Friday Feature -- Hollywood: Where Hot Comes to Die

It's Friday the 13th. Do you believe that it is an unlucky day?


I drove buses for 3 years in college and had more safety awards than any other driver - never got into an accident. I did have two "half-accidents" though - dinged a mirror on a pole once, and caught the side of the back tire against the corner of a retaining wall while going around a really tight turn another time. They each happened on a Friday that happened to be the 13th day of the month.

So, for a while I was superstitious about Friday the 13th, started thinking I should be extra careful on those days.

Then I got over it.

Today's featured blogger is Suzy Soro over at Hollywood: Where HOT Comes To Die. I enjoy her offbeat humor and whacky topics. I picked her for today because she currently is in 13th place for "Best Humor Blog" in the Bloggers Choice Awards.

Go check out her blog and, if you like what you see, head over to Blogger's Choice and vote for her!

Because Nothing Says Class Like a Plaid Cadillac

After I left the firm, I worked for a long while at the court. My job was to read the parties' papers, review the record, do legal research, and draft decisions for the judges.

One of the cases I worked on involved a criminal defendant who had been arrested and charged with various crimes related to the fact that he was a pimp. Not only was he a pimp, but he was pimping 14 year old girls. So the crimes he was charged with included things like "sexual exploitation of a minor" and "child abuse" and "kidnapping." He was a pretty awful guy.

His defense? The usual SODDI defense (pronounced like "soddy" and stands for "Some Other Dude Did It"), pled by criminals who have no other defense.

One of his "ho's," a young teen, testified that he was her pimp. She testified that he convinced her to try whoring as a way to make some money, then kept her locked in an apartment (literally locked in, with a padlock on the outside of the door) and would not let her leave except when he wanted her to work. Then, he would drive her to Van Buren street and drop her off. He had threatened that if she tried to leave, he would kill her father. He gave her rides, she said, in his plaid Cadillac.

What? I thought.

I re-read it. Yes, I read it correctly. His plaid Cadillac.

Wonder what that looks like? I thought.

Well, I was in luck. Almost immediately after that, the prosecutor had the witness identify a photo of the defendant with his plaid Cadillac and had it admitted into evidence as Exhibit A. So of course I immediately went to the box containing all the trial records and rummaged around until I found Exhibit A.

Sure enough, Exhibit A was a photo* of a huge, late 1980's model blue, beige, and cream colored plaid Cadillac, with defendant standing in front of it wearing a blue pimp hat (yes, with a feather), a zoot suit, lots of bling, and blue suede shoes, and throwing gang signs and scowling (to look "tough," I suppose).

No lie. The outfit literally screamed "I am a pimp." (I'm not sure exactly what the car was trying to say....).

So much for his SODDI defense. I'm quite sure there is no other plaid Cadillac in all of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Although apparently last year, the U.S. Marshals seized this equally hideous pink and purple plaid limo. There's no photo of a pimp in this one, though, so I'm not all that impressed!

----------

* I sure wish I had kept a color copy of that photo. You guys would have enjoyed it!

Happy Veterans Day

I don't always agree with the wars our Presidents start or enter. I don't always agree with the military's policies dealing with gay persons and women. I don't always think we should spend as much money as we do funding various military projects and wars.

Sometimes, our military men and women engage in inappropriate conduct. They are human, and humans sometimes do stupid things.

Nevertheless, I want to offer a heart-felt thank you to all of my readers (and to all Americans, really) who have served or are serving in the military.

It's a very tough job, and someone has to do it, and I am so very glad you all volunteered so that I can stay home and live my life safely and uneventfully.... I sound selfish, I know. But I feel really lucky, and really grateful, to live in a country where enough people volunteer to serve, so that the rest of us are not forced to serve in the military if we don't want to.

And thank you also to those who were drafted and served in prior wars. You had no choice, but you did what you were required to do, and I am grateful for that, too.

I am also grateful to live in a country in which I am free to express my disagreement with some of the wars our military fights, with some of the military policies, with the bad things our troops sometimes do, and with spending so much of our budget on military concerns... and still recognize that the men and women who serve in our armed forces are devoting their time, sometimes even their lives, to a worthy cause, and that the vast majority of them are doing so honorably.

We need our armed forces. We need the dedicated men and women who serve in the military. And I am so glad you all are there for us. I am so glad, and so very grateful, that you chose to serve our country in the armed forces, so that I am free to choose not to.

My step-brother was in the Marines. My husband was in the Navy (before I met him). Neither of them ever had to go to war, for which I am eternally grateful. For those of you who have served overseas and/or in combat, an extra helping of gratitude. I can't even imagine how hard that must be.

My little guy is marching in Tempe's Veterans' Day parade today with his Scout Pack (he's in Cub Scouts). My daughter marched last year with her Junior Girl Scout troop.

I love a parade! And I love the opportunity to do something fun as a way to say "thank you."

Happy Veterans' Day to you all. And thank you to the men and women who have chosen to serve in our armed forces.

Yet Another Totally Awkward Tuesday

(Photo used with permission of freebackgrounds.com)

I didn't get a lot of participation in the Totally Awkward Tuesday event last week, but I'm going to try again this week. Perhaps last week everyone already had blog posts written. Now that people know they should write about an awkward moment for Tuesdays, perhaps they've had time to write their stories and will participate this week.

Or maybe there just aren't that many people interested in playing along, in which case this will likely be the last week I do this.

Here are the rules:

1. First, write a blog post about an awkward or embarassing moment that you either participated in or witnessed. Include a link to this blog post in your blog post.

2. Use the MckLinky widget (new widget this week) at the bottom of this post to link to your blog post from mine. Leave me a comment, too, and include the URL for your blog post in the comment. That way, if for some reason MckLinky doesn't work properly (I'm new at this), at least everyone will be able to find your post through the comments.

3. Come back later and read everyone else's awkward and embarassing stories.

4. Laugh a lot!

To start things off, here is my awkward story for the week:

This happened back when I was a student bus driver, in college. Click this link for a prior story about how this was my favorite job ever.

I had signed up to drive a charter bus from the University to Washington D.C. so a student group could attend a play. My Dad lived in Northern Virginia at the time.

My instructions were to drop off the students in front of the theatre, then find somewhere to park nearby and wait for 3 hours, and then drive back to pick them up.

I thought it would be more fun to pay a surprise visit to my Dad.

So I dropped off the students and headed out of D.C. to my Dad's house in Northern Virginia. I timed the trip so I'd know how long I needed for the return trip, so I wouldn't be late.

I pulled the bus into my Dad's driveway and walked in the front door.

My Dad and step-mom were surprised (no, that's not the awkward part), amazed at the giant bus filling up their very long driveway, and happy to see me.

We visited for about an hour and a half, and then I figured I'd better drive back to D.C., allowing a little extra time in case I made a wrong turn or got a little lost in downtown D.C. This was in the 1980's, well before cell phones and GPS navigation systems were standard issue, so I had to rely on my printed map (remember those?) to find my way, and if I got lost, there would be no way to call anyone for directions.

I pulled onto the freeway near my Dad's house, and about a mile or two later, the bus engine sputtered and stalled. I coasted to the shoulder of the freeway and stopped the bus. It would not re-start. I tried again. And again. And again. Nothing. It had plenty of gas. I tried again. Nothing.

Then I started thinking, "Holy shit, I am 20 miles from where I'm supposed to be and I have 40 minutes to get there, and I'm not supposed to be here, and I can't even call anyone for help and what the hell am I going to do?!?" To say I panicked a bit would be putting it mildly.

I looked around. No one was stopping to help. Everyone assumes bus drivers are in radio contact with their dispatchers, but those two-way radios only had about a 60 mile radius in which they worked. There was no way to radio the supervisor when I was hundreds of miles from the office.

Lucky for me, there was a small gap in the huge wall that lined both sides of the freeway. I don't know whether they just hadn't built the wall there yet, or whether some angel tore it down for me, just for that night. I've looked for that gap in the freeway wall many times since then and never found it. But anyway, there was a gap in the wall that was maybe 100 yards long, and I could see several backyard fences with houses on the other side. I was lucky they were fences and not the ever-present 10 foot high block walls that they build here in Phoenix.

So I scrambled up the wooded hill and climbed the easiest-looking fence with no dog in the yard, intending to walk around to the front door to knock. Instead, just as I jumped down into the yard, a man came out of the house through the sliding-glass back door and demanded to know what the heck I was doing in his back yard. He sounded pretty annoyed. He didn't appear psychotic. I could see a wife and kids inside. But I have to say, I was scared - would he assault me? Call the police and have me arrested for trespassing?

I told him my bus had broken down and asked if I could use his phone. He looked at me skeptically (I used to get that a lot: "You are a bus driver?!?" as if small-ish college kids could never drive buses) and then looked over the fence and saw the bus down the hill on the freeway shoulder. I guess he decided I was harmless and was telling the truth, because he said I was lucky the dog had been inside. And then he said I could use the phone.

But the awkwardness didn't end there, because I had to explain to my supervisor that the bus had broken down and where it was. And then had to confess I had violated the rules by going to visit my Dad in Northern Virginia, instead of hanging out near the theatre.

Once again, I was lucky. My supervisor was actually fairly sympathetic, although he withheld judgment about whether I'd be fired, saying if I made it back to the University with relatively happy customers, I'd have a better chance of keeping my job.

He told me a couple of things I could do to try to get the bus going. He suggested that I not turn the bus off again if I got it going.

He said if he did not hear from me again in the next twenty minutes, he'd assume I was ok (to save me the time of coming back to make a second phone call if the bus did, in fact, start), but that I should call him from the theatre to confirm I had picked up the students and if he hadn't heard from me in an hour, or if he heard from the charter group at any time complaining that the bus had not arrived, he would have to send a backup bus and then I'd really be in a heap of trouble.

Nothing like a little pressure, right?

I thanked the family profusely for letting me use their phone. The man let me out through the back door and watched me climb his fence and scramble back down the hill to my bus.

And again, I was lucky. The bus started when I tried the tips my supervisor had suggested. I drove downtown. I was flustered and made a wrong turn and, with all the one-way streets in downtown D.C., it was another 15 minutes before I found my way back to make the correct turn.

I was twenty minutes late picking up the students and was berated by the faculty chaperones. Apparently the play had ended a little earlier than they thought, so they had actually been waiting for more like half an hour. Fortunately, they had not yet called my boss to complain.

More awkwardness as I explained that I had had difficulty starting the bus and had made a wrong turn but that I thought the bus was ok for the drive back to the University and I did know how to find the freeway again to get home. More awkwardness as I explained I had to go inside to make a phone call before we could leave. They grumbled about the late bus for half the ride home, until I agreed to make an unscheduled stop for a late-night snack at a McDonald's. Then they all felt better and went to sleep.

Again, lucky me! No one ever complained about the late bus, and I did not, in fact, get fired, although I did have to buy my supervisor a few rounds of drinks at the next happy hour, to keep him from ratting me out to the Transportation Manager.

That was my tale of rampant awkwardness for today. Now tell us yours!

A Beautiful Day in Tempe

The weather yesterday was perfect. 80-something degrees and sunny in the early afternoon. Clear blue sky. Warm breeze.

My daughter was sleeping. She spent the night at her friend D's house Saturday night and then got up at the crack of dawn and went to the Phoenix Zoo for their annual Lymphoma walk-a-thon. D's aunt is a Lymphoma survivor, so D and her dad and brother walk every year in the fundraising event. Of course my daughter & D stayed up most of the night and got almost no sleep, so after the walk, my daughter came home and slept the rest of the day.

My husband was watching football. Normally I'd have joined him, but I was trying to get some work done.

But then my little guy made me the irresistable offer: Would I please set up the slip-n-slide for him? He wanted to have "water day." And this is exactly what I love about Arizona. You can have "water day" in November!

And so, although I really should have worked, I went outside with my little guy and set up the slip-n-slide. This slip-n-slide is a lot fanceir than the plain plastic mat that I remember from my own childhood. It sprays water in little tiny fountain-like arcs from tiny holes in a plastic tube that runs down the side of the plastic mat that you slide on, to keep it properly wet and slippery, and it has a water "cushion" at the end that also sprays water, making a little pool that you land in and providing a small soft barrier so you don't go barrelling out into the mud / grass and get all scraped up and dirty like we did when we were kids.

It's amazing how much fun kids can have with one toy.

He had a blast playing with the slip-n-slide. Slid down it. Walked up and down it. Drank water from the fountains. Splashed the water around. Got out a bunch of plastic balls in various sizes and splashed them, rolled them, and bounced them in the water. Walked around and bounced up and down on the little plastic tube and the water "cushion" at the end to make the fountain-like sprays of water ebb and flow and make cool designs. (Sort of reminded me of the fountain show at the Bellagio, but without the fancy lights and music).

Then he wanted to play with his water rocket, which he got as a birthday gift last year. So I dismantled the slip-n-slide and he helped me set up the rocket launcher. Here is a photo of it from last year (I was too busy enjoying the afternoon to take photos today). That is my little guy's back and his sister's arm in the photo:



The rocket launcher is cool. You attach the rocket launcher to the hose and turn on the water, and it sprays water in a huge stream strong enough to lift the plastic "rocket" and hold it up in the air until a breeze blows it off balance a bit, and then the rocket crashes to the ground. It also has an on-off and volume adjustment lever, so you can turn the water off while you set the rocket on the base, and then turn it on either gradually for a long flight, or suddenly for a huge burst of energy that sends the rocket flying fast and furious and unpredictably. Great fun!

(And get your minds out of the gutter. It's not all that phallic!!)

When he got bored with the rocket itself, he began putting various other objects on the rocket launcher to see how high and how far they would fly.

When he tired of the rocket launcher, he wanted to play with his squirt guns. I made him promise not to squirt me with them. He said ok. So I filled a couple of small squirt guns for him.

And then he drew designs in water on the patio with his little squirt guns. He drew a heart for me, and a robot alien for himself, among other things.

And then he got out the "Super Soaker 5000," and I filled it for him. And then I knew it was time for me to head inside and get back to work.

It's never a smart idea to tempt fate. Or six year olds.

The Existentialist

"Poppin' Knee" (see here, here, and here for the story of Poppin' Knee, if you haven't read it yet) was enough to make anyone want to leave the firm, but I stuck it out for nearly three years. It was a typical large law firm, with ridiculous billable hours requirements that meant I worked evenings most days and weekends quite often. I was there 50 to 60 hours in a "regular" week, more if we were busy.

I was in the bankruptcy litigation section. We represented trustees, debtors, and creditors in various cases. We did both Chapter 7 liquidations and Chapter 11 business reorganizations.

Being a young associate meant I mostly worked on various motions, responses to emergency motions filed by the other side (because no one else wanted to stay there all night to write them), and fee applications (the debtor's attorneys in reorganization cases must have their requests to get paid from the bankruptcy estate approved by the court), with occasional research projects or assignments to draft a single issue in an appellate brief thrown in for "fun."

I attended trials and depositions with other attorneys to "learn the ropes," and even got to ask a few questions at depositions and examine a couple of witnesses at trials (not the important ones, of course... the supervising attorneys did all of those).

I also handled, on my own, quite a few pro bono civil cases, and one pro bono criminal appeal to the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. ("Pro bono" is short for "pro bono publico," a latin phrase (lawyers are fond of latin phrases) meaning "for the good of the public," and are cases that the attorneys handle at no charge to the usually indigent client, usually to attempt to help clients with good "causes" or to fight injustice. The State Bar of Arizona asks that each attorney do at least 50 hours of "pro bono" work each year.)

I learned a lot about bankruptcy, about litigation, and about a few civil areas in which the firm liked to take pro bono cases such as guardianships, landlord-tenant disputes, and consumer fraud.

One of my favorite bankruptcy cases involved a client we'll call "C." It is one of my favorites in part because the client was so nice, and in part because of the following story. [FOOTNOTE 1]

The client, C, was a real estate guy. He bought, managed, and sold land and buildings - trailer parks, condominiums, business properties, etc. Some folks who had purchased condominiums in a project he had owned (I can't remember if he built them, or just bought them and then sold them) had sued for construction defects in the condos and had won a very large judgment against C in state court, which C couldn't pay outright. So C filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization case (in federal bankruptcy court) to try to figure out how to structure the debt, discharge it, and/or liquidate other assets to pay it.

One of the ways we sought to recover funds to pay the debt was by suing his former attorney ("FA"). You might ask, "Why?"

Well, here is what transpired in the "adversary proceeding" (trial against FA held in bankruptcy court).

The testimony established that C was an older fellow with lots of street smarts, but he was not an educated man. He relied on FA's advice in handling the state court case against him by the condominium purchasers.

Early in the state court trial, the court overruled many of FA's objections to the plaintiffs' evidence. (The objections were ridiculous and had been properly overruled). The state court also refused to allow FA to make arguments out of order. FA therefore believed the court was biased against him. FA therefore advised C to literally walk out of the trial, in the middle of the trial, and not come back. C followed that advice.

I am guessing that even those of you who are not attorneys know that this was a bad idea. Walking out does not stop a trial. Oh, no, to the contrary, it goes on without you. And by walking out, C forfeited the opportunity to present evidence, to cross-examine the plaintiffs' witnesses, to make oral arguments, or otherwise to present any sort of defense to the plaintiffs' claims. It also meant that the court would essentially enter a default judgment based only on the evidence presented by the plaintiffs. So of course the damages were huge - a much larger sum than would have been obtained if C had been properly represented at trial.

So, we helped C sue FA for attorney malpractice in the bankrupcty court adversary proceeding.

There is a saying in the law: "The attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client." FA had a fool for a client in this particular adversary proceeding.

By doing a completely incompetent job of representing himself, FA demonstrated to the bankruptcy court exactly why our malpractice action against him should succeed.

First, he was visibly nervous and unprepared. He seemed to have no clue about the proper court procedures.

Then, he called his only witness, a former summer law clerk at his firm, to testify for him. After a few preliminary questions, he asked her whether she thought he had done the right thing by advising C to walk out of the trial that summer.

She said "no" - leaving us to wonder why the heck he had called her to testify. (Did he think she would say yes? Did he fail to even ask her before the trial what she would say? Clearly incompetent....).

He bumbled around, presenting no effective evidence to show why he shouldn't be found liable for malpractice, and in fact presenting quite a bit of evidence that tended to support our malpractice claim.

But here is my favorite part:

Later, when it was our turn to present evidence, we moved to enter the transcripts from the state court trial to assist in proving the amount of damages C had suffered due to FA's malpractice.

The idea was to show the evidence that had been presented, the damage claim calculations that had been presented, and the amount of damages that had been awarded in the state court trial. Then, we would bring in our own experts in bankruptcy court to show the evidence FA should have presented (if he hadn't walked out of trial) to demonstrate that the construction had been fine, not defective, as well as a more accurate method of calculating damages in the event the court found there were construction defects. This would show that the damage amount would have been either zero, or at least much much lower, if FA had done a competent job. Then, we would get a judgment against FA for the difference between the actual judgment amount and the amount the judgment would have been if FA had done a competent job.

FA objected to the bankruptcy court looking at any of the state court transcripts after the time when he had advised C to walk out of the state court trial.

The Court was a little bewildered and asked why FA thought the transcripts were inadmissible.

FA responded, "Well, your honor, I wasn't there. I don't know that the transcripts show what really happened."

The Court said, "I am thinking these are public records and are relevant to the damage claim. Is there some reason you think they are not, or some reason you think the transcripts are not accurate?"

FA responded, "No, your honor. It's just that, I wasn't there. How can I know that really happened?"

* * * wtf? * * *

The judge's expression clearly said "wtf," too, as he overruled the objection.

We laughed for years about FA's "existential objection" and how that really ought to be added to the rules of evidence. ("If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? But what if the court reporter recorded the event and the sound?") We would joke about using the "existential objection" any time anyone presented unfavorable evidence: "Oh, but that's not admissible. We weren't there! How can we know that really happened?"

Needless to say, we won our malpractice action against FA.

Sadly, we had to get in line along with FA's other creditors and malpractice claimants when he, too, filed bankruptcy....


-------------

FOOTNOTE 1:
I have to tell the story with relatively few details because of attorney-client confidentiality issues. I believe it is ok to tell the story based on non-confidential items that I did not learn from the client, but learned by watching the trial and/or reading public records, so that is what I will do. I've also omitted details and/or changed minor details so that the client's identity is not readily apparent. I'll also add the disclaimer that I don't have a copy of the transcripts, so the quoted material is based on my memory of what transpired and may not be word-for-word accurate. However, the gist of it is completely true.

Poppin' Fresh? Not Exactly . . . (Part Three)

(Click here for Part Two, and here for Part One)

After leaving B the memo explaining that the case he wanted did not exist, but that I had found another case that might be helpful, I went back to my office and ate a small bag of M&M's with the sort of desperate sad attitude that one might envision a wrongly-convicted death row prisoner might have while eating his prison-quality filet mignon before going to the gas chamber, hoping against all reason for that last minute reprieve from the Supreme Court. I knew in my heart this was not going to go well.

And sure enough, about half an hour later, B came down to my office and yelled at me again:

“I didn’t TELL you to research other issues! And I DIDN'T TELL you to write a G-D- MEMO!! This other case is NO GOOD TO ME and all you did was WASTE YOUR TIME and the client’s MONEY!! I can’t BELIEVE you couldn’t just do what I asked and find a case that says ‘X’!!”

I resisted the urge to point out that I didn’t waste the client’s money, since he already had told me he planned to write off my time. Instead, I jumped right to the (sarcastic) point (because sarcasm is my forte) as follows:

“Well, B, I’m sorry. I brought you what I found. I guess I’m just not capable of doing what you asked. I can't bring you a Ninth Circuit Case that says “The Rule is X,” because it doesn’t already exist and I'm not allowed to just write one myself. It isn't there, B; I can't bring it to you.”

I knew I was risking my job with that little speech, but by then, I really didn’t care.

He said, “Are you REFUSING to finish this project?!? You’ll hear about this on your evaluation, LegalMist.” And he turned and walked away.

* * *
But some good came of that unfortunate event.

As B left, I noticed that his knee popped when he walked: Pop, step ... pop, step ... pop, step.... and I remember thinking, "this could be useful!"

From that day forth, instead of “Poppin’ Fresh,” every time I saw him I thought “Poppin’ Knee.”

And I learned to listen for Poppin’ Knee and to pick up the telephone when I heard him approaching, and to pretend to be engrossed in a client telephone call when he popped his head into my office. He’d look at me quizzically (the universal senior attorney way to ask “How much longer will you be on the phone?”), and I would cradle the phone against my shoulder and hold my hands very far apart (the universal junior attorney way to say, “This is going to take a loooong time.”) and I would make sure to turn away as I did this before he had the chance to make “the hand signal” (the universal senior attorney signal for “Meet me in my office as soon as you are done.”). That way, he was forced to continue on down the hall and find a different victim for his cursed projects.

* * *

About two days after I had delivered my memo, I heard ol’ Poppin’ Knee in the hall outside my office talking with a senior partner, explaining that although he had been unable to find a case that said “X” is the rule because the Ninth Circuit seemed to follow rule “Y,” he had found this great new theory, “Z,” that he thought he could use to win the case ...

No mention of my research.

And he raked me over the coals on my evaluation, four months later, saying I was uncooperative and unimaginative.

Typical B. Give no credit where credit is due; but be sure to give lots of unjustified criticism.

* * *

I recently ran into a friend who works with B at another firm. She said he is now divorced -- for the third time. He now has two kids.

I was not surprised to learn that he is thrice divorced, but I am surprised that I actually feel a little sad for him. B had his charming moments. He had a good sense of humor, good taste in music, and a winning smile when he wasn't berating you. He obviously wants companionship, love, family ... he keeps trying, right? .... but people who cannot listen to others, or speak to them without blaming, or admit they were wrong, or apologize later for their bad behavior, or get over their anger, or compliment people for a job well done, or give credit to those who deserve it .... those people do not make very good spouses. Or parents.

And people who are unhappy often have trouble doing those important things. And people who have trouble doing those important things often end up even unhappier, as they lose their friends, their spouses, and even their kids .... it's a vicious circle, really. And I think at a fundamental level, B was simply not happy - with himself, with his life, with his job...? Who knows. Perhaps he still isn't happy. And that is just sad, really.

And I hope against all reason that he does not treat his kids the way he treated the young associates when I worked with him at "the firm."

My friend says he's "OK to work for; you just have to figure out how to handle him."

Maybe he's mellowed a bit, or maybe she's just better at putting up with bullshit than I was.

I hope it's the former, and I hope he can learn to be happy, for his - and his kids' - sake.

Friday Feature - The Verdant Dude (formerly known as the Bug-Eyed Blog...)

We interrupt the "Poppin' Fresh" story in progress to bring you another installment of the acclaimed "Friday Feature" series here on LegalMist.


Most or all of you know B.E. Earl and his blog, "The Verdant Dude" (formerly known as "The Bug-Eyed Blog"). But if you haven't met him yet, you should.

B.E. Earl does a lot of movie reviews, which I enjoy since they are almost always movies I haven't seen. I like reading his "take" on them. For example, I generally don't like horror films at all, but B.E. Earl makes them sound interesting, so it's fun to read about them. I've gained a new appreciation for what it is that some folks like about them, even though I still have no desire to see most of them. Does that make sense? Yeah, maybe I'm just strange.

He also reviews restaurants, beer, concerts, and other fun stuff, interspersed with interesting videos, funny items found around the web, sports commentary, and stories about his cats, among other recent topics. He has an awesome tatoo. And he's so in love with his gal Gia, you can just feel it in the posts when he writes about her, but without being sickly sweet or annoying about it. I like that about him.

This week, he's had some thoughtful / philosophical posts that I've really enjoyed (here and here), about whether it is possible to separate the artist from the art. If an artist does something heinous or holds a political view that you dislike intensely, is it possible to still love his or her art? Should you refrain from enjoying the art based on the principle of not supporting the awful actions or views of the artist? I enjoyed reading the posts and commenting, and then reading what other bloggers had to say in the comments, too.

B.E. Earl uses some off-color language sometimes, and very occasionally posts some material that, depending on your boss, may not be safe for work, but it's pretty rare.

And B.E. Earl also hosts a daily trivia challenge, with daily winners and monthly champs. I'm pretty crappy at most of his topics, but it's fun to play along.

He posts every day, or close to it, and so this month he is officially my hero (along with That Blue Yak, who also posts nearly every day and sometimes twice a day).

If you haven't yet read B.E. Earl's blog, The Verdant Dude, go now and check it out.

Just make sure you don't beat me in the trivia challenge, or I'll be sorry I invited you to the party...

Happy Friday, my competitive friends, happy Friday!

Poppin' Fresh? Not Exactly . . . (Part Two)

(Click here for Part One, in which B is described accurately and as thoroughly as necessary for the story.)

One fine fall day when I worked at the firm, B (which could, but does not, stand for "Bastard," and who looked, but did not act, somewhat like Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy) assigned me a research project.

The details don’t matter, so I’ll just describe it as: my job was to find a case in our jurisdiction (the Ninth Circuit) that said “X is the rule.”

"Because," B said, “X is clearly the rule; I just need something to cite in my brief .... Oh, and don’t use Westlaw [online research resource that would make things soooo much faster and easier for me]; it’s too expensive, and I want to be able to write off the time you spend on this. The client shouldn’t have to pay for this.”

(Wonderful. An essentially non-billable research project. That’ll look *great* on my timesheets... ha!)

I asked, “Can you tell me some of the facts of the case, the name of the client, anything at all to assist with the research?”

He said, “No, you don’t need them. Just find me a case that says ‘X.’”

So I dutifully marched off to the library to research the issue.

Within an hour, I found a recent case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that seemed to be directly on point (although it was tough to really tell, since I knew nothing of the facts of our client’s case).

The problem was, the case said essentially the direct opposite of what I needed - something along the lines of, “X is the rule in many jurisdictions, but some other courts apply the Y rule, and we choose to follow the Y rule.”

I did a bit of extra research, trying to find a case that had overturned or otherwise contradicted this “very bad” case. I found nothing.

This was not "Poppin' Good," nor any sort of good, really.

So, with a huge knot in the pit of my stomach and a copy of the case in hand, I went back upstairs to speak with B... I walked slowly down the corridor to the doorway of doom, er, I mean, to B's office, hoping to leave the case on his chair and make a quick escape.

SH**! (Er, I mean, "Bummer!") He was actually in there!

I entered and said, “B, I found a case that seems to be directly on point. Unfortunately, it says the rule is Y, and that X does not apply in the Ninth Circuit.”

He refused to take the copy I offered him, saying "I don't have time to read that; that's why I sent you to do the research!" and then he asked, “What are the facts of that case?”

I told him.

He literally yelled at me: “Those facts are COMPLETELY different from our case!! Why are you even MENTIONING that case?!? What are you, an IDIOT?!? This is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, LegalMist!!”

Ouch.

So I asked again (while choking back tears, as well as the snide comment bubbling up about how he was the one who had refused to even tell me the client’s name before sending me to the library), “What are the facts of our case?”

This time, he told me a few facts, and then sent me back to the library to "try again." "And this time, I expect something I can USE!"

Based on the facts B had mentioned and a quick re-reading of the case I had found, I didn’t see anything legally relevant that differed regarding the “X vs. Y” rule. Nevertheless, I went back to the library (1) to do a bit more research to see if the “new” facts affected the rule and (2) to re-find and copy a case I had noticed earlier but had not copied because I didn’t know the facts of our case and so had not realized it was relevant.

After completing my research, I wrote B a memo, explaining that I still believed the Ninth Circuit "Not X" case applied because the legally relevant facts were the same, but that my research had also uncovered a different case, with a different theory of recovery (“Theory Z”) that might be useful in our client's case. I attached copies of both cases to the memo and, this time, I checked with B's secretary before approaching the doorway of doom to be sure he wouldn't be in the office, then snuck in and left the memo on his chair and retreated quickly back to the relative safety of my own office to wait and sweat and try to concentrate on other work...


(To be continued... But right now I have to attend to some actual work for a client)

Poppin' Fresh? Not Exactly . . . (Part One)

Way back in the dark ages, I worked at a large law firm in Phoenix doing litigation. One of the senior associates there was a fellow named... well, let’s just call him B, ok? (Because his name started with “B” and because “Bastard” also starts with “B” and so it just sort of "matches.")

B was ... well ... round. Not fat, exactly. But he had a round belly. A round face. The overall effect was just sort of ... round. And he was sort of pasty white, too. And he liked to wear white shirts. He did not believe you could be a lawyer and wear a blue or yellow or striped shirt. It had to be starched white. He always took off his tie and jacket in the office. So the overall effect was a little like Poppin’ Fresh (you know, that sweet giggly Pillsbury Doughboy character that stands for all things good and delicious?)... All he needed was the chef’s hat.

But his demeanor was not smiley and chuckley like Poppin’ Fresh. In fact, B was about as opposite of Poppin’ Fresh as a person could get, personality-wise.

Every firm has one like him. The junior associates are terrified of him because he likes to yell at them randomly and assign impossible tasks at 4:00 p.m. to be handed in to him “by tomorrow morning.” The senior associates admit he’s a jerk, but they don’t have to work for him so they ignore it. The partners all think he’s brilliant (thanks to the fantastic work provided to him on short notice by the junior associates), so he is immune to any complaints the junior associates might have about him.

The junior associates develop coping mechanisms. They warn each other when he’s on a rampage so that they can all go hide in various conference rooms and dark recesses of the library, hoping not to be his next victim. They help each other with research when necessary, so everyone can meet his impossible deadlines. They listen to each other rant about how awful he is, and they laugh together about how stupid he can be.

And then they cry alone in their offices at 3 a.m. when all the other associates - heck, the entire huge firm full of lawyers, legal assistants, paralegals, and even the housekeeping and plant-watering staff - have all gone home, and the impossible project remains unfinished and it has become clear that not only will the associate not get any sleep, but also will be lucky to finish the project by 5 p.m. the next day, forget the morning deadline....

(to be continued - but right now I have to do some actual work - now don't get sarcastic on me, yes I do actually work sometimes)

Totally Awkward Tuesdays

Has anyone seen Tova Darling? She has been MIA, as far as I can tell, since the beginning of September. Does anyone know if she has started blogging elsewhere? Or did she simply grow tired of blogging?

I miss Tova, and one of the things I miss most (besides her relentlessly upbeat and entertaining style) is her Totally Awkward Tuesdays. I loved the opportunity to laugh at myself. Even more than that, I loved the opportunity to laugh at others! So I've decided to revive that tradition here on my own blog.

For those who may have forgotten the rules, here's how it works:

1. First, write a blog post about an awkward or embarassing moment that you either participated in or witnessed. Include a link to this blog post in your blog post.

2. Use the Mr. Linky widget at the bottom of this post to link to your blog post from mine. Leave me a comment, too, and include the URL for your blog post in the comment. That way, if for some reason Mr. Linky doesn't work properly (I'm new at this), at least everyone will be able to find your post through the comments.

3. Come back later and read everyone else's awkward and embarassing stories.

4. Laugh a lot!

See, it's simple and fun. Who could resist?

And, to kick things off, here's my totally awkward moment for this week:

When I was about 15, my friend Keri and I hung around with some slightly older (17 - 20 years old) guys who played in a band. They were a pretty decent cover band, but looking back, they were not spectacular. Nevertheless, hanging out with the boys in the band made us want to be in a rock-n-roll band, too.

So one day, Keri noticed an ad in the newspaper: "Wanted: lead singer and keyboardist for local rock band. Call 867-5309."

(Well, OK, that wasn't *really* the number, and the contact wasn't Jenny, but of course I don't remember the real number and that's the best I could come up with on short notice).

Keri and I both took piano lessons. We deluded ourselves into thinking we could sing, too. Of course, neither of us knew any rock-n-roll songs on the piano, having taken the standard "classical" piano lessons. And we didn't own a decent keyboard suitable for use in a band. (Keri had a grand piano and I had an upright.) Did we let that stop us? Heck no! "Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?" and "What have we got to lose?" we asked ourselves. (Answer: Our dignity.)

So, we called the number. I think I made Keri call, actually. She talked with the guitarist / leader of the band, and explained that neither of us had a car (I think we "forgot" to mention that neither of us was old enough to drive), so we asked him to come to my house for the "audition." The band must have been desperate because he agreed to bring the bassist along and come see us.

And then we were in full panic mode. How could we convince these guys that, even though we didn't know any rock-n-roll songs, we'd be willing and able to learn whatever songs they wanted us to play?

What did we come up with? This was our plan: Keri could play "Sounds of Silence," by Simon and Garfunkel, on the piano. She would play that, we would both sing, we'd wear sexy jeans and shirts, and they would hire us, at which point we would devote all of our free time to learning actual rock-n-roll songs! Good plan, right? (No, actually, it's pathetic!)

So, how *did* that work out? I hear you asking.

About as well as you would expect, I guess.

Two guys showed up. They asked what equipment we had.

Uh, equipment?

Yeah, you know, what kind of keyboard, what kind of amp system, what kind of mic's?

Oh, well... uh ... we have this piano.

You can't bring a piano to a bar for a concert!

Uh, well .... if you hire us, we'll buy a keyboard! (Yeah, that's it, we'll buy one!)

The guys exchanged skeptical glances and then said, "Well ... uh ... why don't you go ahead and show us what you've got."

So Keri played Sounds of Silence reasonably well, and we both sang awfully badly.

The guys said, "Uh, thanks. We'll be in touch." And high-tailed it out of there.

I am guessing they laughed about us for *years*!


Ok, now it's your turn! Share your awkwardness so we can all laugh with (at) you, too!

National Blog Post Month - November

I missed the craze last year, when it seemed everyone was doing this. I was too new at blogging, and too busy, to even think about it.



Typical for me - late to the party - but this year I'm going for it. A blog post every day in November, no matter how busy I get.

I have lots of things in mind that I want to write about. But I figure with a blog post every day, there is lots of room to address things you want to hear about, too. So:

Is there anything I've mentioned here before that you'd like to hear more about?
... any legal topic you'd like to see me address?
... anything you'd like to know my opinion about? (Believe me, I've got opinions on just about everything....)
... anything you'd like to know about me?
... anything at all you'd like to see me write about?

Leave a question or suggested topic in the comment section, and I'll see what I can do to satisfy your curiosity this month.

Contest Winners

I promised to announce winners of the contest / giveaway on Halloween, but I was too busy, so I'm doing it today instead.

The tag line contest was tough - there were several very good entries! Nevertheless, decisions must be made, so, without further ado....

The first place winner of the tag line contest is Sillyak, with his entry, "I be a lawyer, you be the judge."

I like it! It accurately sums up what goes on with blogging, as in "I am me and I write what I write, and you get to judge whether you think it's any good and whether you want to come back for more," while adding that nice legal twist on things with the whole lawyer / judge dichotomy.

Second place goes to Sklyer's Dad, with his entry, "A lawyer you will swear by, not at."

I very much appreciate the sentiment, SkyDad, and it is a goal - to have people "swear by" my words instead of swearing at me. But I've had too many people swear at me recently to adopt it as my slogan...

Third place in the tag line contest goes to Jane, over at Gaston Studio, for her entry, ". . . for a spray of reality."

I like the reference to the "Mist" part of the blog title. I originally intended the "Mist" to refer to the fact that I'm somewhat anonymous - you know, shrouded in a Mist or some such poetic nonsense - as well as the idea that many things in the law, as in life, are less than perfectly clear. But I like the idea of expanding that concept to incorporate new layers of meaning - a more deliberate Mist, if you will.

As I said, it was a tough choice. Who knows? I may use one for a while, then use another later, when I get tired of the first one!

Thanks to all who entered!

Sillyak, you have three days to send me an email (to my Legalmist at gmail account) with your shipping information, and then sometime soon I will drag my lazy butt down to the post office and mail your chocolates and mints!

Happily for me, no one entered the giveaway portion of the contest, so I get to eat those chocolates myself, guilt-free!

Friday Feature - Diary of an Old Fart

Today's featured blog is "Diary of an Old Fart." When I first began reading it, I thought it was a real diary. After a while, I realized it was fiction.

The characters are well-drawn, and the author does a lot with just a few words. He captures a lot about personality, attitudes, and relationships with just a few lines of dialogue.

After the main story (set forth in Days 1 - 88) was completed, the author moved on to writing "preludes" and "epilogues."

So head over and start with Day 1, work your way through all the days, then go to the preludes and epilogues. If you can restrain yourself, it would be fun to read one day at a time (as I did when I started and he was posting only a day at a time of the diary, making it seem like the story was happening in "real time"). But you probably will find yourself hooked and unable to avoid reading all the days at once.... Good luck with that.


Happy reading, Friday feature finders, happy reading!

Uncle Rene

My Dad is heartbroken about the loss of his favorite Uncle Rene, who died last week. Uncle Rene was the “last link” to my Dad’s father’s past. My Dad’s father, Fred, died around 1980 (I’m ashamed to admit I don’t remember the exact date), when my Dad was in his 30's. My Dad’s grandfather died before Fred married and before my Dad was even born (in the early ‘40's). There were other brothers, too, besides Fred and Rene, but they also died a while back, so Uncle Rene was the repository of all the remaining history from that side of my Dad’s family.

He was also a charming man with a wry sense of humor and a great memory for details.

When my cousin got married in New Orleans quite a few years back, my Dad, stepmom, step-siblings, and I attended the wedding. It was around the same time that the Super Bowl was being played there (in the Superdome, which Uncle Rene fondly called the “stainless steel wart”). Of course, the Super Bowl has been held in New Orleans 9 times, so it’s a little hard to avoid getting married around the same time the Super Bowl is being played in New Orleans, so I don’t blame my cousin for that unfortunate timing. (I also won't mention which time it was, since this is a sort of anonymous blog and all that.) [See Footnote 1]

Sadly, my Dad waited too long to book a room at the "Taj Mahal" hotel where the wedding reception would be held, and was forced to look at other options nearby. And, due to the massive number of rooms booked for the Super Bowl, affordable and decent hotels were hard to come by in New Orleans.

My Dad, bless his heart, tried to book a decent hotel, but this was before the internet was popular - that is to say, before one could actually look at photos of the place and read reviews about it easily. One was forced to rely on less accurate sources of information, such as the minimum wage worker who answered the phone when you called the 800 number that you looked up in the telephone book (do any of you still have one of those?), who assured my dad that the motel he booked was a fine motel, and was in a safe and nice part of town just a couple of miles from the "Taj Mahal."

I can’t remember if it was a Travelodge, or Holiday Inn, or some random unaffiliated motel, but I am thinking it was a chain, because I remember thinking it was something that you would expect to be somewhat decent, if not exactly the Ritz.

It turned out to be an extremely dumpy and disgustingly dirty roach motel right next to the freeway overpass in a crappy part of town, complete with pubes in the bathtub and gun-toting gangsters in the parking lot. And I’m not kidding about either one of those.

We checked in, but stayed only long enough for my Dad to use the telephone (this was also in the days before cell phones were ubiquitous; and at least the awful room had a working telephone) while the rest of us stood around trying not to touch anything. My Dad called Uncle Rene and asked if he knew of any hotels available near his home, because this one clearly wasn't going to work. Uncle Rene graciously offered to let us stay with him instead, and so we checked out and drove to Uncle Rene’s house.

That was the best decision ever.

In addition to enjoying an immediate welcome with wonderful iced tea and snacks, and clean bathrooms and linens, and my charming great-Uncle Rene, we were treated to tales of the family’s history, complete with a driving tour of historical homes of New Orleans that were built by my great-grandfather.

You see, my grandfather’s (and Uncle Rene’s) father was a home builder in the early 1900's in New Orleans. He was quite successful, apparently, due to some fantastic yet relatively low-tech innovations that he built into his homes.

The first fantastic innovation was to build very large and wide eaves on the house. This did two things in pre-air-conditioning early 1900's New Orleans: (1) it provided shade, thereby helping to cool the home; and (2) it allowed the homeowner to open the windows even if it was pouring rain, which it did frequently in the summer in New Orleans, to keep the house cool even during the hot, humid, summer days with storms. In a more typical (at the time) New Orleans home without such large eaves, the homeowner would be forced to close the windows to keep the driving wind-blown rain from soaking everything in the house. Then the house would be hot and humid and extremely uncomfortable. Wide eaves kept the rain out, thereby allowing the homeowner to open the windows and take advantage of the breezes and the evaporative cooling effect from the rain.

The second fantastic innovation was to “bug-proof” the homes. He accomplished this in two ways. First, most homes in New Orleans are built up on pillars, or "pilings." That way, when the City floods (as it inevitably will - can you say “Katrina”?), the house is (hopefully) sitting high enough off the ground that the water won’t come in. So my great-grandfather put metal “caps” on top of the pilings, that stuck out a couple inches from the top of the piling, with the edges angled downward. This prevented bugs such as termites, carpenter ants, and roaches from entering the home, because they couldn’t climb up to the wooden part of the house. They could climb up the pilings, but then they’d hit the metal sheet. Some bugs could even crawl upside down on the metal sheet to the edge of it, but they couldn’t make it around the edge to the other side to enter the home. Instead, they would fall back to the ground and presumably go bother someone else.

In addition, he put boric acid inside the framing of the walls before installing the plaster (this was before the days of drywall, of course). That way, if any bugs did start to get in, they would hit the bug poison and die before infesting the home. [See Footnote 2]

In hot, humid, bug-infested New Orleans, these were welcome inventions indeed!

Sadly, my great-grandfather fell on extremely hard times during the depression, and was unable to recover his fortune before he died in the late 1930's or so.

But his legacy lives on in the homes he built that are still standing today. And you can tell his homes by looking at them - large eaves, and little metal strips sticking out from the pilings.

And my Uncle Rene’s legacy lives on, too, in the memories he provided for me that day in New Orleans, and for my Dad across his lifetime, as well as for his own children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

We miss you, Uncle Rene.



* * * * *
Footnotes (Because I'm a lawyer, that's why!):

Footnote 1: Did you know that, although the Super Bowl has been played in their hometown NINE TIMES, thus giving them more opportunities than any other team has ever had to actually play in the Super Bowl at home, the hapless New Orleans Saints have never played in any Super Bowl game in any location? Then again, they are on a roll so far this year - maybe they'll finally make it to the big game!

Footnote 2: Note that boric acid is practically harmless for humans - barely more toxic than table salt - yet a small amount kills a lot of bugs. My great-grandfather had his kids (my grandfather and Uncle Rene, and the rest of them, too!) assist with the boric acid installation, among other aspects of the house-building process.

(Of course, these days if you tried that, you'd have OSHA and Child Protective Services and possibly a whole host of other government agencies breathing down your neck and threatening you with fines and jail time. But back in those days, having your children install bug poison was a viable option!)