The Spectacle of the Spector Trial

I cannot believe they cannot come to a decision! I am shocked; stunned; pissed off! Have we really gotten so celebrity obsessed that we can no longer see the forest for the trees when we are standing right there, in the middle of the damn woods? I can understand getting awestruck if you meet a famous person on the street or something. I can even understand feeling some sense of pity for the Britneys and LiLo’s out there, but come on already! Just because a person is called a celebrity does not mean that we should just shut down our minds and try to excuse their actions.

No, I am not talking about O.J. today. I am quite possibly the only person not talking about O.J. today, but I am not. Screw the Juice! I personally think he was set up this time, but screw him anyway. No, I am talking about Phil Spector and Lana Clarkson.

“Who?”

Exactly! You probably could not even tell me which one of those two people are on trial right now and for what?

Phil Spector is a record producer who made his fame in the 60’s by creating a recording process he called “the Wall of Sound.” Basically, as I understand it, he would not place microphones to record individual instruments, but rather would place them to record the room and the echoes of the group playing as a whole. This would have each instrument “bleed” into the mikes of the others and create a “wall of sound” where each instrument’s tones are blended into the entire sound. It was rather unique and he created many of those “one hit wonders” of the era.

Lana Clarkson was a 40 year old actress. Her claim to fame was appearing in the “Barbarian Queen” films of the 80’s. She was also found dead in Phil Spector’s house in 2003 from what is either a suicide or a murder. No one is really sure and that is what the trial is all about: Phil Spector is accused of murdering Lana Clarkson. The jury is currently hung.

Here are a few facts that should help illustrate my confusion on what should have been an open and shut case.

1. Lana Clarkson met Phil Spector for the first time the night she died.
2. Her body was found in his house
3. She was shot with his gun
4. She was shot in the face, the mouth to be exact
5. At least five women testified that Spector had drawn guns on them when they tried to leave his house in the 70’s
6. Spector’s driver testified that after the shooting Spector said to him “I think I just killed someone.”
7. Clarkson’s blood was found on a towel in Spector’s upstairs bathroom
8. Clarkson’s body was found seated, in the foyer, with her purse on her shoulder
9. She just started working at the House of Blues
10. She went shoe shopping the day before and bought seven pairs of shoes for work


Spector’s defense team is claiming that Clarkson was a depressed out of work actress who went home with him and shot herself. That makes no sense to me.

1. Women do not usually shoot themselves as a way of suicide and certainly not in their face.
2. Most people do not go to a stranger’s house to kill themselves and certainly do not use a weapon they could not possibly have known was there.
3. People shot downstairs do not usually have their blood appear in an upstairs bathroom.
4. One would assume a person committing suicide would not place their purse on their right shoulder and enter the foyer of a house, then sit down and blow their brains out.

The jury is stuck right now in a 7-5 split. It is unknown if it is seven who believe he did it or seven caught up in celebrity madness, but there is little doubt he did it. I followed the trial somewhat closely. Lana Clarkson was one of my first crushes and Phil Spector is a legend in Rock and Roll. It is not often there are celebrities on both sides of a case either. I just cannot believe yet another person in Hollywood is going to get away with murder. I am talking to you O.J. and you Robert Blake!