E R N I E ' S   H O U S E   O F   W H O O P A S S

GO HOME BALL  -   articles - search - features - pictures - videos - tasteless - tits  -   WEBCAMS

Jury Duty Part VI: John Goodman Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth?

Once Peter Griffin is safely back in his seat, there's about fifteen or twenty seconds where El Jefe is just sitting on his bench, his attention focused upon what I believe was a laptop? Checking some legal standing, or perhaps Facebook, too? He then taps his mic to make sure it was on, and leans forward to speak, "Prosecution, you may call your first witness." "Thank you, Your Honor." replies Unpronounceablename, "The State of Florida calls Average Father to the stand." Upon hearing these words, the Deputy in the back manning the rear entranceway pushes the door open and steps out into the small atrium that divides the courtroom from the hallway behind it. He returns a few seconds later, still holding the door open and a middle aged white guy with a dark beard steps through it and proceeds towards the front of the courtroom.

As he approaches the waist high wooden wall that separates the front and back halves of the courtroom, Bright Blue Deputy gets up from his seat and pulls a small door in the wall and allows Average Dad to pass unmolested. El Jefe asks the man to stop when he is about halfway to the witness stand, and the man looks up with a visibly startled look on his face. The Court Clerk sitting on El Jefe's right instructs the man to raise his right hand and before he can reply, chimes in, "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth here today?" Average Father croaks out a surprised, "I do," just before nodding his head and continuing his trek to the witness chair, simultaneously pulling the microphone over towards his mouth and spilling into his seat, all at the same time.

"Good morning, Average Father," greets Unpronounceablename. Average Father leans into speak, but when he opens his mouth only a dry mumble comes out. He leans backwards away from the mic and harumpfs to clear his throat. Evidently satisfied with the result, Average Father leans back into the mic and HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS GUY CHANNELS THE VOICE OF JOHN GOODMAN. Seriously, this guy's fucking voice sounds EXACTLY like John Fucking Goodman. So much so that I had to slap my hand over my mouth to trap the joyful squeal that was barreling its way out. If I close my eyes for a second, I'd swear to fucking God that I'm watching an old rerun of Roseanne. I cast a quick glance around the room, around the jury box to see if anyone else was reacting with the same surprise I was. My hand was ready to shoot up and point to Average Father John Goodman, so that both I and my accomplice could enjoy our inside joke together. But there was no one. I was alone. Only I seemed to be picking up on the fact that we have a genuine fucking celebrity voice impersonator in the courtroom today. Disheartened, I allowed my hand to lower itself back into my lap and tried to curtail thoughts of this the witness having a heart attack at a wedding reception.

Quick interlude. I was going to write up all of the witness testimony in Question/Answer format so as to not miss out on any of the suspense, but doing so would be overly tedious, so I'm just going to narrate the meat and potatoes of the witness testimony. Some of it is a recap of what was offered in the opening statements, but in much greater detail. And it is here that the A/V equipment comes into play. Unpronounceablename pulls a small white envelope from her desk and asks El Jefe's permission to approach the witness, and is given it. But as she approaches, Peter Griffin stands up and reports that the defense stipulates that is indeed security camera footage from the dermatologist's office, and they have no objection to its admission as evidence or its publication to the jury. Unpronounceablename and El Jefe agree, and the DVD goes into a laptop for overhead projection. Unpronounceablename requests John Goodman narrate what we are seeing and this is what he lays out for us...

It's a beautiful Friday afternoon and John Goodman is taking his son in for a dermatologist's appointment. He parks his truck where he always does, backed into a parking spot, just outside and to the left of the office's main entrance. He's inside for about thirty minutes, and as they are returning to his truck -- John Goodman in front, Average Son about a step or two behind him -- he notices someone has opened the rear tool box in the bed of his truck. In fact, as he steps closer, he notices that someone is still there and still rummaging around. He runs up to confront the person -- John Goodman identifies that person as Chris Penn by pointing to the person in the blue and white tie -- and as he rounds the drivers side of his truck (out of camera view) notices the car parked next to him, which was also backed in, has both passenger side doors wide open. As he continues to verbally confront Chris Penn, who still has his hands inside of his toolbox, Chris Penn immediately turns around and pushes both of the car's passenger doors shut, before retreating around the rear of the car, through the car's open driver's door, and into the driver seat. John Goodman testifies that he pounded on the passenger side window and fender, attempting to speak to Chris Penn to see if he can ascertain why they were in his toolbox. The driver of that vehicle speed off, and John Goodman instructs his son to get into the truck and call 911 and report a burglary. He shuts the toolbox, starts his truck and proceeds to follow the suspect's vehicle, which is now heading north on Del Prado boulevard.

Unpronounceablename presses the STOP button her laptop and the screen transitions from dermatologist's trees blowing in the Florida sun, to the bright blue and white box with DVD INPUT 1 in the upper corner. Unpronounceablename ejects the first DVD and fumbles for a few seconds before managing to get it back in the white envelope. She then pulls a second DVD from her desk -- no envelope for this one -- and again requests permission to approach the witness. Peter Griffin sees this and correctly ascertains what's going on, so he again lets El Jefe know the defense stipulates this is indeed security camera footage from the Race Trac security cameras, and they have no objection to its admission as evidence or its publication to the jury. In goes the second DVD, the PLAY button is found and John Goodman continues where he left off...

As his son is updating the 911 operator of the fluid situation -- reporting the grey Ford Focus with Pennsylvania license plates and noting the direction of the vehicle -- John Goodman notices the suspect's vehicle turn into a Race Trac convenience store. Rather than turn into the same entrance as the suspect, John Goodman decides to drive slightly past the Race Trac, turn down a side road, and come in a second entrance, so as to not spook Chris Penn into fleeing again. He parks his vehicle lengthwise behind Chris Penn's grey sedan, which was pulled nose first into the parking space, and waits for the police to arrive while his son continues to keep 911 updated. After about three minutes, Chris Penn exits the Race Trac and walks right up to John Goodman. Chris Penn repeats himself that he thought the truck was his boss's and that he didn't take anything from John Goodman. Chris Penn gets into his car and executes what he can only guess to be a 10-point turn in order to bring the car around; if you can imagine a T in which John Goodman's truck is the horizontal line across the top, Chris Penn's car is the vertical line, headlights facing downwards and away from the top of the T. After this series of turns, Chris Penn has maneuvered his car around to where it is facing the 2 o'clock position and now stands a real chance of escaping since the adjacent parking space is empty. It is then that John Goodman makes the decision to stand in front of Chris Penn's vehicle to deny him that avenue of egress. Despite several attempts by Chris Penn to bump John Goodman out of the way, John Goodman stands firm and refuses to move. That is until the car shoots forward, throwing John Goodman half onto the front hood, and half onto the ground next to the passenger side tire. Clear of any further obstructions, Chris Penn speeds off. John Goodman is shaken, but does not seem to be seriously injured although he did testify to some soreness in the days following the incident.

As John Goodman was not party to the ensuing events that resulted in Chris Penn's arrest, his testimony stopped there. Cross examination by Peter Griffin was spirited, but in the end ineffective. Peter Griffin manages to get John Goodman to admit he cursed at Chris Penn, pounded on his windows hard enough to break them -- that he wanted to break them in fact -- and that he used his keys to vandalize his client's car as it was driving away. Again, the phrase "HEY! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY TRUCK!?" is uttered in a court of law. Peter Griffin also suggests that Chris Penn didn't hit John Goodman at all, that in fact it was John Goodman who all but leapt onto the hood of the car in another aggressive attempt to escalate the situation. But give we has just wanted video of Chris Penn nearly running John Goodman the fuck over, his efforts were pretty fruitless. Besides, John Goodman's truck? Yeah, it was a 1997 Dodge Ram, one of the original club cabs. And he backed it on on the first try. Chris Penn? Took two tries to get his Ford Focus in straight. Yeah, that's what's up.

Tomorrow: Average Son and Good Samaritan.

So it looks like Alan Rickman died for real this morning, that sucks. Rickman was of course the target of John McClane's now famous Yippee-Ki-Yay, motherfucker line. For those who love the movie as much as I do, John McClane's weapon of choice during Die Hard was the venerable Beretta 92; if youd like one, scroll down to find used Beretta Model 92s in NRA Very Good condition for $279 including one 15 round magazine. Anyway, Happy trails, Hans.

Good news: the Playboy Mansion is on the chopping block for a cool $200 million dollars. Bad news: Hugh Heffner as a roomie. No, seriously.

Frenchman Lacoste was a superstar tennis player; in 1926 and 1927, he was ranked number one in the world, and during his tennis career, he won seven Grand Slam championship tournaments. But he found the attire associated with the sport restrictive. "One day I noticed my friend the Marquis of Cholmondeley wearing his polo shirt on the court," remembers Rene, "'A practical idea,' I thought to myself." It was so practical, in fact, that René commissioned an English tailor to whip up a few shirts in both cotton and wool. "Soon everyone was wearing them," he smiles. The American press dubbed him the Alligator in '27, after he wagered for an alligator-skin suitcase with the captain of the French Davis Cup team. When he returned to France, "alligator" became "crocodile," and Lacoste was known forever after as the Crocodile. Not only did he embrace the nickname, but he went all out and had a logo of the reptile embroidered onto his blazer. It became his personal brand before there was such a thing.

Old and busted: Reach on in there and grab my wallet. Which one is yours? It's the one that says Bad Motherfucker. The new hotness: Reach on in there and grab my rifle. Which one is yours? It's the one that says Bad Motherfucker.