A book trailer, jury duty, some artwork, and the house gets fleshed out.

ALWAYS LOT OF HEINIES AT THE ZOO

We're about a month away from the official release of "Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo" with that, I made a trailer for the book (I make trailers for ALL my books now)

 

OH NO!

Endpapers folks. You gotta love 'em. Especially when they're blueprints of a 120 yard tall robot built for a fifth grade science fair....

Here's another delightful image....

This book is too much fun.

CASA DE SANTAT

Construction continues on the castle and it's starting to flesh out....

JURY DUTY

I was questioned to serve in a homicide trial which featured TWO gang members, TWO unregistered firearms, and ONE dead body all for the payment of $15 a day including $5 for the first day (the gov't was kind enough to pay for my travel to the courthouse) After I was dismissed I shared my money on Chinese food with the family.

There is a fine art to getting off of jury duty. You can't seem too eager and belligerent or else the judge will call you on it and you may end up in a civil trial, but you can't be too passive or or politically correct or else you will be found to be unbiased and fair, which is fodder for the jury selection

The one main thing I found that people have trouble with is being truthful to themselves, that being, that when they are being questioned for the jury they don't really have an opinion about anything so not to offend ANYONE.

Everyone has a opinion about something, especially in Los Angeles where gang violence is a big problem but in court I noticed that no matter how hard people tried to get out of jury duty they never crossed the line of appearing racist or biased about certain things.

Even gangs.

And that seems to be the big thing people don't get. Pick a side. They want you to be unbiased. They want to know that you can be convinced of their innocence. 

Are gangs bad? YES. Go with it.....

MY INTERACTION WITH THE LAWYER:

LAWYER: Do you believe all people in gangs are evil?

ME: Yes.

LAWYER: Explain.

ME: There are no surprises as to what gangs represent. Gang members get tagged into gangs by getting beaten by every member to show how tough they are. Gangs aren't like Kiwanis doing social work for the good of the community. They're not out planting trees every weekend....

LAWYER: So you don't think gang members plant trees? (that was an actual question) 

ME: Maybe they do but THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is that gang members are a bane to society and there is nothing good to come from gangs or being in a gang

LAWYER: Well some people would say the benefits of being in a gang would be that it's easier to pick up women, easier to sell drugs, you have protection, etc. My question is that can you be unbiased to the defendant?

(At this point I wondered if the gang members even had a shot with this shoddy lawyer and his bizarre line of questioning)

ME: (I went on a rant but basically concluded with) If you asked me if I felt safer with two gang members behind bars rather than on the street then call me shallow. 

So now everyone in the room knows I hate gangs and gang members. 

I'm such an awful person.

Comments

[tammi]

I LOVE the trailer. My favorite zoo heinie shot? The zebras!

And, dude, the arrows are hilarious.

[Paula]

I was fascinated by your jury duty experience. The idea that there is such a thing as an "unbiased" jury or individual is fallacious at the get-go, true. I loved what you told the lawyer! I hope there were others there, too, who let their disgust with his skewed arguemention be known. Thanks for sharing this.

[Christian]

I am excited to ask for this in book stores in Kansas City when it comes out.

The trailer need to show your images a little longer. I was barely able to look around at the image and 'understand' what it was, and it had already moved to the next image.

Great job overall. Slick video and song.

[Nina]

The book trailer is perfect- and where did you find that great music? Kids will LOVE the robot plans. I was the next in line to be chosen for a murder trial once, it was really creepy sitting in a room with a guy who MIGHT have murdered an old lady and sold drugs out of her apartment...

[Erik]

Hey Dan. I can only imagine how psyched you'll be when the remodel is done and you can work in relative peace... In any case, THE GHOSTS OF LUCKLESS GULCH showed up in my little 'ol library in Winthrop, WA last week. I checked it out immediately, and my 5 year old an I enjoyed it very much. Nice work!