Holidays Are Over, Back To Work

Dear Loyal Reader/s,

Sorry for the hiatus. I temporarily of ran out of ideas, and was distracted by Ms. Demosthenes' move to California.

Nevertheless, I'm back, and having ingested nearly four-dozen Christmas cookies, I am too bigger to fail than ever before.

I hope your holiday season was splendid. Mine sure was - besides having a white Christmas for the first time in ages, and getting some really swell gifts, I finally got a job. As it turns out, this is something of a trend with me. This is the third straight year I have gotten a job over the holidays. Next year I'm asking Santa for winning lotto tickets instead. For the time being, however, the holidays are over. Back to work. And that reminds me of a story:

In May of 2002, me and my friends Pipes and Boy Kelly took a week-long road trip from Boston to North Jersey. Normally, it doesn't take a week to get from Boston to Jersey, but when you only have about a half-hour of sobriety per day, you don't make such good time on the road.

As I mentioned, we began our journey in Boston. At the time, all three members of our intrepid trio were in the Army, and didn't have much money to throw around on hotel accommodations. Throughout our journey, therefore, we were staying with friends or friends of friends. In Boston, that meant we stayed Saturday night at Pipes' little brother's roommate's family. They were a working class family of 6 living in a tiny apartment in South Boston, but they were happy to let us use their floor as accommodations for Saturday night.

So, Saturday night in downtown Boston. Pipes, Boy Kelly and I donned our finest party pants and shirts, hailed a cab, and headed for Faneuil "Tourist Trap" Hall. The cab pulled up outside the Purple Shamrock, we hopped out and peered into the Shamrock's windows. Inside were a hundred college girls. "Looks good to me," Boy Kelly said, and in we went.

On stage was a cover band. These guys were incredible, and right out of central casting. Sully was on lead vocals, Murph on guitar, and Frankie played drums. I didn't know that people actually talked like they did in "Good Will Hunting," but these guys couldn't pronounce an r to save their lives. Except when they sang, because their covers were dead-on matches to the originals. Happy enough with our selection of venue, the three of us bought drinks, downed them, bought more drinks, downed them, bought more drinks and went out to mingle with the ladies.

The rest of the evening is blurry to me now, except that I distinctly remember the closing song. Sully introduced the last number, saying, "Nahmally, we wouldn't covah a sawng like this, but we think it's pretty wicked awesome. Heah goes," and they launched into a spot-on rendition of Enrique Iglesias' "Can't Escape My Love." I remember this because for the rest of the trip, we could run, we could hide, but we couldn't escape that song - it played everywhere, including the car radio and bars in Boston, Long Island, New York City, New Brunswick, and Hoboken. It was the unofficial anthem of our road trip.

Anyway, the band wrapped up, we waved good-bye to the ladies of Boston University, and caught a cab back to Southie.

I woke the next morning entangled in a massive afghan blanket on the apartment floor. Pipes was already sitting up on the couch watching Sports Center, and Boy Kelly was asleep on the floor in front of the television. I was still wearing my party pants and shirt, and felt a little sore and a lot hungover. Pipes looked at his watch and said, "It's 6:45. We've got to go." We had to be at the Boardy Barn - an outdoor bar on Long Island - by noon for our next rendezvous with East Coast friends, so we did have to get on the road quickly. I stood up, checked to make sure I still had my wallet, and walked over to nudge Boy Kelly with my foot. Our host family was asleep, and our luggage was in the SUV outside, so we folded our blankets and quietly slipped out.

It was very quiet on the street at 6:55 on Sunday morning. The row-houses were still dark, and there was no traffic. We decided to change clothes before getting back on the road, and since there was no one around, we thought we could do it quickly out on the street. I dug a sweatshirt and some jeans out of my bag in the trunk. I pulled the sweatshirt on then slipped my shoes off. No sooner had I removed my pants than a beat-up old Ford came around the corner.

In the front seat was an old man and his wife. Based on the Irish flag hanging from the mirror and the Knights of Columbus sticker, I assume the couple were named Mr. and Mrs. Clem F.X. O'Malley, and they were going to church. Clem glided to a stop next to us. Pipes was in the car, but Boy Kelly was shirtless and standing by the open passenger door. I was wearing socks, underpants, and a sweatshirt, and standing by the trunk.

Clem rolled down the window and leaned his fedora-ed head out toward us. A cigarette between his lips, he took in our state of undress, and said, "Boys, weekend's ovah. Back to wahk." Then he rolled up the window and continued down the street. Good advice. Weekend's over, boys, back to work.

The end.
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A Holiday Poem

Well, it's once again that time of year. Here's a little something I wrote a few years ago in law school. For it to make sense, here's a quick primer: freshmen live in dorms on the Boston College law school campus, Joe Liu was my Property professor, and the Asahi case spelled out the rules for obtaining jurisdiction over someone. Don't worry about the law jokes, though, it's mostly about Santa's substance abuse problem.

'Twas the Night Before Finals

Twas the night before finals, and in the library
Law students were stirring and starting to worry.

Their laptops were plugged into outlets with care
In hopes that their outlines soon would be there.

While students in college were snug in their beds
and visions of beer funnels danced in their heads,

I sat with my casebook propped up in my lap,
And stared at the pages of State vs. Shack.

When out in the lot there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the chair to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I shuffled and slouched,
Expecting to see an old dormit’ry couch

That had fallen and crashed on the new fallen snow,
While freshmen tossed more things to the ground down below.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver so lively and true,
I thought for a moment it might be Joe Liu.

My eyes did deceive me I soon came to see,
For the beard on his chin came down near his knee.

My eyes, how they twinkled, my dimples, how deep,
For under the sleigh, I could see my crushed Jeep.

“A lawsuit!” I cried, as I ran out the door
To catch up with Santa and give him what for.

As I got out to see him, he turned with a jerk –
It was clear he’d been drinking ‘fore coming to work.

He nearly fell over, right out of his sleigh,
But I looked right up at him and started to say,

“You fucked up my Jeep, you stupid drunk dick.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” said fat old Saint Nick,

“It was that stripper named Vixen from two stops ago,
She didn’t have cookies, but knew how to --“

“Hey!” I said, “Nobody wants to hear that,
But for the sake of the Mrs. I hope it was wrapped.

Now back to this problem of you on my Jeep.
I’m going to sue you, and it’ll be steep.”

“Sue me?” said the elf. “I’d like you to try.”
“The court in Asahi says your ass is mine,

Unless we can settle right here and right now.”
“I’d like to,” he said, “but I don’t see how.”

“I want a new Jeep with really big tires.”
“Is that all,” he asked, “is there more you require?”

“Darn tootin’,” I said, “I need the exams
For all 1L courses so I can finish this cram.”

“I’ll do you one better,” he said looking sly
“If you won’t go tell about this little toy.”

He held out a bong from floor to his shoulder
That was mounted right there in a candy cane holder.

“I’ll give you the answers,” the old stoner wheezed,
And you’ll ace your exams with A’s and no B’s.”

“Sounds good to me, are they there in your sack?”
I asked the old devil as he reached in his pack.

“They are here in my hand,” and he gave them to me,
And I made lots of copies for the whole class to see.

So if you’re real tired and starting to crack,
And you’d like all the answers, just e-mail me back.


Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.
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Yard Sales

Nowadays, yard sales evoke an image of desperate suburbanites selling off their kids' hand-me-downs in a last-ditch effort to avoid foreclosure. In fact, I recently read an article about California communities that were compelled to enforce little-known ordinances limiting homeowners to 2 yard sales a year. Apparently, there were so many yard sales going on that traffic was backing up and causing other neighborhood disturbances. Have these people not heard of e-bay, the world's biggest purveyor of useless crap?

Actually, that's not fair. There is good stuff on e-bay. Ms. Demosthenes, my beautiful and intelligent girlfriend, recently purchased a Bose iPod docking station from e-bay. Assuming it actually shows up, it was a great purchase, since she got it at almost half the retail price.

The spike in traditional yard sales aside, the term "yard sale" has a different connotation. Allow me to explain.



Before I was the unemployed pseudo-lawyer you all have come to know and love, I lived in Colorado. If one lives in Colorado, one becomes a skiing connoisseur, just as if one lives in New York, one becomes a pizza and bagel connoisseur. You can't help it. By dint of merely living in Colorado, you qualify for something called the Colorado pass, which, for a minimal fee, grants the bearer unlimited access to some of the finest skiing on Earth. I used to ski Vail 10 times a year, never mind Winter Park, Aspen, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone, A-Basin, Beaver Creek or Snowmass. 1000's of miles of trails, feet of powdery snow, a ski season that lasts from November til June, and all within a 2 hour drive! People say that money can't buy happiness. That's bullshit, because money buys a Colorado pass, and I defy you not to smile when you wear your Colorado pass.

So, back when I lived in Colorado, I took my friend Barry skiing. Barry was from Kansas. If you haven't been to Kansas, don't bother. I'll illustrate it for you here: __________. There. That's Kansas. Flat. Add several million cows and tractor trailers doing 88 mph, and you pretty much have it. Suffice it to say, there are no mountains in Kansas, meaning Barry wasn't much of a skier. Barry skied like a newborn caribou first trying to stand up. He was wobbly and slow, and you kind of wanted the wolves to put him out of his misery.

I, on the other hand, was a three-year skiing veteran - there wasn't terrain I couldn't handle, a black diamond I couldn't ski, or some fresh powder I couldn't shred. [FN 1] For the morning, I was happy to stay with Barry, but as the day progressed and he didn't, I really itched to let loose, build some speed, and hurl myself helter-skelter down some tough terrain. However, at that moment I was inching down a "green" beginner's hill with Barry. This trail was, at best, flat. If you brought your children to it for some sledding, they'd roll their eyes at you and sit in the car. But in the distance, I saw an adjoining trail: a blue-black leading to a black diamond. Oooo. I slid to a stop and turned to look at Barry turn wide S-turns down the "slope."

He approached slowly and as he came close he put his skis into a perfect V-shaped snowplow to slow down. Then he crossed his skis, fell over, rolled once, and bounced into my legs. "Sorry," he said as he wiped the snow from his goggles. I helped Barry up, got him dusted off, and said, "Hey, I'm going to split off real quick." "Oh, uh, ok," said Barry, clearly thinking he'd probably just die Sonny Bono style on the next turn.

"It's fine," I said. "You just stay on this green trail, and take it slow to the bottom. I'll meet you by the lift, and we'll go grab lunch." "Ok," Barry said again, and I watched him wobbly-knee it down the trail.

Finally free from my anchor, I looked around. It was glorious - snow-capped peaks ringed heavily forested mountains veined with ski trails, which threaded their way into the distance. The sun hung in a clear blue sky. The mountain had 14 inches of fresh powder, and there was almost no one on it. If John Denver weren't dead, he'd have been plucking his guitar at my side. Time to ski!

I squared my shoulders to the slope and began poling to build speed. A few speed-skater-like kicks, and a few more strokes with the poles, and the wind was whistling past me. I aimed at the blue-black trail. As I got closer, I could see there was a slight upward lip leading from the green trail to the blue-black. 'Awesome,' I thought. I could jump off the lip like a ramp and really barrel down the blue-black trail.

I tucked down into a ball to reduce drag and build speed, as much speed as I could. I zoomed straight at the upward lip and got ready to jump when I hit it. The hiss of my skis across the snow blended with the whistle of the wind in my ears. I jumped as high as I could when I hit the lip.

This was a mistake.

As I jumped, I looked down to check my landing. Below me were nothing but moguls - bumpy mounds of snow that a skier must skillfully and quickly thread to avoid falling. At high speed like I had, it took Olympic-caliber athletics to avoid broken bones. I was not an Olymipic athlete.

Nevertheless, despite my lack of elite skiing prowess, in times of stress the human mind is capable of marvelous things. You'll often hear athletes or soldiers or performing artists talk of time stopping or slowing as events unfold before them. This happened to me at the moment I hung suspended over a field of demonic little moguls, each one a land mine threatening broken limbs and brain damage should I tumble over them. 'Ok,' I thought, 'you can do this. Take the impact with your legs, slow down, and you'll be fine.'

I braced for impact, ready to flex my legs and turn through the first mogul. I'd bounce through a mogul or two, then slow down and stop. I'd be fine.

Unfortunately, my mind was nimbler than my body. I hit the first mogul and skipped right off the top of it. There was no cushioning of impact, no turn, no nothing. My skis hit the second mogul, my teeth clacked shut, and my skis crossed. For those who don't know, crossing your skis is bad in the same way that having your car's brakes fail is bad - high speed impacts will ensue.

I felt my skis eject their bindings. I used Volant skis at the time, which are stainless steel and basically a pair of six foot blades. They flew up and hit me as I went face first into mogul number three.

Feet head feet head feet head feet head feet head I went down the mountain. When I came to rest, I was face down in a pile of snow. I was still wearing my goggles, but they were full of snow. I rolled over and reached a mittened hand to my face and pulled the goggles off. My hat was gone. I wiped snow from my goggles, and tried to identify my injuries. Hm, puncture wound in left arm. Skinned knees. Bleeding gash in right shin. Buzzing in ears that wasn't there before. I tried to stand, then threw up.

As I got to my feet and wiped my mouth, I heard this: "Hey man, you all right?" I waved at the snowboarder standing on top of the lip I had just leapt from. "Dude, man, that was awesome!" he exclaimed. "I've never seen anyone yard sale like that before."

Ah, there it was. "Yard sale": when a skier or snow boarder wipes out so completely and thoroughly that all his gear is scattered across the mountain as if laid out for a yard sale. And a yard sale it was. My skis, poles, hat, and backpack were all over the place. Actually, I couldn't initially locate one pole. I eventually found it in the trees alongside the trail. In my hazy shock-to-the-head but glad-to-be-alive state, it took me some time to gather and inventory my possessions.

By the time I made it to the bottom of the hill and found Barry by the ski lift, the puncture wound in my arm and the gash in my leg were really quite painful. I wasn't sure I had a full afternoon of skiing left in me. Plus I thought I should probably do something to prevent infection. "Hey Barry," I asked, "what do you say to getting lunch and then just heading to the bar?" Alcohol was good for infections, right?

Barry looked at me like a murderer that just got sentenced to community service. His eyes lit up, he smiled, and said, "Oh, heck yeah. I'd love to get off the mountain about now." "Perfect," I said. "There's a place on the highway with dollar tacos and two-dollar Coronas. Ok by you?" "Ok by me," Barry said.

And that explains some of the scars I have. Stay tuned to hear the tale of my bloody battle with a dirt bike, some pointy rocks, and cacti. The end.



[FN 1] I was not always such. The first time I tried to ski in fresh powder, I went 4 feet, crossed my skis, ejected from my bindings, and tumbled down the mountain. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to find my left ski, which was buried under the snow somewhere.

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Introduction

Hello and welcome.

The blog you have on your screen is a collection of stories. At least, it will be a collection of stories, once I've written and posted them. I hope you find them entertaining. Read more...