Everyone wants their own 15 minutes

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

Updated!
I've been told that high profile trials bring out the lunatic fringe and the publicity seekers. Over four years later and four months of testimony, this trial is no different. There have been a variety of interesting characters attached to this trial, on the stand as well as back behind the well in the gallery.

Who can forget the Pie, and Jennifer Hayes Riedl, or paramedic Stark for that matter? I have to question the Pie's motives, aligning herself with the defense camp. Something is truly wrong when this individual is presenting themselves as "Lana's best friend," yet, the best they can do is trash Lana. Was all this for a potential reality series or a book deal? Did she sell out her friend that easily?

Edward Lozzi is a somewhat well known person who claims to have been Lana's publicist. As well meaning as Mr. Lozzi is, ~maybe he truly does want justice for Lana~ her family and friends never heard of him before her death, and he has never presented any documentation to substantiate his claim. At lunch on Monday, Mr. Lozzi told me that "he was hostile to both the prosecution and defense." I found that to be an odd statement coming from someone who says they represented Lana, and supposedly had her best interests at heart. As a publicist, one would think his goal would be to protect Lana's memory rather than question it. I also wonder how he could have represented Lana, and at the same time, be associated with Jodi "Babydol" Gibson, who, it appears, thanked him in her book.

Ms. Gibson is another I-need-my-15-minutes-so-I-can-sell-my-book individual who has tried to connected herself to Lana. Judge Fidler ruled that Ms. Gibson could only be called to the stand if Phil Spector took the stand. In the mean time, she was ordered in open court not to discuss Ms. Clarkson in any way, shape or form for the duration of the case. It still remains to be seen if the entries in her "trick book" are proven to be altered. It's been alleged that the trick book has been altered, by either Babydol or the defense investigator Tawni Tyndall, who both accessed it while it resides in police custody. There is an entry that appears to have been changed from Ana to LAna, and a 'Cl.' written after it.

Raul Julia Levy is another I-need-my 15-minutes-so-I-can-get-noticed character who has tried in insert himself into the case, claiming to have had a past association with Lana. When Judge Fidler ruled that he would not be permitted to testify, then someone spammed the Court TV Spector forum with tons of links to a web site that appeared to show a document where Raul Julia Levy filed a complaint with the California State Bar Association against Alan Jackson. No where have I found a reputable news organization that has verified the documents as being an authentic filing with the State Bar.

There are other trial watchers in the room who I believe are there to write a book on the case or, in the case of one attention seeking person, trying to get a famous diarist to stop what he's doing and write a book about them. You may recall that back in June, I wrote an entry titled "The back finally gives out," and mentioned someone who's cell phone went off in court. Well, during the morning session ccarrolladams (CCA) was whispering to someone sitting next to him ~I'll call that person "K,"~ and the cell phone person, "W" leaned forward and I clearly saw W mouth the words to CCA, "SHUT UP!" It was rude and uncalled for. In response, CCA told W where they could go. Well, the K person (whose real name I know but will NOT give them the satisfaction of seeing their name in print), who also felt they were in charge of telling others to "shush!" was ~ for the moment ~ apparently outraged that CCA responded with the words he did. During the rest of the morning session I observed W intensly chatting it up with K, probably giving K a greatly embellished account of what they thought of CCA.

During the morning session, after hearing the email testimony about coffee and cigs, within earshot of the family K was complaining to dini that Lana was a drug addict. (When I heard that I was dumbfounded!) dini replied, "Well then, most people are addicts with something."

A little background here. I've seen K at court several times. The first time K came, they sat in Linda Deutch's regular spot she likes to sit in. When I politely told K that that is a reporter's regular seat and they would have to move, K got a bit ruffled and said that "..'they' were part of the media, too." At the time, I found that doubtful because K did not have a yellow "Media" badge handed out by the court's liaison office, that all accredited press have. Not long after Linda made K move, K leaned into the first row and tried to talk to Fawn. I was quite surprised by this because, whether or not K truly is media or not, the family attorney made if very clear in their press releases early on, that the family would not speak to the press, and that the press was not to approach them.

A week ago Wednesday, K corralled Mr. Dunne and pressed him to have lunch with them. Cornered, he sat down at K's table. Another person tried to sit at the same table with them that day, but K angrily shooed them away. K was trying to convince Mr. Dunne to write their life story. From my understanding, Mr. Dunne was polite but firm, explaining that at this time in his life, he needed to concentrate on himself, and his own memoirs. My thought on the matter was, "Who would care about K's life story?" I've had my own family tragedy and disinheritance. So what? Just because this happened to me, that doesn't mean my sad story is some compelling event the masses would be clamoring to read about. You get over it, move on, and make your own way in the world. It's what I did.

Later that day, it was relayed to me that one of Spector's supporters (I don't know who this man is, but he was in court a few times) came up to K and said something to the effect of, "You're here networking. That's not right." The very next day, even though Mr. Dunne explained at lunch to K, that he could not write a book about K, they still brought a bunch of materials about their sad sob story, pressing the xeroxed pages into his hand, begging him to read it.

Fast forward to the lunch hour today. Dominick, CCA, myself and houdinisback (dini), are sitting at a table by ourselves. All the tables in the lunch room are these three foot square tables, and they barely fit four people, one on each side, comfortably. Standing inbetween CCA and dini, K spoke to CCA, trying to invite themselves to sit at our table! I was shocked silent. I had never seen anyone be so pushy. CCA politely said, "Perhaps tomorrow K, we're having a private conversation." K, not happy with that answer, then moved to the other side of dini, and next to Dominick, and said, "Well! I'm going to go over here and sit next to my FRIEND," insinuating Dominick was her personal friend. My jaw about licked my instep at this.

Totally blown away that this person has no sense of personal boundaries, dini didn't even finish her meal. She immediately got up from the table as fast as she could and CCA followed suit. dini felt that I should leave too, and I said that I needed to stay seated, to protect Dominick. K was oblivious to how rude their behavior was. I was amazed that K seemed unfazed that they had cleared a table faster than a whirling dervish. K made a comment about them leaving then immediately started to talk about the dust up between CCA and W that morning, trying to put their "spin" on the event, totally taking W's side. Dominick, not really understanding what K was talking about, turned to me and said, "Is this about _______?" I replied, "Yes, and I will explain it later." K interrupted me and kept saying something to the effect of, "I'm just telling what I saw!" I had to repeat to K several times, "There's more to this story than you know."

Not long after that, I felt I could not remain silent any longer, and addressed K. I said to K, in a very calm low toned voice, "I've watched you. I've observed you in court. I would not do what you do." And immediately, the rants came. I was "two-faced!" I was a terrible person. I would "never be a good writer!" I replied to that comment, "I never claimed I was." "You're jealous!" K ranted, and on, saying I "would never have the talent! I have the talent!" After a few minutes of K going on like this, I felt I'd stood enough and got up from the table, not even finishing my lunch. As I left I said, "I would never invite myself to a table." As I walked away, I was furious, and had to step outside to walk off some steam. At the same time, I was flabbergasted that K had no clue how absolutely rude and pushy their behavior was.

Upstairs in the hallway, I was still quite upset about what happened, and dini informed me what Dominick said to K after I left the table and how dini gave K a piece of her mind. Everyone was packed at the door, waiting for the deputy's to let us in for the afternoon session. Rachelle was there with her Mommy, and K made a point to cozy up to Rachelle. By this time, Dominick was standing with the rest of the group crowding the door, and was almost exactly behind K. Rachelle announced in a very loud voice, addressing K (and obviously everyone else listening), "Oh, I'm going to invite you to the Castle for the big party! " Then looking directly at Dominick Rachelle said, "There are some here who won't be invited!" Dominick immediately said, "I guess that remark was directed at me." You have to wonder about someone who would want to go to a party at an accused murder's house, with the accused present.

Dini writes about the afternoon session better than I do, so I'll let her take over this part.
"K has appointed themselves the gallery monitor, admonishing us to be quiet, hissing at me this afternoon when the jury hadn't even entered. 'Course, it's okay that K entertained the entire courtroom with their American Idol vocalizing that the cameramen were howling over.

I had to laugh out loud as K was pursuing all kinds of people up on the 9th floor before glomming onto Chelle and wangling that Castle invite.

For someone who was so vehement about LC's addictions, all I can observe is she's addicted to negative attention. Toni home perms and calories....if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

After the lunch break and before the jury came back in, K started talking in a very loud tone about how lame bloggers are.

K was seated with some people who I had never seen before who were about a notch above the street sleepers I pass on the way to the courthouse every morning.

They were all taking in absolutes about how bloggers can't spell "that's how you know they are bloggers"....according to them, "they all want to be *reporters* but can't make the cut," and "nobody reads them anyway".... Now, how they've come to these conclusions without having read them, I don't know, but dang, those libraries have computers, so guess they ran over there at lunch."

So now it comes to me, and whether or not I've "pursued" my own 15-minutes at this trial. I've had my critics very early on in writing about my trial experiences. I'm sure some have said I'm doing this for the attention, or to become a writer or wanna be reporter or even to write a book. The truth is much more simple. I've never claimed to be a writer, or even aspired to be one. Well, let me rephrase that, lol! Back when I was in high school, over thirty years ago, the English department put together a little mimeographed copied phamplet called The Kaleidoscope. The editors thought my poetry was pretty hot, because during my Junior and Senior year, I had just about the most entries ever published in their little compilation. So, for the longest time, I wrote poetry, and considered my self a "wanna be" poet, but never in a million years did I ever think that I would actually get my poetry published. It was something I did for me, and not for a gazillion people to read.

Personally, I prefer the format of message boards, also known as "forums." I've participated on quite a few crime forums for over four-and-a-half years. I really enjoy the dialog and the interaction between a variety of viewpoints that a message board ofers. It's quite different than a blog format. For the entire time that I've been posting on crime forums with the moniker of "Sprocket" (which happens to be the name of my oldest cat), I never had any interest in starting a blog. The only reason I did start one, was because it was becoming quite cumbersome and time consuming to share my Trial Notes on so many different message boards. Previously, I had gone to each board that had a discussion on Spector, and posted the same notes. I thought it would be much easier for me if I just started a blog, and linked to it at each crime forum.

That's it people. That's the only reason I started a blog. It was just to make it easy on myself. In fact, if you go to several of the crime forums in my "Places To Go" links, you will find on every crime forum my early Trial Notes. It was never to somehow "promote" my sewing or get a job as a writer. As far as continung to blog in general, once this trial is completely over, there isn't another trial that I will be covering anytime in the near future. I go back to my regular life, and kick my sewing into high gear. I find getting an entry up every day, or even every other day very difficult for me to do. That's because I am still seeing clients in the evenings and on the weekends, and I do have a husband to take care of and a house to maintain. I'm always amazed that Kim, of The Darwin Exception does it as well as she does. She's a much more consistent blogger, and she's actually quite funny to read. Kim, I've always been a big fan ever since I read my first entry.