How to Be a Lawyer, Part Three: Getting the Damn Thing Over With

(Part One)

(Part Two)

STEP NINE, I THINK: Summer internships are so easy a caveman could do it. Them. In fact there's only one thing you need to know: the word "right". Because you come from a prestigious law school (assuming you followed my advice), your supervisors will expect you to know something about the law. Fortunately for you, a properly inflected "right" coupled with a terse nod of the head will convince every partner you understand what they're talking about.

"All this is is a pretty simple amendment to the credit facilities. You probably saw there's a first and second lien, but they're both pretty straightforward."
"Right."
"Anyway the hard part is gonna be obtaining the two-thirds consent needed to adjust the debt coverage ratios in order for the company to avoid a default."
"Right."
"Because obviously the lenders are gonna make them pay through the nose for this."
"Right."

I swear to God, somehow this works. I don't think I said anything besides "right", "thanks", and "Glenlivet" for the first three weeks of my internship.

Nine weeks later, the law firm will offer you a job.

STEP TEN: One smart thing to do after you get a job is to set about alienating every person you've ever been close to. This is a little harder than it sounds, but now that you're gainfully employed, law school isn't exactly taxing; you should have plenty of time to focus. One way to start is to hardly pay attention when your best friend starts dating someone who will eventually become his fianceé. If you're dating someone yourself, now is a good time to start disregarding his/her feelings and doing whatever you please all day long. By all means: ramp up the drinking. And it's not a bad idea to remind everyone you know that you'll soon make more money in one year than all of their lowly ancestors' lifetime earnings put together. It's pretty fun once you get into it.

STEP ELEVEN: By now, you're so close to being a blowhard corporate lawyer you can taste it. All you've got to do is pass the Bar. Unfortunately, the Bar presents an interesting challenge to a slacker like yourself: try as you might, there's pretty much no way to pass this thing without actually studying for it all summer. So if you want to bumble your way through this, you're going to have to be creative. Here are a few quick and easy tips:

(a) When your law school's records department says they mailed all your relevant information to the NY Bar Association, it's a good idea to believe them and not-- under any circumstances-- check with the Bar to make sure they received everything.

(b) Start a blog.

(c) When you run into a classmate sitting by himself at the bar at your local Outback steakhouse and you tell him nervously that you haven't booked a hotel in Albany yet and he laughs and says you're probably already fucked but he'll make some calls on your behalf RIGHT NOW, RIGHT FUCKIN NOW AT THE BAR AT OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE while you sit down and eat your stupid vegetarian pasta primavera alfredo bullshit, it's not a bad idea to believe him. Go ahead and nurture this incredibly insane delusion until a week before the Bar, without ever once bothering to ask him if he actually booked you a room or if he was just blowing smoke.

(d) When it's exactly one week before the Bar and you all of a sudden realize in a panic that you haven't received a seating assignment for the exam because the Bar never got your law school information, and finally come around to the idea that your drunken acquaintance at Outback probably didn't actually book you a hotel room because it occurs to you he doesn't even know your last name, and then also try booting up your computer to search for a last-minute hotel and find your computer is deader than a god damned doornail and all of a sudden it hits you flush that you can't access your notes and outlines for the Bar exam and hell apparently you're not even signed up for the fucking Bar anyway and even if you were you still don't have a place to stay; when this happens and you can honestly say you've treated the most important test of your entire life with the same crippling-fear-disguised-as-nonchalance that's confounded everyone you ever used to be close to since that time in kindergarten when your teacher had to tell your parents to stop letting you do your homework in fucking crayon, and when you look this realization square in the eye (so to speak) and tell it honestly "yes, this is the way i've chosen to live my life", now's when you know you're ready to pick up and move to a huge city 400 miles away from anyone who ever loved you and start working a 70 hour a week job that you can make a pretty strong case you're ghastlily unqualified for.

By comparison, the Bar exam is a trip to the zoo.

STEP TWELVE: Congratulations. You're a corporate lawyer. Everything you've ever dreamed of is now yours for the taking.

But just in case you wake up alone one morning in your sparsely-appointed efficiency and realize you've never had especially vivid or creative dreams, or if one day you're sitting in an airport playing BrickBreaker on your BlackBerry and decide all at once that putzing your way through college and law school is one thing but faking your way through the next 50 years is a whole other kettle of fish, just in case this ever happens to you, probably the best thing to do right then is to close your eyes and take one deep breath.

After that, you're on your own.

The Big Obvious Ripoff World Series Running Diary

Living in a city where you know zero people doesn't exactly make watching the baseball playoffs a lot of fun. Rather than sit around watching game one of the World Series by myself in my underwear, I thought I'd sit around watching game one of the World Series by myself in my underwear while keeping a running diary of the game. Sure, I'm ripping off The Sports Guy, but fuck it: who doesn't these days?

Bottom 1st, one out: With Youkilis on second, Ortiz squares around to bunt. Tim McCarver is so apoplectic he doesn't make any sense: "Here's a guy who DISDAINS on base percentage! And he's trying to bunt?!" Uh, Tim? Maybe you meant "reveres"? "Venerates"? "Lives and dies by"? Because you definitely didn't mean "disdains".

End of the 1st: One of those stupid iPhone commercials. You know the one where the pilot says his flight was delayed so he gets on his iPhone and checks weather.com and tells the dispatcher the weather system is passing? What the hell?? That's so obviously fake. What? The fucking dispatchers aren't monitoring the fucking weather? Plus: what did the pilot do that he couldn't have done on a Blackberry five years ago? Jesus.

Another commercial: Dane Cook, official spokesperson for October/Rocktober/Actober: "Someone...will do SOMETHING...that will SYMBOLIZE THEIR CAREER!" No, Dane. That barely even makes sense.

Bottom 2nd, two out: McCarver points out that the Rockies are defending Ortiz straight up the middle, rather than shifting the infield towards right field. Every other team would have the third baseman playing at shortstop, ready to cover second on a double play. Either the Rockies know something nobody else does, or Ortiz is going to make them pay.

Still Ortiz: Ortiz doubles to left field on a line drive that barely clears a perfectly positioned Tulowitzki at shortstop. Huh.

Top 3rd, one out: It's raining steadily in Boston and the groundskeeper just told the home plate umpire it's about to get worse. I admire the fans for staying so fired up: Boston in the rain is an incredibly depressing place. It rained when I was in Boston in 2004 for the Red Sox' victory parade. We drove all night to get there, but the rain was so depressing we actually thought about skipping the parade. So.

Top 4th, one out: You know what I've been meaning to rant about forever? Those fucking in-game managerial interviews. It's obvious the managers hate doing them; they're managing a fucking playoff game, for crying out loud. No manager with a brain stem would ever say anything interesting during the middle of a game. And worst of all, THE GAME IS GOING ON OFF CAMERA WHILE THEY TALK. As if on cue, Helton doubles off the Green Monster while Francona is busy telling the audience what a bad cribbage player Dustin Pedroia is.

Bottom 4th, 2 out: The Rockies MUST know something about Ortiz. There's no one on base, yet they still play him straight up, defensively. Lo and behold, he hits it to left field again, this time for a single. The Sox are catching tons of breaks, but the Rockies are obviously a brilliant defensive team.

Top 5th, one out: This is getting boring. The umpire is squeezing Beckett's strike zone something fierce, presumably trying to keep the game close any way he can.

Bottom 5th, two out: Ortiz up again, and damned if Colorado's outfield isn't actually shading towards left field. They've gone beyond playing him straight and are actually playing him to go the other way. Ortiz lines a double to dead center, where any sane centerfielder would have been standing, for an easy double. Maybe I spoke too soon about Colorado's defensive genius.

Bottom 5th, two out: Field reporter extraordinaire Ken Rosenthal just said the Rockies defeated the Cubs and the Diamondbacks in the National League playoffs. WRONG. Way to be prepared, Ken.

The rest of the damn game: It's like 837 -1 at this point, and I'm fresh out of things to say. As much as I love the Red Sox, I wouldn't mind a competitive game or two before they wrap this thing up.

Thanks for indulging this horribly failed experiment. I promise I'll get back to never blogging again shortly.

More Sports

Last night's one game playoff between the Rockies and the Padres to determine the National League's Wild Card recipient was exciting as hell.

All well and good. But more importantly, doesn't Matt Holliday look like Darth Vader after he takes his helmet off in Return of the Jedi? I say yes:



ps. I wonder who taught Holliday to slide head first into home. You can bet it wasn't Rockies manager Casey Stengel.

In NFL news, the NY Giants humiliated the Philadelphia Eagles 16-3 last night, sacking the Eagles' Donovan McNabb an NFL record 12 times. Defensive end Usi Umenyiora led the charge, registering six of those sacks by himself.

None of this is especially interesting, except that "Umenyiora" sounds uncannily like "human urine". And this made for some fun imaginary commentary between Al Michaels and John Madden in the NBC booth:

Michaels: "John, it looks like New York's defensive game plan is gonna be Umenyiora, Umenyiora, and more Umenyiora!"

Madden: "You said it, Al. I was talking to coach Fassel before the game, and he told me they were gonna throw Umenyiora at McNabb from all directions. He wasn't kidding!"

Michaels: "So far the plan has worked flawlessly. McNabb has had Umenyiora in his face all night long!"

Madden: "I really thought the Eagles' offensive line would dominate tonight. But Umenyiora has really changed the flow of this football game!"

Banner August Begets Barren September

As the headline suggests, I don't have much to say these days.

But I feel obligated to put in a fervent plug for the NBC drama Friday Night Lights. I just spent the last week watching all of the first season on DVD, and it's easily the best non-HBO drama I've ever watched.

Hell, it's probably the best non-The Wire drama I've ever watched. It's better written and acted than The Sopranos, and the casting is just as good. And unlike The Sopranos, there are no wasted episodes (I'm looking at YOU, entire first half of season six).

The bizarre thing is, for a show about high school football, the worst part of the show-- by far-- is the football. Fortunately the ridiculously overdramatic games only show up for a few minutes every other episode. Everything else is A+.

And don't be deterred by the subject matter. FNL is about football only in the same way that Cheers was about drinking.

NBC has made the entire first season available for free online. You can watch the first 3 episodes in about 2 hours. Treat it like a free movie rental; watch them and tell me you're not hooked.

ESPN.com's The Sports Guy has also recently begged his readers to give FNL a fair shake. For all you ladies out there (ladies?), here's the best part of Simmons's article:

"Quite simply, FNL is the best date show ever, an improbable cross between The O.C. and every sports show you ever wanted Hollywood to make. It's the first show my wife and I have loved equally."

I'm tired of typing. Just watch the damn show and you won't be disappointed.

Good Morning

Anecdotal reports suggest that Kanye West outsold 50 Cent yesterday. It's hard to believe 50 will actually retire, but it's still pretty fun to think about.

My early favorite line: "I'm like a fly Malcolm X: buy any jeans necessary".

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Currently playing: Kanye West - Good Morning [Intro]

Can't Tell Me Nothin

I'm painfully aware that this blog is degenerating into a lazy series of YouTube clips. That said, for lack of time (and inspiration), here's a lazy, albeit incredibly hilarious, YouTube clip:



Kanye's new album drops September 11th, the same day as 50 Cent's. In case you needed extra motivation, there's a rumor going around that 50 will retire if Kanye outsells him.

yet another story about oral hygiene

one of my friends is french. indelibly so. the other day he had a dental appointment that made him late to an afternoon meeting. as he walked in, i asked him how everything went.

"let me ask you a question," he said, by way of reply. "do you guys floss?"

"fuck no," i explained. "of course not," someone chimed in.

"oh, okay," he said, looking visibly relieved. "the dental hygienist asked me if i flossed. i wasn't sure, so i had to ask her: 'what is flossing?'"
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Death to the encore!

Certain brothers sent me a link to a good article about how much encores suck. I won't bother rehashing all the reasons, but man do they (the encores) usually suck. What was (presumably) designed as an honest way for an audience to show their appreciation for a really kick-ass show has devolved into a mandatory feature of virtually every performance. Playing an encore is like leaving a tip at a restaurant. The only time you don't is when something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Interestingly, last month's Pitchfork Music Festival afforded an opportunity to experience the thrill of a not-totally-expected encore. The first night of the festival was kind of gimmicky: it featured 3 bands each playing their most famous album from start to finish. Slint played first (some album I've never heard of), then the Wu Tang Clan's GZA (Liquid Swords), then Sonic Youth capped off the night with Daydream Nation.

Playing an entire album at a live event has some serious drawbacks. There's no anticipation of what song the band will play next or what they'll end with. Often the best songs come near the beginning. Between-song banter feels out of place, destroying the integrity of the album rather than being interesting or (in the case of The New Pornographers) hilarious.

But as Sonic Youth was finished up their album-ending "Trilogy", the one cool thing about an album feature came to light: no one knew if they would play an encore. They were the last show of the evening. A handful of people left. As the rest of us stayed and cheered, there was a real sense of excitement because we really didn't know if they would come back out. And if they did come out, we had no idea what they would play because they had already performed their most famous song as a part of Daydream Nation.

The encore was the best part of the show, by far. I can't speak for the rest of the audience, but I felt like we earned the encore we were enjoying, rather than getting something we all felt entitled to.

This is what all encores should feel like. Let's put an end to the tomfoolery and save encores for the transcendent shows that really deserve one. And eat some toast every once in a while, too.

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Right click and save: The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour

Yea Yeah!

Kill some time on a Wednesday: