News Everybody!

Things are looking up: after sending out like 60 or so resumes in the past 6 months into the void of Jurisdiction X, I have an interview next Friday. I haven’t sat for a job interview since the abortive attempt to relocate back in early 2008. The job asked for civil trial experience, and I just told them I’m their man with my criminal trial experience, and general litigation skills, and that I would be a better investment, and would work for less of a salary than someone else they bring in. All things added in I made about 48K last year, which for criminal and shitlaw in City 17 working with a solo, that ain’t that bad for 2 years out. I told the Jurisdiction X guys i’d want mid 50s to start plus a cut of the take (I told them about CJA appointments which is good work if you can get on the panel. I believe I can.) and sent out the resume with a “What the fuck, why not” attitude. Well, I was on my way to court, singing my “Aint no jobs in Jersey” song (to the tune of Uncle Ruckus from the boondocks)
ex:
The Story of Gangstalicious

When I swear 30 seconds later i get called on that same damn email and resume. I had to pull over to avoid crashing. I set the interview for next Friday, and got the time off from work. It’s a long shot, and I’m not putting the cart in front of the horse, but its absolutely perfect if I can get it: about 5 minutes from where my old lady’s house is, and in a reasonable 15 attorney firm. It’s almost the mythical midlaw that TTTs pray to get into one day. So let’s pray to god this one pans out. It would be one hell of a system shock.

Speaking of system, here’s what’s looking down, me:

Thats 299. I have no idea when I ever got above 300 since I graduated so long ago. I was 220 coming out of high school and 275 and a size 40 or so in law school. I didnt look that bad, but at some point my ass widened to who knows what. Its the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu thats doing it. 3-4 nights a week of getting my ass handed to me for 75 minutes. I love it though, it’s a lot of fun, and I always leave soaked in my own sweat which soaks into the gi. The gi’s in BJJ are much heavier than in karate or tae kwon do. The fabric is heavy, with thick collars that extend all the way down the front of the kimono and along the cuffs of the sleeves and the hatame (pants). It weighs a good 5 pounds. The guys in the class all have theirs decorated out the ass with flag patches, dojo patches, artwork, and who knows what else. Unfortunately the dojo didn’t have one in my size so the instructor had to order one for me (135 dollars at that). He said we could add patches to it some other time, which I don’t care for. I am not some damned billboard, and besides I barely know what I am doing, so I don’t think Mr. 7 times world champion needs his brand name on some fat brainless fuck’s gi until he can figure a few things out. Well, I did get a plain gi, but even plain has to come with some wierd logo on it, which doesn’t really signify anything. It’s as pointless as a guido’s tribal bicep tat:

Running laps in the damn thing is a pain, but when we’re sliding and rolling all over the mat, I appreciate it. 2 weeks without it yielded the delight known as “mat burn”:

How cute, matching sores on both feet! Anyways they say it happens to all new guys until you get calloused. So be it. What I didnt get used to was the pain! Holy dog shit. We start every class running laps to warm up for 5-7 minutes, followed by dozens of crunches of every variety, and as many pushups as you can stand, followed by doing front rolls, back rolls, other painful and draconian forms of stretches, excercises, and manuevers, then we take a 1 minute rest break where I usually take a few swigs of powerade zero. Then its positional exercises. Yesterday, we had to partner up with one guy, get in the mount, and do as many armbars on your partner as you can in one minute. My partner was a 210 pound blue belt, with a bald head and viking beard. I mounted him first, and went slow, since I’m basically an uncoordinated car crash doing anything, and don’t want to accidentally kick or hurt someone. I get in 5-6 which after i get my groove. Then it’s his turn.

When you put on someone’s mount, youre basically straddling their torso. Except you sit your weight down on their abdomen. So 215 pounds is suddenly weighing down on my flabby gut. Not fun. Then, you lean forward and put your weight on the chest of the guy beneath you while trapping an arm, then you quickly shoot a leg over, and roll, so that you armbar a guy. It looks a little like this:

Except he goes about that fast, and hopping on and off ol pop is painful as fuck. Every thrust into my chest elicits a grunt and oof and it fucking hurts. The armbar isn’t really cinched in too deep otherwise he’d hyperextend me. But the objective was speed, and man it sucked balls. Here’s part of the receipt:

I’m getting another bruise coming in on my chest, but with my manly chest hair its a little faded, so I’m opting not to show my man boobs on the internets.

So the long story short is this is a hell of a lot of fun, I wake up sore as fuck every morning, and I’m collecting small sores and bruises, but the weight is coming off, and the less I weigh, the more mobile I get and the less every sprawl and every single leg shot feels like a head on collision with the ground at 40 mph.

Hooray for me, and fuck you!

I swear I have too many family law clients who are whiny babies and can’t act like a rational human being and expect me to wipe their asses and do every little fucking thing for them, and then they get all mad when I send them the bill and ask for another retainer payment because they can’t pick up a got damned phone and work out the simplest shit with the baby mama or whatever.

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. I am Christian, and I believe it an appropriate time to celebrate the birth of Christ, and I feel that that spirit is manifested best through being with loved ones and sharing communion with them. It is a small way to bring peace and goodwill to Earth. Christmas has not been kind to my family in any capacity in some time.

I am the first grandson born of the first daughter of a man who pioneered aspects of cardiovascular surgery in the county in which I grew up. He was Duke educated, and was fundamental towards developing the concepts of trauma medicine there. He had a doting wife; a very old school southern belle type. They had 4 daughters, the oldest of which was my mother. From the outside, the family was somewhat well-to-do, my grandfather worked hard and made good money as a surgeon. Where he succeeded as a professional, he was less successful as a father. I will never know the entire story of my family. There are too many secrets that have gone to various graves. My aunts haven’t told me everything, and they never will. I do not think I wish to know it all. My grandfather essentially was my father, and he sat on a pedestal too high for even him to stand upon. Long story short; he was as human as everyone else despite the fact that he regularly held people’s lives in his hands. He was the patriarch, a man of no small amount of wealth, and this Christmas was important; it was the first one he would not attend in our family.

It seems Christmas has become an anniversary of the dead than a celebration of the newborn. It started my first semester of law school. Just a few days before Christmas, 2001. I got a phone call at 4:30 am from my mother. I woke up, alone (of course), and realized there is never a good phone call at this time of day. My oldest cousin, 17, who was like a little brother, was dead. He had gotten drunk and ran headfirst into a parked semi at 35 miles an hour. It cracked his sternum on impact and he bled to death fairly quickly. He had gotten into a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol, and was trying to work his way out of the situation when it happened. That aunt was devastated, his little brother, the new oldest cousin of mine, was robbed of a brother when he was 13. He had no role model to look up to, and it would alter their lives permanently, for the worse in my opinion. Christmas was predictably ruined.

Christmas 2002 passed quietly, as my aunt was still devastated at the horrid anniversary. But then it was time to go back to school. The third day of class I got home from trial advocacy. I got a phone call from the patriarch. My mother had died. She was not in good health for some time. In the 1990’s she suffered two heart attacks, got on every painkiller and upper/downer a doctor would prescribe, and developed congestive heart failure around 1999. She was essentially bedridden in 2001. She couldn’t take it anymore and the Rhodes Scholar found her end at the bottom of a pill bottle.
I was destroyed. She and I had a rough relationship through high school. She didn’t think I would make it, but when I got my BA and was accepted to law school, she was very proud of me. I remember being on the phone with her the morning of 9-11. We shared that awful moment together, and we were never closer.

Ironically my estranged biological father died from complications from AIDS in a state mental facility 5 months later. I had only seen him once when he left my mother and I in 1983 to permanently pursue a homosexual lifestyle. I can’t help but think those deaths were linked somehow.

My stepfather died from cancer 8 months after my mother died. All he had to do under her will was make it 6 months and everything passed to him. That will was drafted when they were married in 1992. A revised will giving me everything was drafted in 2000, after the marriage had deteriorated to the point my mother slept with a gun within arms reach. Due to circumstances I dont care to get into, it was never executed. My stepfather sold the home 3 weeks before his death. A beautiful estate that was built on 8 acres of land for 350 thousand in 1990 was sold for 130000. It is little more than ruins now, the land is slowly reclaiming the once well kept landscape. All inherited from the stepfather was the cheap fake diamond wedding ring he couldn’t hold onto. Thankfully my aunts went into the ruins after the sale and recovered some of my mother’s jewelry with substantial value, including a diamond necklace I had cleaned and appraised at 3100 which will become an heirloom.

That was 2003.

2004 came, and it was time to graduate from law school. I had my degree, and my lease at school was running out. I had nowhere to go, so I went to live with my grandparents. My grandmother was suffering from a terminal illness which had her health deteriorating throughout 2003 and 2004. By the time I moved in with them to help out around the house for the elderly couple, she was bedridden. I cooked dinner nightly, suffered through my first bar failure, clerked during the day and cooked at a Ruby Tuesday at night. Then it came Christmas time.

2 nights before Christmas my grandmother took her last steps. She made it halfway to the bathroom then collapsed on the carpet. My grandfather knew this was the end. My grandmother did not have enough oxygen in her blood due to her illness. She laid in the floor, gasping for 2 and a half hours as we summoned my 2 aunts who lived in the area to the house. I sat at her head and my oldest aunt held my grandmother’s hand as she breathed her last. In the corner of the bedroom, Thus Spake Zarathustra comforted the 81 year old surgeon. Everyone broke down in tears. I was the only one who knew what had to be done. I called the police and the funeral home. The family objected loudly when the police took photographs of my deceased grandmother. It was SOP for any death, just so they can close the file as a natural death. The funeral director himself showed up with the hearse. I helped load my grandmother onto the stretcher, and carried her over the banister, down the stairs, and loaded her into the hearse, never to see her face again.

I’ve had a lot of beer, and I just got back from jail. I think I’m going to leave part 2 for another time. I’ll pick this up in a few days. If you liked the song at the top, this one’s good too. Same band. Insane album. Shame they lost the guitarist.

Crown of Thorns

I am economically conservative/mostly socially libertarian. However, because I deal in criminal law I am more involved with the direct punishment and the severity of prison sentences. I am not necessarily light on crime, mind you, but I know that when a judge hands down a 20 year sentence, that is a hell of a lot of very hard time, and it is not something to be taken lightly.

A major case of ours finally went to sentencing. Despite our best efforts, we did not get the judge to agree to a departure from the guidelines. The Defendant will easily spend the next 23 years in prison. We did our best, and to be honest, it was an expected result, at the low end of the guidelines. Despite our expert testimony, despite family testimony, despite preachers and high school coaches, it was what it was. However, if the client pursued trial he faced stiffer sentences, including the possibility of life imprisonment. I know this person will have a very hard life ahead of him, and he deserves it for what he did. However, I make no bones about it, and if he does his time, he will have paid his debt to society.

The hearing was written up in a fairly objective manner in the local rag. I can’t argue with the journalism. What got to me though was some of the comments left in the online section.

There were people blaming Obama (because the Defendant was an illegal immigrant)
There were people blaming Bush (same)
There were people blaming Clinton (same)
There were people legitimately advocating chemical castration (a practice banned by the Supreme Court under 8th Amendment considerations)
There were people advocating the death penalty for noncapital offenses
There were people looking forward to the likelihood of prison rape.

I saw every manner of ignorant utterance the depth and breadth of which would stagger the mind. These are the people who elect officials, who blindly listen to political pundits without individual analysis, who struggle to make sure they’ve tivo’d every episode of Dancing With The Stars, who hang on every word Paula Abdul says on Idol. This is the idiocracy. For a brief moment, I contemplate whether constitutionalists like me should even bother defending the bill of rights.

On a lighter note, after the sentencing I proceeded to a casino and drank Bacardi and diet and played Early Retirement, a little known slot that for whatever reason really REALLY fucking likes me (Buyin 380):