quote of the day (May 22, 2008)

Sometimes we in the quoting business get lucky, and end up with great quotes popping up and fitting right in with our current theme. So, to go with the rest of our week's work, we have quotes from the trial of R. Kelly. There's even a reference to an indisputably bad movie. And an indisputably bad singer. Can it get any better?

(These can be found at Slate Magazine in a larger article called, "Dispatches from the R. Kelly Trial.")

"If the defense is to be believed, Kelly is looking at someone other than himself [on the sex tape showing in the courtroom]. In the defense's opening statement, Sam Adam Jr. proclaims, "Robert Kelly is not on that tape." I predict that in the decades to come, law schools will teach this as the "Shaggy defense." You allege that I was caught on camera, butt naked, banging on the log cabin floor? It wasn't me." --The article's author, Josh Levin, dissects the defense strategy

"[Defense lawyer] Adam Jr. asks whether [prosecution witness] Jamison has seen a "Waymon Brothers" movie called Little Man. "They took the head of Marlon Waymons and put it on a midget, and it looked real, didn't it?" Adam Jr. exclaims, emphasizing the last two words for maximum "gotcha" effect. Jamison looks at him like he's a lunatic or, at least, an astoundingly bad film critic. "Not reeeally," she says, her voice lilting in disbelief as the courtroom breaks up. Congratulations to the Waymon Brothers: This is the first time Little Man has generated laughter."
--Levin again, on another defense strategy. Maybe next Adam Jr will trot out the Chewbacca defense..."if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!"

I might be in Little Man, but at least I'm not in R. Kelly's tape!