He is a bank robber and a jewel thief. Damn it!
Is there someone in your family whose star shines so much brighter than your own? Who steals the air from the reunion when they walk in? Who throws everything you’ve tried to accomplish in your life into sharp relief?
There is someone in mine. My slightly older cousin and his name is Dan Courson.
I used to mock him and call him Nurse Dan because he went to school and got a nursing degree but the joke was really on me because you want to know what Nurse Dan did next?
He robbed 21 banks in Orange and San Diego counties.
That might be more banks than I have ever even been inside. 21 banks and then he got caught but tried to escape by faking appendicitis but then got tackled in the parking lot by what he said was a San Diego State track star. I found it somewhat hard to believe that a San Diego State track star was working as a hospital jail guard but Matt Warshaw once told me the only reason anyone goes to San Diego State is to drink beer and surf so maybe.
I visited him in the hoosegow once and drank coffee with him a few times after he did his eight years. It always seemed like a bargain to me, by the way. Eight years for 21 banks plus an attempted escape.
He seemed down on his possibilities in the world but I told him to chin up. He was a bank robber and I was a surf journalist. His possibilities smoked mine. He nodded while looking into the distance and gave me a half-hearted, “Yeah.”
And then he became an art and jewel thief. A bank robber. An art thief. A jewel thief. It was like all my favorite Pierce Brosnan characters got rolled into one.
And then he got written about in a Mormon newspaper. Let’s read the Deseret News together.
Police say a “highly intelligent” Park City con man befriended a fine-art aficionado with a severe illness, then waited until the ailing collector stepped out one day and robbed his Southern California home of about $1 million in jewelry, checkbooks, cash and top-dollar paintings.
The June 2015 heist hit a snag.
The homeowner returned before Daniel David Courson could finish loading the haul, including “large amounts of cash,” in a stolen silver Tacoma, authorities said. Courson fled before police arrived.
Now, Park City officers say Courson is living in their upscale Utah mountain town. On Monday, they believed they were about to nab the suspect who is in his early 40s, but someone tipped Courson off beforehand and he eluded them.
“He is highly intelligent and able to reinvent himself in new towns wherever he goes,” Tustin police said in a Tuesday prepared statement.
Wait. Did Pierce Brosnan ever steal from anyone with a severe illness? Is Surf Journalist Chas cooler than Nurse Dan again?
Please say yes.
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Watch out Chas, Nurse Dan might just start using “Chas Smith, surf journalist” as one of his aliases somewhere in the midwest soon…
But, what was his motivation?
Is he The Lone Bodhi or The Surfing Madhof?
My Uncle Jimmy once stayed with us during Easter. During his stay he rolled two milk bars, stealing god knows how many cartons of cigarettes. He then hid them in my parents ceiling. The morning of his theft, he returned to one of the stores with my old man (who had no idea what had gone down) and approached a couple of cops. “What happened?”, he politely enquired. “Some bastard broke in and stole all the cigarettes”, the cop replied. To which Jimmy replied, “The dirty, fucking cunt”. I told the story at his funeral at his request. Never heard so many people gasp, choke and laugh at the same time. He really was a dirty fucking cunt.
This is all well and good, but do we get to choose the next part of his adventure?
Yes! If you choose “get caught in Oklahoma shacked up with an overweight gal at a Motel 6.”
he’s more handsome than you Chas, is this a problem?
worse hairline, stronger jaw.
In person we’re pretty equal. 8 years in prison will layer a pall onto the skin.
that’s right Chas. You tell him.
yeah, but he’s got a prison rig.
He did lots of law library time. But bank robber jewel art thief clearly destroys whatever I serve up.
why do they put “highly intelligent” in inverted commas?
Is he is or is he ain’t highly intelligent?
And if you get chomped at Trestles what phrase that describes you best would you like to see in inverted commas?
Ok. He’s totally not highly intelligent (he’s been caught lots) though I’m sure he thinks he is. And my inverted comma phrase is “surf journalist.” What is yours?
Mine is “failed artist”
“part-time surf journalist”
Sounds like an interesting fellow, and he looks trustworthy too! If I was a chick, I’d let him raw dog me.
This should have been the plot of the Point Break remake, not whatever garbage plot they selected (I didn’t see it, but I assume this is way better).
Chas’ short article was better than the second point break.
there was a plot?
Look at it! It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, man! Let me go out there and let me get one wave, just one wave before you take me in. I mean, come on man, where I am I gonna go? Cliffs on both sides! I’m not gonna paddle my way to New Zealand! Come on, compadre. Come on!
Unlike Bodhi, Nurse Dan can handle the cage, man.
Yeah, I have a CIA operative uncle, a convicted coke smuggler mom, a truck stop prostitute aunt, a criminally insane grandfather and more. I’m downright boring, then yet I’m not a media attention whore either.
Well thanks for pushing me even further down.
Wait, which one of Christian Fletcher’s kids are you?
he’s the fletcher who’s a media whore with down syndrome!
You just don’t know how.
This is way more sophisticated, elegant, and cinematic than the Michael Kocher saga. RIP.
What a fucking legend! Please say he surfs! 21 bank jobs, he should move to my country – he would be feted and celebrated! You could scam a free ticket from him!
He gave me my first surfboard!
Was it his to give – no matter, he should sue Warner Brothers or whichever studio that made his biopic without giving him royalties!
Did it cost 30 bucks, like Adriano’s?
Hey Chas, have you read the comments from the inertia on JP Currie’s lastest masterpiece – apparently there is no correlation between the amount of comments on a post and the amount of web traffic. Very passive aggressive stuff! Looks like poor old JP was offering some sort of apology to us at beachgrit! Poor lad never believed in surfers ear until he got it, and now he’s permanently pissed off!
The FBI nicknamed him the “Floppy Hat Bandit”