Weekend Roundup - Karma Edition

There's strange happenin's out there. And I don't think it's 'cause Halloween just passed.

• Santana - I just learned that Deborah Santana has filed for divorce from her genius musician husband Carlos. And it bums me out. I don't know the Santanas. I'd love to have substituted either one of them for some of the numbnut celebrities I've met and interviewed. Everything I've ever read about the two of them suggested that in spite of rough childhoods and young adulthoods they were decent people. Still may be. But they have been married for 34 years. Anything that lasts that long had to have some good attached to it. So I feel for them. Who knows? Maybe they'll work it out.
• Getting pantsed - In case you hadn't heard, the administrative judge in Washington D.C. who tried to take his dry cleaners to the cleaners, 'cause the dry cleaners occasionally completed a job late - later than their one-hour guarantee - and once lost the pants to the judge's new suit for about a week, has been canned. The district board that oversees his office decided not to grant Judge Roy Pearson a 10-year extension on his job. Instead they told him to clean out his office and scram. I don't like dry cleaners either, as a rule. Inevitably, whenever I take my best shirts to them - and I have some pretty cool shirts, a couple of them are one-of-a-kind creations, seriously - I get my shirts back with broken or missing buttons. But I don't think I'd ever sue my cleaners for $50 million or $60 million. Pearson didn't belong on the bench anyway. Now he can write a book, chronicling how Karma bit him in the ass and left a bruise.
• To whom much is given... - Some of you aren't religious. And that's OK. But surely you don't have an argument with the scripture that says "To whom much is given, much is required." As with Roy "The Pants" Pearson, it's a Karma thing. If life blesses you, you should bless life by trying to be a decent person and, maybe more importantly, trying to be decent toward other people, and maybe even more importantly, demonstrating to the rest of the world that you fully grasp how fortunate you are and that you really do appreciate how blessed you are. All that being said, my "faith" wavers when I read things like this. Apparently as part of disclosures in her ongoing custody battle with her ex-private dancer, Britney Spears turned over her finance and income statements to the court. Turns out she brings in about $730,000 a month in income. Of that she spends about $49,000 on two mortgage payments, more than $4,700 eating out - and it's mostly junk food, $16,000 for clothes, $100,000 or so on entertainment, gifts, and vacations, and, drum roll please, $500 on charity. To be fair, her pant-load of an ex-husband gets $35,000 a month of Britney's money, $15,000 for child support and $20,000 for spousal support. He spends over $13,000 a month on rent and private security, $2,000 for clothes, $5,000 for entertainment, gifts, and vacation, and $1,500 eating out. No mention of charitable spending. Are you with me? Does your faith get shaky too, when you read about mouth breathers making millions?
• Dog the Bounty Hunter - What is there to say? If you hadn't heard, Duane "Dog" Chapman, the bounty hunter with the golden pomadour-topped mullet, was captured on tape earlier this week strongly "encouraging" one of his sons to break up with his black girlfriend, because he feared the rest of the Chapman family would get caught using the N-word around her. Of course, Dog didn't say N-word. He said N-word. And he said it a lot on the tape. He said he wasn't going to lose everything he'd worked for over 30 years because some N-word heard him say N-word and recorded it and turned it over to the tabloids. A&E Network has suspended production of the show Dog the Bounty Hunter. Chapman has issued a statement apologizing and insisting that his problem wasn't with his son's girlfriend's race, but rather with her character. OK. So why didn't he tell his son "I don't want you dating this shady (or bad, or dangerous, or crooked, etc.) young woman?" If this was about her character and not her appearance, why use that word to describe her? There are three ironies here: During the taped conversation, Chapman refers to the N-word as "a racial slur"...and then he continues to use it a few more times; Chapman's pastor/spiritual advisor is black; and in continuation of this karma-themed day, it seems that Chapman's son is the one who recorded the conversation between father and son and then sold the tape to the tabloid. Ouch! That's gotta bite...you know, like teeth marks, 'cause dogs bite? Sorry, weak joke.
• Finally, a useful piece of "fabric technology" - Two Ohio boys have created wedgie-proof undies. And I'm predicting these things are gonna sell like hot cakes. When I was in first and second grade I'd have given them a little business. Laugh if you want. But they're about to be loaded. And when one of them runs for president in 30 years, I'll vote for him.

Two Things

Busy, busy, busy morning folks. But if you'd like a little reading material, here is the column I wrote for today's Style section on how to "properly" buy clothes for your dad for Father's Day.

Also, I think we can agree the D.C. pants judge has issues. If you hadn't heard, he broke down crying in the courtroom yesterday when discussing the pants for which he has sued his old dry cleaners for $54 million. Now, don't get me wrong. This guy is a tool. This dry cleaning couple run a mom 'n pop operation. They sound like nice old people. They mean well, etc. Occasionally the misplace or outright lose items, but what dry cleaners doesn't from time to time. Easy for me to say, of course, because they haven't lost my stuff.

So to rehash, Judge Pearson originally sued the cleaners for around $65 million, because they lost the pants to his new suit when he needed them most - he planned to wear that suit to a new job. He distrusted them so after that incident even though they found the pants a week later - that he determined, based on an obscure D.C. law, that he was entitled to millions for the inconvenience, because he would have to find a new dry cleaners, and so on and so forth.

He has since amended his suit for the "lower" amount and changed its focus to alleged fraud on the part of the dry cleaners for posting signs in their windows that said "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." Clearly Judge Pearson was not satisfied. Nor did he get his pants back the same day.

However, while I won't defend Judge Pearson for his outrageous lawsuit, one thing bothers me about the dry cleaner's defense. At a news conference yesterday, one of their attorneys, Chris Manning, said this: "This case is very simple. It's about one sign and the plaintiff's outlandish interpretation."

There was a time in this country where "satisfaction guaranteed" was a badge of honor for the small business person who knew his product or service was great. It was a bragging point. Now, according to this attorney, taking that sign and the "same day service" sign literally is an "outlandish interpretation?"

Have our expectations for good service - or at least promised service - gotten so low?

This strikes me as one of those I-didn't-say-that moments. Remember when Charles Barkley wrote an autobiography a few years ago and had some controversial statement in there? When asked about it, he answered "I was misquoted." They were his words! How do you misquote yourself?

Again, Judge Pearson is a jerk for abusing the system and suing these poor folks over pants that they found (plus they offered to give him a few grand for the hassle). But the cleaners can't be let off the hook either for making shallow promises. Ironically, they've since removed the signs.