As we all know, the freak show out in Florida that was the Casey-Caylee Anthony murder trial ended ignominiously a week or so ago, with the jury delivering a ‘not guilty’ verdict that drove “concerned” citizens and a few journalists alike to the brink of total insanity.
I will be honest – I never cared much if Casey Anthony was guilty or not, and I still don’t. My interest in the trial, such as it was, was prurient . . . as was practically everyone else’s, but I am being up front about it. All I cared about were pictures on the internet of Ms. Anthony out in the clubs (while her daughter was already missing), shaking her ass and rubbing up against other women, and men. I cared about the lurid details of Ms. Anthony’s affairs; about the details of her fucked-up, almost comically dysfunctional family; about the nefarious meter reader who found Caylee’s body; about the celebrity medical examiner, the fucked up legal teams, the crazy-ass journalistic fringe covering the whole mess, and all the rest. I am of the opinion that a big, screaming, unseemly mess like Florida v. Anthony is actually American democracy at its finest. No one but no one, no other place on the planet can routinely put on an embarrassing public spectacle like the Anthony trial, baby; and then promote the hell out of it on the fringe news cable channels like it was the second coming of Woodstock or something. More like Altamont, but anyway . . . the Casey Anthony trial was one of the better recent examples of full-tilt American democracy/public trashiness in overdrive, but it wasn’t really all that shocking or unusual. To us, anyway.
And it is not really over yet, either. At least HSN and Nancy Grace and her gerbil-like sidekick, Jane Velez-Mitchell, don’t think so. I had been curious how Ms. Grace – who ran the fucking Anthony case into the ground for months on end on her nightly HSN show, coining the term “tot-mom”, a shorthand reference to the accused, and proclaiming her guilt from Day One – was going to react to the not guilty conclusion of the court. I didn’t think she would be contrite, and I was right about that. She and Ms. Mitchell, a truly crazed miniature poodle version of the original who subs for Ms. Grace on the weekends and holidays, apparently intend to drag this thing out for some time longer. They spent the past weekend with wall-to-wall coverage of Casey Anthony’s release from jail, which had been announced several days ahead of time and which occurred at midnight on Saturday the 16th, just as scheduled. Velez-Mitchell was right in the middle of it, hanging out in front of the jail with just the sort of lunatic-fringe types who would take the trouble to show up at midnight waving crudely-lettered homemade signs and yelling unintelligible chants in support of dead baby Caylee. In other words, Nancy Grace’s core audience. For her part, JVM was sporting a new blondish frost job hairdo and ran around every five minutes or so proclaiming, “I think something is about to happen!!” onscreen while meanwhile HSN ran a king-sized blinking banner across the bottom announcing BREAKING NEWS!!! BREAKING NEWS!!!
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I didn’t find out until the trial was nearly over, but it turns out I know one of Casey Anthony’s relatives, a cousin or second cousin, I cannot remember on which side. The person I know is just someone I bumped into recently after a long time, an old acquaintance from way back when. From back in my oil and gas days, when I wandered all over east and central Texas checking pipelines and such, and made a friend or two here and there along the way. :sigh:
Anyway, this friend told me that, after her release, Casey Anthony is supposed to head this way, to stay with some Texas relatives for awhile, chilling out and hopefully letting some of the public hoo-ha stirred up by Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell and the like die down before she tries to start a new post-trial, post-Caylee life. This was all supposed to be hush-hush; but since I heard a reference to it on one of the cable news talk shows Sunday, I don’t guess it will hurt to mention the general details here.
Whatever one may think about Ms. Anthony, one can understand her need and desire to fly under the public radar for awhile, if possible. It is probably not safe for her to just walk around on the street. Especially if news gets out she is signing movie and book deals in order to profit from her newfound infamy, as has been rumored. I am almost sure Playboy or Hustler will offer the obligatory $1 million for a feature and centerfold, too. It is usually just a perfunctory gesture on deals like this, but for all I know Casey Anthony might actually take them up on it. We will just have to wait and see on that one.
My friend is supposed to keep me up to date on what is going on with the Casey-in-Texas thing. Meanwhile, I am starting to hatch this weird plan in my head. If I keep this renewed friendship of mine on the fire – at medium low – maybe I can re-ingratiate myself with my old friend well enough to get “inside” on some of her family’s news. Like many people around here, her relatives like to barbeque and drink beer and have parties. Maybe, if Casey is really staying with them, they’ll have a party to celebrate her freedom or something, and she will attend. Meanwhile, having got myself back on good terms with her cousin, I’ll wrangle myself an invite to the same soirée. And you know, the meat will be cooking, the music will be playing, the beer will be flowing. An opportunity will present itself, and I will introduce myself to the famous guest, and we’ll chit-chat, get to know each other a little, and whatnot. My intentions will be entirely pure and above board, of course.
Assuming all this works out, maybe I’ll find out Ms. Anthony is a baseball fan, or perhaps just wants to sneak back into a big city for an afternoon. Using her cousin as my stalking horse, I’ll try and arrange a family excursion to an Astros game one weekend. Casey, her cousin, maybe a couple of other relatives, and me. Since I’ll be the most knowledgeable one of the group when it comes to baseball and the Astros, on the way to the game and walking to our seats I will graciously impart some of what I know to Ms. Anthony, maybe sit next to her and show her how to keep score. Who knows?
Of course, there are so few people at the games nowadays, it may be hard to keep up a semblance of anonymity for very long. We will have to have a contingency plan if everything blows up once we get to the park. If you are watching an Astros game one evening on FOX and Brownie or JD says something and then you see a camera shot of Casey Anthony and some people being escorted out of the stands by MMPUS security, the middle-aged guy with long-ish brown hair and (more than likely) wearing dark shades, the one trying to duck down behind one of the security guys . . . that’ll be yours truly.
That would kind of suck, but at this point I am optimistic. This all seems like a good idea to me. On the other hand, I’ve slept 2 ¾ hours total in the last three days, so I suppose it is possible I am making no fucking sense whatsoever.
Wouldn’t be the first time.