Me and THE LAW Part Two

I’ve been summoned – for jury duty.

Shudder.

Back in the Middle Ages, the Church ran a lot of the courts. If you were found questioning the church’s stance on how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, you might be liable to imprisonment, fines, torture, or that old favorite, burning at the stake. The problem was – it wasn’t just the angels and pin question – there were countless grievous misthoughts that could put you on the road to smoked jerky, and the only people who knew what all those misthoughts were- were the abbots and bishops that charged, prosecuted, judged and sentenced you.

like that evil heretic, Galileo

No matter how innocent you tried to be – the church could get you on something.

Then a bunch of folks thought – “hey! why not punish only the people who hurt other people, or take/destroy other people’s stuff?” It was such a great idea that a lot of people became teriyaki sticks just for bringing it up. Some of these folks avoided being bar-b-que long enough to write these ideas up in our Constitution, but unfortunately jerks who wanted to own other people screwed with it and the lawmakers and the judges got to it before it finally caught on.

Just imagine how we might have rejoiced – law books would be in Reader’s Digest condensed form, and words like freedom, liberty and justice might mean something.

With a government like that, lawyers wouldn’t get enough work, and seeing as how lawyers make the laws, judge the laws, enforce the laws, prosecute the laws, and even defend people against those laws – pretty much anything lawyers want – lawyers get.

So if you blow your nose while watering your tulips on a Wednesday without a permit, you better hope there’s no law against it because with City, County, State and Federal law codes are racing against reality TV for the most inane and useless verbiage, there are laws against almost everything.

Such as that farmer in the Midwest that got arrested for stocking fish in a fish pond on his farm. Or the guy that lost everything because he made silver coin that he called Bicky Bucks. How about the 56 yo woman who was thrown to the floor and handcuffed for not allowing airport security to handle her breasts?

So with so many laws, everybody has to have broken a few hundred without even knowing it. That means we ALL are criminals. Any abbot or bishop, (I mean lawmaker or judge) that doesn’t like our lifestyles, philosophy, religion, politics, or the way we look can just point us out to one of the hundreds of thousands of badge and gun carrying civil servants, (the Federal Department of Education has a SWAT team, you know,) and they can detain us indefinitely. Faster than you can say - suspend habeas corpus, we’ll be sitting in detention wondering what we did wrong, and what exactly they are bar-b-queing out on the lawn.

Supposedly a jury can strike down stupid or abusive laws with something called jury nullification. But you don’t hear much about that. Maybe that’s why we don’t study civics in school any more. The abbots and bishops of modern politics don’t want to lose their power.

If I get empanelled on a jury, do I dare try to nullify a stupid law? It feels risky. There’s already a law against telling people about their rights to do it.

Too serious - sorry, I'll try to be more stupid next entry -like this video 

Nine Missing Words Contest

Those of you who have read Trouble in Taos link may still be wondering about an omission I made in Chapter Seven. I had the unfortunate character, Lowell Sparger sing a song at the Rosa Linda bar, but I killed him before he could finish. I felt kind of bad about doing that to my readers (and I don’t think Lowell liked it much either.)

Here’s the tune

And here are the lyrics that show in the book.

Off to sea went the fighting ship, make way, make way.

You never did see a mightier ship, make way, make way.

With a hearty crew and a captain proud

They sailed through the night in the fog and the cloud,

And the crew roared MAKE WAY.

We’re the mighty ship, you better get out of the way.

The captain spied a light ahead, make way, make way.

They better move, or they’ll be dead, make way, make way.

To the ship ahead, this is Captain Clyde,

Move five degrees port or else we’ll collide,

And the crew roared, MAKE WAY.

We’re the mighty ship, better get out of the way.

Out of the gloom, there came a reply, make way, make way.

You better move or else you will die, make way, make way.

To Captain Clyde, this is Seaman Nash,

Move five degrees port or else you will crash,

And the crew roared, MAKE WAY.

We’re the mighty ship, better get out of the way.

The Captain said, have some reason, son, make way, make way.

This fighting ship is twelve hundred ton, make way, make way.

With a triple hull, and a mighty prow,

We’ll make short work of your garbage scow,

And the crew roared, MAKE WAY.

We’re the mighty ship, better get out of the way.

The seaman said you’re in danger now, make way, make way.

For what you approach is no garbage scow, make way, make way.

She may be small for eight tons, she be

___ _ ________ _____ _____ ___ _____ ___ ___

Yup – that’s how I left it.

So to make up for leaving the readers in the dark, I’m planning on revealing the missing lines here on JPS. But first let’s have some fun.

Can you guess the nine missing words? The last word rhymes with be and I put (I think,) the right number of space marks for each word. Take a guess. Send your best guess to headleystupid@gmail.com with the subject line Nine Missing Words. The first one to come up with the right words (failing that – the one who comes closest: failing that – the one who gives the funniest response: failing that – the one that makes the best effort: failing that – the one that doesn’t hurt my feelings,) wins a Trouble in Taos coffee mug

It's suitable (surprisingly) for coffee.  It is also suitable for tea, hot chocolate, bullion, and Ovaltine (Mr. Pibb not recommended) (not because Mr. Pibb will harm the mug – I just don’t recommend it.)

The contest is open to anyone who has an address in the Continental US where they’d like their mug sent. (Other than in Maynard, Massachusetts – some grudges die hard.)

In the event of multiple right answers, those who were not first to get their guess in will receive a set of 6 low-quality Go Figure Reads refrigerator magnets, suitable to cling to your refrigerator door and mock you for not getting your response in fast enough. Those with right answers who fail to give their name and address will receive a raspberry via email reply.

All legal disclaimers ever written apply.

Over the next few weeks, I will be serializing Chapter Seven on Just Plain Stupid. In each installment I will jumble one of the Nine Missing Words. I will announce the correct answer and winner at the end of the series (unless the winner is too ashamed to let me use his/her/it’s/their/whatever’s name – you can make up a fake name and I’ll announce that… but the NSA will still know.) Awarding of the prize may be cancelled or delayed due to NSA actions such as kidnapping me, blocking my blog, or taking away my tin-foil hat.

BWG Interview

So Betty Wryte-Goode interviewed me for her column on Bethlehem Writers Roundtable. Of course she misquoted me. She might have been awestruck like these folk from Life of Brian.

Here’s what I remember from the interview.

BWG: Tell me about Humor.

Headley: Humor’s different than writing mystery, sci fi, or road signs. The rule of humor is that it has no rules. Humor thrives on almost out-worn taboos, and twisted thinking. If you think too straight, no web site will screw you up enough to be funny.

BWG: Then how does a humor writer prepare? Isn’t there anything online that will help you? How about Cracked?

Headley: Not screwy enough.

BWG: There’s George Takei’s I’m not right in the head.com. Is it helpful?

Headley: These sites are great if you’re looking to be entertained, but I found out the hard way that stealing other people’s stuff is usually not a good idea.

BWG: Oh dear! Is there nothing online that helps you prepare?

Headley: Sure, there’s stuff. The news is always good. Some humor writers go straight to the off-beat news sites like…

(alright, I drew a blank here,)

but I think it’s better to go for the straight stuff. Well, there really isn’t any straight stuff anymore, but the sources that are supposed to give you the straight stuff like Reuter’s or UPI. If you’re going for processed news, you should definitely choose one from column A and one from column B. If you go to MSNBC, or CNN, you should also go to The Blaze or Fox News. You can’t get too political – well, you can, ‘cause there are no rules, but it’s a hard row to hoe if you’re trying to make someone laugh, and convert them to your cause. How many funny Jehovah’s Witnesses have you met?

BWG: Two.

Headley: Really? Do you remember any of their shtick? I knew there was something about that 144,000 thing that had potential.

BWG: I’m sorry, I don’t remember, but stealing from them is “not usually a good idea,” right?

Headley: Sometimes I make exceptions.

BWG: This interview is supposed to be about helping other writers, remember?

Headley: Okay, as long as you promote my book. You’re going to promote my book, right?

BWG: At the end. So once you have the news, what do you do?

Headley: Think like a dog.

BWG: Pardon me?

Headley: It doesn’t have to be a dog. You can think like a cat, canary, giant squid – any creature that comes into contact with humans. The giant squid probably isn’t so good, ‘cause all it would be thinking is, ‘humans in a can – are they tasty? Do they go well with a kelp garnish?’ There’s not really a lot of range in thinking like a giant squid.

  Cats are better.

BWG: Explain, please.

Headley: Animals are funny. If you don’t believe me, check your Facebook page and count how many posts you see of cats and dogs doing funny things, or giving funny looks. Animals are funny because they think better than we do. Most of what they think makes sense. That’s pretty twisted thinking to most humans ‘cause most of what we do is stupid. We puzzle and amuse animals and they return the favor. You want to make something funny, think like an animal.

BWG: Perhaps you might give us an example.

Headley: Think of any old story like Jack and the Bean Stock. Now think of it from the perspective of the golden goose, or the cow that Jack sells for the beans. You straighten out the story when you think like an animal, which means it sounds all twisted to humans.

BWG: But most of your work that I’ve read is from a human point of view.

Headley: That’s the final twist. Put that animal thought into a human brain. You want to break the ice during stand up? Try licking your arm and batting the back of your ears with the saliva. 

The added benefit is then you don’t have wash behind your ears later.

BWG: Oh… Well, thank you Headley Hauser for all these wonderful ideas.

Headley: Don’t forget the book plug!

Of course she got this blog plug wrong, but at least she (in an understated way) did plug my book… so, (sigh) thanks, Betty… I guess.