It Was This Big . . .

In the spring, I started thinking seriously about Seton Hall to prep for the NJ Bar Exam. It was too late for the summer sitting of the exam and I've gotten involved in other things this fall, but I have to say that, like most things I finally do with seriousness, it takes me a few orbits to get "A Round Tuit" and next year will be it. I think, anyway.

One of the reasons I feel motivated is that I realize that I miss it. I wa heavily involved in contracts and intellectual property rights when I was in New York. After that went south, I thought that I'd be fine as a civilian for a while, but it just won't work out.

Another reason is my crazy ex-wife who is distressing because, unfortunately, she's a sociopath that's painted a target on my back in part because I choose to participate, to stand up for what's right.

I've gone through the mill with her and spent a bit of time studying civil practice and statute as it relates to divorce and child custody. I don't believe that she's studied, per se, as she's a sociopath and study is beneath her. Instead, as a sociopath, she believes that she's entitled to ask the questions and get the answers. She, too, was involved in contract law in New York. And her contracts were horrible. I fixed them for her boss and that's how we met. And that's how I got into trouble in New York, covering for her. She'll deny it because if indicted, she would have been convicted and would have been deported. What a player.

But that's away from what I started out getting at. I know a few lawyers here in the big NJ and from time to time, I ask questions about what's practical versus what's possible. In theory, anything is possible - I can sue you for anything and for any amount of money, right now. Even if I don't know you, I can find something - I promise. The question is, will the judge dismiss the suit outright? Judges don't like spurious suits and opposing counsel have the right, and often do, ask for sanctions. So, there has to be some basis to go forward but not necessarily to file. It's not so, so easy, but it's easy enough.

Another thing is this - people mistake the practice of law as a means to obtain justice. That's not what it's about at all, unfortunately. Justice is kinda absolute and the law is very finite. So, the results are very finite. Further, your particular problem is unlikely to make it into caselaw, so your attorney will try to press it into one category or the other, for which caselaw and statute already exists. That is, assuming you don't have millions of dollars to spend on representation.

Let's say you did have millions of dollars to spend on representation, though, and Mike the Neighbour doesn't like the fact that you have wild sex parties on the front lawn of your mansion, but the only way he can know about those sex parties is either to have attended himself, assuming he was invited and if he wasn't invited, he was likely trepassing because common law provides basic principles of opertaion though he may have had a lawful purpose in walking on your sex-sweat-covered greenery as may have been permitted by local statute or custom . . . It's already starting to get sticky, and we're not even one sentence in. So, he complains to the homeowner's association and your legal team advises you that he surely does have a case and will likely win a civil suit. They propose an answer, which is filed. Six months pass. A preliminary injunction against your sex parties is appealed, lifted, reimposed and made permanent pending the outcome of the trial. A year passes. In the meantime, you have sued this neighbor for slander, considering your station in the community, that is, you are rich and not an importer of cocaine, citing that the parties were entirely to benefit charity, say Doughnuts for Dum Dums, or whatever and were, in fact, performance art. That reaches interrogatories and several hearings have come and gone on a number of sundry issues, the sundry-er, the better, since it costs Neighbour Mike more moola, time and certainly pressure.

Therein lies the key: pressure. Get the opposition to spend money. This equals pressure. Suggest through legally-effected action, like motions, pleadings, interrogatories and so forth, an uptick in activity. This also equals pressure. If PR or other psychological means are available, use them. Even more pressure. Ain't got nuthin to do with what's right or wrong. It has only to do with getting the other side to a disadvantageous position so that when negotiation begins, maximum leverage is further amplified by the concept that counsel will be walking away at any second along with the client, who, as been shared between us lawyers, is an asshole, anyway. Pressure.

So, in my personal situation, my crazy ex-wife knows how to apply pressure. She is a master at manipulation, insinuation and, of course, outright lying. If she wasn't a total sociopath, she might have made it through law school, might not have practiced without being admitted to the Bar and might have actually been a pretty ballsy attorney, but because sociopaths feel elevated and entitled, there was no real reason for her to finish school and get her license.

Unless you can afford to sustain a legal challenge, settle right from the beginning. Or run away. There are no legal resources for people who earn enough money to buy bread and beer on a weekly basis and for the truly poor, representation is being phoned in by newbie attorneys who are doing pro bono at their firm's requirement for new associates. Too bad, really, as most of these young folks actually still have an interest greater than simply building a practice or getting the partnership.

There are some websites, like LawGuru.com, that let people ask questions and get answers from attorneys who are looking to, you guessed it, build their practice. I developed and posted this question:

"My ex-wife is a sociopath and an alcoholic. She has failed to follow any aspect of the JOD. She constantly sends me annoying, disturbing and sometimes frightening e-mails which are filled with lies. I believe that she wants me to react and rack up big legal fees so that she can countersue for whatever she imagines she can get plus her legal fees. Her goal, she once said while beating me to a bloody pulp before the divorce, was to rip out my heart so that I could watch it beat in her hand while I died and, short of that, to support her every habit and whim even if it meant I had to work three jobs and live on the street. She's incredibly manipulative, so much so that she manipulated her own attorney into fronting 20 grand in fees which she hasn't paid and likely won't. Further, she's a resident alien and has no qualms about taking my kid and heading back to her mosquito-infested country if the going gets felony. Am I better served by getting intensive therapy for myself and just forget my kid ever existed or should I take her down like a pair of dirty knickers?"

I know the answers to these questions and they will be very generic. There is ALWAYS something one can do, but is it worth it? Is it? We'll see.

Mmm, Mmm, Good!

Fall is just a few days away. Very shortly, we'll be turning back the hands of time. For me, it will likely be the last time.* And so, my thoughts turn to soup.

I don't mean that my cognitive function is in such disarray that my thinking is "soupy." Nor am I referring to that edgy, pushy, angry dude of my youth, Soupy Sales. In actual fact, I herein refer to the wonders of tasty, warm, somewhat salty boiled meats and vegetables whose vital essence has joined together in a cacophonous romp of flavour. Easy to eat and universally wonderful with buttered pumpernickel or rye, soup is, in fact, manna.

I'm guessing that just about anything can go into a soup. When my kid was little, we went to a fall park event that attempted to explain through demonstration how it was exactly that early settlers lived day-to day. We we given local ingredients, like potatoes, apples, rhubard, turnips and cabbage, water, a large cauldron-like pot and an area in which to make a fire. Oh, and we had to cut the wood first. And it was chilly and dank. In other words, it sucked to be an early settler BUT there was soup to look forward to. It took about two hours to make it happen but the result was not too different from micro-zapping a Cambell's Soup For One, except it benefited the many, in this case. And it took two hours - did I mention that? But boy, was that a welcome reward. Warm, tasty, filigrees of flavour wafted over our palates as we downed what could have been our last meal. If we were those immigrant-type people. Which we weren't. So, we went to McDonald's afterwards. Just to round it out, you know?

My mother made some killer soups, my favourite being pickle soup. Please don't laugh. Didn't I just ask you not to laugh? Pickle soup is a Polish thing made with chicken broth, potatos, cream, dill and, obviously, pickles.

Hobo Soup is available on-line from The Vermont Country Store.

*(As I'm considering moving to Venezuela, where Hugo "I Got Yer Dic-tater Ovah Heah" Chavez is sending his country back in time by offsetting the clocks back, but by a half-hour.)

Vanishing Point

My Aunt died this week. She was younger than my mother by about two years. Her birthday would have been celebrated in about two weeks from the date of her demise. Basically, her billion heart beats were up and over. She was on vacation, caught a stomach virus, got pneumonia and, over the course of five days, her systems shut down, one by one, and then she croaked, simple as that. Ovah.

I can't say we were close. She lived in Poland, four thousand miles away from New Jersey. She had come to visit in the 90's and before that again, a bit. I met her first in 1970, when me and my mother trekked across Canada by rail to get to New York to take a plane to Warsaw to then get picked up by my mother's cousin, Mietek, in his blue Skoda 1102 coupe for the drive to Krakow. (Please note the CORRECT Polish spelling is used here for that town name.) I was an irritable little kid who was way overtired when we got to their house in what are now the suburbs of Krakow, but her husband was a gem of a guy and, now I realize, played with me outside while I'm sure the tears flowed between sisters who hadn't seen each other since the middle of World War Eye-Eye.

Their kitchen, oddly, was in the basement, but in a place where air-conditioning would have been a ridiculous luxury only available to Party higher-ups, if at all, it made sense - especially since they had a wood (!) stove. It was very cozy and my Aunt made noodles by hand along with a huge pot of chicken soup made with a recently beheaded pullet from the farm of another one of my Aunts. In fact, they all lived within a few miles of the three-room farmhouse they all grew up in, the house that my grandmother and grandfather, still alive then, occupied. I enjoyed the chicken soup by first exhausting the liquid protein portion, saving the savoried noodles for last. This amused the whole family to no end. It's also a technique I employ to this day.

My Aunt was a kind of seamstress. She had a special sewing machine that she would use to repair silk and nylon stockings. This was behind the Iron Curtain, you have to understand, and ladie's stockings were not only very hard to come by, frequently only available to those who knew somebody who knew somebody who smuggled them in somehow and who would only accept the Almighty Dollar as payment. In fact, for anything desirable or in short supply, dollars greased the wheels of blackmarket commerce.

So, she took in stockings from customers that passed them along to her via word of mouth. What couldn't be easily fixed on the tiny machine with a needle that came out of the top would be fixed by hand, color-matched form spools of silk and nylon thread. She did good work.

She also had a low blood pressure problem, the same as my cousin does now. For this, she drank, I believe what was a concoction which had as a primary ingredient fermented goose fat. This was kept in a jar under the sink. She would unscrew the lid, cigarette in one hand, take a big gulp and then sigh, "Ahhh. Delicious!" in her raspy voice, clearly not meaning it, but it seemed that she made her peace with the fact that Phizer wasn't going to be delivering a more suitable remedy anytime soon.

When she visited the States much later, she worked for a month or so. This was the thing to do besides sight-see and she got a gig cleaning houses. Then she went back. I was busy working in my business and saw very little of her, maybe one or three dinners.

As my older relatives disappear, one by one, I recollect that I've had to endure very little death in my lifetime. One cousing was killed by a drunk driver just on her graduation from law school, another died of cervical cancer, a very old great-aunt passed away when I was eight or so, and my grand-parents, again when I was young, in the case of the Canadian side or when I was in my teens for the Polish grandparents. My father, uncles and aunt on my father's side still live and breath and do three Aunts and an Uncle on my mother's side. But they're all very, very old and reside in the Death Zone of human lifespan. I get the sense that they will all die nearly at once.

And then, when these benevolent and largely transparent people have shuffled off their mortal coils, what's left? My brother is in his sixties and hates me because, I have been told, I was born after him. Yeah, I know - that's another story in of itself. My daughter will be marching off into the sunrise of adulthood, where I will occupy a smaller and smaller section of her rear-view. My cousins in Poland barely know my name and same here. I haven't spoken to my Canadian cousins in eons (except for one, recently, too. Ha! There is hope!)

Therefore, in light of the rapidly advancing and likely demise of all I am and all I know, I must renew myself and start again. I must take a wife, one who will till the land by my side, who will feed the young borne of her loins, one who will kept the hearth alight. Preferably someone who can make chicken soup and tasty noodles by hand. In honor of my Aunt and all Aunties across the globe, the ones who are just like Mom, only a tad bit closer to the wild side.

(Picture left: Mollie Jenson)

Deception Revealed

I'm a hundred and three years old today. I was the first official retoucher for the United States Armed Forces. I can confirm that this photograph was created from a single soldier who was dragged from the brig early one morning after having been scooped up on a drunk sweep by MPs the night before. Using Photoshop 0.00000001 on my steam-powered Appleseed computer, which was portable, by the way, brought in on a twenty-six car freight train to Fort Benning, I cloned the image of that single soldier into the fantastic "photo" you see here. Originally, Morris wanted to carve the "troops" out of soap and coal, but that didn't work out. There you have it. Sorry for the seven decades of deception.

Sadly, I Turn To Thee

Just in case you think I'm slacking off . . . I'm not.

Please view this while you wait:

http://www.dontevenreply.com

Atreyu !!!!!

That's Falcor the Luck Dragon being ridden by, you guessed it, JFC. I happened upon this about a year ago whilst using StumbleUpon and couldn't find it again until just now. I do not know who the artist is, but I would love to find out. Have a blessed day.

Icons On Ice

Both Micheal Jackson and Farrah Fawcett took the long vacation today. They are icons of my era. MJ was my age. Farrah is my brother's age.

I was a alt-punk rocker, mostly, so MJ was anathema mainstream and frankly, annoying. Farrah, though, had wonderful nipples. I'm listening to the Beeb at the moment and so far, all of the press is on the late Mr. Jackson. My recollection is that Mikey wanted to be Popsicle-ized a la Walt Disney, presumably to be unfreezed when face-transplant surgery is a perfected technique. There has been no coverage on the possible preservation of Ms. Fawcett's twin stiffies.

I supposed this is the way it will be. Pretty soon, Mick, Rick, Tim, Tom, Randy, Demi, Sally, heck, the whole darn crew, will be heading off to the Pearly Gates for inception into the Eternal Hall of Fame. And with any luck, I'll be at the end of the line, behind the celestial velvet rope. Allah, Buddha, Yaweh, et al, willing.

(Image credit: Del Monte, Splash News)