Taking a small break from eviscerating celebritards, supporting Ben Affleck and getting inside the mind of Scientology abductee wives of The Cruiser, I wanted to highlight a website and cause that’s really important to me and mine.

Help Support Reggie!I work with a theater company in Santa Monica called the Ruskin Group. They have been supporting and producing my work for more than two years now. They are a truly awesome group of actors, directors and teachers, and I am proud to call many of them my friends. Michael Laurie, one such friend, is currently embroiled in crisis so heartbreaking it puts most dramas to shame. Michael’s adopted son Reggie was recently incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong color skin. He is being charged with attempted murder, armed robbery and discharging a firearm. All of the charges include gang enhancements, which means even though Reggie isn’t in a gang and has no history of gang involvement the penalty in the state of California would equate to three life terms if convicted of all three charges. If this sounds eerily familiar to the Denzel Washington movie The Hurricane, you wouldn’t be too far enough.

And that’s where I, and hopefully you, come in. Reggie needs us to be his Lesra.

Michael has hired a top flight criminal attorney and is hoping to launch a full-scale investigation to help exonerate his son. But those sorts of investigations cost money. This isn’t TV land where Veronica Mars or Angel would agree to take the case for free because it parallels their internal struggle of the week. In the real world the only thing PI’s have a struggle with is getting paid. And Reggie doesn’t get any commercial breaks.

SupportReggie.com is a website that’s been created to help raise money for the case. The goal is to have 1,000 people donate just $10 each to amass the resources needed to free Reggie. Ten dollars is nothing, people. You spend that much on bad opening weekend trips to the movies (Fred Claus doesn’t look that good, anyway). So please take a moment to click to the site, read what it has to say, and if you can, donate. If you’ve been reading my site for any length of time, chances are I’ve made you laugh a few times. That’s my free gift to you. And I will continue to give you that gift. You can repay me by giving Reggie some time and consideration.

My writing is only as good as my teachers. Michael Laurie has been a tremendous influence on my writing career, so part of the quality of writing on this website is because of him. So TheJay.com is proud to support Michael and Reggie in their time of need, and will do whatever it can to help. We may not be able to get Lindsay, Paris and Britney to stop acting like idiots, but maybe we can do this one thing. Maybe we can do this one good thing.

If this were a movie, now would be the part where the camera pulls back, the music swells and you get inspired to DO SOMETHING GOOD. Clear eyes, full hearts, CAN’T LOSE!

Support Reggie!

UPDATE - 11/15/07: Because of the groundswell of support for Reggie, Michael has been able to write a $3,000 check to the investigaters, and the investigation has begun in earnest. With any luck, this will all be resolved by the holidays.