Monthly Archives: March 2009

Here's the kind of thing I notice in almost every news account of a trial. In the Phil Spector trial, the jury has the option to (a) acquit, (b) find Spector guilty of second degree murder or (c) find Spector guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Okay, what are the possible sentences for the last two options?

The L.A. Times article says…

Spector…faces a minimum of 18 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. The manslaughter charge carries two to four years in prison.

A report from Reuters says…

If convicted of murder, Spector could face up to life in prison. A manslaughter conviction would result in about 8 years behind bars.

Over on the CNN site, we learn…

If convicted of second-degree murder, Spector could face a prison sentence of 15 years to life, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. An involuntary manslaughter conviction could bring a prison sentence of up to four years.

An article on the MTV website says…

Spector…is charged with second-degree murder and faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted, though the jury can consider a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, which would send him to prison for up to 10 years.

And I'll bet if I kept looking, I could find other numbers. Apparently, the second-degree murder conviction would bring a minimum of 18 years in prison but it may also be 15 years or life. The involuntary manslaughter charge carries a sentence of two to four years or eight years or ten years.

I don't get this. There are real answers to this question. The judge must have given instructions to the jury in open court as to what each verdict would mean in terms of putting Spector in a little room with bars on the door. The folks who wrote these articles got all sorts of details about the case, either by being in the courtroom or hearing from someone who was. If you'll recall, the same kind of confusion occurred with the most recent of the dozen-or-so O.J. Simpson trials. Even after the jury said he was guilty, no one in the press could agree on the possible sentences.

Why is this so difficult?

The second Phil Spector trial has reached the "going to the jury" moment. Seven men and five women began deliberating just before Noon today as to whether Spector should be found guilty in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.

I'm keeping to my plan from the first trial. If Spector is acquitted, I'm going on a killing spree. I don't yet know who I'll be killing or when…but I'm white, I'm in show business, I have some money. If they couldn't convict him, they'll never convict me. Unless you count this particular pledge, I don't even have a history of threatening to kill people.

As some of you may know, I had Gastric Bypass Surgery in May of '06 and lost, depending on how one scores, between 100 and 135 pounds. I have not for one second regretted having the operation. All sorts of complications and problems are possible with this kind of surgery…with any kind of surgery, actually. I have experienced none of them. One of my many doctors said he'd never seen a better experience than I had.

So…to what do I attribute this? Two things. One is that my physician steered me to a surgeon who apparently was (and I guess still is) among the best in the business. Said my doc, "There are many people out there now performing this procedure, since it's becoming quite a fad. An awful lot of them shouldn't be doing it." The one he recommended was very good and very thorough. Before a surgeon can commence bypassing your gastric, you have to have a lot of tests and examinations, and this surgeon required more than most. Due to quirks of my health insurance, I think I spent more money qualifying for the surgery than I did for the surgery.

I was examined inside and outside, backwards and forwards, upside-down and rightside-up. It was even required that I undergo a psychiatric evaluation — the first time I've ever gone near a "shrink" in a professional context. I went to his office, sat down and he asked me if I'd ever thought of killing myself. I said, "Not for one second," and he said "Fine," and I'd passed. We spent the next half hour or so talking about cartoons and then I left and he sent me a bill that made me think of killing myself.

I also had heart tests and gastroenterology probes and stress tests and just about every kind of exam my wallet and I could possibly have endured…and it turned out that, weight aside, I was in excellent health. Which was the other reason I had such an easy time of the surgery. (One nice benefit from all those tests: I visited perhaps fifteen different doctors to get them. Every one asked, "Who's operating on you?" and when I told them, every one said, "Oh, he's the best." I'm not sure why I had absolutely no fear of the operation but those reactions might have had a little something to do with it.)

Since the surgery, I've had a lot of people — friends and total strangers — ask me if I recommend it. Answer: No. I recommend researching it and considering it…but it seems obvious to me that it's possible to do a lot of damage to one's self, especially if one does not have the right surgeon and the right physical situation. I've met or heard from a few folks whose experiences prove this. What worked for me with one surgeon might not work for you with another or even the same one.

I think about this often lately because Los Angeles is being blanketed with billboards touting the lap-band surgical procedure, which is a less extreme version of what I had. The signs are everywhere…often near businesses, the continued patronage of which might cause you to become one of those folks who needs to lose 100+ pounds. Here's an example…

I have no idea how expert the company that put up those ads is at what they offer. They could be fabulous for all I know. But the signs strike me as wrong for this reason. If you do decide to have a procedure like this done, you should do it via a diagnosis and referral from a doctor you trust, not because you spotted an "800" number on your way home from KFC. George Carlin used to say, "Somewhere, there's a worst doctor in the world…and someone has an appointment with him tomorrow." George may even have been going to him, for all we know.

Well, somewhere there's a worst licensed Gastric Bypass Surgeon…and there's not a thing stopping him from getting an "800" number and buying billboards and ads. There are also people who because of their anatomy and its problems, are just not good candidates for this surgery…but there's someone who, for the fee, will attempt it.

I've not blogged a lot about my surgery because it's been so uneventful and also because I don't want to encourage anyone. It's your body and your decision and what was right for me may be wrong for you. I've done plenty of things in my life you shouldn't do. More than you can possibly imagine.

I don't necessarily agree with Matt Taibbi about the current economic crisis. But I think his article is worth reading and thinking about.

…on my back porch. The wet footprints are because they were in my pool.

I chased 'em away and took in the food. I think I'm going to stop feeding feral cats out there after dark.

Quick reminder: If you're at your computer between 4 and 6 PM Pacific this afternoon (7 and 9 PM Eastern), you'll enjoy the heck out of Stu's Show with his guest, Jack Riley. Details here.

Blazing Combat was a black-and-white comic magazine published from 1965 to 1966 by Warren Publishing. Crafted consciously in the mode of Harvey Kurtzman's classic EC war comics — and even employing as many of the same artists as they could get — Blazing Combat was largely the creation of editor-writer Archie Goodwin, one of the great talents of his generation. Still, despite his excellent scripts, covers by Frank Frazetta and interior artwork by the likes of John Severin, Reed Crandall, Wally Wood, Alex Toth, Russ Heath and others of that standard, it didn't sell. Four issues and out.

Publisher James Warren blamed the failure largely on reaction to its brief Vietnam content, especially a story in the second issue which suggested that some U.S. forces were killing civilians Over There. That kind of thing, Warren said, caused the magazine to disappear from stores on military bases and also triggered complaints and pressure from the American Legion and similar groups. A few years later, I don't think there would have been quite the outrage but in '65, one did not dare suggest that the American effort was anything but humane, honorable and certain to result in unqualified victory.

It was a shame that Blazing Combat didn't continue because Goodwin presented memorable, unidealized tales of men throughout many wars, weaving separate tales into overall themes of humanity. The stories he concurrently did for Warren in Creepy and (soon) Eerie also had some of that in the context of ghosts and werewolves and vampires. It just meant so much more in the context of stark reality.

Happily, Fantagraphics Books has now issued the complete contents of Blazing Combat (minus the four Frazetta covers, though two are used in part as end papers) in a handsome hardcover which I highly recommend. The pages are a bit smaller than the original editions but the material is barely diminished by this. It's well-reproduced and very pleasant to read in this format. I flipped through my copy and intended to only read the interviews with Warren and Goodwin, conducted by Mike Catron, who has done a fine job preserving and promoting this work. But the mention of one story in an interview prompted me to read that tale…and then I read the story after it and the one after it, and wound up reading the whole splendid book, enjoying them all again.

Now, here I'd usually post an Amazon link to the book so you could go and order it. But at this moment, Amazon doesn't have the book and isn't even taking advance orders for it. So I'll alert you when you can get a copy…because it has been printed. I got mine and I'm glad to have it.

Good to hear that Stacy Keach is well enough to return to his Nixonian starring role in the national touring company of Frost/Nixon. The actor has a series of minor strokes recently and missed a number of performances, but will soon be back on stage, lying and undermining democracy.