Nov 5, 2021

A SUN-SUIT: THIS COLUMN TAKES THE GASEOUS STAR TO COURT

When transcripts prove no more transcendent than the plaintiff

By Ed Goldman

Since I’m still recovering from a tumble down some courthouse steps (read on), I’ve asked this column’s legal correspondent, Cicero V. Wade, to file today’s edition of The Goldman State. Thank you for your patience—and, if you’re wearing a uniform of any sort, your service.

SACRAMENTO-BASED SCHNOOK SUES SUN FOR TWILIGHT GLARE:
AUTHORITIES SAY CASE IS EXPECTED TO DRAG ON “FOR BILLIONS OF YEARS”

By Cicero V. Wade
Correspondent, The Goldman State
Co-Respondent, Wade vs. Mrs. Wade

SACRAMENTO, CA (November 5, 2021)—It was standing room only this morning in Sacramento Inferior Court owing to both the explosive nature of the case heard here and an appalling shortage of chairs in the courthouse—a repurposed 1980s discotheque once called Saturday Night Femur, owing to both the location of the most common dance-floor injury and a sign painter, now retired, who had severe spelling issues.

This was a preliminary hearing to determine the merit of a lawsuit filed by the usual author of this column—hereafter referred to as PLAINTIFF—and Sol Helio, aka THE SUN, over the latter’s tendency to emit an eye-stabbing glare at twilight.

Edgy Cartoon

Curb Appalled

That glare is alleged to have momentarily blinded PLAINTIFF as he was driving west with his OSSO (aka, Oh So Significant Other) to an early dinner, causing PLAINTIFF to repeatedly crash his right front tire into concrete curbs leading into and out of the restaurant parking lot.

Presiding Justice Yul Loos—who’s known to brook no nonsense nor anyone else in his courtroom using “brook” as a verb—welcomed a nonexistent jury, which prompted the veteran bailiff to hold an impromptu sidebar with the magistrate, during which he provided rapid administration of the latter’s glaucoma eyedrops. After two cleansing blinks, Judge Loos, who admitted he had yet to review the case, ordered an immediate lunch recess. When his bailiff reminded him that it was 9 a.m., a clearly distraught Justice Loos explained he had just returned from a golf tournament in Scotland and was still eight hours ahead of California time. His bailiff then reminded His Honor that the latter had taken that trip in 2017. This caused Judge Loos to gavel his bailiff on the head.

Spectators were heard to begin murmuring, though not very loudly, owing to the fact there were only three of them and they wore extra thick masks both as a COVID precaution and to hide their identities.

When the hearing resumed, PLAINTIFF was asked to approach the bench. What follows is a transcript provided by the court reporter since this reporter left the premises for an hour to visit Pinza Needles, a popular acupuncturist it had taken weeks to get an appointment with.

JUSTICE: Do you have someone you’d like to bring in to testify on your behalf? A friend of the court?

PLAINTIFF: A friend? Well, I know someone who dated the court for a few weeks, but I’d be lying under oath if I said it ended well. No, Your Honor, I’ll take my chances representing myself, per se.

JUSTICE: That’s pro se, not per se.

PLAINTIFF: Well, I’m hardly a pro. But okay. Thank you. I think you could make a decent living as judge, too.

JUSTICE (After gaveling his own head but swiftly recovering): Do you realize the absurdity of suing a big star?

PLAINTIFF Big stars get sued all the time, Your Honor! Take Charlie Sheen—


JUSTICE: I’m talking about an actual star, one that’s 93 million miles away—and so hot it can’t be approached within even three million miles. That’s why if we ever get to it, THE SUN will be testifying via a Zoom call being coordinated by NASA’s burn unit.

PLAINTIFF: I’d heard the same thing about Charlie Sheen’s being difficult to approach. Yet a friend of mine managed to get his autograph.

JUSTICE: Well, I’m sure that’s impressive, but—

PLAINTIFF: She’s a hooker and Charlie was paying her by check.

In the end, JUSTICE tossed PLAINTIFF’s case against THE SUN out of court. He also asked the bailiff to toss out PLAINTIFF, who bounced down the concrete steps of the courthouse with the same force he’d piloted his car’s right front tire into concrete curbs leading into and out of a restaurant parking lot—but not before getting PLAINTIFF to provide contact information for his friend who’d obtained Charlie Sheen’s autograph. A few hours later, JUSTICE was served.

Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).