by Andrew Wantuck
Sebastian Maniscalco has appeared on “Comedy Central,” Vince Vaughan’s “Wild West Comedy Tour,” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” We spoke about his thoughts on jury duty the moment after he got dismissed in the afternoon.
Andrew: How is our United States judicial system looking currently?
Sebastian: They say it’s a jury of your peers, but it looks as though these people that get called in for jury duty are one step away from being a defendant.
Andrew: [laughs] Are you still in the waiting room or have you actually been assigned to a case?
Sebastian: If I was assigned I would talk about it anyway. I was in the holding area and what they do is call 45 people at a time to go off and be in a panel and I wasn’t called for one of those, so I have served my time for the year.
Andrew: Did you strike up any interesting conversations with your neighbors while you were there?
Sebastian: First of all, I don’t talk to nobody while I’m there. The first issue was with a guy that was text messaging, but he didn’t turn off the sound on his keypad. So every time he pressed a button it would make a noise. So I was thinking maybe he was doing one text or something and it would be over. Well, apparently he was texting every person in his entire contact list…
Andrew: [laughs]
Sebastian: So for about 10 minutes this was going on and I could tell people around him were getting upset, “come on are you serious,” but nobody was going to say anything. So I decided I was going to have to be the spokesperson here. So I told him, “hey guy… you want to put the keypad on mute?” He then had the nerve to look at me like I was the bad guy. He was stunned. So I nipped that in the bud at 7:27 in the morning.
Andrew: [laughs]
Sebastian: Then the guy to the right of me asked how to put his juror badge in the laminate in broken English. In my head I’m like “you’re the one that’s going to determine if somebody goes to prison or not? You can’t figure out how to get the badge in the plastic.”
Andrew: [laughs]
Sebastian: I actually felt bad for anybody on trial today.
Sebastian headlines The Comedy & Magic Club on Friday and Saturday. Reservations Required. (310) 372-1193 or comedyandmagicclub.com. ER
