Eight Feet Deep

Film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was acquitted after three trials in the rape and murder of a young actress in 1921

Michael Jackson was found innocent of all charges Monday by a jury of his peers. Wow. It would scare the living daylights out of me to think that Mikey was really judged by a jury of his peers. Just imagining he has peers gives me the willies. In different ages in our history, Jackson would have been a)burned at the stake b)put in a circus freak show, or c) put in a circus freak show where he would be burned at the stake.

But he is free of all charges. Go and sin no more child. And remember to keep little boys out of your bed.

Another “trial of the century” goes into the books. The first real entertainment celebrity trial was that of film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. He was accused of raping and murdering a young actress during a debauchery-fest in San Francisco in 1921. Arbuckle was the biggest movie star at the time. That combined with the details of the alleged crime being particularly hideous fed quite a buzz among newspapers of the day. Sensationalist newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst allegedly stirred the pot, making Arbuckle’s trials particularly juicy for consumption by readers. Hung juries ended the first two trials against Arbuckle and he walked on the third. But he never regained his stature in film again and died at age 45.

Many of us have already witnessed supposed “trials of the century” during recent times. O.J., of course, springs to mind. One has to wonder if 24-hour news cycles were around, would other trials have been hyped as the biggest ever? Take Jack Ruby’s trial, for instance. He was the only figure ever tried that had any connection with the Kennedy assassination. God, he allegedly killed a presidential assassin, who killed a Kennedy no less. Can you just imagine what a sensation that would bring these days?

By the way, do you remember what happened in the Ruby case? Well, Jack was found guilty and sentenced to death. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his verdict, saying that he had not been able to obtain a fair trial because of the excessive publicity that surrounded his case. Ruby died while awaiting a new trial.

If you ask many Americans, I doubt that they would have been able to tell you what happened to Ruby. I had to brush up on that bit of history myself. It makes you wonder if everyone will remember the outcome of the O.J. Simpson trial or the Michael Jackson trial 40 years from now? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, I wonder what celeb is next up on the docket?

Hello down there!

This is where I live looks like from 111 nautical miles into space. It’s part of NASA’s Earth to Space database of photos taken during space shuttle missions. The above photo probably doesn’t have the best resolution, it’s actually enhanced a bit from the hazy image I got off the NASA Web site. But it gives a reasonable resemblance of Beaumont, Texas, which is dead center in the photo. Sabine Lake is at the bottom right, just before its rendezvous with the Gulf of Mexico.

I like such photos because objects look smaller than they appear. That is not to say objects don’t look small enough. But distances are nothing. People are all vacuum-packed like a bag of the locally-made Seaport Coffee, which I have come to adopt as my own coffee, by the way.

It’s a matter of perspective and you know I’m just mad about perspective. My cares and worries and frets and petty annoyances are nothing in this view from space. I’m just stuck somewhere inside and watching the sky as something from the sky watches me. No crime exists, no war, no traffic, no overdue bills.

Watching life from above is kind of a great equalizer. Sky-high equals peace.

Gordon Baxter upon the celebration of his 80th birthday last year in Beaumont, Texas

I heard on the local news this evening that Gordon Baxter died at the age of 81. Probably a whole lot of people don’t know “Bax” outside of Southeast Texas, except for maybe those who read “Flying” magazine which carried his “Bax Seat” column for many years.

Bax was a local writer and what they call these days a “radio personality.” He was a deejay and a newsman and read ad copy on stations such as KLVI-AM in Beaumont for “Sears dears” as well as many other sponsors. But most of all Bax was a genuine media character in an area that didn’t really have such between the time the Big Bopper got killed along with Buddy Holly, and the time Janis Joplin showed up for her high school reunion in Port Arthur after she made the big time.

At some point in time Bax would piss off a local sponsor or his station manager and get fired from his radio job, then he would write books. He never was a huge success outside of this area. But he had a loyal core of fans and I count myself among them.

After I heard he died, I went to find my copy of “The Best of Bax,” which was published in the late 1960s and surely wasn’t the best. One of my favorite Bax columns of all times was one he did in 1965 about his being drawn to this magnificent fountain at a bank in Groves, Texas, on one of the scorching days we have here.

“I was wearing my speech-making suit, my best one, my Mohair Sam suit and I walked by and I thought: ‘No.’ … But there was nothing I could do about it. I just walked right up, through the spray, thinking, ‘I won’t,’ and I climbed up on the lip and when I sunk my first pants leg and shoe in the cool water, I thought ‘Ahhhh!'”

He went on to tell how he went back inside the bank and squished around on the carpets and asked the people who worked there if they ever had the urge to do the same.

“And they said: ‘Why yeah!’ And I said, then why didn’t you?”

I had few literary heroes to follow as a kid who was attracted to journalism, for some strange reason, for most of his life. I would count Bax among them. I had planned more than one time to try to seek him out and talk to him. It wouldn’t have been that difficult. But it was just one of those things I wished I had done and didn’t. It’s kind of like some of those bank employees he wrote about who were enthralled on those hot days by the fountain but never indulged.

Sometimes you just got to follow your intentions, good, bad or otherwise.

It’s pretty quiet in my neighborhood when I go for walks a bit after sunrise most mornings. You hear a distant roar that is Interstate 10, a mile or so away, but it’s something you can easily put out of your head with the greater quiet that encompasses you. That is until the dogs start talking to one another.

This morning a dog in someone’s yard was into some serious barking. This prompted a response from a dog somewhere else in the neighborhood.

Dog 1: “Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof.”
Dog 2: “Woof, woof.”

In other words, I have no idea what the dogs were talking about. Maybe barking is just some kind of primal response. But then, maybe dogs are discussing serious matters far above our ability to reason.

Nah. Probably not.

Even if dogs were doing some serious communicating, we have no idea if they all can speak the same dog language. For instance, say you’ve got a German shepherd. When it barks can a Chihuahua understand it? Can a French poodle?

I wonder if David Berkowitz got started down his road to ruin by pondering such questions? You remember David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz? He claimed a neighbor’s barking dog told him to kill. Which made me wonder why the cops or district attorney never asked Berkowitz:

“Do you do everything a dog tells you to do?”

I don’t really have to worry about a dog barking evil commands at me. I don’t much like people telling me what to do. I sure am not going to take woof from a dog.

We say goodbye to our old friend “Godawfully hot” and say hello to the U Scan Lady.

I might be tempted to fall in love with the U Scan lady were it not for the fact that she is so irritatingly bossy as well as her being a recorded voice for a piece of machinery at the grocery store.

Grocery shopping and I have gotten crossways over the years. I think part of it is the pace of everyday life, plus I’ve encountered a whole raft of rotten checkout clerks. That is not to say that all are like that but the ones who are can make your shopping experience a one-way journey to Unpleasantville. So most of the time I just want to get my goodies and get myself out into that Godawfully hot parking lot. U Scan, or self-checkout, or whatever it is called at the particular store that might have it, is wonderful. That isn’t to say that U Scan Lady doesn’t get on my nerves.

“Please put the item in the bag.”
“I did already.”
“Please put the item … thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“The weight is not correct for the item scanned.”
“My weight is not proportional to my height. So what?”
“Do you have any coupons? Do you want cash back?
“No. And yes, if it doesn’t come out of my bank account.”

That’s kind of the typical banter between me and U Scan Lady when I check out. It’s kind of a bland, perhaps even emotion-free dialogue. I’ve tried flirting with her but she doesn’t seem to respond very well. Maybe I should tell her a dirty joke. Although if I did, I wonder if she might sue me for sexual harassment? It would be a hell of a story. I’ll say that much.

I do my share of cursing automation. But deep down I like things that make life easier for me. I used to think I would want my own monkey that could do everything for me from cooking dinner and making drinks to cleaning house and doing my shopping. But I always had the fear that a monkey might commit some embarrassing act in front of a guest.

“Sorry about your suit, Reverend, it’s just that the monkey gets these … urges.”

That is why, if I wanted to be really super lazy, I would want a robot. It would have a lot demanded of it and it best be a funny robot but at the same time one that could behave itself in public. Knowing my luck, my robot would probably obsess over the U Scan Lady and start stalking her at the grocery store.

Maybe I am just better off just doing things for myself.