Starting the week with jury duty, Roger’s reflecting. That and a few extras along the way, so read on… Things don’t’ always go as planned, do they?
Well, here we are. Another week gone by. Admittedly, this wasn’t the column I had in mind to write this week. That’s out there, and I know you’ll enjoy it soon.
My week started off as usual. Monday and all of it’s own baggage. Work. Coffee was fresh and hot. Who knew? The fly in the ointment was that this was the day I could be called for jury duty. Alameda County sends the lucky folks like me a summons and instructions. Checking a phone message will get you the scoop on whether your group will be called or not. In the past, I managed to check the message and hear that I would not be required.
This time would be different. I was assigned to group 1003. Groups 1000 through 1002 got the chance to report automatically to an alternate location. My little assemblage of citizens would have to call back Monday morning at 11:00 a.m. to see if we would be needed. Sure enough, groups 1003 and 1004 got the call. We had until 2:00 p.m. to report to the Jury Assembly room. From here in Livermore, it was a quick bus ride from work to the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station where the train got me to Oakland’s Lake Merritt station in plenty of time.
It’s a short three block walk from BART headquarters to the Courthouse. Had this been any day other than Monday (or Tuesday), I could have stopped off at the Oakland Museum . While it’s been a few years since I’ve stopped by, the Museum has one permanent exhibit that I always enjoy. Frankly, it is something that Disney should get down off its high corporate horse and beg mercilessly to add to the California Adventure. “Take a Walk Across California“ passes through nine different natural areas, beginning at the Pacific Coast, over the Coast Ranges, across the Great Valley, over the Sierras and the White Mountains and to the desert. In this gallery, the museum’s impressive collections of native flora and fauna are displayed in natural settings.” The Coastal Redwood Forest is a personal favorite as it comes very close to the real thing. Think Ewoks and “Return of the Jedi” and you’re there too.
It’s a gorgeous typical spring day here in Oakland. The sun is shining bright, a few puffy clouds here and there. The temperature is very comfy in the mid Sixties. So a healthy bit of a walk about the neighborhood passes some time before I report. The Courthouse or should I properly say, the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse is the fifth one Alameda County has used during its history. As one might expect, it bears the imprint of the White City from the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In the bright sunlight, it almost hurts the eyes to look at it. And I’ve left my sunglasses at home. The building is a classic and was a WPA project built in the mid Thirties. With a bit more time left, I decide to enjoy lunch outside before going in for the afternoon.
Getting in to the building is almost as much fun as taking a flight out of the nearby Airport. And yes, the shoes have to come off and go through the x-ray machine, too. Finally all back together, I enter the Jury Assembly Room and check in. Not too long after 2:00 p.m. we all get to watch a video to inspire us to serve as jurors in our best capacity. By 2:30 p.m. it is time for the first of two roll calls. Most of those in the room are called in the first group. They’re assigned to a court and sent on their way. The rest of us, maybe a dozen or so, are told that we have fulfilled our obligations and are free to go.
So much for getting to be a part of the judicial system… Well, in the end, I got an afternoon away from work and not much more. Cost me all of nine bucks for the transportation there and back. But I’m done with jury service at the county level for the next year.
During the train ride home, I notice a few ads for what Hollywood hopes will be the big films of the summer. Frankly, there is not a lot to get worked up over. The latest installment of “Harry Potter” may be about the only thing to look forward to, and that’s kind of sad. In years gone by, it sure seems like we could expect a few good movies now and then.
Annoyingly, the same seems to be true of the upcoming presidential election. As much as I’m loathe to admit it, I don’t see much difference between the choices. Right now, if I had to make a choice I don’t think I could. Neither Bush nor Kerry has done or said anything that makes me interested or enthused enough to cast a ballot one way or the other. The war in Iraq may end up being what makes the choice for many folks, but I’m not convinced Kerry will do any better with there than Bush has so far. It’s all so easy to forget that Iraq is only one nation in an area that has issues for a long time back. And those issues aren’t clear to us in the West, and no matter how hard we want to make them go away, they won’t. The ugly truth is that some folks don’t want to cooperate with each other, and someone else will pay for that – one way or another.
I had the chance to read through the paper on the train today as well. It is somewhat amazing at how much of what passes for content is mere fluff in many papers. Yet, I’ve been amused as of late by the columns of Mark Morford in the San Francisco Chronicle. His straight, forward and honest approach to the topics he covers is refreshing. Admittedly, that may not be for everyone, but he does strike a chord with me in much of what he has to say.
And then there is Tim Goodman, the Chronicle’s man covering the television world. As much as I’m into the goings on of the tube, I am more than glad not to have this guy’s job. TV is enough of a wasteland that having to watch it professionally. Thankfully, Tim is there to do it for us, and he’s another one who is not afraid to share and tell it like it is. Oh, the pain…
While on the subject of television, I’m glad to see some shows finally making it to DVD and into our hands this summer. Specifically, the first season of “Quantum Leap” will appear next month (June 8). After watching these shows sliced up first by USA and then Sci Fi to get more commercials into them, it will be nice to see them restored as they first appeared in prime time. That and a few extra goodies for all of us “Leapers” out here make this one to pick up. A fair number of the folks who made that show what it was are now at work on the Paramount lot, either on “JAG” or “Enterprise”, both in front of and behind the cameras.
I’m not a big fan of television shows being sold in entire seasons on DVD or VHS. Amazing as it might seem, I don’t own a single set. “QL” will be the first. I have most of the shows on VHS, taped in the shows first run or first reruns on NBC. And then there are the few shows that appeared on laser disc. Never did get the pilot, “Genesis”, when it did come out on DVD. Why? Because it was one of those shows from the first season that was on laser disc and from everything I know, there was no reason to make that extra purchase. “QL” had an interesting approach when it was in production. It was right before digital editing of shows became the industry standard. The dailies for each episode were put on laser disc for editing rather than film. In the end, the final product shown each week was much cleaner.
And as much of a Star Trek fan as I am (Yes, of all of the incarnations, even the animated series!), I have not given in to temptation to purchase any of the box sets offered so far. Not that I would object to picking up some individual episodes here from the various shows… Like all fans, I have favorite shows for individual reasons. Some may be story arc driven, others are performances by certain actors (Paul Winfield in the Next Generations “Darmok” stands out among many for me), and some are just good television that makes you want to watch it more than once. That’s true for many of the shows on sale on DVD now. “X-Files”, “M*A*S*H”, even “The Waltons. Here’s hoping that the folks making the decisions on what to sell next will give that some thought once they box sets are all gone.
In all my years (45 so far), I have only really fallen for two shows to the point where I religiously watched every episode, every week it aired in prime-time. “Quantum Leap” was the second. “QL” got me involved with online fandom on AOL. Some really great people who I miss shared some good time online and off, including a couple of great fan events produced by the folks from the show. Thanks to an experiment with early prime time and cable programming, during one season I could even watch the show twice in one night. Now that’s misplaced enthusiasm if I ever heard of it!
“S:AAB” was a similar story, but also involved the cast and crew of the show online from the start (thanks to a connection with the folks from the “X-Files” including Chris Carter). “Space” was a better show than most folks got a chance to know, but it suffered in an awkward timeslot. Sunday nights at 7 p.m. it was destined to be frequently pre-empted by Sunday Night football on Fox. It’s hard to develop an audience when viewers can’t see the show. And even with a sci-fi future, war isn’t exactly something particularly popular in the “family viewing” hour.
I was lucky enough to get to visit the set during filming of an episode and met most of the cast and crew. Even chatted about computers (Mac Powerbooks, of course!) with one of them. It wasn’t my first visit with television folks, but it was nice to meet these people personally, and give them some goodies as thanks for supporting our online community. I have a few treasures from that visit to remind me of just how nice they were. And it was all the more disappointing when the yahoo’s at Fox programming let the show go. Something about how the release of “Starship Troopers” into theaters that summer could be confused with the show is one theory some folks espoused. Even to the point of not completing showing of episodes in reruns. Admittedly, the show was expensive to produce per episode (What hour-long drama is cheap any more?), but those costs would be less the second season with existing sets and stock effects footage already paid for. In the end, the small and devoted fanbase wasn’t enough to change the network’s mind.
That’s not to say that there are not shows I still watch on a regular basis. There are. “ER”, “Las Vegas”, “Enterprise”, “American Chopper” to name a few. If I miss an episode, I miss an episode. Life goes on. Others, I watch occasionally such as “CSI” (only the Vegas one, I haven’t gotten into Miami and suspect New York likewise). I guess that I just don’t have the passion for television that I once did. Maybe, that’s a good thing.
See the kind of things that run through your mind while riding the train?
In the meantime, I am working on an interesting series of columns about the various amusements — past, present and future – here in Northern California. For the first installment (which had I not gone off to jury duty, you would have read today), we’re off to the seaside and even by train!
Now over on the Jim Hill Media Message Boards, it sure would be nice if a couple of folks would each kick in a single dollar to help us reach our goal and pay for the boards for a few more months. We’re about two-thirds of the way there, so help make it happen! That’s less than the price of that Starbucks latte…