TomFlannery.com

Once again I missed out on a trial….this time an arson case. But I’ve fulfilled my civic duty and cannot be called again for 3 more years. At least that’s what they tell me. I’ll believe that bit in….well…3 more years.

Most of the experience was of the hurry up and wait variety…..but there’s a part of me that really wanted to see, from the inside, how these things work. I wanted to be a good juror……or perhaps fulfill some sort of liberal Henry Fonda 12 Angry Men fantasy. Dammit anyway.

I won’t name names, but yesterday’s jury selection was for a sexual abuse case……a prominent older man and a (then) 15-year-old girl. Nothing about the case is not ghastly. Rumors and innuendos have been rampant since even before the charges were filed (jurors, of course, instructed to pay such things no mind. Easier said than done). Lots of people who should know better have behaved badly….and now there’s a big mess with future’s at stake. It promises to get uglier still. The case opened this morning. Before the day ended I slipped in the back of the courtroom to listen, I don’t know what I was expecting. But here are some random observations on what I saw…

1. A lawyer should not chew gum. You are trying a criminal case before a distinguished County judge. You look pretty young to be doing so already…..but don’t accentuate that fact by chomping on a piece of Wrigley’s Spearmint like you’re a junior varsity cheerleader. It was distracting to me, and I was sitting in the back row of a crowded room. Instead of me thinking, “wow, what an excellent cross that was”….I kept saying….”is she really chewing gum?” Memo to the Lackawanna County DA’s office…..re “gum”. Nothing screams “this is the B team” louder.
2. Trying to poke holes in the story of a young woman who is alleging sexual abuse is a no-win for a lawyer. A male is going to look like a sexist dick….and a female is going to look like an unfeeling shrew. Intellectually as an observer you know they are merely doing their job. But sometimes your gut trumps such distinctions and you just feel awful about the entire charade.
3. I always thought lawyers were way smarter than me because…..well…..they’re lawyers and stuff. But in little over an hour of observation I heard mangled English, inane questions, basic misunderstandings of the rule of law, and enough long pauses (of the “what do I do now” variety) to totally change my mind. They’re as dumb as the rest of us. Even the judge seemed annoyed at what he (and I) clearly took to be a lack of basic preparation. At one point the defense wanted to admit a photo as evidence, but had to abandon the request because they couldn’t find it. This sort of thing never happens on Law and Order. You owe it to yourself to visit an actual criminal courtroom and listen in at least once. The awe factor goes away. Quickly.
4. If you are the defendant and you or your lawyers think it’s a good idea to have your wife in the courtroom with you, make sure she doesn’t perpetually look like she wants to drive a hatchet into your head. Based on the charges people are not going to think you are very likable to being with. Don’t reinforce this perception.
5. I always wonder how somebody in a public position (in other words….one in which your low salary is printed in the paper) can afford high-priced legal teams. Can’t be cheap. Where’s the money coming from?
6. Is there really such a thing as a “jury of your peers”? I mean…..what if you’re an asshole?
7. Local TV stations have to get the obligatory suspect/accuser walking into/out of court news footage come hell or high water. The TV trucks were literally waiting around all day long. Meanwhile, I’m guessing, actual news was happening somewhere.
8. Why do all judges sorta look and sound the same? White-haired parochial statuesque figures with perpetual tans who look like they could be 50 or 75 depending on your viewing angle, all with deep confident voices and a no nonsense demeanor. Kinda central-casting gone haywire. It’s like one large Kenesaw Mountain Landis look-a-like contest.
9. When both sides seem to be cherry-picking the truth, how can justice be parsed correctly?
10. A courtroom is a regal place. I can’t really think of a more apt word. Even if justice gets perverted sometimes, I just think the locale sort of evens the dirt a little bit. Barriers that divide us don’t disappear, but they seem more to scalable.

So that’s it for now. Back to the real world, where justice is meted out in quite different ways. And perhaps more effective ones as well.

In a bit…

–tf

There are probably rules about blogging while on a jury. But I’m not actually on a jury yet. I’m sitting around the courthouse with maybe 200 other lost souls awaiting the wheels of justice to start creaking. We’ve all been told that we may or may not be picked and that we may or may not know in an hour or six hours. So we sit and stare at each other and read jagged paperback books and search in vain for restrooms, which are somewhere around here but seem well hidden.

Gone apparently are the days when everybody just lied to get out of jury duty. There are so many here this morning we’re spilling out into the hallway. All kinds too. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. Flashy jewelry and more tattoos than I can count. Guys in suits and a plethora of John Deere caps. (Poor buggers have already been told they must remove them if they are summoned to a courtroom)

Interesting that there are no African American or Hispanics here. Everybody as white as Julius Caesar.

There’s a tv in the “lounge”, but since the only seats are the kind we all know from grade school…..writing desks that discriminate against lefties….you know the ones…..people are filling up the standard chairs in the hallway.

This whole business seems much more romantic on TV.

We’ve also been told that we are not allowed to leave. Contempt of court awaits anyone who does a runner. Smokers are permitted to get periodic fixes, however. Trips to the bar are discouraged. Smokers always bitching about discrimination. How about guys who want a beer?

The judge came down to give us all a pep talk, which was a nice touch. This being a small town, probably half the people in the room know the guy personally. I’m not sure how this might affect justice. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna know at least a few lawyers too. Being a criminal in this town is tough, as a “jury of your peers” is bound to include drinking buddies of courtroom personages.

The guy sitting next to me is sound asleep. Whatever trial he gets assigned to better not drag. A group of women have changed the tv station and are laughing like hyenas to an episode of “Ellen”. Women love Ellen the way they used to love Oprah. There were some grumbling from a few SportsCenter aficionados, but nobody has the guts for a tv coup. At least not this early in the day. And not against this crew. They seem intense.

We get $9 a day for this, plus 17 cents a mile. Not the distance from our homes but from our local post offices. These amounts were set in the 1950s and in true American style have not been increased since. That’s not to say that jurors don’t have it better in some ways. Used to be if a judge didn’t like a verdict he could toss the jury in jail and starve them. Now we get free coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I have to pay for soda. No drinks are allowed in the courtroom. I’ll deal with this calamity later.

Guy next to me still sleeping. Snoring away. The peppy jury guy just came by saying things were gonna start happening “pretty soon”. I thought about waking my neighbor but will let him doze. He may need his strength for this afternoon. We’ve been here over 2 hours already. The natives are beginning to get restless. A prosecutor’s dream.

As the world turns. Me and 50 others herded together and brought into a courtroom. All the lawyers look 12 years old. We’re being studied like prize livestock. Looking for something in the eye or body language that screams “hang the bastards”, or perhaps “who am I to judge?” It’s all incredibly tedious stuff, as the court tries to weed out the crazies and everybody with ties to law enforcement, which around here is almost impossible. I might be the only person in the room not related to a cop. Still, it’s impressive that there are no shirkers. Plenty of chances to get out of it with an obvious word. But folks seems to be treating it with enormous respect. All want to do the right thing if called. The closer you get to the process the better it looks. It may not be perfect but I really can’t think of a better way. The only true loon is the guy who said he can’t judge another ’cause “that is the job of Jesus.” The judge pointed out that Jesus hasn’t been around in a while so human entities will have to do for now.

And after all of this gibberish I didn’t get picked. One side thought I looked too much like sociopathic avenger and the other thought I veered too close to an unpaid tie-dyed social worker. I tried hard to appear neutral. And I stayed awake. Which is more than I can say about the guy next to me.

And I have to report and do it all over again tomorrow.

Probably a good thing I didn’t get picked. That guy was guilty as hell. I could just tell.

In a bit….

–tf

Read all our updates on our collaboration here. This is the latest from Kris….

There, up there, is a beautiful mountain…I love it, so beautiful and majestic. Re-energizes me, makes things clear again, when things start to fog up. Only on special days can I find the energy and will to climb the winding path by myself all the way to the top. Some days it seems easy, I’m barely noticing the footsteps I’m placing up hill; others it takes a few stops and breaks, even days & weeks before I trudge on, knowing the payoff is much greater than the toil.

 This time a friend says ‘let’s find a different path, I love that place too.” So off we go, machetes and chainsaws in hand, blazing a new trail. Today we cut straight up, other days we take turns hacking away in a more zig-zag direction; others still we cut for a while by ourselves before we meet part way up the hill, then forge ahead together. I’ve often heard it’s not so much the destination but the trip along the way, although more correctly it’s a combination of the 2.

 A good partner in such endeavors knows and marvels at that same mountain though he’s enjoyed it’s beauty from his own angle, but loves climbing enough to want to find a new way (or several new ways) with you, to enjoy it in a brand new way.

 And of course you have each others’ back along the way.

 Now of course I’m not talking literally about mountains and climbing, it’s a metaphor for ice cream sundaes and car restoration and instead of machetes and chain saws I really mean cross bows and garden gnomes. But my point is you learn something about yourself (and your friends) when you brave a new challenge together with a new kind of pay-off and sense of satisfaction.

 So I’m off with my cross bow to blaze a new dusty road with my comrade Mr. Flannery, and the view is fantastic!

 More later….

 Kris Kehr – 10/10/13

Technology can be a marvel. Not always of course. Most of the time I find it a pain in the ass but I just spent an hour in the same room with my friend and collaborator Kris Kehr, who happens to live over 100 miles away. We did this on Skype. I know it’s been around for a while but still…..it never ceases to amaze me how small one can make the world.

I’m working on a record with Kris. We’re writing songs together, so we figured we should touch base face-to-face every once in a while. I explained the basics of what we’re doing in an earlier post, and promised myself I’d keep up on developments as they came about. Kris is gonna weigh in from time to time as well. Both of us are used to writing alone…so this is turning into quite the adventure.

We’ve knocked demos back and forth to each other. Maybe 5 or 6 so far. We’d like to make a record with a coherent theme running through it…..like a river that cuts through a town. Or maybe rail-road tracks that divide it. We’re both around the same age. We’re both married. I have 2 daughters. Kris has one. We both stare at the ceiling on sleepless nights worrying about the same things.

Kris will write 10 verses and edit them down to five. I will write 10 verses and end up with a dozen. His melodies flow freely. Mine are dragged into the light kicking and screaming. Kris will labor over a lyric. I’ll write a batch during a lunch break. Neither of us likes being labelled. I’ve often said to him that if I was looking for his stuff in a record store, I’d have no idea which section to start in.

We talked tonight about arrangements and musicians….which generally boils down to what friends we know who will play for next to nothing. Or, in other words, for free. He’s got a lot of friends. I can only hope they owe him favors. I’ve got some talented friends too….but I’m not sure any are indebted to me. A shame really….but that won’t stop me from asking. I’ve got no shame because I don’t mind buying the beer. Such largesse wallpapers over a multitude of sins.

And so onward we go. If you know Kris you know this has the potential to be really really special. If you don’t know Kris it behooves you to make his acquaintance. I’m not sure why I’m digging deep into the thesaurus this evening……but let’s just say that I only feel truly alive when I’m being creative. I don’t do downtime very well. I’ve got way too many bad habits.

There are days. Sometimes I feel like the guitar is a life-jacket……something to keep me from drowning if I fall in the water. Other days I feel like it’s a life-boat……something that keeps me from entering the dangerous current in the first place. The difference appears minute only to those who have never cradled a guitar in the first place.

Come along for the ride. It’s gonna be fun.

In a bit…

–tf

Cold snap. Finally. From the top of the mountain you could watch a heavy fog linger over the valley and then obliterate it completely. The wind howled for a few hours and the rain fell a few hours more. Water started seeping under the doors. It was a good day to be inside. Even working inside.

It’s dark by 7 or so. I don’t feel so lazy going to bed early. Or at least threatening to by curling up with a book. It’s a long week and it’s best not to start the rat race too fast. By Thursday I figure I can push it and reach the weekend regardless of conditioning. Any earlier than that you start risking sick days. They must be hoarded. Cold mornings are worth sleeping through as long as you’re still getting paid.

Must resist the urge to nap in the early evening. Not sure why, as it’s a heavenly thing to do. But it can lead to some late nights, which of course leads to more early naps. And on and on it goes until something ghastly breaks the spell, like mandatory overtime or attending a wake.

Less people out and about. Streets empty earlier. Go for a walk and you can’t resist the urge to peep into front windows because TVs are roaring like fires. Playoff baseball? Game shows? Bad re-run comedies? Does anybody talk anymore?

Ah well. And so it goes. ‘Tis nice sometimes to deal in words just for word’s sake.

In a bit…..

–tf

Games are over. Reality beckons in the form of 5 straight 8 hour days. Then we can do this all again. Sleep in a bit. Spend Saturday with ESPN college gameday. Sunday with the early and late games. Then the Sunday night game to bring it all to an official end. Drain the last of the beers and pop the pills that make Mondays more bearable. It’s late. Closing in on midnight. I’ve got headphones on so I don’t wake anybody as I write these words. Some long lost Who concert from 1979. Listening makes me feel both young and old at the same time. There’s probably a reason for this but I’ll think on it later.

I just finished a book I started on Friday night. A sense of accomplishment there. I won’t bore you with the details but do suggest that anybody reading this surely has time to polish off a good book over a weekend. Two or three hours each night is all you need. If you’re sober, it’s easy. If you’re too fucked up Friday and Saturday nights to polish off 100+ words maybe you should leave the bar earlier. My mom always told me that nothing good ever happens after midnight, and after countless shows I’ve played until 2am, I can say that mom knew her shit.

At closing time it’s like playing to tattooed zombies with massive bar tabs and purple pills more plentiful than my excess guitar picks. All of whom love you until you stop playing. Then they want to shank you in the men’s room with broken beer bottles. And for all this the band gets to drink free Miller Lite Pints, which is like offering your plumber free drinking water from the toilet he’s trying to unclog. But we’re so easy to please. Some nights we even get paid. It’s called capitalism. With 6 strings. It’s practiced by people way too smart to recognize how dumb they are.

I’ve seen at least 29 Viagra commercials today. Can there really be this many guys walking around who can’t get it up without a pill? The guys on the commercials all look virile and movie star handsome. They all appear to have incredibly patient wives who just sit around in a state of perpetual heat waiting for one or them erections that last for more than four hours. A massive industry has been built around these people, as if their pleasure somehow holds the key to world peace. I’m pretty jealous of all this actually. Since I was about 12 all I needed was a girl in the next aisle wearing a skirt. Taking a pill for such a feeling is incomprehensible to me. Like taking a pill to toss a baseball to Dad.

I don’t know. But as Dylan once said, “the hour is getting late”. No sooner did he say it did Jimi Hendrix stole it from him, and then Jimi soon choked to death on his own vomit, which was a stylish way to go in them days as you might recall. But it also served as a warning. Don’t fuck with Dylan or he’ll seal your fate. Just ask Hootie and the Blowfish, who are now playing second on the bill at an Air Force base to a puppet show.

So yea. That’s the kind of night it’s been. Listening to you / I get opinions / I get excitement at your feet.

Keith Moon is dead. How easy to forget. The Who in 1979 were a better band than they had been 2 years earlier when he was still hanging on, washing down elephant tranquilizers with some vintage port and beating up his wife. But Moonie, in one of rock and roll’s cosmic jokes, did himself in by overdosing on a drug prescribed to combat his alcoholism. No doubt his doctor graduated at the top of his class eh?

The Who were as good as ever without Moon (Kenny Jones took his place) and things were going swimmingly well until 11 fans suffocated to death outside in Cincinnati from the crush of too many people in too small of an area. It should have signified something. But before the bodies even had tags on them the band was on their way to the next show. The next night. In buffalo. The show must go on and all that.

The book I read this weekend was about what happened in Cincinnati that night. How the authorities immediately assumed it was all drug ODs. Kids being kids. Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t even all kids. Mothers and Fathers too. Not one of the 11 dead had any traces of drugs or alcohol in their bodies. It was not a “stampede”. Many tried desperately to save lives. And did. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. They two needed to be reconciled. They never were.

Altamont is a cultural memory. Cincinnati is not.

It was the end of the Who. Townshend after Cincinnati was gaunt and spooky and suicidal. He’d always wanted to create a heaven on earth……the perfect note…..that would lead the band and the crowd into some sort of perfect state of ecstasy. But by Cincinnati the crowd had been lost, merely an excuse to pay the bills and provide the after party blow jobs. A cynic might say that Townshend was never any different afterwards than a Mike Love of the Beach Boys. Nostalgia. Want more irony? John Entwistle, the Who’s magisterial bass player, died in Las Vegas while in bed with a hooker and a snoot full of cocaine. All that was missing was the vapid Elvis movie on the TV.

End of the Who? Bah. The boys played that night with a jetted in replacement. At least John went out with a smile on his face. He was no more complex than a hooker in a bed. Aside from being the greatest bass player ever. Yea, that was sorta a problem. But hell, does anybody really give a shit?

Well I do but nobody else does. It’s late. Where’s that 1979 Chicago show. Maybe a week after Cincinnati. The band was astounding. No words on the wreckage they’d left behind. It was like it never happened

But I can assure you it did.

Eleven fans (Teva Ladd, 27; Walter Adams, Jr., 22; James Warmoth, 21; Phillip Snyder, 20; David Heck, 19; Tyler Corcoram, 19; Peter Bowes, 18; Connie Burns, 18; Bryan Wagner, 17; Karen Morrison, 15; and Jacqueline Eckerle, 15) were killed by compressive asphyxia.

Rock and Roll huh?

Man am I tired.

In a bit.

–TF

It’s been a while since I wrote a song based on historical events. But this one was by request….made by good people. I hope I did it justice.

Mud Run Disaster, 1888 Carbon County PA. 66 people died when one train ran into the back of the other.

Mud Run

I don’t want to remember
the things that I saw there
but when I close my eyes
I still smell her singed hair
she said “stay with me sir..
just until I die…
promise you’ll hold your lover close
in the bed where you lie..”

That small band playing
“Nearer My God to Thee”
but even the Lord missed the signal
and the world fell in on me
Did you ever see a scalding
did you ever hear a fire
did you ever sense a train
or live through a funeral pyre

At Mud Run…I never heard of it before
twisted track was my ceiling
the roof was my floor
at Mud Run
it was something like a war
it was something like a war

It’s old bones I’ve become
a ghost trapped in time
tried to drive it away
by drinking away what’s mine
now I got these tremors
like rumblin’ down a track
passing the point of no return
and always looking back

At Mud Run…I never heard of it before
twisted track was my ceiling
the roof was my floor
at Mud Run
it was something like a war
it was something like a war

I’m getting old. Saturday night and me and the wife shared a pizza at a place filled with burping teenagers saying “dude” over and over again. We were home by 8:30. After checking in on some college scores, I curled up in bed with a new one volume history of Gettysburg, and was asleep before the late news started.

The worst part was that I enjoyed myself immensely. That’s the part that makes me feel old.

Pete Townshend wrote the lines “hope I die before I get old” when he was 20. These days he’s pushing 70, as rich as Croesus, with a much younger girl at his side, and musically is revered like few others. He may have meant it then, but I suspect he’s sorta glad things worked out differently.

Townshend’s music has probably saved my life about 86 times. For me music is not simply life-affirming. In my teens I could listen to records like “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia”…..both incoherent narratives, and they made sense. Townshend was writing these things specifically to fit into my head.

I never felt like I knew him. I felt like he knew me.

It was always that kind of relationship.

We’ve both grown old together….and honestly it’s not so bad.

Sure things hurt that didn’t used to hurt. Sure things that used to be black or brown are now grey. We need glasses now. And our ears ain’t so good. (Lucky all we need to do there is turn up the volume. One thing that cannot be compromised is volume.) We’ve added a few pounds. Crow’s feet. We embraced technology…..and now we’re kinda back-tracking. I like the feel of a legal pad and pen more than a keyboard again.

But it doesn’t take as much anymore. The feeling of crisp fall air……or the explosion of fall colors….these things can literally turn a bad day into a good one. Sitting on my front porch when the night is quiet. Tinkering on an acoustic guitar. My dog curled up next to me on the couch. My cat sitting over my left shoulder. My wife catching me looking at her the way I used to look at her. Knowing the kids are tucked in and safe. A close game on TV. A cold drink. Breaking Bad on Netflix, A great book.

In 1884 Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “in our youth our hearts were touched with fire”. Ollie spoke the truth. We needed that stimulation. We needed that urging, The concept of growing old when we were 20 was bizarre. I worshiped my father, but I could never imagine being like him. It’s this mind set that allowed Townshend to write “My Generation” and mean it. And for me to hear it say, “yea, me too”.

But those days are gone. I’m still not comparable to my father. He was a much better man than I’ll ever be. But I’d like nothing better than to keep trying. And that’s going to take time. And that’s going to mean getting even older.

So then onward. There is much to do. There is time to be savored. I don’t want my heart touched with fire anymore. Perhaps simply kept warm. I want more early nights. More stolen glances. More music. More legal pads and more pens.

I hope to grow old before I die. With Pete.

In a bit…

–tf

Bad things always seem to happen to good people. Of course, good things happen to bad people all the time too, but we don’t take much notice of that. I think because it’s more common. “Often” becomes the norm….which is why we notice teenagers behaving nicely more than we do teenagers behaving badly. And why we take note of bad weather at the beach but the blue sky and hot sun are un-remarked upon.

One rarely gets the whole story, which is another way of saying we generally only hear one side. It would be nice if this weren’t so but so goes the world. We make do and make assumptions. And it’s at times like these that you’d better not have a reputation for being one of those bad people with seemingly incessant luck. If we haven’t heard your side, we don’t want it. If we have, we don’t believe it.

I was thinking on this on and off today. It made more sense in my head, believe me…but then again what thoughts don’t?. We’ve become so fragmented from each other. It breeds fear and pettiness. We smile at each other and then mutter imprecations when out of earshot. At the risk of sounding sexist I’ll say that girls seem better (or worse perhaps) at this than guys. I’ve heard girls verbally scratch each others eyeballs out to others, and then 10 minutes later they’re together laughing like sorority sisters. It makes for good water cooler chatter but it’s a bit repugnant nonetheless. Guy are generally too lazy to pretend to like someone. To steal a Twainism…it’s the difference between lightning and the lightning bug I suppose. One of the main problems of disagreeable persons is their sheer numbers.

So that’s that. The week is almost done and soon we can pull the car into the garage and not have to pull it out again the next morning. We can study our couches and watch football and late-season baseball and that sport where people drive around in circles really fast and try not to crash. We can pretend we’re normal by acting normal. We can fit in by embracing isolation. And if we get really bored we can head out to the local boozer and drink until we throw-up. At least people are honest when they’re drunk. For better or worse. Ever see 2 drunk people who hated each other pretend they didn’t? Me neither.

I must choose the appropriate mood music for the evening….so if you’ll excuse me. The days are getting shorter. That makes no sense at all…”days” being the same 86,400 seconds no matter the month….but it’s the norm to say the says are somehow shortened when the leaves turn. I suspect you’ll allow me to say it. If only so we can pretend to get along.

In a bit..

–tf