Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
I've paid no attention to the Robert Blake murder trial because, well, I just couldn't give a good goddamn if I tried. Nothing is more tiresome and uninteresting than the American cult of celebrity, and that goes double for the specific subgenre of formerly famous celebrity goes sordidly down the drain. It's all just so familiar and predictable and dull. Except that apparently this one isn't.
Mr. Schwartzbach reminded jurors that the stuntmen were unreliable. Mr. McLarty said in court that he was a longtime cocaine abuser. He had a mental breakdown, believed that the police were tunneling under his house and thought he was being monitored from outer space. Earlier in the trial, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles, testified as an expert witness about the psychotropic effects of cocaine. He said that he had smoked crack cocaine himself and sat in a cage with monkeys to teach them how to smoke cocaine as well.
Well sure, we've all had to do that before, but I don't think a frat initiation should in any way lessen his credibility as an expert witness.
TrackBackThat expert would be UCLA's Dr. Ronald K. Siegel. He's made a whole career out of taking drugs with various fuzzy animals! He's a great writer. He's also a hoot at parties. Or so the owls tell me.
Posted by: Jake at March 7, 2005 11:59 PMSince I'm familiar with several cults of celebrities, I have to say you're wrong that nothing is more tiresome than America's. Ireland, with a grand total of 4 million inhabitants, has a whole raft of people who are "famous" there as a result of having done something remarkably insignificant 27 years ago. And Britain seems to lead the world in producing people who are famous for being famous.
There's one called Jordan who has become a celebrity by getting breast implants the size of a VW Beetle, posing topless for page three of The Sun, having sex with some of the dimmer bulbs in the soccer world and then telling everyone all about it.
Compared to her, Robert Blake has the gravitas of a Nobel Prize winner who cured cancer and AIDS and singlehandedly reversed global warming. Yet she's fucking inescapable here. And she's far from the only one.
But I don't think she ever smoked crack with monkeys. I'd probably have a small scrap oi respect for her if she had.
Posted by: peter snees at March 8, 2005 07:01 AMas a result of having done something remarkably insignificant 27 years ago
Well, in our defense, 27 years ago we were blowing each other up on a regular basis and just NOT EMIGRATING was remarkable.
Posted by: billyfrombelfast at March 8, 2005 07:34 AMNever monkey around with drugs.
Or fake boobs the size of VW beetles.
Posted by: John Johnson at March 8, 2005 10:41 AMI thank Jeebus H Christ I live in a country where even a crack monkey can grow up to become President.
Posted by: Philboid Studge at March 8, 2005 11:14 AMThis is why being a billionaire would suck. At at any time, you could be smoking crack with monkeys; but you would probably just watch a lot of TV.
Posted by: Joe O at March 8, 2005 01:55 PMDamn the first commenter for knowing who the expert was. I wanted to nominate Eugene Volokh as a candidate. Or, slightly more likely, Mark Kleiman.
Posted by: washerdreyer at March 9, 2005 12:30 AMWas the monkey's name George? That would explain a lot. Ok philboid beat me to it.
Posted by: merlallen at March 9, 2005 10:50 AM