A good time to clean up the house

by David Grand
February 28, 2007

That's a chore I usually put off doing until the TV screen accumulates so much dust that I can hardly make out what I'm watching and my slipping on the kitchen floor from food droppings.

But I had little choice last week other than to perform that arduous, tiring task, what with the daytime news channels saturated with the live coverage of the judicial hearing being held in Florida over the disposition of Anna Nicole Smith's body.

However, I saw enough portions of it while dusting off the furniture and scrubbing the floors to appreciate why critics in the legal profession had dubbed it the "theater of the absurd," due to Judge Larry Seidlin's bizarre behavior and his showing little regard for the rules of evidence and procedures that are normally followed in a courtroom.

He was the ringmaster in what I can only describe as a three-ring circus, what with three opposing sides contesting for the right to decide where she should be put to rest: Bahamas, California or Texas.

Seems to me the equitable and King Solomon- like solution would've been to have her cremated with each of the parties given an equal share of her ashes to place in a vase on their mantle piece.

From its opening on Tuesday morning to its merciful conclusion in late Thursday afternoon, the proceedings dragged on as slowly as a plot in a soap opera, with a list of characters one would expect to find in a Shakespeare comedy.

Only Judge Roy Bean, an eccentric saloon-keeper and self-appointed judge in the 1880's, who called himself "The Law West of the Pecos," and who believed that habeas corpus was a profanity, ran his court held in the saloon with less decorum.

That the judge was a former New York cab driver could explain, at least in part, why he was so gabby and overly emotional when fencing with the lawyers ad nauseam, even shedding tears as he announced his ruling to turn Anna's rapidly decomposing body over to the legal guardian of her five-month-old daughter for him to resolve the issue of the proper burial site. What a buck passer!

And the all-important unanswered question still remains, as I write this column, as to who, among her multiple bed partners actually fathered the child, which won't be known until DNA tests are taken in whatever jurisdiction. As Anna Nicole's sole heir, she'll be more than a "meal ticket" for her legit daddy.

Now, it's rumored that Judge Seidlin playing the role of the "court jester" was contrived for the purpose of gaining national attention and hopefully a job on a network like "Judge Judy" has. (His wife Belinda, who considers him "brilliant" believes that's his rightful destiny.)

If that was his true motive, then I'd say more power to him for wanting to wear a higher priced, better-fitting robe on a TV show titled "Judge Larry" that'd pay somewhere near Judge Judy's syndication contract for four years at a whopping 25 million per year. I for one wouldn't watch it, except perhaps when I'm in a mood for some comic relief or while cleaning my house every few months.