Hangman Jury

Yesterday just before 5 p.m. at work, a group of us gathered in the kitchen around the TV to hear the Michael Jackson verdict. As we waited for the announcement, I thought back to 10 years ago, when O.J. Simpson was acquitted in his murder trial. I had just started working for this company, which was a lot smaller then (about 50 employees then, more than 200 now). We had a TV with fuzzy reception in a small conference room that is now an office. After the jury delivered its acquittal of O.J., which was quite shocking, I remember seeing a co-worker so upset she started crying. This time around, the circumstances weren't so monumental; if anything, this was a circus that I had long ago grown tired of. I didn't even stick around to hear of Jackson' s acquittal, which I expected. I decided I'd rather get home and see my family. That's another difference from a decade ago...I had no family to get home to back then.

The best commentary on the Jackson trial and its freak factor is here. Simply hilarious. It's nice to see that MJ has done some serious soul-searching since the verdict.

This and that:

• Bob Mould is getting ready to launch a rock tour again this fall, and he plans to play some Husker Du and Sugar material this time around. I may have to catch this show, since it could be the closest thing we see to a HD reunion given the dislike he and Grant Hart seem to have for each other. They played a few Husker songs together at a charity gig last fall , but neither seems to want it to go beyond that.
• Of course, if Roger Waters and Pink Floyd can get back together after all the rancor and lawsuits that went on between them for the last 20-odd years, anything's possible. Check out the young Floydians on American Bandstand, way back in the year of my birth.
• With Batman Begins just out and Fantastic Four about to be released, the comic book movies just keep on coming; hopefully, they won't suck like Catwoman and Daredevil did. But Movie Poop Shoot reminisces about what is likely the worst superhero interpretation of all: NBC's Legends of the Superheroes in early 1979. I have no memory of this being on, even though I was already big into comics and would have totally dug this; it only lasted two episodes, though. The MPS dude provides plenty of screen grabs and narrative about how awful it is, and I don't doubt him, but I think he missed the point. I would love to see this because it is so bad; I'm a huge fan of bad TV and movies. Which is why I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 so much. Speaking of which, there was a great article in the June 10 Entertainment Weekly (subscription required) about Manos: The Hands of Fate, which writer Dalton Ross rightly calls the worst movie of all time. Manos got the MST3K treatment and has been immortalized in all its horrendous, hilarious glory; you can get the MST3K version or the original on DVD. If you can deal with cinema crapite at its finest, you must see Manos, if only for the wondrous shambling satyr known as Torgo.