crime that got him sentenced to 100 years in prison. I'll let the Oregonian explain:
Jurors early in 2013 found him guilty of second-degree assault for using his Jordans -- a dangerous weapon -- to beat the john's face to a pulp. The man required stitches and plastic surgery on his nose.
The jury also found him guilty of robbing the john and beating the 18-year-old woman he forced to work as his prostitute. She was injured so badly that she bled from her ears.
So, established: The Sirg here is a violent, nasty piece of work. But if his story up to this point has been a straight road through the depressing and gruesome, what's coming up next takes a sharp left toward the incredible: the convicted pimp is now suing Nike for failing to label his sneakers as dangerous weapons. Again, we'll go to the Oregonian:
Sirgiorgiro Clardy claims Nike should have placed a label in his Jordan shoes warning consumers that they could be used as a dangerous weapon. He was wearing a pair when he repeatedly stomped the face of a john who was trying to leave a Portland hotel without paying Clardy's prostitute in June 2012.
In America, it actually takes a healthy dose of both brazenness and creativity to turn heads with a bit of unorthodox litigation. This guy is clearly aiming to join the ranks of the pioneers who make sure that coffee is labeled as hot and peanut butter jars are prominently labeled as containing peanuts. But here's the thing about this ridiculous civil suit which is bound to be thrown out: it's at least partly the jury's fault. They were too cute by half in using Mr. Clardy's Jordans as "dangerous weapons." They saw the vicious, remorseless thug with the rap sheet a mile long, and thought to themselves, how can we make sure this dude never gets out? Oh I know, let's say his kicks are dangerous weapons. I know we want the criminal justice system to be agile enough to include non-conventional items under the rubric of dangerous weapons. But there's a difference between me grabbing the electric stapler in my office which is heavy enough to crack open a man's skull and the Puma's that I'm currently wearing. I mean he could have actually killed two people with an actual deadly weapons and gotten less prison time. Two counts of felony assault plus his already impressive rap sheet would have been enough to put dude away until after Google/Skynet becomes self-aware and then launches nuclear missiles against humanity. And at that point, we've got bigger issues to worry about than whether this POS is walking the streets.
Still, "Pimp sues Nike" is pretty memorable as far as headlines go.