Disclaimer: I don't endorse the behavior in this escapist story. It is a fictional escapade, with some true facts thrown in.
Wondering where to start my story about escape, I begin as usual with a great song from the 60s, by that great singer from 1966, the great year of escape, Petula Clark, who sang "the buildings reach up to the sky, the traffic rumbles on the busy street, the pavement slips beneath my feet. I walk along and wonder, Who Am I? I close my eyes and I can fly, and I escape from all this worldly strife, restricted by routine of life, but still I can't discover, who am I." And I think of those other two escape songs from 1966, Everybody's Talkin', originally from the 1966 album by the great escapist folk-rock singer and composer Fred Neil, for which Nilssen gave the definitive, award-winning performance in 1969 for the Oscar-winning escapist film Midnight Cowboy; and the first track on that Fred Neil album, one of my top favorite recordings, The Dolphins (which no-one in the Band of Writers said they had heard)
So I take you to a scene on the 57th floor of one of those tall buildings, into a big room with a huge round table. It's the year 2015, June 6. A meeting was about to begin. First to arrive was a huge fat man with big glasses, wearing a new suit and a T-shirt saying "I'm fat, how about that," and then sauntered in a small African-American man wearing blue jeans and sort of a fancy afro-style haircut and carrying a radio. The fat man said, "turn off the rap, we're gonna be making some real hay now," and the Afro guy said, "sure, dude." In come 3 more white guys, each one taller than the last, each one gay, and wearing no shirt and full of tattoos, and six more guys all wearing nice suits and blue shirts and tennis shoes, singing "God Bless America," and the fat man said "shut up, now we're all going to make America great again," and they said, "sure Sam, we're ready to rumble." But one of them spoke this in Russian.
Here is Sam, (or is it someone who looks like him, I don't remember); not as well-dressed:
And here's the young afro guy, without his radio:
So Sam the Sham Fat Man called the meeting to order. They conferred and planned for about 30 minutes, and then said, all together, "OK, we're ready to escape!" They all grabbed their AK-47s and AR-15s propped up by the door and marched down the street and down to the bank, pointed their guns at the teller and said, "give us all the dough, or off your heads we'll blow!" And so they loaded up their backpacks with the dough, and went to the motorcycle shop, and they all got on the motorbikes. Sam paid the girl at the counter and invited her to come along, so she put on a bonnet and got on the back of the motorcycle driven by the tallest gay guy, and quickly all 12 of them went off to another bank.
(I just have to add that this one is located at 540 Madison Ave)
This time they thought, "why bother with doors," so they revved up their bikes and all together rode right through the front windows, smashing them to smithereens, aimed their guns at the next teller, who this time said, "don't shoot, I want to escape this lousy job, here's all the money from the vault. I'm coming with you!" So Sam gave her one of his guns, and she protected herself as she opened the vault, took out all the loot, and came along with the guys and the other gal. Her name was Patty Hearst Junior, and she was just as pretty. She hopped onto the back of Sam's bike, and soon they all went over to nearby Trump Tower. Patty gave all the gold she brought to The Donald, cause that's all he wanted, and he bought them a nice big sign to hang above the front door saying "Federal Deserve Bank," because we all deserve to keep our money there.
Once they had all the dough, they quickly set up shop with a new vault, but right at first they didn't have most of the dough. Because to be safe, back at the bank they gave it to the big strong baseball player Albert Pujols, paid him half the money and gold, and then he hopped into his flying car, with all the money strapped on his big back, and he flew over to Trump Tower, came into Donnie's room at the penthouse through a window, gave him some gold, and he and Don rode the elevator to the ground floor, where Albert gave the rest of their money to Sam and the 10 other guys and the 2 gals.
Why Albert Pujols? Because he was having a bad year and wanted to take a break and make some more money while in town playing the Yankees. So Sam made arrangements with him because he was a big fan. So after completing his appointed task, off he went in his car from the penthouse again, and flew back to the stadium for the game that night.
The guys all quickly hired a new staff from Trump's foreign workers and went to the basement where they'd be safe for a while, as Donnie paid off the cops, and the bank opened for business. It did real well, paid the highest interest in town, which the people all deserved at the Federal Deserve Bank. Once Donnie became president, they bought the Tower, now called Sam Hearst Tower, and they all lived happily ever after, at least until they decided to escape again, when they all became hippies and went off to Carmel and, well, that's another story.....
The Prisoner, The Chimes of Big Ben (the epic escape episode, made in 1966)
The Apprentice, best of season 2