TomFlannery.com

JFK is in the news again. Has it really been 50 years? President gets his head blown off on national TV. Then, the man suspected of the crime is perp-walked in front of the press and, despite a sea of cops surrounding him, some rogue mini-mobster still manages to put a bullet in Oswald’s abdomen from about 6 inches away. Bye Bye open and shut case. Hello conspiracy theories….in which everybody with an ax to grind with a left leaning president they largely despised are possible suspects. From Cubans to the phone company to those pain in the ass Russian KGB agents shooting poison darts through a straw. Hell, Dallas then was a lot like Dallas now. As right wing as any John Birch Society meeting, where lefty progressives appear, through lenses of hate, like a horde of unwashed atheistic vandals, intent on tearing the whole thing down….and in its place turn Dealy Plaza into a collective of Gulags for the kulaks.

Of course it didn’t quite work out that way. But if I were Obama driving through Dallas I’d be sure to be in a covered limo, with un-maned drones ready to take out that pesky book building if even a puff of cigarette smoke drifted out of one of its windows. Can’t be too careful these days eh?

We’re fond of saying that we’ve come a long way, mostly because it’s always more fun to spout bullshit than the actual truth. Actually, we haven’t moved at all. All you need to do is look at a civil war map circa 1865, and compare it to the “red” and “blue” election maps of our times. If you think they look identical, you are correct. If you think that means we haven’t come very far over the last 50 years, you’d be right too. We’re divisive. We’re astoundingly dense. We seem incapable of any sort of compromise. The ones who hate the most are given the biggest platforms, this leading the sheep to slaughter as it were. Sure we have a black president. That was a first. We had a first 50 years ago too. A Catholic president. What happened to him again? Oh yes, he got his head blown off on national TV.

Our defining moment as a country. Because it was captured. No cameras were on Booth when he stuck that Derringer into Lincoln’s temple. We all heard about it. We read about it. But we didn’t see it.

Kennedy we saw. Impossibly young and handsome with a beautiful wife and gorgeous little kids and a family with enough money to buy anything, whether it was for sale or not. Like Pulitzer Prizes or Senate Seats. And now the top of the mountain. The President. And he was gonna clean up some of this mess…..which made the people who made the mess (and lots of money from it) very nervous. End the War? Race Relations? Playing “chicken” with the soviets over warheads aimed down our throat. There’s one thing about status quo. It’s good for business. Mess with it at your own peril. Like a bullet in the head on TV.

My generation has nothing like this. The closest was getting the news that Lennon had been shot and killed outside the Dakota. Like most others I learned it from Howard Cosell, who broke the news during a Monday Night Football game. Even dead Elvis could not compare. Elvis died while taking a shit. Not much fun I’d guess, and not an iconic way to go. Lennon was gunned down, Kennedy style. Lennon had rocked so many boats he was driving Hoover at the FBI batshit as the agency tried to stay abreast of national security issues like Lennon’s “Bed Ins for Peace”….which were ridiculed when the press expected an orgy and instead got preached to via “Give Peace a Change”…most likely an idea none of them had ever heard before. I cried when Lennon died. He was a pain in the ass and I loved him. And because he was a pain in the ass they killed him. And then came 8 years of Reagan, which was like rubbing salt into the wound. It’s a miracle that anybody in my generation remains a respectable member of society. We should have burned the entire shithouse down.

But no, that would be rude. So we just kept our heads down under the Gipper and hoped he didn’t notice that lots of folks were just as pissed off as them Air Traffic Controllers. But nobody wanted to be frog-marched into the desert and be dumped into a large pre-dug hole, never to be seen again. So we bent over and took it. We took it good.

And then Clinton and Seems Like Teen Spirit came along. You could walk the streets and not get caught up in bread lines. We had jobs. Guitars were on the radio. Cobain mumbled and screamed all the rage we’d been feeling but could not get out. We had a President who would say the word ‘AIDS’ without thinking it was somebody’s fault. And then Cobain got too close to the sun and…well….that was that. He put an REM record on, and used his foot to blow his own head off with a shotgun. I think they found him 2 days later. Reagan and his boys had surely put the zap on Cobain’s head….but there was more to this one. Alienation. The kid was broken from the start. Never felt whole for a variety of reasons. Wrong side of the tracks. Born at the perfect time for us. It was the worst time for him.

Should we be selfish and say the world is better because he was here? Or should we feel that what he left behind was not worth……what he left behind. Namely, himself.

I don’t know. I miss them all. The idea of JFK. I miss Lennon because he taught me about rock and roll, and that it was more than just 3 chords. It was singing about rebellion….and then rebelling yourself. The type that gets you noticed by the FBI. I miss Cobain because he could have been me. That scrawny shy kid who, today, wouldn’t get past the loading dock of “The Voice” TV studio….but changed everything. The Lennon of our time.

Lennon. Cobain. Our JFKs.

In a bit..

–tf

I wrote this song a few years ago. Sometimes one gets away. I brought it back for a batch of songs I’m putting together to record with my friend Mike Lambert. That’s Mike in the pic. Better than another pic of me.

From 2006. The bad ol’ days..

When George Met Cindy at WVIA studios

Rock and roll has reached the level of “Not Fade Away”, but never surpassed it.

Medley of Miner Boy/Song About a Train/Folson Prison Blues live from the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock in 2011

It’s one of those nights when I can’t sleep despite prescribed help. So I’ve come down to my basement office and turned on the laptop. I’ve got early Waterboys records playing. “This is the Sea” at the moment. It’s a glorious noise. I’ve followed Mike Scott’s various musical whims for maybe 25 years. Lots of hits and misses but it’s never boring. Scott makes the music he wants to make when he wants to make it. You can listen or ponder what it is that the fox says. Or whatever. He doesn’t give a shit and neither do I.

I listen to lots of different music for lots of different reasons. The Waterboys make me feel better. So that’s that.

My cat followed me down here and is busy trying to bite the tag from the bottom of the tattered couch I have in here. She tends to fixate on things. Gee, I wonder where she gets that from?

There’s a guitar on the couch. I have an 8 track recording machine in here too, with a couple of solid Carvin condenser mics. Over my right shoulder is a massive framed portrait of Abraham Lincoln, which I desperately need some days when I’m convinced our nation is turning into a banana republic. There are great men who seem perfect for their times. Lincoln. FDR. Dr King. Bobby Kennedy was one of the great “what-ifs”. With Obama I dared to hope. But it’s not to be. His photo was on too many walls before he’d proven his greatness. A good man surely. It’s not his fault that he happens to be black….which is like blood in the water to his opponents. Republicans don’t like blacks much. Or browns. Or women or kids or poor people in general. They love fetuses, but that doesn’t do me any good as I’m working harder and longer every year for less and less money. Save a fetus, raise a dumb white guy who thinks Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz are gonna save the nation from the hordes of socialists coming to take his guns away. Pro-life…..but let’s bomb Iran and kill the “enemy”, not to mention a few marines here and there. Let’s stop President Obama’s “War on the Rich”. And for god’s sake let’s impeach the bastard because we’re getting errors trying to access a government web site that was farmed out to the lowest bidder. Actually, farmed out to over 50 of the lowest bidders, making it into the most needlessly complex website ever created. That’s how many different contracting groups are involved in what a 17 year old kid with a bad case of acne could have done in his garage for a few bags of really good weed. Or they could have just asked the porn industry for help. Those guys know this website stuff cold.

After all, it’s only health insurance. The mongrel hordes of right wing politicians, all fiercely protective of their own government provided health care of course. are treating this like the alamo. The last stand. If health care becomes an actual right? Fuck, what’s next? A living wage? Dudes making out with each other? Ryan and his cronies might do the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk thing and go the self-immolation route. Perhaps during a live interview with Sean Hannity. What a point that would make, eh? Like the witch on the Wizard of OZ. All that’d be left on the ground is their American Flag pins. Iconic stuff.

But probably not. These weasels don’t have actual convictions. What they have is marching orders. and they goose step like storm troopers, inspiring stupid people to levels of hatred our nation hasn’t seen since the civil war. You think it’s just coincidental that a secession map from 1861 looks exactly like a red/blue state map from our last national election?

I won’t talk politics anymore. When a right winger starts going off on a fox fueled tangent, I used to have some fun. Like when Mormons knock on my door. Invite ’em in. Offer them beer and pot. Put “Sympathy for the Devil” on the stereo real loud. Ask them what God looks like, and demand specifics. Eyes? Long Hair? Short? Beard? How tall? White robe or is that just a tall tale? If they can’t answer, ask for their home address and tell them you’ll come visit them, unannounced of course. You’ll be passing out Atheistic tracts and would like them to kneel and pray to the flying spaghetti monster with you, promising them nothing but a nice hole in the ground but a lot more time to live and stuff, as atheists aren’t required to spend 2 years banging on doors begging for converts. And they’re especially not required to dress like David Palmer in the “Addicted to Love” video.

Obama ain’t doing it for me. I don’t like a guy who seems paranoid. I don’t want him snooping on me. I don’t like him driving drones up someone’s ass without due process. In my name. To make me “safe”. Wasn’t this stuff supposed to, you know, end?

No, politics is off limits for me. I’m the child of New Deal democrats. Sorry. I thought Reagan was an American catastrophe, part actor, part shaman, and part filthy rich outsider who understood poor people about as much as he understood how Star Wars was actually gonna work once it was off the power point presentations. The man wouldn’t utter the word “AIDS” while he was president. Millions were dying. To him, it was perverts who were going to hell. He’d rather secretly arm the contra rebels in Nicaragua, a ruthless pack of torturers, even though doing so was against US law. Ronnie had the perfect excuse. He didn’t recall.

No no. None of that revisionism for me. Obama is what we got now. He ain’t what I expected. Not by a long shot. But anybody wanna pick an alternative? You think this is fun, just wait until Hillary gets in there. Payback can be a bitch boys. Be careful what you ask for. Or rather, be careful in acting so batshit crazy that you simply hand the nomination to her. She’s got a memory like an elephant, and she’s going to stomp on your balls.

And she’s meaner than all of you put together.

Just saying.

But really I’ve ceased to care all that much. Politics is local for the most part. I keep doing what I’m doing. I work for a living. I work hard and I come home and some nights like this I can’t sleep. I worked hard under the Bush’s. I work hard under Clinton. I work hard under Obama. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able to find work that pays a living wage. Not much more than that, but I’m not drowning. I don’t see much difference in the last 20 years. Political gibberish. Grandstanding. Half the judges in Luzerne County are in jail. The chief of police in Old Forge is a pedophile but gets to keep his job. My former county commissioners are both in jail. So is my state Senator, who lived down the street from me. Some local kids tossed a brick through our bathroom window and got away with it because they’re local football stars…and happen to have friends on the local police force. Future leaders of the Northeast PA Republican Party no doubt.

The only honest politician I’ve even known runs as part of the Green Party, and gets a handful of votes. That’s all. But he gets mine, I can sleep nights. Can you?

I mean, except for tonight.

In a bit..

–tftt

I was thinking. I should be writing but all in good time. I think it was Every Grain of Sand that got me depressed and made me take my pencil and burn it and never want to write again because….well never mind.

Anyway my buddy Kris Kehr opines on Sir Bob…..(and sends along an awesome pic too)

  I’ve always been a day dreamer- perpetually unhappy with where I was and the ‘real’ world around me, and an only child living in the country can force that upon you; living inside your own Technicolor head. Something about music warmed me early on and started projecting three dimensional feelings inside said head, and I’ve been chasing that dragon ever since.

 Learnt guitar to start making my own projections and, growing up in the 70’s like I did, became drawn to the vast guitar revolution going on inside the music business at the time. Hearing Dire Straits’ Sultans of Swing’ constantly on the radio filled me with grand happiness; I could not get enough of that song. The Straits second album was darker and even more to my liking. There was also something about the clean strat tone, and so I became a life-long Mark Knopfler fan.

 When I read in Rolling Stone that Mark was producing albums and had just finished helping legendary songwriter Bob Dylan complete his comeback album Infidels (after his right turn into christiandom for a few years) I traveling to Reading’s Record Revolution and, after holding the vinyl in my hand at the store and reading all that could be seen on the outside cover, purchased said album and took it home. I strapped on my headphones in my solitary bedroom at the end of the hall and spun that thing endlessly. There was a lot of heavy shit there that my young mind was not equipped to wrap itself around. You could teach a course on the opening track, Jokerman, and the video that accompanied was filled with even more rabbits to follow. But Sweetheart Like You, the second track, was something my young mind and heart could readily dive into. For me, it’s a cautionary tale for a female friend or lover – there has been some argument over this song but at the time I just saw it for its sweetness, and still do.

 A couple of heavies came next, world view songs with lyrics that served to momentarily distract me from the awesome guitar tones of Knopfler and ex-stone Mick Taylor. Eventually I would circle back around with a more worldly-informed mind to gather deeper understanding from those songs, but more on that later.

 But then there was I & I, still one of my favorites. What only/lonely child at home with his headphones on could not follow that ‘duality of personality’ path in their imagination?  Listening to that song still leaves me awestruck, staring at the sunset trying to comprehend the meaning in its mysterious beauty, but the beauty easily enjoyed on its surface. Actually many of Bob’s songs (and others) leave me with that feeling. The final song, one of longing called Don’t Fall Apart on me Tonight, was perhaps the culprit in starting me on a life of living relationships out in my head. Or at least a youth full of them: “I need you, yes I need you!”

 And so I picked up the thread or followed the rabbit down the hole into the vast, deep universe that is Bob Dylan’s music. It was the beginning of a life-long involvement, a pure well that always quenches my thirst when I need or want to return. I spent years and years just circling that place, picking up the pieces as they illuminated themselves to me, at just the right time for me, I suppose, one bread crumb to the next. That depth to his work is an endless source of various types of inspiration to me. And like all great works of art, the longer you stare at it the more you see.

 Oh, there were plenty of other musical things I picked up on after that- mostly about magic and mystery amongst the lyrics and songs. When I started recording my first album ‘Long Year’ with producer Tom Edmonds he took me to his old haunt of the Woodstock area of New York to record with Band guitarist Jim Weider. I was pelted with many stories about that slice of Americana and American music – Tom started his Woodstock days as Levon Helms lawn boy and eventually took care of the guys, running them for various supply runs and eventually worked with many creative souls up there before becoming an engineer under Todd Rundgren at the infamous Bearsville Studios. He took me to Big Pink and snapped the photo you see of me here. Right around this time I was really getting into my album/disc collecting, going to the Village in NYC and buying all manner of oddball recordings in any of the string of cool record stores the blotted the area, when I found a new bootleg release called A Tree with Roots. Greil Marcus’ book Invisible Republic came out around this time too and together, my mind was blown further. The complete collection of all known Basement Tapes and a book about what they mean only served to mystify the man, and drew me into the world of the Band as well or at least further in. But it was this peek behind the curtain that also taught me about process, how songs come to be and how you can record together with friends over time and climb to new heights through that kind of process. There was a point in my career when I lived with Stone Poets’ keyboardist James Harton where our house was fashioned around this creative ideal, and we were far from alone.

 It was around this time that I discovered the Genuine Bootleg Series, from the same bootleg label that gave us Tree with Roots (Scorpion), a 4 volume set that collected out takes and unreleased gems from Dylan’s recording career, spawned on by the vast wealth of this stuff and perhaps Columbia’s inclusion of some outtake on 1985’s Biograph, which included such things from the prismatic black hole that was the Blood on the Tracks sessions. The fact that these immense, incredibly magnetic albums had a process and that things were left along the way had been leaked, and for those of us personally touched by Dylan’s’ works this added a new dimension to the whole saga.

 In 1991 Columbia succeeded in releasing the first in what would be an on-going official collection of such things, The Bootleg Series. The first three volumes were released together and included early works, middle period works (the 70’s) and later works (at that time), including some incredible gems from the Infidels sessions. Also included were more gems from Blood on the Tracks and a few other great albums from the period, although Biograph included probably the best example, Up to Me. Always around were the tracks of already released songs with markedly different lyrics or feels, or both but the real gems for me were the unreleased songs Mr. Flannery has been talking about. I think trying to be empathetic with a songwriter/recording artist, there is a goal of carving out a piece of art that ages well and you have to keep an open mind and keen connection to your gut as to which songs work best together and form some kind of linear truth, or goal, or complete painting. During this process things are disposed of, perhaps in some cases set aside for future use, sometimes not. I don’t think any artist thinks about legacy during this process, certainly not pre-Dylan, the muse continues moving forward and the eye remains on the ball. The record company saw an opportunity in the wake of the vast bootleg market with guys like me and started compiling and officially releasing.

 “What is it about guys your age and Dylan?” – Ronna Beckman, character on the West Wing

 While Tom and I were having our late night Dylan discussion about this stuff recently he sounded exasperated at the thought that someone could write such incredible music and leave it off the album. I think it’s simpler than that. I think it’s a path you follow as an artist, no looking back, always moving forward. The fact that not only myself but Tom, and many, many others thirsted for more of a perspective on the incredible art this guy was making created this importance, or even a vacuum; daydreamers, at home at their windows contemplating the great meaning of things. And so we all have this to listen to and contemplate anyway despite not on the original album releases. I don’t think Bob was sacrificing anything by leaving that stuff off the albums, just trying to do what he does as best he could at the time, following his instincts and perhaps some other outside forces at times to make the best album he could. What he couldn’t see at the time, but we eventually could, is the importance of this stuff in the end. The thirst really was started with the first bootlegging of the Basement Tapes, ‘demo song’ acetate leaked and eventually reviewed in RS. But Dylan is so good that this legend took on a life of its own, and got its own album series. These releases now are on par with any new material albums he releases. The value of this outside work has reached at last come to fruition.

 The fact that Dylan has created this aura of mystery around a bunch of his works only further proves what an incredible recording artist the man is. Dylan has started several times that while growing up in Minnesota he lived inside his own head, the lyrics to old folk songs and early roots, blues and rock & roll fueling his imagination and creating his inner world and moral structure. I have rifled through those things and while enjoying them on a deep level and understanding where bob is coming from, that world becomes Technicolor for me through Bob’s prism. Bob drew on all those things to inform his world, and soul, and in turn has left this endless landscape of the same, interpreted for us. I guess that makes him my patron saint.

–Kiris Kehr

Yea. I do this from time to time. Nothing specific triggers it. It just happens. Last night around 1am I sent a text to my friend Kris Kehr, asking how somebody could write songs as staggering as Abandoned Love and Up to Me and Blind Willie McTell and leave them OFF records. I knew Kris would understand. He responded immediately of course. Not with an answer, because there isn’t one. But with the complete understanding of a fellow songwriter who would give his right arm to write something as good as these songs…songs with Dylan deemed disposable. Yea, he’s that good when he’s good.

The first song I ever learned on the guitar was “Girl From the North Country”. I was in college. I knew nothing but was smart enough not to pretend otherwise. I figured if you wanted to learn how to write songs you listened to Dylan. Common sense really. Then and now.

I don’t know how he wrote the songs he wrote. I have no idea where they came from. I can’t pretend to know what a song like Visions of Johanna means. I had a good friend back in the day who knew all the lyrics to Just Like Tom Thumb Blues. I thought he was a complete freak and told him I doubted even Dylan knew all the lyrics to Just Like Tom Thumb Blues. My friend’s name was Bob too. I admired the shit out of him. Still do. A few months ago I was playing a solo acoustic show in a local bar and he showed up. Haven’t seen him in 20 years. I sang Like a Rolling Stone in his honor. I would have done Just Like Tom Thumb Blues but I can’t remember the fucking words.

Tonight in the car I was taking my daughter and her friend home and I had the song It’s All Good from one a Dylan’s recent records blaring. It’s a non-sensical lyric set to a ordinary blues-shuffle….but it charms the shit out of me. Ask my why and I can’t tell you.

Even now first timers will say….”that guy can’t sing”. Us vets know better. Dylan is only the best white blues singer of all time. It’s All Good is the kind of song that Dylan can probably write in his sleep. It’s a complete throwaway…..like his song Dark Eyes from the 1980s, which he freely admits he wrote just to fill out a record with an acoustic song…..which he figured was what people wanted. Most songwriters have never written a song as good as Dark Eyes,

Dylan did what he did before anybody else did what they did. That should make sense but if it doesn’t you should probably listen to what he and his band were serving up in 1966….a time when the Beatles were playing Shea Stadium with a sound system that would shame any modern bar band. Tell Me, Mamma was the song that kicked off those long ago electric sets…and it’s no wonder that fans nearly lost their collective minds. Nobody had ever sounded like this before. Nobody had ever had the BALLS to sound like this before. Everything that followed….be in the Who or the Stones or the Sex Pistols…. sounded tame in comparison. Remember when Hemingway said that the great American novel was already written? This was Huck Finn with Telecasters. Loud.

So yea. That’s Dylan to me. After a while he’ll fade from my playlist. Maybe for another year. Then he’ll creep back in. And I’ll hear something like She’s Your Lover Now and just shake my head while reaching for the volume. He’ll release a new record eventually. It will contain some shit (like his endless Titanic ballad Tempest from his last record….which I’m convinced was a joke) and some songs that make me shake my head like It’s All Good….the old man can still cripple you with a couplet. Whenever I run out of things to say all I need to do is listen to Groom’s Still Waiting At the Altar to feel young again. I’m actually one of the crazy people who feel that, if anything, Dylan is underrated as a songwriter. Imagine the landscape without him. Can you? Throw away your Van Morrison and your Marvin Gaye and your Springsteen and your Prine and your Petty and your U2 and your Clash and your Public Enemy and your Nirvana and your Pearl Jam and your Alica Keys and god knows who else. Rubber Soul and Revolver and Sgt Pepper? Blowin’ in the Wind.

I’m glad I don’t know what brings on these Dylan jags. I’d hate to be able to predict the next one.

In a bit..

—

tf

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