Kerrie Droban's Blog, page 5

Courtroom Humor

As I prepare for trial in a couple of weeks (and realize my client will be in absentia) I fleetingly consider whether I should design a cardboard version of her, or drag in a mannequin to place in her chair…. thought I’d share some funny courtroom dialogue with you:

Q:            Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

A:            No.

Q:            Did you check for blood pressure?

A:            No.

Q:            Did you check for breathing?

A:            No.

Q:            So, then is it possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?

A:            No.

Q:            How can you be so sure, Doctor?

A:            Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

Q:            But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?

A:            It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

And my absolute favorite …

Defendant:  Judge, I want another lawyer, because this one is incontinent.

What’s In A Name?

Apparently a lot! Although I don’t have plans to change my name any time soon, I recently experienced “name change trauma” with my sons’ band —Happy Accidents!

My boys began playing music seriously before they could speak (well that’s at least true for my youngest who was born deaf and Autistic). Both come from a long line of classically trained cellists and violinists and so naturally mine gravitated to drums and electric guitar! Their early instructors encouraged them to learn “more sensible” instruments like piano and flute (which is a bit like telling a kid to choose fruit cake instead of tiered chocolate). Fortunately my sons were persistent—they knew what they loved and so several thousands of dollars and hours later, both abandoned “sensible” and bonded through rock, punk and metal.

As they jammed and composed music together, I playfully referred to their sessions as “Happy Accidents.” Sadly, four years later they lost the trademark. Maybe it was time for a change—after all they acquired a terrifically talented bass player, a pure gem of a band manager and just finished their first national tour. Meet Guerrilla Party!

Want to check out Guerilla Party? You can find them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Want to listen to the music my boys have created under their previous name, Happy Accidents? Listen on: Reverbnation, CDBaby, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and Pandora.

They’re heading back to the studio VERY soon and will be releasing brand new music under their new name. Stay tuned….

Courtroom Humor

As I prepare for trial in a couple of weeks (and realize my client will be in absentia) I fleetingly consider whether I should design a cardboard version of her, or drag in a mannequin to place in her chair…. thought I’d share some funny courtroom dialogue with you:

Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

A: No.

Q: Did you check for blood pressure?

A: No.

Q: Did you check for breathing?

A: No.

Q: So, then is it possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?

A: No.

Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?

A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?

A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

And my absolute favorite …

Defendant: Judge, I want another lawyer, because this one is incontinent.

What’s In A Name?

Apparently a lot! Although I don’t have plans to change my name any time soon, I recently experienced “name change trauma” with my sons’ band —Happy Accidents!

My boys began playing music seriously before they could speak (well that’s at least true for my youngest who was born deaf and Autistic). Both come from a long line of classically trained cellists and violinists and so naturally mine gravitated to drums and electric guitar! Their early instructors encouraged them to learn “more sensible” instruments like piano and flute (which is a bit like telling a kid to choose fruit cake instead of tiered chocolate). Fortunately my sons were persistent—they knew what they loved and so several thousands of dollars and hours later, both abandoned “sensible” and bonded through rock, punk and metal.

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As they jammed and composed music together, I playfully referred to their sessions as “Happy Accidents.” Sadly, four years later they lost the trademark. Maybe it was time for a change—after all they acquired a terrifically talented bass player, a pure gem of a band manager and just finished their first national tour. Meet Guerrilla Party!

Want to check out Guerilla Party?  You can find them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Want to listen to the music my boys have created under their previous name, Happy Accidents?  Listen on: Reverbnation, CDBaby, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and Pandora.

They’re heading back to the studio VERY soon and will be releasing brand new music under their new name.  Stay tuned….

Why Pigs Fly

I was born to be a writer. I loved words from the time I could speak and form sentences. I loved their beat, power and transformative qualities. On my seventh birthday I asked for a typewriter, wanting to simplify and “clean up” the pages and pages of prose that littered my bedroom. Stories burst from my head, wild, imaginative supernatural tales of ghosts and crows. I taught myself to type (in French first) and soon my fingers flew across the keys faster than I spoke. I had developed a “marvelous skill” and would make a “great secretary someday.” But I didn’t want to be a secretary. I wanted to be a writer.

Years later, after several hundred pages of half completed novels, I announced my life’s ambition: to be a poet. My family collectively cringed. Visions of poverty loomed large in their thoughts. The average poet earned a dismal $10 dollars a poem. But I didn’t want to make money. I wanted to be a poet. My family gently suggested a Plan B.

I decided on The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, a ridiculously competitive program that only accepted eight candidates a year. The application required a portfolio, (a what!) ten poems for consideration. I only had five. The deadline fast approached. Maybe you should apply for a community college, just in case, those close to me nudged, concerned I might fall and fall hard. Then I heard it, the phrase that changed my life, that fueled my ambition and passion, that taught me the most important lesson I ever learned—be your own champion—you’ll get in to that school when pigs fly!

I slipped the five poems into a manila envelope, licked the seal, handwrote the address and placed my future in the mail.

PS One week later I received a call, “Congratulations! We look forward to having you.”

Behind The Scenes: Gangland Undercover

In July, 2014, I drove out to Gillespie Dam in blazing heat to the set of Gangland Undercover to watch my book, VAGOS, MONGOLS & OUTLAWS: MY INFILTRATIONS INTO AMERICA’S DEADLIEST BIKER GANGS, magically transform into a dramatic six part television series to air on the History Channel. As I pulled into the dusty, deserted parking lot of the dive bar restaurant where many of the indoor scenes were filmed, my heart pounded. And for a split second I debated whether to slide back inside my FJ Cruiser and haul ass out of there. I should have been excited, thrilled (and don’t get me wrong I was) to meet the actors whose real-life characters I captured on paper but instead I felt light headed, sick even, like I didn’t belong. After all I was only the writer.

I felt a little like Alfred Hitchcock who appeared in cameos in his own films like an inside joke. I searched for a producer, director, someone in charge until finally some kind woman with pretty hair and beautiful teeth took pity on me and offered me a cookie and a coke. She told me to have a seat the actors would be arriving soon for lunch. I slid into a booth with a checkered tablecloth, holding the cookie, suddenly ten years old again. After a while she informed me I was in for a treat, “they’re filming a television show, you should stick around, might be fun.” I nibbled the cookie.

Then Charles Falco walked in, waved and introduced me to “Darko,” “Stash” and his handsome double, Damon Runyon. “Hey everyone, I want you to meet Kerrie, she’s the reason you’re all here. She wrote my story.” I never did finish the cookie.

“Fun” Facts About Sociopaths

1. The list of professions that attract the most psychopaths police officers, lawyers, and surgeons. Number one: “CEO.”

2. Humans can detect 10 types of smells, such as “fruity,” “chemical,” “popcorn,” and “decayed.” While most people don’t have any trouble making out the “pungent” aroma of blue cheese or the “woody” scent of freshly cut grass, a psychopaths has no sense of smell.

3. While most prisoners speak about their families and religious beliefs, sociopaths are more concerned with basic needs like food, drink, and cash.

4. Sociopaths love “highs” of all sorts– anything fleeting that makes them feel a rush of danger interests them. So you might find a sociopath at Six Flags enjoying a run on Kingda Ka, or robbing candy from a deli, or, you know, killing someone, just for the rush of it.

5. Sociopaths like to blend in look-wise so as not to be suspected or singled out as erratic. They don’t often dress in trenchcoats or all-black ensembles: usually they’re dressed just like everyone else.

6. Most people get anxious in situations of discomfort– whether it’s being late for an appointment, feeling stressed, etcetera. Sociopaths oddly enough, don’t feel those feelings of stress. They just.. don’t feel anything at all.

7. People who have known sociopaths have said numerous times that there is often something very attractive about them, be it physically or charismatically, and it has psychiatrists confused. People do tend to trust and follow better looking people more than they do ugly people, ….Dexter? Bundy??

8. Males are 10x more likely to be psychopaths than females. Interesting, no?

9. Psychopaths are really intelligent people. They can manipulate just about anybody and actually take pleasure in knowing they’re smarter than everyone around them.

“Fun” Facts About Sociopaths

1. The list of professions that attract the most psychopaths police officers, lawyers, and surgeons. Number one: “CEO.”

2. Humans can detect 10 types of smells, such as “fruity,” “chemical,” “popcorn,” and “decayed.” While most people don’t have any trouble making out the “pungent” aroma of blue cheese or the “woody” scent of freshly cut grass, a psychopaths has no sense of smell.

3. While most prisoners speak about their families and religious beliefs, sociopaths are more concerned with basic needs like food, drink, and cash.

4. Sociopaths love “highs” of all sorts– anything fleeting that makes them feel a rush of danger interests them. So you might find a sociopath at Six Flags enjoying a run on Kingda Ka, or robbing candy from a deli, or, you know, killing someone, just for the rush of it.

5. Sociopaths like to blend in look-wise so as not to be suspected or singled out as erratic. They don’t often dress in trenchcoats or all-black ensembles: usually they’re dressed just like everyone else.

6. Most people get anxious in situations of discomfort– whether it’s being late for an appointment, feeling stressed, etcetera. Sociopaths oddly enough, don’t feel those feelings of stress. They just.. don’t feel anything at all.

7. People who have known sociopaths have said numerous times that there is often something very attractive about them, be it physically or charismatically, and it has psychiatrists confused. People do tend to trust and follow better looking people more than they do ugly people, ….Dexter? Bundy??

8. Males are 10x more likely to be psychopaths than females. Interesting, no?

9. Psychopaths are really intelligent people. They can manipulate just about anybody and actually take pleasure in knowing they’re smarter than everyone around them.

Love Letter To My Children

Anyone who knows me knows that the true loves of my life are my boys so this may come as no surprise that I’m once again writing about them. All this time I have loved them unconditionally. But I didn’t realize until just now that they have loved me the same way, without judgment, without conditions, boundless, complete acceptance.

Recently a close friend quoted from one of my favorite childhood books, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams. “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse, “it’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long long time not just to play with but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.” “Does it hurt,” asked the rabbit. “Sometimes. …[but] when you are real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once? Or bit by bit?” ‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

My children have helped me become real.

Love Letter To My Children

Anyone who knows me knows that the true loves of my life are my boys so this may come as no surprise that I’m once again writing about them. All this time I have loved them unconditionally. But I didn’t realize until just now that they have loved me the same way, without judgment, without conditions, boundless, complete acceptance.

Recently a close friend quoted from one of my favorite childhood books, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams. “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse, “it’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long long time not just to play with but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.” “Does it hurt,” asked the rabbit. “Sometimes. …[but] when you are real you don’t mind being hurt.”  “Does it happen all at once? Or bit by bit?” ‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

My children have helped me become real.