We're up for jury duty selection next week. Just in time for the sucking sound of the holidays. Low Culture has some ideas on how to get out of it, with a good point on the reading front. If we read, we'll get selected. If we don't read, we'll go nuts in the poorly ventillated waiting area and start licking the dusty walls or becoming polymorphously perverse in an effort to pass the time. If we put a good trade paperback inside the latest issue of Hustler, our ruse will be found out in seconds. If any hard-core readers have any ideas about how to combat such an obsession while simultaneously appearing dumb and unqualified, we'd be interested in hearing your theories and techniques. We're also tempted to invent prejudices and conspiracies during the questioning process, but we like to consider all points before taking the plunge. Your assistance is welcomed.
Posted by DrMabuse at December 6, 2004 06:03 PMIt was 1987. I was up for jury duty in Federal District Court. The problem: it was 50 miles from my house. My oath: No fucking way do I go 100 miles RT every day just to figure out whether some schmuck knocked over a liquor store and shot someone in the process. My solution: unbathed, unshaven, huge Jewfro, faded Bob Dylan Live in Europe t-shirt and the tightest nutters in my drawer (this was the 1980s, after all and I was only too happy to emulate fellow stoner Bill Walton). I don't think i was in there 10 minutes before the baliff said, "You can go, sir."
Posted by: Jimmy Beck at December 6, 2004 06:39 PMThere's just one problem, Beck. This is San Francisco.
Posted by: Ed at December 6, 2004 06:44 PMThere is always the option of volunteering the information: "I can tell if people are guilty just by looking at them."
I have a great get-out-of-jury=duty story, but I can't tell it in public. Also, someone I knew who lives in Oakland very nearly got picked to be on the jury for a brutal hate crime (but sadly, the archives of where she talked about it are vamoosed).
Do you know any doctors who'll vouch for your narcolepsy? Lawyers hate that shit.
Posted by: gwenda at December 6, 2004 07:10 PMTouche, Ed--my escape was deep in the heartland. Maybe a suit and tie will do the trick.
Posted by: Jimmy Beck at December 7, 2004 08:41 AM