Perfect: Steve Jobs’ Stolen iPad Ended Up With Kenny The Clown

Image of Kenny The Clown from Facebook (Maybe he should have asked for an iPhone? Zing.)

I’ll admit — at times in my working life, I’ve had to use some imagination to make certain bits of tech or business news seem interesting (not at TechCrunch, of course, because we only ever write about incredibly interesting things.) But once in a while something comes along that is just perfect as it is.

The story of Kenny the Clown and Steve Jobs’ stolen iPad is one of those things.

So, you’ve heard about how the Palo Alto home belonging to the family of the late Steve Jobs was burgled recently? And more than $60,000 worth of personal items and computers were stolen by a 35-year-old man named Kariem McFarlin who was eventually caught — and apparently had no idea at first whose home he was breaking into?

Well, it turns out that McFarlin is old buddies with Kenneth Kahn, a San Francisco Bay Area resident who is also known as Kenny the Clown. And after spending hours having a five finger discount free-for-all Chez Jobs, McFarlin was apparently feeling generous — so he gifted Kahn with one of the purloined iPads, a 64GB silver one.

Mike Rosenberg of the San Jose Mercury News has the whole story, and it’s pretty awesome.

Kahn says he had no idea that his friend was a thief, or that the iPad came from Steve Jobs’ home — he was under the impression that he was just getting McFarlin’s second-hand gadget. While he had the iPad, he used it to play the “Pink Panther” theme song (nice choice with the Henry Mancini) and other music during his act as Kenny The Clown. By the time Kahn learned of McFarlin’s crime, police had already come to his home to repossess the iPad.

Kahn, who clearly has a knack for making good analogies, told the Mercury News:

“It would be like getting a football from Joe Montana that was stolen out of his house. It’s bizarre; it’s really bizarre… It still hasn’t really 100 percent set in for me. It was Steve Jobs’ iPad — literally.”

When the story of the burglary first came to light a few days ago, I liked it because it has a happy ending — the bad guy got caught, no one was hurt. Now I just love it even more, because at least one of the stolen things was put to maybe the most amazing use possible for a few days before being returned to its rightful owners (I’m not really a clown fan, but all these people watching Kenny’s show seem to be smiling.) Maybe we should all pitch in to get Kenny the Clown another iPad that’s totally on the up-and-up?