The Mystery Judge Monkeys On Our Election Ballots

THE MEMORY BANKS ARE STARTING TO FOG LIKE THE YELLOW headlights from my old 1953 Ford F-100. The first person I ever voted for was Martin Van Buren and that was for Alliklik Indian Nation Rural Elementary No. 7 Kindergarten Prom King.

This last Tuesday? I voted. Again. Just the once. I’m insufferable and volatile enough to defend my political choices in any barroom brawl, saloon of your choosing. For me? Voting is simple. If there’s a (D) within four miles downwind of a candidate or measure on my ballot, face righteously distorted as if smelling poo-tinky homeless adult diapers, I’ll pencil-stab the air above a cretin’s name or yet another of their stupid bond measures while yelling, “GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!!!”

“If you think about it, Santa really has the best job, he works one day a year and spends the rest of his time judging people.” — Anonymous / courtesy, Magnific

Or, if the Illegal Alien-speaking person next to me needs help filling out their ballot: “Atkāpies no manis, Sātan!” then, in Latvian, I’ll nod my head — “no…”

My outbursts cause little disturbance. I’m backcountry. Our polling booth is a condor observation tower/deer tree stand high in the Tehachapis. Whenever any of us in the grange show up to vote, we like to scream in tongues. Whatever your party preference (Republican or Stupid), I highly recommend screaming epithets while voting. It’s purging. Bonus? Liberal or conservative, it’s the only honest time one’s mournful cry in the California wilderness actually amounts to anything.

Screaming in the woods is not unlike voting for a judge. The past 50 years? I’ve probably voted for 114,006 mystery mooncalves and still have no idea who any of these people are. Britches on or off, couldn’t ID them in a police line-up. I research candidates and measures. Judges? Unless my ballot reads …

“DAHMER, JEFFREY serial killer/cannibal (DEMOCRAT)”

…I’ve no idea who’s this would-be jurist in the black theater drapes or what their pronouns or adverbs stand for. The whole election process for judges is muysecret squirrel. After months of forensic research, one still cannot divine the subtlest hint upon which principles a Superior Court adjudicator stands. These wanna-be callers of jurisprudence balls-&-strikes fill out vague, microscopic cameos about themselves, revealing nothing.

“I was married by a judge. I should’ve asked for a jury.” — Groucho Marx/ courtesy, Freepik

A little to the right of Judge Roy Bean? Libertine personal pronoun bending bed partner of George “Hock-Spit-Ptooey” Soros? Quick-tempered? Deaf? Stutterer? Stutterers delight defense attorneys. They bill by the 512th of an hour. Paranoid former death row inmate who feels society’s out to get them? People running for the bench are already lawyers or judges. You’d think after decades of practicing their craft, there’d be some sort of Yelp/1-star-rating floating about.

FIVE STARS!! “Great job! I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die and after renting a room from the judge and a loose, verbal promise to babysit our lovechild, Judge Betty gave me time served!!” — Charles Manson Jr., Antelope Valley

Unearthing campaign material is near impossible. It’s all the same, cut-&-paste, regurgitated Purina Hog Chow.

“If elected to a Superior Court District (can’t recall which number, like it’s important) I vow to endeavor to mitigate, persevere and uphold The Constitution as if it were the still-warm inside of a naughty lady’s upstairs support lingerie.”

Why don’t candidates who are essentially anarchists just come out and confess their antisocial compulsions, enhanced by the full moon? Would it kill them to share that the clacking sound they make on the marble floors of justice are their cloven hooves?

That’s another thing.

Have you ever seen an actual photo of anyone running for the bench? They all can’t be former double-ought CIA spies. Besides. It’s the 21st century. We’ve got Photoshop. Technology can remove those unsightly bright red forehead horns in a blink. I’d even respect a jurist more if he’d just come out in his candidate’s ballot statement and state:

“Sorry. I’m ambivalent. I’m for Law, but, not for Order. And, if elected, like that lady judge in Atlanta who just got the heave (snicker, ahem) ho for having sex so loud in her, ahem, ‘judge’s chambers,’ that traffic school two blocks over could hear her fervent ‘Yippee Coyotes!! I Think You Found It, Marshal Earp!!!’ I promise not to wear underwear under my robes. Or, for that matter, your robes.”

Instead of swearing to tell the truth? With a hand on the Bible, the unidentified “kissing and moaning” Georgia jurist might suggest David Bowie’s oath of, “Rebel, rebel, how could they know — hot tramp, I love you so…”

“Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel.” — Anonymous / courtesy, Freepik

Here’s a thought. We should elect judges based on their favorite movies. We hook them up to some AI super computer and a 27,000,000-volt battery, to see if they’re lying. If they give an enthusiastic “Thumbs Up” to Dirty Harry, Robocop, Death Wish I-XVIII, Mad Max, Judge Dredd and Hobo With A Shotgun, they’ve got my vote.

If they confess to enjoying, while mincing in furry fandom suits and sipping herbal iced tea, Mommie Dearest, anything with Madonna, Momma Mia I & II, Cats, 50 Shades of Grey and the documentaries, Hillary,Barry or Becoming (Michelle’s 2020 myopic) demote them back to community organizing and skimming off bogus non-profits for our addled and flea-rich outdoorsmen.

Aka, The Homeless.

Good band name.

For my money? The best movie line revealing a person’s character came not from judge but defendant. In the 1935 classic swashbuckler, Captain Blood, hero and film namesake Errol Flynn unjustly faces a life sentence of hard labor. Blood offers an icy closing opinion on England’s 17th-century judicial system (ironically, which has come full circle, 350 years later).

The wizened judge screams at him: “You speak — TREASON!!”

Captain Blood pauses, smiles wickedly, then calmly answers — “Fluently…”

Sigh.

If only Captain Blood could confound time and run for the bench next election. For 2028, I’d be happy to loan the pirate-doctor a sure-win campaign slogan —

There Will Be Blood…