What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?

I know that I have plugged my friends (of the one-sided Imaginary variety) at The Awl a couple of times here already, but if you do nothing else that I tell you to do, you *must* go read their series on The End Of The 00's. Each written by a different author, they are all funny or sad or angry or heartbreaking or some combination thereof.

It's a depressing series, too, because I, like everyone else, have been pondering The Meaning of My Life and other such nonsense as we approach the end of the decade (bite it, nit-picking calendar pendants), and have been considering a blahhhhhg post on how happy I am that the Aughts are passing. Then I read an Awl post, and --- well, what do I have to say and how well can I say it, compared to, say, Natasha Vargas-Cooper?

At any rate, check it out. And I probably will still pen something in celebration of the new decade, and to say good riddance to the old.

You can go sleep at home tonight if you can get up and walk away.

Query: What does one do when one receives a text message from a phone number that looks vaguely familiar, yet one has no idea who the sender is?

Yesterday I received a slightly mocking text (regarding the football team I root for) from a Mysterious Person With A Vaguely Familiar Number. This is the second such text I've received from this dude/ette this season. I replied to the first one, saying something like "that's not a very nice thing to say," hoping that the response would give me some sort of clue to the sender's identity. Instead, s/he just said "it was a very appropriate thing to say."

What to do? Send a "who the fuck are you?" response (too bad I couldn't send a clip of Roger singing it)? Ignore it? Send a subpoena to Verizon?

They said there'd be peace on earth.

Thinking about The Punk Rock Girl reminded me that I love me The Waitresses, so "Christmas Wrapping" is on heavy rotation in the holiday mix playlist of Jackson's iPod this year. (Sadly, I couldn't find a version with the band itself on YouTube, and found this one with flashing lights to be the least offensive. To mollify my inner teenager, here's their video of "I Know What Boys Like".)

And, since 2009 has been kind of a crappy year, listening to Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas" seems to be appropriate.

What songs are you listening to this holiday season?

One is silver, and the other gold.

Just a little note from Jackson -- I've added a few new blogs to the list. In no particular order ....

Emily Magazine and Things That I Ate That I Loved -- both from Gawker alumna Emily Gould, allegedly the poster girl for Internet TMI and navel gazing. Whatever. I like her writing, and her Cooking the Books videos from the Awl amuse me.

Rachel Kramer Bussel -- another blogger/writer/whatever I found via the Gawker comments. Sometimes NSFW (she's a former sex columnist for the Village Voice, after all).

Nerissa (mostly) and Katryna Nields -- chicks with guitars. Check them out here (track number 10, "Fountain of Youth," is one of my favorites).

Send lawyers, guns, and money.

Every now and then, my friends, lawyers get it right. And I have two examples -- I've been meaning to talk about the first one for a bit, and reading about the second one triggered the post. And, just because The Universe Has A Sense Of Humor, they both have ties to Iran-Contra. Fun, no?


The first example -- in the dying days of Bush II, the United States of America decided that Ben Kuehne, a prominent lawyer in Miami (who, surely coincidentally, was one of the lawyers who represented the Gore campaign during the 2000 election litigation), should be prosecuted for laundering drug money. Why? Because he gave a legal opinion that an alleged drug dealer had non drug related assets to sell to pay another lawyer (Roy Black, of the William Kennedy Smith trial) for his defense in the criminal trial. (Whew. Does that sentence make sense? Alleged drug dealer has property in Colombia, sells it to pay for Roy, Ben is hired to review to make sure it's Not Coke proceeds, says it's not -- Ok, I think so.) Then a different drug dealer turned snitch says to the feds: "No way, man. That was totally drug money." Ben gets charged, despite the fact that the money laundering statute says pretty clearly that a lawyer gets paid with tainted money is not guilty of money laundering. It may be money that she has to give back at some point in a forfeiture proceeding, but whatever.


Fortunately, Ben had good lawyers. And federal judges who understood the law. And a Justice Department who finally realized this was not the sort of case that the United States of America should be spending its limited amount of law enforcement time and resources on. The WSJ Law Blog lays the whole Ben Kuehne story out here.


The Iran Contra connection? One of Ben's lawyers was John Nields, who was chief counsel for the House's Iran Contra investigatory committee. And there's a bonus! Two of Nields's daughters have a band that is one of my favorites in the "chicks with guitars" genre of singer-songwriters. And they (well, mostly Nerissa) have a blog! (Note to self -- must add it to the blogroll.)


Second story -- read this WSJ Law Blog post about plea bargains and innocent people pleading guilty. The background is the criminal investigation and trials of members of management at Broadcom (remember that company?) who allegedly violated all sorts of the securities laws. One of them decided to go to trial, and the government -- our government -- basically browbeat a bunch of others at Broadcom in an attempt to get them to testify at trial in a certain way. Read the transcript of the ruling by the federal judge who dismissed the charges here. Those Broadcom guys and gals were lucky that they were able to have lawyers good enough and dogged enough to get the judge to look at what actually happened. It's scary, frankly, that this happens.

The Iran Contra connection? One of the Broadcom defendants was represented by Oliver North's lawyer Brendan Sullivan, famed throughout the land for his immortal line "I am not a potted plant!" (directed at Senator Daniel Inoyue, when the senator grew annoyed at Sullivan's objections during the hearings).

Come and see me, I'm the same boy I used to be.

So, in a recent discussion with some Imaginary Friends about music or dating or youth or first cars or whatever, I was reminded of The Punk Rock Girl (have I mentioned her here before?), and started wondering about what she was up to these days. It turns out that she currently lives in the same city as I do, which is not the same city that we lived in in 10th grade. Quandary -- contact her or not? "Stalkerish and creepy" or "welcome blast from the past"? Oh, the conundrums of poor Jackson's life!

Since I am too lazy to do a search to see if I have mentioned her before (until now, there was no tag for her, so I am guessing that I have not), here's the short version. It was the era of AOR (album oriented rock) radio -- filled with corporate schlock and fossilized and heavily repeated classics. The PRG and I had known each other since 6th grade, but became good friends when we started working at the same place one summer. Long before any of these people made it on the radio in our part of the world, she introduced me to Elvis Costello, the Police, British new wave pop, and pre-"Purple Rain" Prince. She and I went to concerts, hung out at indie record stores, and watched hours of MTV during Martha Quinn's shifts, because she seemed to play the stuff we liked.

Yes, as one has noted, this isn't really punk rock (although she also introduced me to the Clash and the Sex Pistols), but that's what some old (like 30-ish!) dude at work called her one day, and so that's how I've always thought of her. She was artistic and cool and talented in a million different ways (she used to cut my hair and painted wall murals for a local business). I had a bit of a crush on her, but our outings never seemed to turn into dates.

We ended up going to different high schools (she moved a short distance) and then different towns for college. And I had a girlfriend senior year, who wasn't terribly interested in having me spend a whole lot of time with the PRG seeing shows. So . . .

Don't try to dig what we all say.

The latest post from my imaginary friend Philalawyer (in the latest sign that Western Civilization is swirling around the the great drain of irreversible decline, his book is out in paperback, btw, and is just the perfect stocking stuffer for a young child or your grandmother) -- Books You Might Enjoy Reading, Part I -- mentions one of my favorite books by one of my favorite writers: "Class" by Paul Fussell. In addition to telling Jackson that he is a High Prole by birth, "Class" indirectly gave Jackson and his ilk the moniker of Generation X.

Short version -- in his book, after his semi-serious/semi-tongue in cheek dissection of class in America, Fussell describes the new ideal class, the X class, which will drink Bud from a can while listening to Chopin on a Walkman after having sex in the afternoon. (I paraphrase.) In short, Fussell was talking about a group that would recognize the markers of class and the consciously disregard said markers, and pick and choose the best from each.

Fussell's paean to dope smoking at the polo match with a bong made from my grandmother's Hummel figurines reportedly inspired some Canadian dude to write a book (a book that I will re-read, now that I think about it) and thereby name my juh-juh-juh-generation.

Fussell is also a war hero who detests the glorification of combat, wrote an amazing book about WWI ("The Great War and Modern Memory"), and who (rightfully, in my opinion) defended the use of nuclear bombs to end WWII in "Thank God For The Atom Bomb."

Lenny Bruce is not afraid.

That gasbag's book is out in paperback?

Jesus Christ. It starts with an earthquake, indeed.

When Black Friday comes

Howdy.

What have I been up to?

1. Well, I had a trial a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit of an unusual case for me in that I was not representing The Man. I won (of course!), though I didn't get the moon and the stars I pleaded for in closing, my eyes filled with tears and my voice thick with outrage. The Man is taking it up on appeal. A waste of time, I think -- the basis they are stating has a very high threshold. Whatever. I fricken beat them.

2. My trusty laptop had an unfortunate encounter with the laws of gravity. Sadly, the is one loss under the law that is Not Appealable. So, I bought a new one via eBay, and am very happy.

3. I had a pretty cool Halloween, which was quite unexpected.

4. Something bad happened. I won't post it here because of outability concerns (remember those?), but it sucked, albeit more for others than it did for me.

At any rate, my Thanksgiving Resolution is to write more, and since this is my outlet to the public (such as my reading public is -- hi, Mom!), this place will -- assuming the resolution is kept -- have a few more posts, which will come a little more often.

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school.

I haven’t kept in touch with anyone from high school. Not my high school, anyway – my wife and I still keep in touch with some of her classmates. And I am friends with some people I knew/worked with when I was in high school, although we’re not as close as we used to be.

At any rate, a few months ago I clicked on a link in one of the tumblr blogs written by amusing girls that I follow – it was a link to the blog of a former co-worker (or boss, maybe) of the blogger. Anyway, it turned out that he was a guy from my high school class. I’ll call him Ted, because that’s his name. I didn’t know Ted well, although we were both on the student newspaper. I was only at the school my junior and senior years, it was a somewhat clique-y place, and he was much higher in the campus food chain. I didn’t dislike him, really. I may have thought that he didn’t deserve his smart and funny girlfriend, but does one hate Dario Franchitti just because he’s with Ashley Judd? (Yes!) (Ok, bad example.)

Anyway, I noodled around his site a bit, learned that his life back in the day wasn’t quite the golden boy adventure that I imagined it was. I also learned that he’s pretty funny. I went back and looked at his site a couple of times, but since he writes about a topic that isn’t all that interesting to me, I stopped checking in regularly.

Fast forward to yesterday. My wife is going to her [redacted] high school reunion, and I got curious about mine. I decided to Google “name of Jackson’s high school plus year of graduation.” One of the first links was to one of Ted’s blog entries. I learned that Ted didn’t take his smart and funny girlfriend to prom (we’ll call her Sue), and that Sue had brought a revenge date, who got arrested. I was reminded of the fact that the prom king and queen were also involved in a scandal, which led to them almost getting expelled, which led to another scandal because they did not, in fact, actually get expelled. Ted posted a few pictures from said prom. Sadly, Sue was not pictured.

So, I did what any normal, bored, heterosexual male would do – I amended to include Sue in the search. Yes, I Googled Sue. No luck, alas – she had a relatively common name, and who knows if she’s married, changed it, etc. However, I did find a result that led to another classmate with a similar first name -- Susanna.

Susanna and I were friends. We hung out during lunch at the same table, and although I didn't go to prom, earlier in the year I had actually gone to the Winter Semi-Formal with her (in the same car, not as dates – I was dating a junior, and she was seeing another guy in our crowd). She was smart, reasonably attractive, quirky, and -- best of all -- she laughed at my jokes. So, intrigued, I followed the Google trail, and found myself at her “mommy and me” blog. Happily married to a brain surgeon, mother of wonderful twin girls who are reading Proust at age 4, blah blah blah.

So, what’s the relevance of this to your life? None, I suspect. Anyway, part of me is tempted to send an email to Ted, and I probably will at some point. I mean, he seems like a Not Jerk, and we all need more of those from our pasts, right? (I just hope that I can resist the effort to ask him about Sue.)

It’s a wonder I can think at all.

A scout from the Flames came down from Saskatoon.

So, my poor Rangers lost a heartbreaker last night when Sergei “I’m So Old That I Played In The Miracle On Ice Game -- For The Commies” Fedorov scored a goal late in the third period. I console myself with the fact that the Devils lost, too.

Ah, hockey. I played it in the frozen backyard of Jimmy Stevens as a lad in The Ancestral Homeland, cheered as new Ranger Phil Esposito battled his old teammate Bobby Orr on TV, and pretended I was Rocket Richard on the rare occasions when my older brothers allowed me to play as the Canadiens on the slot-hockey game we had in the basement. (Being stuck playing the Maple Leafs gave me a degree of sympathy for the white and blue that remains to this day.)

I drifted away from the game, though, after the move. The fact that hockey lost a national broadcast deal around the same time didn’t help. I rediscovered the game much later, when I was channel surfing and happened upon the playoffs one year on ESPN. It was 1993, the year that Montreal and Los Angeles battled for the Cup, and Patrick Roy hooked me. And the following year, my Rangers ended the “1940!” chants when Mark Messier picked them up and carried them into victory. Ever since, no matter who is in the playoffs, I love this time of year. I like it a lot better, of course, when a team (or player) I like wins, but the game itself makes up for the fact that the hated Red Wings win too often, or that the thuggish Devils seem to do well (but not this year!) in the playoffs.

At any rate, with the Rangers out, I need to find a new team to pull for. There are plenty of options, but I think that I am leaning towards the Blackhawks.

I was once lost, but now am found.

Hello.

So, it’s been a while. Longer than I had realized, in fact. One of my imaginary friends made a comment in passing about not seeing any new posts in some time, and when I checked, I was shocked to see how long it has been.

Anyway, spring has been a series of days in trial for me. Not that I haven’t had plenty of days where I just sit around the office Googling for information about “When Things Were Rotten” while the “Acoustic Estrogen” channel is playing on Pandora.com, but still.

I’ve also been writing a little bit, and maybe will post some more of The Other Great American Novel here for your amusement.

In other news, most of you probably already know this, but Alex Balk and Choire Sicha have started a new website – The Awl. If you aren’t familiar with these guys and their cast of talented friends and amusing commenters, go visit there now – we can wait for you.

Since we last spoke, I have continued my usual mildly manic-depressive mental health cycle, alternating between degrees of Angst-y Funk and Semi-Smug Satisfaction. The last couple of days have more on the funk side of the scale, but nothing too horrible. (Not that I ever really get too horrible, but you know what I mean.) I have, however, been pretty good about hitting the gym regularly for a little 30 minute cardio workout in the last two months, so (along with achieving total consciousness on my death bed) I got that going for me.

I saw a film today, oh boy.

Howdy, all. Happy New Year, etc.

I didn't realize how long it has been since my last post. While I wish that I could say that I was simply too busy to write something, it was really more a combination of (a) not being able to get on the web when I had something I thought was worth posting, and (b) not having anything worth posting when online. And now I am busy with work stuff, and here I am. Go figure. Anyway, a few quick things:

1. I finally bought and read Philalawyer's book. I had planned on doing a full post on it, and probably will, but just wanted to mention it since it's been several weeks already. Short version -- there are plenty of sex and drugs and rock and roll stories of the type on his website in there, but it also has an interesting discussion about the legal profession. I don't agree with all of my imaginary friend's conclusions (other than the fact that he is one cat remarkably unsuited for some of the places he's worked), but the book is more than just a mere collection of amusing anecdotes.

2. Go see Slumdog Millionaire. Great story. Much less sappy than I expected. You know what will happen at the end, but you will enjoy how the film gets there and what happens along the way.

3. Any New Years resolutions? I am still working on mine, but my perpetual one remains -- I want to be less of a procrastinator.