Courtney Love, Madonna, CivPro, judges. I rewatched the Courtney Love on Letterman performance and am more convinced than before that she was acting. For one thing, she seemed to be performing. In fact, she seemed to be following the script of the famous Madonna Letterman appearance, which was also, obviously, an act, even though people enjoyed believing Madonna was out of control (a really ridiculous idea). Another reason I'm sure Love was acting is that she's promoting a new album and needs the press: she went out afterwards and engaged in various hijinks. She even got arrested, though it doesn't seem that she did anything to deserve it. I don't know how she gets the police to participate in her stunts, but they did. I liked this info about an earlier run in with the law:

[A]fter her 1995 arrest on charges that she punched several fans at an Orlando concert, the judge dismissed the case, ruling that they had been exposed to no more violence than might be reasonably expected at a rock 'n' roll show.

Hmmm ... I have an old civpro exam about rock show violence. Premised on a tort claim, though, not criminal law. Based on the whole stage diving phenomenon and the extent of negligence by the band and the club and some people at the club. How was that civil procedure? You make everyone from different places with different claims against different parties, and there are jurisdiction and joinder issues galore.

Oh, you know, when I saw Love years ago, she dove into the audience and then, afterwards, accused a guy of sexually assaulting her (touching her in the wrong place when she was crowd surfing and therefore had to be touched a lot). She had the guy dragged up on stage, where she proceeded to yell at him. Let's hope that was all staged too.

Love seems to do well with judges. She had a good line about them on Letterman: "Judges are like rock stars." (I'll have to get the whole quote later. It has something to do with being able to do whatever you want and/or running your own show.) I think the fact that she does well with them is one more indication that her public persona is an act. She doesn't act like that in court.

UPDATE: Here's the judge quote: "The thing about judges that's cool is they're a lot like rock stars. They just get their own damn way." She quotes her judge as saying "I will not have a witch hunt in my state," which she then ties to the Martha Stewart case. She appeals to the audience to side with Martha: "Is that fair? Raise your hand if you think that's fair." A second later she's leaping up, yelling "You are sexist!"