Henry Earl, one of Lexington’s most famous sons, has surfaced in the news yet again.
Henry Earl
Earl, who is also known as “James Brown” in some circles, is the subject of conversation at monkeygumbo.com, which claims Earl was thrown in the hooskow for his one thousandth criminal offense.
According to jail records, Earl, 58, was booked Tuesday at the Fayette County jail on an alcohol intoxication charge, one of Earl’s most notorious offenses (click here to see Earl’s rap sheet and various mug shots … don’t forget to come back; it takes a while to look at the mugshots.)
It’s hard to say how many times Earl has actually been locked up because records only go back to 1992. In fact, it is quite possible he surpassed his thousandth criminal offense prior to Tuesday. Nonetheless, if Earl has been locked up 1,000 times it would mean he was arrested once every five days for the past 16 years.
- Read the report at monkeygumbo.com here
And here’s a story Brandon Ortiz wrote about Earl a few years ago. Brandon interviewed Earl when he was locked up once in 2005. The story was published in the Herald-Leader December 19, 2005:
By Brandon Ortiz
bortiz@herald-leader.com
He is celebrated in T-shirts, songs, music videos and oil paintings. Mythical tales of his exploits appear on more than a dozen Web sites — at least three are dedicated entirely to him.
Bloggers have called Lexington’s Henry Earl, 56, a real American hero.
Earl has become a genuine Internet phenomenon, a national and international cyberspace celebrity with a devoted online following.
Yet this Internet cult hero calls the Fayette County Detention Center his second home. He’s been there 969 times since 1992, mostly for drunkenness — and that is the warped root of his celebrity.
It could be said that Earl’s story is a uniquely American one, given his unexpected and perhaps undeserving brush with fame. But it’s hard to decipher a moral from it: He is famous only because he is a drunk who, by his own admission, has no desire to work, quit drinking or stop living off charity and taxpayers.
Generally regarded as a harmless eccentric, Earl has been homeless since 1969. His nickname is James Brown, after the famous soul singer, because he’ll shuffle for booze, money or, failing that, attention.
He became an overnight celebrity in January 2004 after the Lexington-based humor site Fark.com linked to Earl’s mug shots on the jail Web site.
Suddenly, he was on the ABC late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live (it showed local news footage of him) and was interviewed by Newsweek for an online article. The jail briefly closed down the Web site and started limiting access to online records because of the Earl traffic.
What’s surprising about the Henry Earl phenomenon — other than its absurdity — is its staying power. His 15 minutes of fame are far from over.
“It definitely has legs,” said Drew Curtis, who runs Fark.com. “Henry Earl is now at that point where he has become a staple of the Internet.”
In a jailhouse interview last week, Earl was amused by the attention. “I’m a famous man in the jail,” Earl said with a toothy grin.
He can’t recall the first time he was arrested, but remembers being a regular at the old jail on Short Street, which closed in 1976. His number of arrests actually far exceeds 1,000, but nobody has determined the exact figure. The jail’s computerized records go back only to 1992.
Earl did not care for some of the Web sites, particularly messedup.net, which used numerous racial epithets.
“They didn’t have to do that,” he said. (The site’s operator has said he is a fan and is not making fun of Earl.)
Earl — who said he has never used the Internet, though he has seen pictures of it — is also upset that he has not been able to cash in on his fame. Indeed, he does not have a dime to his name.
One mug shot is Earl-less
Fans can’t get enough of Earl’s drunken jail mug shots, which have been posted online and feature a variety of poses and facial expressions over 10 years. Sometimes Earl grins ear-to-ear, sometimes he’s angry. Quite frequently he’s dazed. In one shot, he’s not pictured at all, as if he had fallen.
For a homeless man, he is remarkably stylish, often wearing leisure suits and turtlenecks. He has one other quirk: He often carries fried chicken in his pocket.
Bloggers have superimposed his face on baseball cards, magazines, album covers, historic photos and even the Mona Lisa. Web sites encourage readers to donate to Earl’s jail commissary account, though it wouldn’t help him because it would be credited toward the $5,000 he owes in booking fees.
One Lexington liquor store even sold autographed pictures.
So why is Earl so popular? Fans think he’s a lovable loser, Curtis explains.
“It’s a guy who has essentially hit complete rock bottom,” Curtis said. “You can’t get any worse. I don’t know, I think maybe part of the appeal is no matter how bad your life is, you’re not in jail 300 days out of the year.
“Part of the appeal too,” Curtis continued, “especially with the college-age crowd, is he is kind of living their dream, the frat boy dream: Being drunk all the time. When in reality that would be a horrible, horrible thing.”
Earl’s fame is ironic, notes sociologist Richard Lachmann of the State University of New York at Albany. After all, Earl is celebrated for self-destructive and even criminal behavior.
“This is a country that is harsh with criminals in a way that no other country except Iran is,” Lachmann said. “At the same time, somebody who commits mild crimes, people are amused by it. The mere fact that he can get arrested 900 times is a sign that police and the courts don’t take it seriously, too.”
But there is not much law enforcement can do, Assistant County Attorney Jack Miller said. “Maybe 20 years ago something could have been done,” Miller said. “But with him, it is a way of life. He wouldn’t want to change anything.
“Unless they want help, it’s almost futile to try to do anything.”
Even Bill Rhodes, a 38-year-old Silicon Valley software engineer who runs a blog dedicated to Earl, sometimes feels guilty about operating a site that claims to have Earl’s real-time jail stats.
“We are sort of fostering this guy’s degradation,” Rhodes said.
‘Call the man’
Earl is banned for life from most Lexington liquor stores for panhandling, stealing hooch and bothering customers. He is infamous for sitting down in liquor stores on cold winter nights, declaring he’s drunk and instructing clerks to “call the man.”
According to one urban legend, Earl invites himself into college parties to mooch beer, sometimes becoming the toast of the party before wearing out his welcome.
Only half true, he says.
“I ain’t did it lately,” he said. “Things getting kind of tough out there, people getting kind of scared nowadays. Robberies and all that. I used to have a good time.”
Earl said his last job was at the Smith Motel as a busboy and dishwasher in 1969. He lost that job after showing up to work drunk. He was homeless not long after.
The Scott County native says he was adopted at age 7. His adoptive mother died when he was 18, the same age he started drinking.
His only remaining family is a cousin who lives in northeast Lexington. The cousin helps him out occasionally, if Earl’s sober.
“He knows what my deal is,” said Earl, who then pretended to hold a bottle to his mouth.
Earl says he’s never seriously tried to quit drinking, and probably never will. The only way he could quit, he said, would be if he didn’t have money to buy booze.
“I’d like to slow down,” he said. “Do I want to stop? Not really.”
Money, oddly, is the least of Earl’s worries. He gets it by begging college students. “Oh yeah, I get their money,” he said.
Finding a warm, safe place to sleep is another matter. Earl says he has spent many nights just wandering the streets. If it’s warm, he’ll sleep in bushes at cemeteries.
And if it’s cold, Earl will try to get arrested, if he can’t get into a homeless shelter. At the old downtown jail he once tried ringing the buzzer on the back door, but the officers told him he could get in only if he’s arrested.
On Friday, Earl was released from jail after serving two weeks for disorderly conduct and trespassing. His goal, he said, is to get into the Hope Center, from which he was banned three years ago for showing up drunk. (The center, for privacy reasons, does not disclose its clients.)
Even if he has to abide by the Hope Center’s rules and go into detoxification, Earl says he’ll do it.
“Another year coming in 2006,” Earl said. “I didn’t make a resolution this year, but I need to make one. I need a job.”
On second thought, Earl says, he’d rather try to get Social Security disability payments. Or food stamps, but he has to have an address.
“I am going to take care of my business, buddy,” he said. “I should have a long time ago.”
Why didn’t he? “I got drunk,” he answered.
In the end, Earl’s life — laughed at by so many in the online world — is not a joke.
“It’s a sad life, it ain’t worth it dog,” said Earl, a tear welling in his eye. “I got more sense than some people think I do.
“I’ve seen what it’s doing, it is ruining my life. I mean, it ain’t too late to straighten up.”
RECENT COMMENTS