"The way I feel about The Rolling Stones is probably the way my kids are going to feel about Nine Inch Nails, so I probably shouldn't torment my mom anymore, huh?"*

   I read a very informative article in O! Magazine last night that stressed the importance of de-cluttering your home and how that can help you be a better person and add simplicity to your atmosphere and make you more like Mother Teresa.

   I found it very useful because I am currently trying to streamline my life, both by doing things I’m supposed to do in a timely fashion and by physically getting rid of things (in most cases, for money). To that end, I’ve been donating lots of clothes to Out of the Closet (‘cause I love them) and selling things on Amazon and eBay (because they give me money).

   Tonight’s project is directly informed by Oprah’s life-affirming, eponymous magazine (and yes, I get why it’s called O! Magazine, but does she need to put herself on every cover?). I read in O! that if you put CD's in the trash or the recycle it’s somehow super harmful to the environment. And they also said something about how you should really get rid of your CD's if you’ve decided to go digital, because if you’re keeping them, you’re just contributing to your debaser hoarder instincts.

   While I hadn’t fully committed to a digital lifestyle, I figure it couldn’t hurt. I don’t have a CD player anymore, unless you count my computer. I play most of my tunes on my iPhone. (iPhone, iPhone, iPhone.)

   So tonight’s project involves uploading all my CDs to my computer so I can dispose of them in a humane fashion at this special place downtown (that is most likely located in some dark alley just behind Skid Row).

   I’ve started with my Purple CD binder, which includes all my musical scores, movie soundtracks, and homemade CDs from my friends (which are a pain in the ass, because iTunes never recognizes ANY of the songs on homemade CDs).

   I’ve had the Purple Binder since high school. I used to have a binder just like it, except the second one was silver. I kept all my favorite CDs in the silver one: my huge Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Beatles collections, but also an inexplicable number of Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco CDs (I was still an angry teen, after all).

   Once, during my sophomore year of college, someone broke into my car (I left it unlocked, so I guess really they just opened the door) and stole JUST the silver binder. And I was really offended. If you’re going to steal my CD's, I reasoned, you should take all of them. Not sit around in the parking garage and rifle through everything and decide what appeals to you. A worse thought is that maybe they did take both and then, upon looking in Purple Binder once they got home, they decided it was too lame and therefore I was lame and they should really give me back my stupid musical soundtracks. I can picture them looking at my Purple Binder CD's and laughing. Those people were and probably still are assholes.

   But I’ve been going through purple binder this evening and I have to say…there is a lot of garbage in here. How is it that I own not one, but TWO Weird Al Yankovic CD's? What is wrong with me? And sure, there’s great stuff in here, too: I’ve got scores to Singin’ in the Rain, Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls, The King and I, and Fiddler on the Roof. But I’ve also got the soundtrack to Bed of Roses, a particularly terrible movie that I only liked because Christian Slater was in it. But what in the world made me so desperate to own the soundtrack?

Weird Al times two. Creepy. And unintentional creepy camera effects courtesy of my inability to take pictures.

   I’ve got the single of Jann Arden’s “Insensitive” that was really popular in 1996. The Pulp Fiction soundtrack is good. The City of Angels soundtrack? Not so much. There are also the soundtracks from Michael (that John Travolta movie which I alone, out of everyone in the world, enjoyed…but again, I was 14 when it came out) and Batman Forever (which I think I bought because “Kiss From a Rose” was on it) and an Adam Sandler comedy album. Yikes. I suppose, if I were to rob me today, I would probably leave most of these CD's behind as well.

Purple Binder: 1998-2013. Pictured here with CD children.

   There are some good memories in this pile here, though. Aside from the homemade mix CD's (which we transitioned to from mix tapes somewhere in the early 2000’s…and I’m still sad about it), there is a copy of The Fugees’ album The Score. I remember walking from my house all the way to the Blockbuster Music (remember that short-lived business venture?) to buy that album, and I was terrified they wouldn’t let me because it was an “explicit” album and you had to be 16 to buy it. But I bought it, no problem. Except for the 2-mile walk (4 miles if you count both ways). And there’s an unbelievable amount of Cranberries albums in here, as well. And you know what? I forgot I ever liked them and I STILL DO like them and I may just give them a listen tonight.

   Okay, I’ll sign off. There’s nothing else in here that’s embarrassing or worth mentioning. Except Mary Chapin-Carpenter’s Come On Come On and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s E. 1999 Eternal. And the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. And A Boy Named Goo by The Goo Goo Dolls. And I should probably stop now.... 

*Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995). 

**Equally creepy? I've mentioned Weird Al Yankovic in THREE blog posts. Shudder. What IS wrong with me?

"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."*

   I’m at the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse in the jury assembly room and my computer is only at 31% battery. I've been here since 7:45 a.m. It is presently 9:32 a.m. This is going to be a very, very long day once my laptop dies. 

Downtown. Spoiler alert: I took this when I thought I'd be leaving before lunch.

   The sitting and doing nothing is truly awful. It gives me a low-grade panic attack. Or maybe I’m just really hungry. I was going to go downstairs to the cafeteria during our break, but there was such a stampede to get out of the assembly room that it didn’t seem worth it. Plus, riding an elevator with 16 other people is no fun. And it seems that only 1 of 12 elevators in the building is operating today. If there is an emergency, we’re fucked.

   At the moment we’re just sitting here. How can that be right? Aren’t there supposed to be numerous jury panels happening at the same time? Oh man, this isn’t how I’d hoped to spend the day. They had a judge come in during “orientation” and give us a really long, heartfelt speech about what an honor it is to serve on a jury and how it’s really no big deal when you compare it to waiting in line for drinking water in a third world country. And I guess that’s so. But that doesn’t make the time pass any faster.

   Here are some photos of one of the greater celebrities to have served on a Los Angeles County jury:

What? Who's it starring?!?

Weird Al Yankovic! (Seriously? I bet people in Des Moines don't have to put up with this.)

   They also gave out a brochure during "orientation" with a list of places nearby and things to see. Oh yeah, because lunch break is an hour-and-a-half, I'll go explore MOCA. Thanks, Los Angeles County! 

Wait, didn't I just park at The Disney Concert Hall? Why would I walk back there?

Oh sure, I'll go buy jewelry. Or go to a church...and pray that I don't have to sit on a jury.

  Also, it’s odd that some people are STILL so inconsiderate about their electronics. I’m sitting in a smallish alcove off the main assembly room and one woman was having a full-on phone conversation and only ended it because “reception was bad” not because 8 other people were in the room being forced to hear one half of her boring-ass, loud conversation. Another woman is currently watching a show on her phone without headphones. It’s really fun to listen to what sounds suspiciously like a home video of a bunch of people sitting around in a kitchen talking about the weather. If you’re going to make us all listen, at least watch something good.

   Oh crap. We’re at 28% now. They just called the second group. It’s nearly 11 a.m. and the latest they can keep us is around 5p.m. Which means once my laptop dies I will have to figure out how to entertain myself for a possible total of 6 hours. Yikes. I guess I may have to read a book or think a thought or write some stuff in my list notebook with a pen just like in olden times. Or I’ll waste the day staring at all the crazy people. Actually, there aren’t that many crazy-looking people here. I thought it would be much worse. I guess most of the crazies stay off the grid and don’t get called up for this shit. Crazy like foxes.

   I’m very hungry now. It’s been 4-and-a-half hours since I ate breakfast. I can survive this. I know I can! We get a lunch break, but I was sort of hoping they’d send me home before that. Wishful thinking.

   I’ll update this when I get home. For now I’m going to save what precious little battery life I have left for a true boredom meltdown around 2 p.m. this afternoon.

This is a drawing of me. Trapped inside the courthouse.

   I’m back. 

   I didn’t get out of the courthouse until 4:30 p.m., after pleading extreme poverty to the judge who took begrudging pity on me. I was LITERALLY the LAST person excused from his court (which was, coincidentally, right across the hallway from the court of a certain Judge Lance Ito. Cool! Celebrity judge!) My judge probably didn’t believe I was poor because I was dressed so fancy. Ha ha. No seriously, he let me out because it was a criminal case and it was set to last for a month. There’s no way I wouldn’t have ended up living on the sidewalk after missing a month of work. 

   This was, of course, only after I’d listened to two hours of “voir dire” from the panel that had been called in before mine. ("Voir dire," as I learned from my juror instruction manual, is that thing of where they ask you a bunch of questions about your views in order to suss out whether or not you’re a Nazi or a pothead or an electrical engineer. Seriously—they bagged the electrical engineer. I think it was because the defense found him too rational.) When they finally stopped arguing and chose a 12th juror, I gasped really loudly and everyone started laughing until the judge informed us that it didn't mean anything: we'd have to come back tomorrow to pick an alternate. Finally, my poverty worked in my favor!!

   It was kind of interesting but I didn’t like not being able to go to the bathroom when I wanted to and I’m really bad at entertaining myself when I’m anxious. And I was incredibly anxious that I would have to serve on a jury. I don’t care how important it is to the justice system: I have ADD. And my laptop and phone were both kaput so all I had left was the old iPad, so I drew a picture (see above). But I also have photographic hi-lights from my day (also see above, and below). But when you’re actually in the courtroom, you can’t play with your electronics at all, so I was forced to listen and draw in my notebook.

Musings from my notebook during jury selection.

   The justice system is flawed. It takes a lot of time and people watch a lot of crime dramas so they think they can weasel their way out of things by professing to be heinous bigots or complete morons (and sometimes they aren’t lying).  I listened to these people who could barely string a sentence together (English speakers, all) claim things like, “One time I saw a case like this on the news and ever since then I’ve been incredibly biased towards people who do whatever it is this case is about.” Or, “My mom’s house got broken into one time in the 80’s, so I can’t be an impartial juror when it comes to crimes involving money-laundering.” I would have used the term the judge used, “misappropriation of funds,” but there were maybe only 4 jurors from the entire afternoon who would’ve been able to use the word “misappropriation” in a sentence. One guy kept saying he’d seen this case on the news, even though there’d been no news coverage of the event. They kept him, though, so it backfired. Ah, justice. But now they’re stuck with a liar. Oh well. He’s probably a decent guy who just really wants to go back to work tomorrow.

   Anyway, it’s over for at least 12 more months. In that time I’m going to have to somehow become a doctor because I hear from several reliable sources that doctors are never wanted on juries.

Or maybe I’ll just move. 

*Kind of true, kind of not. This quote is from Norm Crosby, a popular 70's comedian.

"Nothing really matters, anyone can see. Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters to me."*

Freddie Mercury.

            Today one of my favorite Los Angeles radio stations, 100.3 (The Sound) played another installment of their newest week-long “Ten at Ten” series of “Cover to Cover”—a collection of original songs followed by covers of those songs.

            The Sound always plays ten songs at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. that share a common theme: a year, a musician, a word or instrument, etc.

            But this week they are doing original songs and following them up with their famous covers. They hit a lot of classics—I agree with them in believing that Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watch Tower” is better than Bob Dylan’s original. And I also love The Bangles’ rendition of Paul Simon’s “Hazy Shade of Winter” (though I’m not sure they played that--I just like it). Joe Cocker’s cover of “I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends” is another popular one.

            But today I heard something that both offended me and made me oddly happy: Weird Al Yankovic performing an accordion-based cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

            What? Think about it.

            It’s totally sick and amazing all at the same time. I guess life is all about not taking anything too seriously, folks.

            Happy New Years Eve Eve.

*"Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen. We still miss you, Freddie! (A quick tangent: Freddie is one of my all-time favorites. I even named my fish after him in high school--which was big, because a fish was the only pet I ever got. Freddie (the man, not the fish) had one of the most beautiful voices in all recorded music. R.I.P. Freddie Mercury.)