The Sheila Variations

If the jury has their way, we will be shortly.

Now we just have to live thru appeal after appeal after appeal ...

..a sensational trial that riveted much of the country.?

Surely someone will complain to the FCC about that description? I mean, it's not as if anyone thought he was anything other than guilty - either in the US or on any other continent.. *ahem*

.. and the appeals could last "decades"? I guess Court TV(?) are signing up the particpants already.

I'm writing a letter to the FCC and asking them to ban all mimes.

We the undersigned...

In the sake of fairness, Pete, I'm at least hoping the judge and jury did not believe him to be guilty before they were presented evidence. I know how much we're all touched by murdered pregnant chicks, especially if they're the slightest bit hot, but this is a man's life we're talking about.

Sorry, but people who just *assume* people are guilty in show trials like this - the kind of people who showed up at Peterson's house carrying picket signs and throwing things - before one shred of credible evidence is presented piss me off.

You are, as always, correct, Emily.. but then I've just read edited highlights - that's my only basis for deciding, at a fairly early stage, that he was guilty. Consideration of due process didn't really apply to my opinion, but neither did the fact it was turned into a show trial.

And show trials do tend to attract show mobs, a symptom of the sensationalist approach.. not necessarily at a proportionate level to the details of the particular case.

(I seem to remember something from the edited notes about him attempting to abscond from the jurisdiction of the court, though.. not a good move)

It's not over. It will most likely never be over. At least not until the populace as a whole grows up and becomes a more sophisticated consumer of the news (I know, I made myself laugh with that one). They'll just segue seamlessly into the Robert Blake circus, and so forth and so on...

O.J. Where are you when we need you?

robert downey jr will play him in the movie version...it's got to be due out next week, i'm sure.

"...people who just *assume* people are guilty in show trials like this - the kind of people who showed up at Peterson's house carrying picket signs and throwing things - before one shred of credible evidence is presented piss me off."

Well, fair enough, but the flip side of that is that a defendant is NOT somehow entitled to a presumption of innocence on the part of the public as a whole, just from the judge and jury. Nor, in using our common sense, should we as outside observers be required see proof beyond a reasonable doubt before thinking "he did it." There are excessive extremes at both ends, is I guess what I'm saying.

Mr. Bingley,
Robert Downey Jr. could never do justice to the role after Dean Cain's performance in the TV movie. I mean, it was right up there with Marc Singer's work on the mini-series V.

Mini-series, Emily?

Didn't that last for years? It certainly seemed like it.

Dean Cain. Yum.

By American standards, a couple of years is mini, Pete. We are not a nation who are very good at leaving people wanting more.

"Dean Cain Yum" is pretty much the cavewoman-esque comment I have to add to this enlightened dialogue. I'm shallow.

Carry on.

Hell Sheila, V came on when I was in like 7th grade and I still remember the name of the guy who played the head bad-ass revolution leader dude. Shallow? Surely you're not ashamed!

I am proudly shallow.

Lance Kerwin. That's all I have to say. James at 15. Saw it in 7th greade. It changed my life.

I've typed about six or seven comments and have deleted them all, because I want to say too much about this! Ack!

Death penalty! Cameras in the courtroom! Obviously biased reporting by CourtTV! The public's "right to know" balanced with the defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial! Too many opinions make me dizzy!

So I'll just say: Dean Cain took Brooke Shields's virginity when they were both at Princeton.

And Lance Kerwin was hot, but whatever happened to him?

*at the risk of continuing to comment in a conversation that I am sooo out of place in*

'a couple of years' = 'mini', Emily?

Tell that to Rob Lowe.. Lyon's Den.. dr. vegas..

Now they're mini-series!

I know way too much about Lance Kerwin and I feel too embarrassed to share that knowledge. I do not know what happened to him, but I had such a painful junior-high crush on him that I joined his fan club, and, in typical Sheila fashion, researched the hell out of him.

Hence - geek-knowledge.

Lance Kerwin was also in a great TV movie (or I remember it as great) called "Side Show".

Okay, I'm gonna stop now.

I can't believe I actually googled him. Damn you, Sheila. Damn you, Lisa.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

emily, I am shaking with laughter looking thru that site.

LOOK at him. To me, as a 12 year old, he was the epitome of male beauty.

I think the background is perfect, too - so mid to late 70s -

But still - LAUGHING!

Did you see at the bottom of the first page of photos -- "What a fox he was." Fox!

I half expected pony icons or something.

Nice disclaimer at the beginning.. do you think the lawyers (no offence intended to any of the commenters here) had been in touch?

Our client wishes to make it clear..

Yeah, Lance Kerwin was many things, but I cannot say that he was a "fox".

He had more of that sensitive-Robbie-Benson-in-Ice-Castles thing going on ... and while it is very appealing to a lonely girl in junior high, it is not quite "foxy".

Still laughing at those pictures. LOOK AT HIS HAIR

Lance graduated from the Hollywood Professional Academy, and though he lives at the U-Turn for Christ ranch, he still owns a beach house in Mendocino.

So he's a Christian, but not in the give-all-you-have-to-the-poor way?

Lance, Lance, Lance. Give up the Hollywood trappings! U-Turn, dude!

Even his lawyers probably don't remember his fame, Pete. It lingers only in the warped mind of people like Sheila and the person who made that website.

Imagine, somebody woke up one morning and said to themselves "today, I will erect a virtual shrine on the internet to Lance Kerwin. Yes, I will do this. And it will be good."

Ehm ... U-Turn for Christ.

I just need to ... repeat that to myself for a while.

emily, that link has made me lose my lunch.

Lance Kerwin lives!!!

Or, to paraphrase Waiting for Guffman:

"We love you, Lance! We want you to LIVE!"

Yay! I made someone barf today! Go me with my achievements!

Sheila..

U-Turn for Christ.

No, You Turn for Christ.

I aint got no brakes!

*getting me coat*

How 'bout U-Turn for Kwanzaa?

Peeps, I just want to point out that the original point of this post was about Scott Peterson getting the death penalty, and here we are at Lance Kerwin, and it all seems perfectly obvious.

This is why I love my own blog.

Literally EVERYTHING can be turned into some obscure pop culture reference.

Death penalty. Lance Kerwin. Of course.

Well, at least we're working through these important issues together.

I think I might have to stalk Lance Kerwin now. My next vacation will not be in Ireland or Croatia, but it will be at the U-Turn for Christ ranch, where I will bombard him with questions about James at 15 and the lesser-known Sideshow.

Actually, Sheila, that's a degree of separation that I couldn't see Kevin Bacon bridging so easily.

No. That would be a "Sheila's Blog" degree of separation. Where I post about the Gaza Strip, and 3 comments later we are talking about Pretty in Pink.

That kind of shit only happens here, folks!

Re: Pretty in Pink. James Spader was hotter than Andrew McCarthy*. Discuss.

*Only in Pretty in Pink. In St. Elmo's Fire, no one was hotter. No one. And that is NOT up for discussion.

James Spader was hotter than McCarthy in Pretty in Pink, even though he was hot in a kind of dissipated gin-soaked way. He always seemed like he was about 35 in that movie ... like: what, did he stay back in his senior year, like, 20 TIMES??? Also, I loved how he pretty much was always just roaming the halls, randomly, wearing a white Miami Vice suit ... like, he never had to be in class, he didn't have to go to a locker ... No. He was hot. In a dissipated way.

And no, no one was hotter than McCarthy in St. Elmo's Fire. I love their sex scenes. Even though she's wearing the most RIDICULOUS string of pearls which screams: "1986" to me. (Not that that's a bad thing. But really - lose the pearls.)

Ally Sheedy was an idiot to turn him down. She'll never be loved like that again. Idiot.

I so wanted Andie and Duckie to end up together in Pretty In Pink. A friend of mine gave me a copy of the paper back the summer I left for Bonn that had a different ending where they did. I don't care how hot Andrew McCarthy was in that movie. I remain bitter about this to the very day.

I know I read or heard somewhere that during their sex scene when Ally says, "We broke the shower!" that that was not scripted, neither the breaking of the shower, nor the line, but they left it in anyway.

I totally aspired to dress like Ally back then, all brooches and pearls and lacy jabots. (Think Demi Moore in About Last Night. . ., yet another movie I love, own, and watch everytime it comes on TV.)

Having worn pearls in mass quantities back in the day, I can tell you it was probably easier for Ally just to leave them on than unwind herself from them before having the hot casket sex.

Emily, I'm with you on that. Duckie REALLY loved her. Andrew McCarthy sold her down the river the second one of his bitchy friends laughed at her vintage store clothes. He was a wimp. Duckie was already a real man, even though he looked like Jon Cryer playing a 16 year old.

You know, a weekend is not a proper weekend for me without some "hot casket sex".

Oh and Lisa ... You should see my prom pictures. I have pearls EVERYWHERE. And so I judge Ally's pearls only because I was so 100% there myself.