We Cause Scenes Page #6

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before we were done.

My phone rang and Justin Lang who

was playing harsh security guard

let me know that the police were

trying to get up on the roof.

The cops all of a sudden

came up the fire escape.

And I think

there was three of them.

I didn't notice the

cops coming up on the roof,

until they were pretty much like, on top

of us giving us the "kill it" sign.

They were like, your parents

catching you doing something

they told you not to do.

Let them play!

The people on the street could see

that the cops were out there.

Fake Bono had his mic cut but

he still had the megaphone.

So he went and got the megaphone

and he's continued to sing.

God bless the police

of this fine city.

Good night.

He starts inciting them,

and I'm thinking like,

"Ptolemy, all right, that's really

awesome that you're doing that,

but there's like,

three cops up here like,

let's try to be smart

about this. "

They approach Ptolemy

and ask for his I.D.

and Ptolemy, with a

straight face said to them

"I don't need an I.D.,

people know who I am. "

Which was a stupid thing

to say.

Are you gonna shoot your

mouth off all night?

I don't think

I'm shooting my mouth off.

There was absolutely no tearing

him out of that character.

He was Bono,

he was the rock-and-roll

King of the World,

and getting arrested

was just the best thing

that could've happened to him

on that day.

This is what art is about.

I did enjoy, though,

being arrested.

And they were people watching

from these windows

in all the other buildings,

and they were yelling

at the police.

I remember just doing like

this peace symbol.

It's one of the most

pretentious I've ever done,

is being arrested by police

and trying to placate

the people

that are yelling at the police

while being arrested as

impersonating someone else.

They took us downstairs

to the hallway

right in front

of the front door.

I knew that they'd were some

people out there.

I just wanted that door to open

and I wanted people

on the street

to see U2 in handcuffs.

We can hear the police outside

trying to convince people

that it was a prank.

Nothing to see here, people.

If you think that's U2,

you've been fooled.

We all received a summons.

The eight of us had to appear

in mid-town community court.

Uh... the charges,

unreasonable noise.

Um... so we weren't arrested,

we just got a summons.

Like getting a ticket, so...

We might have to pay $10-20

fine or something like that,

it's what the cops said.

They were very nice.

Kris Kula edited together

a little video of it.

And I put that on the

server space that I had

and the video

actually got pretty popular,

pretty quickly.

And I remember like,

my website was crashing.

Someone, not me, uploaded it

to ifilm. com,

which was a very early

online video site.

I remember about a month later,

I was googling U2 prank

and this page

on IFILM came up

and they had our video there.

And I saw that it'd been

viewed over 40,000 times.

It was definitely

one of the first pranks

that sort of put us on the map.

I was-started to see

more traffic to my website.

And I remember like,

just getting tons of emails

from people saying "I love

Improv Everywhere,

can I start

Improv Everywhere: Chicago?"

"Can I start

Improv Everywhere: Denver?"

I started seeing the potential

for Improv Everywhere

to have a global audience.

And some of that potential

was reached in January 2006,

when the no-pants subway ride

became a national news story.

Thanks to the police.

This mission is for people

who are working their...

those who are taking

their pants off, okay?

Please, if you're going to

get on this train with us,

unless you've already talked

to me and you're a cameraman

who I've hired

or from a newspaper,

please take your pants off.

They were a 150 participants.

I divided them up accordingly

uh, into five groups um,

along the ten cars.

And... the mission

was working great.

I forgot my pants

this morning when I got up.

It's like, it's been so cold.

Anybody need pants?

I got pants for sale

down this end of the train.

I got mostly jeans.

By the time we got

to 53rd street,

people were starting

to put their pants back on.

It was really almost over.

We reached 59th Street...

The train just stopped.

So I remember getting up

and looking down the platform

and seeing that there was

a couple of cops out there.

Train is out of service.

Train will be out of service.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

The people that hadn't

put their pants on yet,

from my group, I told them to

just yeah, put your pants on.

Do you have any left?

I'm all out of pants.

I'm looking for a pair

to trade for.

Does anybody want to trade?

I got a pair of eight's.

What's that?

Sir, get off the train.

Ma'am, get off the train.

What are you guys doing?

What are you doing?

Miss, I'm not done talking to you.

Step over there.

Nobody knew what was happening.

It was kinda tense

at the moment.

Move back.

Let's go, clear the area.

There's a 150 of us,

probably another

200 normal people

just riding the train.

You've got 400 or so people

waiting on a platform.

People were

coming up to me, like

"Do you know

what's going on?"

I said "No. " "Well, they,

they've arrested eight people. "

But the amazing thing was,

this is the first year

that journalist found out

about the no-pants

subway ride.

When the handcuffs

started going on,

the people in the underwear,

it was nice that all the major

New York City newspapers

and all of the news wires

had a camera there,

and were taking pictures

of this event.

All of this journalists

had this amazing photograph.

I had so many

conflicting emotions

going through my head

'cause at one point

I'm like, "There's my good

friend in handcuffs,"

"and it's my fault.

This is terrible!"

Let's go!

Nothing to see here, now.

I happened to be reading

this like, supremely nerdy

history book at the time,

about World War I.

Does anyone read a book

about World War I?

I don't know, but I was

doing it at the time.

I stood there and waited

and eventually they start

taking us around one at a time

and handcuffing

and sending us upstairs

to a paddy wagon.

I felt really guilty

that it wasn't me.

But the whole time,

I was very confident

that nothing was

gonna happen to anyone.

Ultimately, the judge

basically laughed

and said "This is ridiculous,

and you're gone. "

Didn't even make us

pay any fine, nothing.

It was just...

this is dismissed.

I felt very happy

later that night

when I found out

that everybody was okay.

The very next day,

as those photographs

started appearing, it became

this viral story.

People in New York City

were being arrested

in their underwear.

Dozens of members of a

comedy troupe called

Improv Everywhere

took part in this...

What happened with those eight people

that got, uh... rung up by the police?

Wow!

If I could only see those

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