TOUR (FINALLY)

I have a court date tomorrow. Flashback! About 4 years ago, I met a woman named Blanca. She used to clean the house, of a good friend of mine; and I was interested in hiring her. She was always very pleasant, a little dumb, but always nice. Until one day, I got a phone call...

I was in the barbers chair when I missed the call. Soon after I recieved another phone call from my friend Chef Ryan Martin. Blanca used to clean his apartment as well, and she explained to him that there was an emergency. When I finally spoke to her, she told me that she fell, and broke her arm in my apartment. When I returned home, she was not there...

About a week later Blanca shows up in my apartment, unanounced. In my opinion, this type of behavior was totally unacceptable, and one of the reasons I refused to help her when she asked for money. She told me that the incident was my fault, because I didn't have a stepstool.

About 6 months later I recieved a letter in the mail from the Small Claims Court. The bitch sued me! My sister Tracy is a lawyer, and she agreed to represent me free of charge. Since that day I have been in and out of the court about 5 or 6 times. I was sued for about 4 grand, and there is no way I was settling.

Our final court appearance was this past monday. My sister and I spent another 5 hours in the court that day. Blanca showed up without a lawyer, which was obviously good for our case. Tracy was great during the trial! Very profesional and quite clever with her cross examination. She exposed Blancas every mistake, and in fact made her look quite silly.

See, Blanca claimed she climbed on top of a chair in order to organize the top shelf in my closet. We all know that chairs are not made for climbing, so as far as the law goes, all we needed to do was have Blanca admit, that she knew climbing on chairs is dangerous. Tracy created a line of questioning that lead Blanca into a verbal trap, so to speak. Tracy asked her questions about why Blanca sometimes bought me supplies; such as paper towels and soap, but never purchased a ladder/stepstool. In a clever way, Tracy then asked her about the possible dangers of climbing on chairs. Blanca then admitted she almost fell once before, and that "climbing on chairs" is not a safe practice. Tracy and I looked at eachother and she said "no further questions your honor" We are still waiting for the verdict in the mail.

NOTE: At the begining of the night the court made it very clear that all phones are to be turned off. During the actual trial, Blancas obnoxious cell phone rang at least 10 times. Everyone in the court was rolling their eyes at her, and it was quite comical to hear the translator explain her verbal fumbling. Like: "Oh, I cant turn it off, I'm sorry, this damn thing" FYI (Blanca speaks very little English)

Her main piece of evidence was my text message that she saved from the day of the incident. She had trouble accessing the text message because someone kept calling. Everyone in the court was getting frustrated with her. She actually tried leaving the courtroom in the middle of the trial to make a phone call. The Judge began to yell "you cant leave the courtroom, you are under oath!" When she didn't respond, the cops were forced to chase after her! hahaha, The judge then denied the text message as evidence because it was taking too long.

The picture above was taken at the Hawthorne (formerly the Regency Suites) in Albany New York. The shot was taken at about 6:30 am after one of the most epic Heavy Pets Shows at the Lark Tavern. Below is a picture of Jeff around the same time.

The band is just about complete with their second official east coast tour! Big Ups to the Heavy Pets for really "bringing the pain". Even just a couple nights on tour with those guys is quite exausting. "One"