Starting at 7:45 AM I will be making an appearance in Santa Anna, California at the California Superior Court Juror Waiting Room. The topic for the full-day session is to be announced but I'm sure it will be informative, interesting, and law abiding.
If you would like to come and see me, just make sure you're in business casual attire, shorts and t-shirts will get you kicked at the door. Also the place is secure with "airport style" weapons screening, so please unlace and remove your shoes as you approach the building. Also, you are limited to only one carry-in item including laptop cases, pizza boxes, or a hockey bag.
For the guest question and answer period (again: TBA) I will be doing interpretive monologues taken from Law & Order, The Practice, and My Cousin Vinny. During each performance I will be speaking mostly in my McGruff the Crime Dog voice except when playing the part of a cop. During those special moments of the script, I'll bust out my Ponch, from CHiPs' sixth season (it has a little more rasp and attitude than previous seasons).
I asked if I can bring a prop, or stage gun, to add to my performance but the "Judge" on the phone said it wasn't a great idea. So you will have to use your imagination as I work extra hard during my parts as a California Highway Patrolman.
Meanwhile, throughout the non Q&A session, I will be establishing personal space amongst the other session attendees. I have been told that we will all be in a large room with a television, soda machines, and pay phones but I'm hoping that it isn't going to be similar to waiting in the lobby of a Greyhound bus station.
The Superior Court website doesn't show what the accomidations look like because they had to trim the scale of their site due to budget cuts. Apparently Grey Davis, spent most of the web budget paying Enron for the great time he had in Houston last summer.
Until tomorrow I leave you with these words of wisdom from America's favorite Mexican police actor, "A fist fight never proved nothin' except you're dumb."
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
If your jury duty is anything like my last one was, I have one piece of advice: take a good book. One that you can become engrossed in, not one you'll pick up and put down repeatedly. If it's like my duty, you'll be sitting for long periods of time. I foolishly took a couple of magazines (both of which I finished within a matter of minutes), some study materials for a class I was taking (never touched), and a newspaper (read 1/2 before my eyes began to water from the ink fumes).
Trust me - a good book. One you're already reading so you don't have to start cold. One you know you'll enjoy and can lose yourself in.
Remember in "Trading Places" when Louis' snotty girlfriend was waiting at the police station to pick him up, and had the very large man sit down almost on top of her, lean over, and stare at her for several minutes before saying, "Dat yer purse?" "Issa nice purse."
He sat next to me in the jury duty waiting room. God speed, my friend.
with each jury duty, i work my way through the juror characters from 12 angry men. next i will portray the character of john fiedler, the spineless bankteller (aka the voice of piglet).
I always get called up for Jury duty around my birthday--12 days away, that summons should be showing up any time.
Last year I managed to get myself excused because my mom was near death in a hospital in Bellengham, WA. She recovered, and, I later found out, the defendant was aquitted.
A few years before that I was called in for Federal Jury Duty on the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing. They locked us up in a basement for most of the day, just in case one of us was thinking of blowing up the courthouse. Around 5PM, someone came by and sprung us, thank God.