Part 1
DRAMATIS NON GRATA:
Zippy Zamazda (ZZ)
Prosecutor
Judge William Bill Publowsky, also referred to as The Dishonorable/Your Dishonor (Judge)
Defense Counsel Welsh Losser (Defense Counsel)
People filling the court
Prosecutor: Zamazda, is this a photograph of you in a relatively widely distributed English-language monthly or bimonthly Ukrainian news magazine, which is some kind of relatively new joint project between a major international English-language news publication and an embattled Ukrainian-language weekly (shows him the picture).
Defense Counsel: Objection, Your Dishonor! Relevance?!
Judge: Overruled. As you probably don’t know, Defense Counsel Losser, which doesn’t surprise me, it has long been accepted custom in these parts that any witness identify himself using a photographic image if requested to do so. Answer the question, witness!
ZZ: Ah, yes, yes it is.
The lights suddenly go out and an enlarged version of the photograph is thrown onto a screen. The courtroom is seized with an outburst of laughter. Zamazda, who is short, fat, and ugly, is pictured in an unbuttoned navy blue sport jacket (unbuttoned due to a protruding stomach, which the pathetic, drab and outdated paisley tie does much too accentuate and little to conceal) and beige khakis (altogether invariably a look for tall, slim males who clearly work to keep themselves in shape) in a desperate attempt to capture the casual aristocratic look of wealthy yacht-sailing Britons, Continental European eccentrics and the rich scions of Upper Manhattan. But what makes the public in the courtroom accidently release a collective pig grunt, forcing spit up through their noses (hands clasped over mouths to stay the uncontrolled convulsions), is Zamazda’s dark fedora hat, donned, apparently, to impart that esoteric touch, or air of mysterious dash, the kind that actors playing detectives, tough guys, and newsmen used to wear in Hollywood movies back in the 1930s through 1950s, as was the style; for example, Spencer Tracy; and that would-be writers, like Welsh Losser, have taken to in overstrained attempts to appear artistic, a la Truman Capote. Except Zamazda looks neither esoteric, nor mysteriously dashing, nor artistic, but like a degenerate version of John Belushi from the 1980 comedy “The Blues Brothers”.
Prosecutor: And could you explain to the court what the idea, or concept, if you will, was behind the hat when you had this photo taken?
ZZ: Ah, well you see, the basic idea was to create a sort of two-dimensional commodity PR image of myself that people would recognize and associate with me over time, which I’d then be able to project into a larger media persona and then grow that into a very real public presence as a Ukraine expert and writer – perhaps cloaked in a fictional film-noir-like mist of coming out of some other place and time. I mean, all of this is fair territory. I’m not doing anything wrong, unethical, or morally reprehensible using today’s common tools of somewhat manipulative cheap, fast, and disposable consumerist self-promotion. Well, and also, my wife says that in the hat I look especially handsome.
Wild, uproarious laughter of truly frightening dimensions possesses the entire courtroom for something like 47 minutes. Finally, desperately trying to roll himself up from the floor, to which he had fallen from his bench, Judge Publowsky’s hand blindly hunts for the gavel on his podium. Having reached it, he bangs it furiously, crying through unsuppressed hilarity:
Order! Order, order in my court, I say – order, order, order!!!
And then, there was order.
Prosecutor: (still wiping tears from his eyes) Um, okay, now, Zamazda, and so this little commentary article attached to the photo, about why you can’t put your faith in today’s supposedly democratic politicians in Ukraine – what possessed you to write it?
Defense Counsel: Objection, Your Dishonor! What’s all this leading to?!
Judge: Hopefully, my lunch. Ah-ha-ha-haaaaa!!! You may proceed, Counsel.
Prosecutor: Thanks, Bill!
Judge: Yeah, don’t mention it.
Prosecutor: Answer the question, Zamazda.
ZZ: Well, I mostly wanted to show that these politicians, who are supposedly for the people and against the oppressive ruling regime, are just a bunch of two-faced, backstabbing hypocrites.
Prosecutor: Indeed! And toward that point, in your commentary, you went so far as to write, and I quote: “I know that they are vacant spirits obsessed with little more than gaining a toehold center stage,” adding that, “many of them had sold their honor some time ago when they committed their first criminal act of stealing, in the process losing any semblance of morals that could guide them through principled, hard-fought, and vigorously defended positions, even at the risk of losing their seats or sacrificing their political careers in the popular vote come election time.”
ZZ: Ah-ah-ah-ah…
Prosecutor: Ah-ah-ah what?
Defense Counsel: Objection, Your Dishonor, the Prosecution is badgering the witness!
Judge: Well, that sure as hell beats the witness badgering the Prosecution – haaa!!!
Continued in Part 2
Filed by Jack Step, March 14, 2013