Most of the Chuck Palahniuk fanboys we know own a Fight Club DVD. Many of them even had a poster to go along with it in college. We might have had a fake ID that “borrowed” the name Marla Singer back in the day. There’s also the Spartans, the Union Square fight club profiled in New York Magazine last summer. But yesterday a 17-year-old New Yorker was arrested for taking his dedication to the film too far. He bombed an Upper East Side Starbucks on Memorial Day because he wanted to be like Tyler Durden.
[Kyle] Shaw formed his own fight club in which boys beat one another in various locales around the city including Central Park, [Police Commissioner Raymond] Kelly said. At least one member got a broken nose, he said. The second, more dastardly plot hatched by Pitt’s character in the film was called “project mayhem” and included escalating attacks on symbols of corporate America. Durden doesn’t succeed in the movie. Shaw apparently told at least one friend to “watch the news over Memorial Day” because he was about to launch his own version of “project mayhem,” Kelly said. Investigators are looking into whether more people might have been involved.
The blast didn’t injure anyone, which is lucky for the kid who is being charged with arson, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal mischief; police found DIY bomb materials, a copy of Fight Club, a box of sparklers, and a newspaper clipping about the attack in his house. They also want to talk to him about some other minor explosions around the city.
Let’s just be glad that Palahniuk’s Rant hasn’t been adapated into a movie yet. The prospect of rabies and deliberate car crashes… blech. [via BreitBart]