Archive for the ‘Essays’ Category
November 10th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
For those who’ve been searching for the “Commencement 2009″ piece, below is a link to the four parts of it, in one continuous PDF file. People seem to really like this thing, so we threw all of the installments into one document, for easier printing and reading.
I’m told this piece circulates a lot. If you know someone who’d like it but can’t access this site at work, print him or her a copy. Or just pass it around the office. Maybe leave it on the water cooler. Management loves people reading this kind of stuff.
Commencement 2009 (If I Were Giving The Address)
October 29th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
This one’s quick, as I’m hopefully watching the Phillies take a two game lead on the Yankees. (That I view a big chunk of its legal community as one might a festering STD doesn’t sour me entirely against the city. And really, who the hell can be Yankee fan with that payroll? It’s like being a Duke basketball fan in the ’90s.)
But I’m not here to rant on why I’m glad, or view it as karmic, that a flea like Bobby Hurley never had a real NBA career. Or why Steinbrenner’s been a blight on baseball who won’t be leaving soon enough. No, this is a simple link – to a heartfelt, self-help piece I just wrote for Brobible, “You’re Not Getting Laid Because…” Here’s a sample:
You’re not getting laid because you’re…
3. Pleated
Youth and virility are paramount to attraction, and nothing says “old enough to have an elevated PSA reading” like a pair of pleated pants. The codger on the park bench rambling about how “Harry Truman would have fixed this goddamned economy,” the greeter at Wal-Mart with the Monty Burns hunchback… your great uncle with three inch-long nose hair and breath like mothballs — these corpses wear pleated pants, not you. The only thing you should ever do with a woman who’s into that look is steal her Social Security checks. And have her add you into her will.
It’s not all bad: They go well with Velcro shoes.
Maybe it is: So does a feeding tube.
I care, for all of God’s children. And I’m nothing if not giving.
October 28th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
Author’s Note: As you may have heard, Rudius Media is discontinuing hosting of the majority of its websites. New traditional material will be up when this site is on its new server next week. More details on that to come.
This piece is short, a link to one of a few interviews I’ve done over the past two weeks. This Q&A was with the good folks at Brobible, covering a wide range of topics. Below are a few highlights. The rest of the Q&A is here: “Think Work Sucks? The Philadelphia Lawyer Agrees.”
In addition to this, a new piece I wrote, “You’re Not Getting Laid Because…” will be up on Brobible tomorrow. We’ll link to that when it’s up.
What possessed you to start writing the tales of your life? Did you find the experience therapeutic?
Combination of things. The material was there, I knew I could write, and the scene around me was so absurd I figured, “Somebody has to deconstruct this shit — show it for what it is. Mine out the funny angles of this shit to show what an absurd, wasteful McProfession practicing law in this city is.”
Your book covers a decade of your rather unscrupulous, yet desirable life. What is the most insane moment of those 10 years?
That’s tough. I don’t know how to explain it, but in the vortex of chaos, I tend to feel calm, so looking back, it all seems normal, with the peaks flattened a bit. I think most people have a great capacity to adapt to the strangeness of a situation, so it’s hard to say what was most “insane.” Like I said in the passage in “Twenty-Six” regarding driving on nitrous, when you’re used to living in a certain element for a time, the weird gets regular. That’s why most of the serious freaks in society don’t write books. They figure, “Nobody’d be interested in this…”
What would you like to say to the nice folks over at Publishers Weekly who had this flattering statement to say about you: “Other people barely seem to exist for him: of his future wife we learn little more than that she has a dancer’s ass and amazing nipples”?
I’d say what I said in the Author’s Note: “Lighten up, Francis.” Have a sense of humor. I’d also say there’s no individual less qualified for his or her job than a critic.
A lot of our readers debate that you shouldn’t ditch your boys when your out drinking to go get some ass. What is your stance on that? Do you think its acceptable to cut out for a romp with a hot piece of ass?
How is that a debate? Of course you ditch. A guy who’d whine about that needs a slap. Or to reassess his sexuality.
October 27th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
And you may ask yourself-well…how did I get here? – Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”
That line played in my head a lot during my tour of the legal industry in Philadelphia. But never with more of a hook, or greater gravity, than during an odd moment where, for reasons I can’t explain, I found myself observing a local Trial Lawyer’s gala. In a situation like that, all I could do was shake my head, sip my drink and wonder, Seriously… How in the fuck did I get here?
For the past week of the promotion of the new Happy Hour is for Amateurs paperback, we’ve beaten up on the billable hour lawyers. Made fun of their out sized egos and myriad social dysfunctions, attacked their 18th century billing model… But that’s only half the story. This excerpt from the book covers their counterparts – the guys who file the lawsuits, otherwise known as “Plaintiffs” lawyers. I’d give you a little more but that might ruin the picture. Better to let the description do the talking. See if I haven’t nailed the funnier angles of the tribe:
A Crowd for Radio
October 24th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
You like drinking? Hell, you like drinking. Who the hell don’t? - Uncle Jemima*
I obviously do. The cover of the book makes that pretty clear (or the pieces I’ve done on bourbon and gin). And when I drink, I prefer to do it for real. I don’t want wine with dinner, mimosas with a Sunday brunch or a half a case Michelob Ultra watching the college games. That’s not drinking.** That’s sipping. If those are the options, “Pass.” Give me a Diet Coke.
And when I drink, I don’t like to wait… running back and forth to the bar, standing in line to reload. I want a fat glass filled to the brim, as much as I can comfortably hold. Which is why I order the Triple. A single’s never enough, a double’s close but still short and the quadruple? That’s too clumsy to request. Makes you sound like a coke-muscled yuppie fucking with the bar tending staff, the kind of asshole who deserves to lose some teeth. The Triple is the go-to order. Gets the job done with optimal efficiency.
The only problem? Some bars won’t serve the Triple. This gratuitous bit of dialogue from Happy Hour covers a run-in I had with a bartender on my honeymoon who refused to pour me one.***
The Trouble with Ordering Triples
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* Killer line: “What are you swatting at?” Morgan’s obviously a genius, but Meadows is under-appreciated.
** The best example of bad social imbibing is the drinking you see at corporate functions. In this rancid New Millenium, Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels have given way to low carb domestic McBeers and chardonnay, the lubricants of soccer moms, health-paranoids and pretentious control freaks everywhere. “Hello, Miriam. Great choice on the pinot grigo, huh? Works perfectly with the white bean and arugula finger sandwiches. Why don’t you tell me about an obscure expressionist you’re into at the moment? I’ll respond with a comment about some Romanian author I read about in the Times. Then we’ll segue into a discussion about your recent Third Circuit argument. I’ll say ‘fascinating,’ down the last of this glass of horse piss and pretend to excuse myself to get another.”
*** And got revenge on me for being difficult, as a later passage explains.
October 21st, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
“Scratch any cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.” Carlin nailed that one on the head. But he should have taken it further. Scratch the pious and you’ll find a deviant. Scratch the flirty and you’ll find a lousy lay. The teetotaler and you’ll find a closeted solvent sniffer, the liberal and you’ll find a tax cheat… The list goes on forever, but it all comes down to this point: The Surface is just the surface, and no, it’s not Reality.
We’ve all got a closet full of masks, and nothing reminds you of that like sitting in a stodgy club – one of those musty, Republican joints… a place Alex P. Keaton would have loved, or you could imagine Tucker Carlson holding court – admiring The Polite around you and wondering as you sip your whiskey, “Are these people thinking what I’m thinking? …What they all might look like naked? How the couplings might shake out if the place were to erupt in an orgy like something out of Eyes Wide Shut?”
The blue haired geriatric woman with the moustache would probably go for the guy in the bow tie – the one with the Mormon haircut. But he’s deeply closeted. He’d try for the maitre’d. The cougar in the corner’d want the server – the skinny foreign kid. And she’d want everyone to watch. The jowly couple just off the kitchen? They’d go at each other on the table. And the only question there is what condiments they’d add into the act. He’s obviously a cocktail sauce guy, but from the way she’s lathering those rolls, if there’s one thing that’s abundantly clear, the woman is all about the butter.* Perhaps they’ll meet in the middle… use that gravy boat of blue cheese dressing?
It’s enough to tease a weak gag reflex.
You’d like to think to think the whole room’s thinking that. And maybe the sick bastards are. Running lurid movies in their heads, all equally bored to tears. But they’d never admit it. And neither will you. You’ll just sit there and smile and drink – another brushed-cut, buttoned-down Average Well-Mannered Male. “Fresh pepper for iceberg salad?” “Yes, thank you.”
But beware of the physics in these places. Every action spurs a reaction, and the stiffer the setting you’re in, the more stiff drinks you’ll down. This slice of Happy Hour Is for Amateurs is about an evening at one of the dustier, white-bread dinner clubs in Philadelphia – the start of a brutal bender that eventually lead to one my greater professional embarrassments:
Lit Up in Stiff City
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* Insert your own Last Tango in Paris joke here.
October 20th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
I’ve got two things today. The first is a slice of Happy Hour is for Amateurs dealing with the bane of every associate’s existence, and every client’s pocketbook – billable hours. If you know anything about the legal profession, you’ve heard how they’re routinely inflated. Heard of the studies showing that 20, 30% of lawyers pad their time. You might have read an article I did with the guys at Bitterlawyer.com outlining the more subtle forms of it.
No need to rehash that here. We all know how the recent “law-firms-as-unit-salesman” model has compelled all sorts of fraud. This piece addresses a different issue – a more finite, amusing one… How a lawyer allegedly billing 2400 hours a year – and yes, that’s exceedingly common – could achieve such an amazing feat:
2400 Hours
The second thing I have is a review of the book, one that just appeared last night. “Why cite this?” you might be thinking. There’s a simple reason for that. When I started writing the book, some people were critical of the approach taken. Said you couldn’t vein a serious message through three hundred pages of obnoxious humor. Said we either had to aim for the frat boys who read one book a year, or the serious readers who’d only respond to a conveniently redemptive and re-affirming message, but that doing both was doom. My editors and I disagreed. Both are offensive conceits, built on awful stereotypes. The “frat boys” read a lot more than you think, and the truly “serious” book readers – those who read not to have their assumptions reinforced, but challenged – consume a lot of twisted literature. This reviewer understood… grasped how the comedy and the message of Happy Hour traded off one another. It’s nice when someone really gets it.
This is also a bit gratuitous. Nobody’s written a line like this about the book before: “Fight Club is a poor man’s Happy Hour is for Amateurs. That’s not a jab at good ole Chuck, just the truth.” I’ve never written for critics. But I’ll take those props where I can.
October 19th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
“Hall hath no fury like a spurned woman,” the old saying goes. And “Hell hath no fury like a spurned bureaucrat,” Milton Friedman famously corrected. I’d agree that both are damn angry sorts, but neither, I think, is the worst. There’s an animal far more annoying, more petty, nasty and grating – insufferably, perpetually infuriating.
Yes, I’m talking about the “Napoleon.” The “Little Guy” we all know from the office who’s been gifted a position of power and never lets anyone forget it – inflicts himself on all of those around him. Yes, he was virgin past twenty. Yes, he took his cousin to the prom. And, of course, he was the head hall monitor. But now he’s a man of peerage – a white collar mid-level vassal, with “Esquire” or “Vice President” in his title.
And the fiefs below him Will Pay.
You run into countless Napoleons in law. Every fifth office seems to house another. This slice of Happy Hour is for Amateurs is about a run-in I had with one during my first law firm interview, a particularly odd morning I’d started off by getting hit by a car (the rest of that background’s in the book):
Breakfast with Napoleon
October 16th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
This piece of Happy Hour is for Amateurs deals with an exceedingly common subject – the boss who lives to torture his workers. But as much as we’ve all known his kind, toiled under his constant irritation, the question is, What do you call him? You can spot what makes him what he is. The undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome, the mid-life recognition he’s trapped in a profoundly insignificant life… the family he’d love to leave, with the Zoloft-tranquilized wife, Ritalin-addled brats and their heaving tuition costs. And yet as obvious as all that is, no easy label fits. This is where he’s undefinable, inscrutable – where no species or genus applies.
Or perhaps that’s all wrong, the worst kind of over-thinking, missing a plain-as-day answer. Maybe he’s the simplest of creatures, and the only thing making him a mystery is a Jeckyll and Hyde inconsistency.
I’ll never know for certain. But I’ve analyzed this animal at length. Worked with experts in the field, applied the most rigorous testing. And though a sure diagnosis still eludes me, there have been those blessed epiphanies, the occasional “Eureka” moments. In the interests of science, of animal behavior and anthropology… in the spirit of the greats from Darwin to Dawkins to Desmond Morris, a case study for your consideration:
Sudden Asshole Syndrome*
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* Again, you may need to rotate the PDF file counterclockwise to read the piece.
October 15th, 2009 by PhilaLawyer
This slice of Happy Hour is for Amateurs covers something I’ve talked about in the past – the “3:1 Ratio.” Something everyone from twenty-two to forty will recognize. Well, everyone who values his or her time… who demands that every hour in the office be matched by, or obliterated from memory with, an equivalent hour spent “blowing the carbon out of the cylinders.” As the subtitle of the chapter notes, it’s a study on “The Art of Balance.” …And a few other things:
Three-to-One
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* PDF link may require counterclockwise rotation in Adobe.
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