I’m sitting in the North Seattle Subaru dealership waiting for my car to have its oil changed. In the waiting room they have many magazines, a play mat with lots of half broken cars, a laptop computer hooked up to the Internet (and apparently a printer because some old dude is printing something out) and the obligatory free coffee, water, tea and cocoa. And of course, a huge flat screen plasma television hanging up on the wall just out of reach of us patrons in case we get any funny ideas about changing the channel which is currently tuned into something called “Cristina’s Court”
I don’t know what channel airs “Cristina’s Court” because though I am seated directly across from the television and cannot help but look straight at it, I am doing my best to not actually watch it. Oh crap, I looked. And I am so less than surprised to see the Fox 13 logo superimposed in the lower right corner.
For those of you that have never seen “Christina’s Court” before (and I was able to count myself among those lucky bastards until today) let me summarize: From my brief glimpses at the set C’s C appears to be a court show for women wearing more make-up than actual clothes. In this particular episode the, well let’s call her the “plaintiff” is wearing a backless “blouse” that is cut down to her great big shiny belt buckle. The, um, “defendant” is wearing a spaghetti strap tank top. Both look like something my grandmother would not hesitate to refer to as a Jezebel.
Since the show has not once referred to the overly made-up woman sitting on a dais, looking stern and wearing a black robe as “Judge” I am forced to assume that Ms Christina is as close to actual Judge-ness-ship as I am. My qualifications are the following:
- I watched People’s Court every day during the summer holidays from 1981 till 1986.
- I also watched Divorce Court often, but only if it didn’t coincide with Perry Mason or Scooby Doo.
Judge Joseph Wapner was a real Judge. No kidding. He served for 18 years on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. But this little bit of information is superfluous if you’ve ever seen the man in action. He’s a real judge, you can tell. For one, he always scared me a little bit. Secondly, he had white hair. And thirdly, he could throw that gavel around like nobody’s bidness. He took no crap from anyone. If any of these women were to walk into his courtroom Judge Wapner would have told them to go home and not come back until they learned how to clothe themselves. Plus he got super-justice points for having a baliff like Rusty Burrell:
I have noticed that Christina, Fox-network arbiter of Justice, has no gavel. She has a shiny pen that she’s been waving around and an American flag in the background but in the 20 minutes or so that I’ve been forced to watch this show she has so-far appeared gavel-less. How can you be a real judge if you have no gavel?So basically, what I’ve been watching is a dumbed-down, hussied-up bitch fight over who keyed whose car. The “plaintiff” accused the “defendant” who’s response is that (and this is a pretty much a direct quote from what was written below her on the screen)
“The plaintiff is psycho and keyed her own car”
If Judge Wapner ever saw this show he would turn over in his grave. Of course, he would have to die first which I am not advocating here. I don’t think there are enough Judge Wapner’s in this world. Possibly too many Cristinas and definitely too many plaintiffs and defendants. Probably enough Doug Llewelyns. But not nearly enough Joseph Wapners.
Note: after a few minutes spent with wikipedia I have found that, to her credit and my mistake, Cristina does actually have a gavel.