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Phil Spector Guilty or Innocent?

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The Jehovah Test – God comes to you and forces you to answer a question that he of course knows the answer to.  If you are wrong he takes your life and sends you to hell forever

This is way too easy for a Jehovah Test.  Jehovah Tests should be hard. They should make you think, but since the verdict is coming soon and people in LA are insane, here’s my take.

Unbelievably Guilty!!!

Policeman after a gun toting Phil Spector wouldn’t let Michelle Phillips leave his mansion:  Mr. Spector, we have warned you about this over and over again.

Usually when a celebrity is accused of a crime, for some reason the first thing I think is that they couldn’t have done it. When I heard about Phil Spector’s night with Lana Clarkson, I immediately thought, well he finally did it. I’m sure he’s no more guilty than Robert Blake or O.J. Simpson, but you have to feel sorry for a defense lawyer who has to deal with a client who has been photographed with more guns than all the Compton rappers combined. John Lennon, The Ramones, Leonard Cohen, who didn’t Phil Spector point a gun at over the last forty years?

Frankly, though, what honest defense lawyer could present this case with a straight face. That giant Einstein toupee that he wore to court should have been enough to convince anyone that the guy isn’t mentally well. I don’t care how many celebrities Los Angeles lets get away with murder, mental illness and guns don’t go together. It had to be the least surprising murder of all time. I’m not sure what lawyers are allowed to tell a jury, but there has to be at least a hundred different times that the lonely Spector invited someone over to his mansion and pulled a gun on them when after six or seven hours they begged to leave.

I always laugh when I think of Ron Silver as Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune proclaiming that he would never take a case unless it had an important legal impact. Obviously, in the Simpson case the important legal impact was getting on television and making some extra cash. At one point Leslie Abramson the only person alive who finds the Menendez brother cuddly, said she had to help out Spector because he was “an idol and the definition of cool.” If only poor Charlie Manson were a little more talented, he might have gotten better legal representation.

My guess is that any number of filmmakers could take on Spector’s life and the end results would run the gamut from Horse Feathers all the way to Raging Bull, perhaps all in the same film. Hell, one second Phil’s making Johnny Ramone play the opening chord to Rock and Roll High School 1100 times and the next he’s threatening to end Dee Dee. Should we get Mel Brooks or Martin Scorcese?

Nevertheless, Phil worshiped Lenny Bruce took care of him financially in the last stages of his life, tried to keep the photographs of his death scene out of the press, and paid for his funeral. He helped out Alan Freed when he was down on his luck. Many times he was about as personable as a man could ever be. What would art be without mental instability?