Schnakworld

For those who thought the worlds of Michael Jackson and the Supreme Court could not possibly intersect (or that I could not possibly come up with a gratuitous MJ-themed post related to one of my books), I offer the following excerpt from Secret Lives of the Supreme Court:

Long before he became the Supreme Court’s resident P.Y.T., Roberts was telling Michael Jackson to “beat it” in a series of scathing memos written during his time as Associate Counsel to the President in the Reagan White House. The publicist for the self-appointed “King of Pop” had written to Reagan requesting an official presidential letter recognizing the singer’s efforts to combat drunk driving. Charged with handling such correspondence, a beleaguered Roberts hit the ceiling. “The office of presidential correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson’s PR firm,” he raged in a memo to his boss. “Enough is enough.” A few months later, Jackson’s people tried again. This time they asked for a letter thanking Jackson for a concert he had performed in the nation’s capital. Again, Roberts exploded. “I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson’s records, constantly repeating the same refrain,” he thundered, “but I recommend that we not approve this letter.” He went on to decry the “fawning” treatment Jackson was being afforded by certain members of the White House staff, calling it “more than a little embarrassing.” Jackson’s concert appearance, Roberts argued, “was a calculated commercial decision that does not warrant gratitude from our nation’s chief executive.” Finally, in a sign that he was keenly attuned to the mid-80s music scene, Roberts noted that “some youngsters [are] turning away from Mr. Jackson in favor of a newcomer who goes by the name ‘Prince,’ and is apparently planning a Washington concert. Will he receive a presidential letter?”

Feel the love tonight at 12:35 on the a.m. as America’s most beloved author and raconteur sits down with Montreal’s master of late-night radio, Peter Anthony Holder, for a rare one-on-one.

Today I proved no match for Elizabeth Edwards as she coolly swatted away three Secret Lives of the Supreme Court trivia questions in front of a jubilant North Carlolina audience on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. Not since Cherokee Parks last tried to dunk on Eric Montross has there been a rejection this resounding before a Tar Heel crowd. You can check out the carnage here. Thanks to Peter Sagal and the folks at Wait Wait for featuring my book on the show.

Secret Lives of the Supreme Court is getting the quizness on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! this weekend.

Continuing to work an angle of the Sotomayor story that the mainstream media is shamefully ignoring, I have unearthed the Supreme Court nominee’s quote on the subject of Cantiniflas, the mid-20th Century Mexican movie clown. From her speech at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001:

Part of my Latina identity is the sound of merengue at all our family parties and the heart wrenching Spanish love songs that we enjoy. It is the memory of Saturday afternoon at the movies with my aunt and cousins watching Cantinflas, who is not Puerto Rican, but who was an icon Spanish comedian on par with Abbott and Costello of my generation.

I don’t know. My takeaway from this clip is that Cantinflas was closer in spirit to Jerry Lewis or maybe Leo Gorcey than either Lou Costello or Charlie Chaplin, to whom he’s often compared. One can only hope that one of the happy byproducts of a Sotomayor confirmation battle will be a revival of interest in Cantinflas’ life and comic mission.

According to the New York Times, she’s a fan of Cantinflas, the Mexican movie comedian often generously referred to as the “Charlie Chaplin of Mexico.” When Mitt Romney called her nomination “troubling,” this may have been what he had in mind. Look for the judge’s appalling taste to be a major bone of contention at her confirmation hearing.

Developing…

By now you know that President Obama has tapped Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be his nominee to succeed David Souter as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. But just who is this Bronx native set to become only the third woman and the first Hispanic to serve on the high court? More importantly, what facts do we know about her that can be hastily assembled into an easily digestible top ten-style list? Glad I you asked that question…

Ten Things You Need To Know About Sonia Sotomayor

1. Her astrological sign is Cancer.
2. Her father only had a third-grade education and her mother worked as a nurse in a methadone clinic. Expect to hear these facts cited ad nauseum as evidence of her “empathy” for the common person.
3. She suffers from juvenile diabetes and began giving herself insulin injections at age 8.
4. As a child, she aspired to be a “girl detective,” a la Nancy Drew
5. She grew up just a few blocks from Yankee Stadium and is an avid New York Yankee fan.
6. She was inspired to pursue a legal career after watching an episode of Perry Mason. This should endear her to her new colleague Clarence Thomas, who once defended his reluctance to ask questions at oral arguments before a group of students by declaring of the Supreme Court: “This is not Perry Mason.”
7. Expect to hear a lot of Air Supply emerging from her chambers. Her favorite type of music is “soft rock.”
8. As a district judge, she once ruled in favor of the producers of Seinfeld in a copyright infringement case brought against the publishers of a trivia quiz book about the popular sitcom. “The Seinfeld Aptitude Test seizes upon the notion which lies at the very heart of Seinfeld that there is humor in the mundane, seemingly trivial aspects of everyday life,” Sotomayor wrote in her opinion. “Simply put, without Seinfeld there can be no Seinfeld Aptitude Test.” Authors of unauthorized trivia quiz books have been crying in their beers ever since.
9. If confirmed, Sotomayor will resemble David Souter, the justice she is replacing in one important respect: frugality. According to the Washington Post, Sotomayor, who earns $179,500 per year as a federal judge, owns virtually no assets and keeps less than $15,000 in her checking account.
10. Money quote: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male.” (2001 speech at a Berkeley Symposium on issues facing Latinos in the judiciary)

About a year ago, I was commissioned to write the companion book for the new big-screen version of 70’s Saturday morning TV staple Land of the Lost. Sadly, due to circumstances beyond my control, the project was aborted (no doubt by the decree of the angered Sleestak God), but not before I had completed an episode guide to the original Land of the Lost series. As it happens, Sci-Fi (or, should I say, SyFy) is running an LOTL marathon today. In the interest of aiding viewers (and of piggybacking on Will Ferrell’s box office prowess), I am posting my episode guide as a web-exclusive here. Please to enjoy!

The dodgy-looking proprietors of the very entertaining crime and justice blog True Stories of Law & Order weigh in on Secret Lives of the Supreme Court.

Congratulations to that flinty New England scamp, David Hackett Souter, on his impending retirement from the Supreme Court. Justice Fountain Pen was one of my favorite chapters in Secret Lives of the Supreme Court. You can read a free excerpt here.