i seem to find myself on the voyage of the damned, day 2

nothin' says "you're going to be wasting a lot of time here" like a bookshelf full of puzzles

8:00am - Later call time = later alarm

8:49 - I get to my parking garage o' choice behind the world's least competent driver. Takes them a full minute to get from the sidewalk to the ticket dispenser. Then they have to climb completely out of their car to get the ticket. Are they a follow-this-pedestrian-to-their-car-to-get-a-space vulture? Of course they are! And a slow one to boot.

10:02 - I may have to kill an old lady. It seems she has decided this is Chatty Day. Or perhaps she did this yesterday but just had a nice target rich environment to play in so i didn't notice. Fewer people today, the dregs of the Juror Pool: lawyers, law enforcement officers, philosophers and me.
So I'm typing on the lappy and i note these deliberately heavy footsteps in my immediate vicinity. i ignore them; you have to get up earlier in the morning than that to outweird me. She speaks.
Chatty Old Lady: Are you working?
Me: Yes.
Chatty Old Lady: Oh. (looks surprised. guess she was expecting me to say 'no'.)
Me: Remote connection. Great thing.
Chatty Old Lady: Well, have fun.

whatever you're looking for, hey

here, as far as i can tell, is what kept me from being chosen for a jury yesterday:

Panel 1:
Too Young to Remember Donahue Lawyer: If the law you're being asked to uphold is one you consider "wrong" or "unjust", would that make it harder for you to be impartial?
Me: Of course.

Panel 2:
Looks Like Blair from Facts of Life Lawyer: Would the testimony of one witness and only one witness with no CSI-type evidence be enough to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt?
Me: No.
Blair Lawyer: What if you believed them to be truthful?
Me: I'm an actor.

i seem to find myself on the voyage of the damned
or
"live"blogging jury duty updated some more

7:25am - the alarm goes off earlier than it has in a long long time.

7:50 - i head out, 5 minutes later than planned, hoping rush hour isn't completely mental.

8:20 - i approach the Justice Center, keeping my eyes peeled for Aqua Man or at least the Wonder Twins. no such luck.

8:21 - the woman in front of me is very confused by the security screening. no doubt she'll be a fellow juror. would you want your fate in the hands of someone who has apparently not been on a plane in the last seven years?

8:27 - as you step off the elevator onto Floor Jury, the very 1st thing you encounter is a piece of "art" made up of 50 or so wrist watches. Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.

8:29 - i meet our babysitters. the older one is the nicer one, surprisingly. she's wearing an blue chinese top embroidered with silver dragons.

8:39 -

"art" in the Jury Waiting Room. no doubt constructed by bored juror candidates.

9:20 - We "get started". which means learning our babysitters' names and watching a fabulous video: So, You're Stuck On Jury Duty (may be remembering title inaccurately).

9:29 - the video warns us we, as jurors, will feel the long, slow, deliberate pace of the law.

9:29:30 - i attempt to slit my wrists with my juror pamphlet (Your Jury Duty and You).

10:20 - the 1st group is called.

11:20 - i head into voir dire, dangerously close to lunch time.

12:25pm - not on a jury, i am released into lunch nearly half an hour late. go you government!

2:03-2:18 - i take a nap in the jury waiting room.

3:11 - voir dire round 2

to be continued

put me in cold

Dear Sportswriters,

I'm sorry, but no. Just, no.

There is not a fucking curse on Every Town that has sports teams that don't do well. No, not even when it's for a really long time.

You see, for there to be a Curse, one has to have done something unusually bad. Let me try to make this clear:

~ Throwing the World Series = Bad. Very bad. So Unusual as to be Unique. I can believe the Baseball Gods would punish this.

~ Making a Really Bad Trade = Bad. But not Unusual. Happens all the bloody time.

~ Building a Building Taller than a Statue = Neither that Bad nor that Unusual.

Sometimes? Bad things happen to good people. Sometimes right does not prevail. And sometimes a city just has really bad luck or really bad teams for a really long time.

Go Phillies,
Raej

Puppet Quest(ions)

Mr. FBanjo: What is this Puppet Quest you’re on, anyway?
Raej: Over and Through at Wing-it (Jet City...big yellow theater in the U District). It’s a long form improvised puppet show in the style of Labyrinth. I will be in it and am making puppets for it.

Burlap the Bunny

Ken: Explain more about your relationship to the puppets?
Raej: I’m making a metric butt-ton of puppets for this show. Five complete-ish so far and at least 5 more on the table in various stages of incomplete-ishness.

Twink: How does anyone get more than one puppet project in one lifetime?
Raej: I’d mention Jim Henson here but
a of all) I don’t think that’s quite what you’re asking
and b) I don’t want to give the impression that I’m comparing myself to him.
Because I’m not. Because no one should. Ever.
Any puppeteer comparing themselves to Jim Henson is a delusional ass.
Anyway.
It’s funny, once theater people find out you can do certain thing, like make puppets, they find you and offer you more of that sort of work. This compared to theater people finding out you can act. That gets you pretty much nothing. Nontheater people might buy you a drink; theater people can’t afford to.

laugh about it, shout about it

calling all political pundits: please please lose the phrase "Main Street, USA" from your vocabulary.

lose it. no one lives there. anymore. no. one. not for some time.

the people you're trying to talk about live in cul de sacs.

"Cul de Sac, USA".

try using that in a sentence sometime today, pundits.

the sunburned hands i used to hold

speaking of fall, since when does daylight savings time end on a freakin' wednesday? i swear, tuesday i drove to rehearsement in lightness but wednesday, same trip, same time, it was dark darky dark.

seas would rise when i gave the word

my fan requested a blog post today via facebook IM. since i am nothing if not a slave to the will of The People, not to mention flattered by attention, i am thus a-postin'.

fall always makes me a bit antsy. must be the years and years of back to school-ness built into my psyche. for me this was always a good time, as it got me blamelessly out of the house for 8 plus hours a day.

coming soon: PuppetQuest. And: Dinosaur Loves Pony