Interview With The Juror

The Schloss-Blog, or should I say, Schloss-Blogger, a career journalist, journalism educator and native New Yorker took advantage of his New York roots and managed to land this one-on-one, so let's get right to it...

THE INTERVIEW WITH THE JUROR

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SCHLOSS-BLOG: So, you're coming off of perhaps one of the most high-profile criminal trials in history, how are you feeling about it all?

JUROR: I know you're expecting me to say, "relieved," but really, more like honored ... honored to have served on a jury of such significance and to have rendered the verdict that will be among the best-remembered ever. We shoved it up his ass, didn't we?

SCHLOSS-BLOG: What was it like in that Jury Room? You guys, OK, people, really only met for a few hours.

JUROR: It was never intense nor heated. One juror was leaning toward "not guilty," but that juror came around after we had that session where the judge explained to us with clarity the significance and direction of David Pecker's testimony. Speaking of peckers, that guy is one.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: Pecker? Or Trump?

JUROR: Yes.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: You didn't like Pecker? Or Trump?

JUROR: Pecker is a schmuck. I mean, literally. That catch-and-kill stuff is so unethical, but that's how he sells newspapers, I suppose. What a way to make a living, burying stories about stars who do distasteful stuff, and on screen too. And all the untruthful testimony.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: You mean Stormy Daniels?

JUROR: No, Robert Costello. 

SCHLOSS-BLOG: So you guys weren't impressed with the sexual liaison st ory about Trump and Stormy Daniels?

JUROR: What was there to be impressed about? Trump's a dick who was cheating on his wife, who was nursing their newborn son while he was chasing a porn star in Lake Tahone and a Playboy Bunny anywhere else in the country he could get his slimy hands on her.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: What else had the jury leaning toward conviction?

JUROR: Trump did not impress us, regularly falling asleep at the defense table while we were all scrambling to pay attention, take notes and fantasize about Storny Daniels.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: You mean, the guys?

JUROR: No, I mean everyone. Everyone in the courthouse only noticed her from the neck down. What a rack. In the Jury Room, we were all talking over lunch about seeing one of her films or going to see one of her exotic-dancing performances. If we'd have been sequestered, we'd have asked for some of her films. Some of the jurors were pulling them up on demand at home.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: How do you know that?

JUROR: What do you think we talked about in the Jury Room? The guys, especially, were drooling over her. Those asshole Republican guys who showed up to support Trump, all dressed like him, they were drooling over her too.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: So they had no impact on the jury's decision-making process?

JUROR: Sure they did. WTF were they doing here instead of being in D.C., running the country? Besides, those guys thought we, the jury, should be tried and hung, no matter our verdict. Screw them.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: So, what are you going to do next? Autobiography? Memoir about the Trial of the Century? You could make a lot of money.

JUROR: And risk getting my house burned down and my family killed by the Trumpers.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: So, do it anonymously and make an arrangement with the publisher for royalty payments to a "John Doe."

JUROR: Nah, besides, who's going to believe a made-up story about a conversation with a juror from the Trump Hush-Money Trial?

SCHLOSS-BLOG: Yeah, you've got a point.

JUROR: Good luck, though.

SCHLOSS-BLOG: Keep your head down.

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Quick takes:

• It's the 80th anniversary of D-Day. God bless those soldiers.
• Mexico has its first female president. And she's Jewish.
• While you were reading this, Caitlin Clark took another Flagrant 1 foul.
• While you were reading this, another Major League Baseball player got suspended for gambling.
• While you were reading this, another major rock star's concert tour was canceled.

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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Stephanie Clifford.

More Sunday Night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.