OT: Jury Duty 2006

I found the below in the draft folder of my email, from 2006. Interesting memory...

I am back to New York, just finished up my jury duty. It lasted exactly two days. Extremely interesting in a slowed-down sort of way--I would have enjoyed a full week I think.

I sat for a long time during the voir dire (jury selection) of a case involving 4 defendants (some sort of unsavory , vaguely Jewish vaguely East-European group) and 3 corporations of which the best-dressed sleazeball was the president and CEO of all 3. An internet provider, an escort service, and some other corporation. And the charges were promoting prostitution and money-laundering. So anyone with any kind of financial background was immediately excused by the judge, because we've all had anti-money laundering training. But it took them a long time to exclude all of us, because they were going 1 by one.

The judge was this dyspeptic old guy from Ohio , you could tell he was going to great efforts to be civil to the jurors (and didn't always succeed). But he had absolute respect for all the court officers who were allowed to yawn and sleep in the court. The bailiff was a 21-year-old Puerto-Rican girl who kept a liter bottle of diet pepsi out on her desk. One of the court officers said something about Cicero after the judge made a long speach to the jury, and the judge actually laughed.

The judge loved to hear himself talk, he didn't like to hear anyone else talk, and his main concern was to move things along. He said he tried to go quickly for our sake, even though his term went until 2012 and he was in no hurry.

An older woman said that she wasn't sure she could be fair and impartial, because after a few days she would just be so worried about her decorating business that she wouldn't be able to concentrate properly on the trial. This really pissed the judge off. First he tried to make her feel as guilty as possible, talked about the disapproval of men lying dead in military cemeteries. Then he interrogated her and found out that her husband was an ERISA attorney with a well-established practice. "With his salary he can support you for a couple of months, I guess" concluded the judge. They ended up excusing her behind closed doors anyway. But everyone was kind of afraid of the judge after that.

One younger guy said, "I don't know if I can be impartial about this because I have some pre-conceived notions about escort services. Some of my friends have used those things, I know it's not just milk and cookies." The judge excused him right away. Then he asked the prosecution if he was on their witness list.

Everyone had to answer a bunch of questions, so you found out some interesting information. One woman said she had been raped. A guy said his mother had been raped. One guy said his brother had been in a recent high-profile trial involving an escort service, got excused without having to give any details. There was a judge's daughter, and the daughter of two parole officers, and a guy who said he was good friends with about 10 cops. The first person to get excused was a guy who raised his hand when the judge asked if anyone had a personal relationship with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. The judge said that he had asked this in many trials, and this was the first time that anybody had said they "hung with Robert, or chilled with Bob."

One guy said that he was very heavily involved in the "anti-human trafficking movement". And he told the judge that he had been arrested. "Civil disobedience" asked the judge. The guy nodded. The judge said he had to excuse him.

When they called me up I was like the 4th person in a row who had been summarily excused from the same seat. I told him that I worked in a bank and had money laundering training. There was silence. I asked him if I should continue he said "no" and just waved his hand.

They called 100 jurors to fill 14 seats. I thought it was excessive, but in the end they went through just about every candidate before they filled all 14. At the end of the day, everyone who had been rejected (or not voir-dired) got to go home.

Some Songs

Here are some songs that I have been singing / playing lately:

Across the Universe, The Beatles

The Mountain, Joe Ely

Kisses Sweeter than Wine, The Weavers

One of These Days, Neil Young

I Wish, Stevie Wonder

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, The Band

Dust From a Distant Sun, Crowded House

Battle of New Orleans, Jimmy Driftwood

Waiting for a Train, Jimmie Rogers

LA Freeway, Guy Clark

Vincent, Don Mclean

A Whiter Shade of Pale, Procol Harum

Thunderstorms and Neon Signs, Wayne Hancock

Ramblin' Man, Hank Williams

Harry Rag, The Kinks

Tennessee Stud, Jimmy Driftwood

Let it Be, The Beatles

Simple Twist of Fate, Dylan

Down in Ashtabula

I received the following in an email from my friend Brian. Words are from the song "Down in Ashtabula" by David Francey.

Ashtabula means "river of many fish" in the Iroquois language. It was mentioned in a song by Bob Dylan in the line "I'll look for you in old Honolulu, San Francisco, Ashtabula".

http://www.ashtabulamarinemuseum.org/index.html

Kelly drove us down to the lake on a bright Ohio day...

In The Maritime Museum so high above waves....

Pictures from the past recalled in black and white and grey.

But the Captains and the ships are gone, long since passed away...

The tilting bridge itself swings back...

That coal train from Kentucky, she's come a long, long way

Down in Ashtabula on a sunny summer's day.

Adventures in Winter Busking

Yesterday being a wash-out which cleared away most of the snow, and today being an unseasonably warm 50 degrees and sunny, I decided to spend a little while playing for money at a spot that looked to me like it had a lot of potential when I walked by it a couple of weeks ago.

This is the entrance plaza to the bow bridge at the south end of the boating pond in Central Park. The bridge is one of the most photographed landmarks in the park. The picture gives you an idea of what the bridge looks like, though today there was no snow there. There were plenty of people though, most of them being European tourists.

At the south end of the bridge there is a little "plaza" where 3 foot-paths converge. One path goes north over the bridge, the second goes east towards Bethesda Fountain, and the third goes west towards the west park drive. There was a guy selling hot dogs there already, standing right next to the place where I wanted to be. So I stood on the other side of the path, which wasn't bad, facing the sun with my back to the pond.

I only spent about 45 minutes because I had to be downtown. I made about $6.50. This was a bit disappointing, compared with my experiences further North in the park. Some of this may be down to bad luck; my experience is that donations come in spurts, highs and lows. I think I may have experienced a low, but then didn't hang around long enough to experience a high. My other theories are:

1) Maybe there is not as much traffic here as first meets the eye. Although the spot is always crowded and bustling, I saw a lot of the same people going back and forth. This seems to be a spot where people hang around, taking in the view, taking photos and eating hot dogs. So there may not be as much total "throughput" as some of my other spots.

2) There seemed to be a lot of European tourists. Maybe they don't appreciate American folk and country music as much as the locals do. And maybe they don't feel the same need to throw money around during the holidays as Americans do (not that I was playing Christmas songs).

3) There was a lot of photographing going on. People love to take pictures of the bridge, especially Europeans, many of whom are extremely enthusiastic photographers. So maybe everyone was thinking about taking in beautiful sights, and no one cared much about the beautiful music.

One guy, Italian, I guess, kept pointing his camera at me, then backing off. And he kept kind of staring at me. So finally I nodded and said, "It's OK," thinking he was being shy about taking my photo. (Yeah, right. Shy people don't walk around with 600 pound cameras and stare at you.) He just nodded back and then didn't take my photo. Now I think he really wanted a certain shot of the bridge and the pond, and he wished I wasn't there. I'm sure he can find a nice postcard with the shot he wants. But when's the next time he'll hear "Hey, Good Looking," performed live on a D-28?

By the way, in the traditional Indian pueblos they always restrict photography. Many don't allow cameras at all, or only with a permit; they tell you to photograph people only with permission, and they never let you shoot their cemeteries or traditional temples called "kivas". (Often they won't even let you get near a kiva). I can't tell you exactly what bugs me about Europeans with big cameras in Central Park. Maybe I'm just part Pueblo Indian.

Songs I remember playing:

Don't Think Twice

Peaceful Easy Feeling

Jambalaya

Your Cheating Heart

Clipper Ship

Hey Good Looking

Blue Ridge Mountain Blues

Buckets of Rain

Heartaches By The Number

They Might be Giants!

Interesting feature on New York based group they Might Be Giants, ran today on New York 1:
http://ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/features/110093/-i-one-on-1-extra---i--they-might-be-giants-extras?ap=1&Flash