Doubleplusungood

A Slight Case of Hubris

2010-01-29T19:32:00.002-05:00

Wednesday, at twenty past five I rushed out of the new Federal Building, the one the Young Senator's dad got built, into the early evening. I had just left our local US Bankruptcy Court, a place I never expected to be when I left the house at quarter to eight that morning. What I had just seen was the latest chapter of an ungoing legal farce. Except this farce featured a lawyer who was in real danger of going to jail. He was in danger of going to the state prison because he refused to obey an order issued by the highly specialised court, the one that has jurisdiction over workplace injuries, where I have worked and practiced for most of the last twenty years.

The client is well known in legal and political circles. He is a persistent critic of the state courts. He was embroiled in a vicious feud with the former chief justice. He had big political ambitions, and a little bit of success. All his grabs for the big brass ring had failed.

He is smart. As a very young man he was a top aide to a man who became one of our most revered US Senators. He has aged into a distinguished looking fellow. He is, however, arrogant, with a big mouth. He also was very prideful. His arrogance and his pride would not allow him to admit he had been suckered by the former employee whose case landed him in such a world of trouble.

He had refused to comply for six months. My interest in this: I was the attorney who represented him at the hearing where the order was entered. This was the hearing last June that ended with client being ejected from the courtroom by the judge and me being publicly fired, for all practical purposes. In other words, I represented the client from hell.

I quickly got out of the case. The rules of professional conduct do not allow me a lot of leeway, but I can say we had a serious difference of opinion about defending the case. My client was on the spot, stuck good by his neglect of his business and the machinations of a former employee. I've seen hundreds of these nusiance cases. I've prosecuted a number of them. My client could extricate himself from this little mess for a few thousand bucks. He has publicly refused to pay him a dime.

He has consistently and publicly stated the former employee's claim was fraudulent. He was probably right. But it was a well executed fraud, and once the court entered its order by law he was obligated to pay the guy every week until the court ordered payments stopped. And by the way, an employer who is not current in his payments is precluded from doing anything in his own defense.

I spent most of the summer and fall rehabbing my shattered ankle, so I followed the ongoing comedy from afar. I heard a lot about the open disrespect he showed the court. I heard about the patience of the judge, who was obviously determined to let my former client have all the rope he wanted. Because in the end, the client will either pay or go to jail.

Six months later he was in bankruptcy court begging the judge to keep him out of jail. Briefly he had put his firm into Chapter 11. All civil proceedings against his firm were automatically stayed. He apparently forgot that he was also named as a defendant, personally. The judge in the injury case, who had two deputies standing by to take my former client away, proposed to continue the action against him personally. That had happened that morning. At five PM we were in the Bankruptcy Court listening to the employee's counsel, the bankruptcy trustee and the bankruptcy judge all heap polite scorn upon my former client's motion for a stay. They bounced him out.

He filed for personal bankruptcy later that day. The original court proceedings will resume next month. My former client remains a free man.

Attorneys who do bankruptcy believe he is playing with fire, using the Bankruptcy Court as a stall tactic. The public report of his filings indicate that neither his business nor he personally are insolvent. It smells like a fraud on the court.

All this because he couldn't admit he had been had. He tried to turn a crummy little nusiance case into some kind of great crusade for civil rights. Just what this crusade is about he could never explain. This is the result: He just turned sixty-five, and financial ruin and possible jail time is hovering over him.

It would be sad if he wasn't so arrogant. A slight case of hubris.

The Kid Passes

2010-01-28T16:21:00.003-05:00

The Kid left City Hall twenty years ago, after an ill-fated run for Governor against the Big Bully. He now belongs to a previous generation of pols, only really remembered by the older people in the political game. For the rest, he's just another oil painting, up there on the walls with Mayors Gainor, Reynolds and Doyle.

He has been pondering a comeback for months. He tried eight years ago. Made a good start too, but the campaign foundered badly when he assumed there was a lot of nostalgia out there for his time in office. Just wasn't there. Some ill-considered remarks he made about our burgeoning Hispanic community also hurt him badly.

He announced yesterday that he would not be a candidate for mayor this year. Part of me is relieved. The very real part of me that likes him and was proud to serve under him, the other guy who was mayor during the last quarter of the last century, hated the thought of another defeat. Speaking as a political operative, it was difficult to see where his base of support was.

Part of me was sad though. As a longtime resident of this city I am dismayed by our incumbent mayor. He seems tired of the job. It looks like he's running again only because a series of City Hsll scandals, including a very visible one involving his brother, sank his campaign for governor before it ever started.

It looks like our mayor is going to be reelected by default. The only declared candidate is a local crackpot. Another possible candidate is the underfunded City Council President, who is also an ex-mayor by virtue of having inherited the last few months of The Facist Beast's last term. That was when TFB resigned the office a second time, to begin servng his federal prison sentence.

The Kid is a major property owner in the city (a very sore point when he was mayor). He said in the end he couldn't run for mayor and attend to his business. So he took a pass. Good for him. I can't argue with his decision, which was accompanied by a well thought out critique of the direction of the city.

Too bad. For once, the past might have been our way to the future. Not this year.

They Had a Secret

2010-01-27T17:04:00.003-05:00

In the 1980s I got interested in family history. As a practical matter that meant my mother's family. They were a "blended" family long before the term was coined. Culturally they were Irish Catholic with a French-Canadian presence. This was the result of my grandmother's three marriages, only two of which I was supposed to know about.

I learned a lot about my mother's people. They were a colorful bunch. Aren't we all when the truth comes out? I got a tremendous archive of photos from my Aunt Bea, as well as a ton of stories. I passed a number of very pleasant afternoons with her and Uncle Bill in Milltown, the decaying industrial city where both sides of my family had settled.

Dad heard about my research. He grew up on the other side of Milltown--the end near the Park and The Country Club. He wanted me to run down his family. There was a significant problem. His family was close to non-existent, at least in the States. His only brother was dead. His father was an only child. His mother had a sister. When his mother died, in 1966, there was a big collection of photo albums and documents in the basement. I was 12, but already interested in these things. Not Dad. He was adamant that it all be dumped, which it was. Years later I can only wonder at the rage that made him want to do this. It must have been considerable. His mother was not an easy, or nice, person to deal with. And I say that as her favorite grandchild.

But this isn't about her. It's about his dad's parents, Carl and Louise, who came to this country after the turn of the century. According to family legend, (i.e., Grandma) he was a draft dodger. He did not want to serve in the Kaiser's army. He and Louise settled in Milltown and lived long productive lives. Their only son married in 1923 and went on to raise two boys, one of whom is my Dad.

They did take a trip back to Germany in the early days of the Weimar Republic. This was during the terrible inflastion. Grandma still had a few of the Reichmark notes, with their huge denominations, as a souvenir of their visit.

Dad called me one summer day in 1987 and asked me over. He had a box of documents, some dating back to the 1880s, all in German. It was a tiny fraction of the stuff he had tossed two decades before. He asked me if I could get them translated. I took the box and told him I would try.

I found a man, a business owner, in a neighborhood called the Jewelry District. He could translate German. One slow, sultry day I left City Hall, where I worked for The Kid, and made the short walk over to this man's office.

He worked out of one of the 19th century mill buildings that cover our city. I can't remember his name, but he was very amiable and enthusiastic as he worked his way through the papers.

I took notes, but my Dad's treasure trove was mostly a disappointment. This was a box full of basic documents like their birth certificates. There were a lot of vacination documents. We were almost done, when my friend of the hour picked up one of the last documents.

"What's this?" he said.

It was different. It was from the 20th century, the early 1920s to be exact. It was Carl and Louise's marriage certificate. They apparently had unfinished business when they left Germany. They returned home, which was Berlin, to get married. I told my translator, briefly, the story of my great-grandparents. He thought the trouble they took to return to Germany and formalize their relationship, out of sight of their longtime friends and neighbors in Milltown kind of romantic. So did I. They would have been in their early 40s then.

Dad didn't think it romantic at all when I returned the papers to him a week later. He was surprised and not pleased at all. I guess this was because, strictly speaking, that made his Dad a bastard. I didn't see it that way, as Carl and Louise had had a perfectly valid common law marriage in this state. And who card really, now that everyone involved was dead?

Carl and Louise must have cared very much. Nobody knew in their lifetimes. Based on my Dad's reaction they must have thought they were taking their big secret to their graves. And they would have, had not one random piece of paper escaped destruction.

Twenty

The Difference Between the Mob and Wall Street

2010-01-24T10:06:00.002-05:00

The difference is basic. The Mob is honest with themselves and with us about who they are: criminals. They don't deny it to themselves, or to us, or the government.

Wall Street and other top execs have had many of their leading lights exposed as the worst kind of criminal manipulators. Vast frauds have been perpetrated. Wall Street denies everything. They just had a bad year as a result of poor business judgments.

Bernard Madoff was unusual in that he is a criminal who ran a decades long criminal enterprise, who admitted it when the games was up. It became clear that he decided to take the fall to protect his family/co-conspirators. To date, he has been successful. Much family property has been confiscated, but so far no one else has been charged.

They have one thing in common with the mob, though. When unwanted attention comes their way, they lawyer up.

You doubt me? Lets do a little mind experiment. Let's say the late gangster, Al Capone, is alive and well and doing business in Chicago. He made his mark as a bootlegger, selling illegal alcohol doing Prohibition.

Today alcohol is legal, but you can't keep an enterprising criminal down. So Al, were he alive and in his prime, would no doubt have found some lucrative illegal activity to enrich himself. Let us say he was involved in an real estate flipping scheme.

Let's stipulate that it's a huge scheme, hundreds of millions of dollars involved. What would Al Capone do today?

He would hire expensive criminal lawyers. But he would also hire pr people to deny strenuously that he did anything wrong. His people would launch a campaign to completely obfuscate the issues. He's say that a poor business decision is not a crime. Investors losing their money is not a crime. He's cry that he is being persecuted for policy differences. (I love that last one. Whoever coined that one deserves an Orwell Award) There's a good chance the government would just not even bother to go beyond a cursory investigation of Capone's scheme before deciding to let it dribble away.

Certainly this is what's happening now in real life. This country has been cleaned out in a three decade long crime spree. The Wall Street debacle of last year was just the most public manifestation of what has happened.

The government appears to have accepted the Wall Street mantra that there was nothing to see here. And Wall Street, having gotten away with it, has decided to resume business as usual. 2009, a rotten year for the country was a great year on The Street. Most of the bonuses came, as expected.

It's all just policy differences after all.

For Sale

2010-01-19T19:26:00.003-05:00

I don't have an office these days. I work out of an office in my house. Thanks to the cell phone, I don't really need a place downtown, where many lawyers still congregate around the two state courthouses and the federal court. (Not to mention the bankruptcy court)

One of my lawyer friends lets me use his conference room. His office is in one of the renovated 19th century buildings on the funky, curving street that follows the old indian trail that ran through the area when most of what became downtown was marshland.

I had met a client in my friend's office. She is a nice lady, another worker in the process of being discarded like trash. Fortunately she has a good case, with some real settlement potential if we play it right.

I had to make a quick stop at the highly specialized court where I have spent a big chunk of my life. I couldn't see the Judge to get an order entered until around 2PM. I decided to go across the street to Tommy's, the last of the old style greasy spoons, for lunch.

I hadn't been in there for nearly three years. I was shocked at the quiet. Hardly anyone there. This place used to be hopping at lunch time. I took this as a bad sign for the local economy.

After lunch I headed for the Courthouse. It's only thirty years old, but it's filthy, worn out from overuse and lack of maintenance. On the way there I walked past a big empty building. Back in the Phony 80s, when I was working for The Kid, this was well known as The Gas Company Building. It was corporate headquarters, had a showroom, and an area where customers came in and paid their bills. According to a story in that morning's paper it is for sale. So, for that matter, is the newspaper's building. The building now carried the handle of the Limey utility monster that had swallowed up both the gas and electric companies. But it was like makeup on a corpse.

It is dark, empty. All local staff were moved out of state years ago. The big plate windows, where busy employees had been on display, were covered with paper. It seemed an apt symbol for what had happened to our city and state since The Kid's brief reign as our mayor.

I turned the corner. This street had the entrance to the new addition to the gas company's hq, constructed and dedicated in the mid 80s. Standing on Dorrance Street, peering into addition, which looked as dead as an ancient tomb, I recalled the dedication ceremony. The Mayor was the guest of honor; I was with him. It was early evening of a pleasant summer day.

The Gas Company was locally owned and had been in business for 140 years. It had always been around and it always would be. So we all thought. The company officials who spoke, starting with the CEO, were all proud of their past and excited about their future. They meant it: the understated, but modern, addition spoke for itself.

Those corporate guys are long gone. The Kid left office twenty years ago. He is contemplating a comeback. The gas company is long gone too, the once busy building empty. It's not exactly derelict, but it's another of many dead spots downtown. (The most notable: the big vacant lot down the block where the condo tower never even broke ground. The developers did succeed in destroying a historic building though).

I stood there and stared at the empty building and wondered once again why we have wantonly destroyed so much. The whole country seems hollowed out, neglected, abandoned. For sale. But no one is buying.

Everybody Ought to Have An Anti-Role Model

2010-01-18T18:09:00.006-05:00

When we sold our house in the summer of 2008 our lives were very unsettled. My wife and I, her sister in tow, just wanted a place to hang our hats. Actually, I'm the only one who wears a hat, but you get it, right?

After some quick prospecting of apartment buildings, two occupying opposite banks of a neglected, overgorwn river, and another close to the State House, we decided to sign a six month lease at a well known apartment building on our city's affluent East Side. My wife loved the elegant lobby and the hardwood floors. The fact there was a nice restaurant in the building didn't hurt either.

Before we signed the lease I reminded her, "You know, HE lives there." She said she knew, and that if I didn't mind, neither did she.

He was Chet (not his real name). Since the Phony 80s, Chet has been my very own Anti-Role Model. I'm not being facetious. Chet was the man I never wanted to be.

I recommend that every young and youngish person find an anti-role model. Don't get me wrong. Mentors are great: I've had three mentors myself, men who influenced the way I see things and have conducted myself.

Chet and I crossed paths when I was 32, in my first year working for The Kid, the mayor of our city. I was still trying to figure out where I fit in with his crowd when The Kid startled his staff by hiring Chet as his top political aide. There at least two people on staff who felt they had that job. They were mighty unhappy to find out otherwise.

Chet's claim to fame was his management of The Facist Beast's reelection campaign three years earlier. TFB had run for Governor against a popular, bland incumbent and had lost disastrously. As the campaign progressed TFB's mismanagement of the City became apparent. Corruption was rampant, the city finances so broken that after the election the state took control of city operations. The Facist Beast seemed ticketed for retirement.

I'll say one thing for TFB. He's no quitter. He's also no dope. Somewhere he came across Chet and hired him to run his campaign. Chet effectively implemented TFB's plan, which was brazen in its simplicity. OK, TFB said. I can't win a majority and everybody knows it. So I'll split the opposition.

He did, by the simple expedient of leaving his party. This ploy made him competitive, and he used every device at his disposal as mayor to squeeze out votes. He won, and within months of being sworn in for his third term was embroiled in a scandal that was both farcical and deadly serious. After a year of legal manuevering it led to plea bargain and his resignation from office. If you were in a resident of the city that week you will never forget the incredible, almost triumphal scenes (that is the only word) surrounding his departure from office, including the tearful scene where The Facist Beast embraced The Kid, the City Council President, age 29, and moments away from becoming the Acting Mayor.

Chet had managed to resign from TFB's entourage untouched by scandal. The remarkable end of TFB's career (or so it seemed at the time) was old news a year and half later. The Kid had his failings, but everyone credited him with bringing a sense of calm and order to a City Hall that had known little of it during TFB's eventful reign.

Chet, ignoring the anger and jealousy of the senior staff over his sudden appearance, settled into the hideaway office that had been the domain of Marty (not his real name) my friend and mentor, and the guy who brought me into The Kid's entourage. Marty, unhappy with his position in the City, had abruptly returned to the State House, where he was a power in his own right. I had my chance to follow him. He was more than a little put out when I decided to stay put. I have never regretted that decision.

It wasn't long before Chet called me into his office. Chet was a little guy. At six feet, I was at least five inches taller than he. He had a gruff, raspy voice and was a big fan of jazz music. (At his apartment once, I got to examine his huge record collection) He was going to manage The Kid's reelection campaign next year, he told me. He had been reviewing the resumes of all the mayoral staff, including me, with a view toward staffing the campaign.

He cut to the chase. He didn't think most of the mayor's staff was worth a damn. He named some names to illustrate. He had been watching me, checking me out, thought we could work together. He proposed that I become his assistant, with a view towards me joining the campaign full time as his deputy next summer. I was surprised. I agreed to do it.

From that point on he included me in most campaign planning. He brought me into his meetings with the Mayor. Our working relationship got off to a good start. We spent the rest of the summer and the fall setting out the basic plan for the coming campaign.

It was during the following winter that Chet's life, never that together, was blown apart by a devastating personal tragedy. That was the year Chet descended into his own personal hell, seemingly helpless to stop himself. It left him a physical and mental wreck, his promising career over and his life in ruins.

I had a front seat to all this. What happened left me so shaken, that Chet became my anti-role model. The man that no matter what bad things might happen in my life, I never wanted to be.

END OF PART ONE

It Blew Up

2010-01-17T19:19:00.005-05:00

I have been spending time lately cleaning out bankers boxes full of files from my political days in the Phony 80s. I just got finished with a couple of boxes of stuff that I accumlated when I worked for The Kid. One file made me think, of all things, the Space Shuttle Challenger.

The Kid was mayor was a result of a spectacular legal/political disaster that consumed his predecessor, The Facist Beast. The Kid had eeked out a win at the surreal November in July special election, and a year an half later we were facing his first (as it also turned out, last) reelection campaign.

The Kid drew a long shot challenger in the primary. His name was Joe, who held court at the local Boho bar. He positioned himself as the neighborhood guy, opposing the downtown interests The Kid represented. It was a plausible position, but it turned out the challenger never had a chance.

It was Joe's file I was holding. I was in charge of the Oppo research, and I had a complete record of his career as a would be gadfly and critic. He had been around, so the file was thick. Joe, the challenger, scheduled his announcement of candidacy for a Tuesday morning in January at The Historic Landmark Hotel across the street from City Hall. Chet, the putative campaign manager gave me my assignment: cross Washington Street and watch the show.

About fifteen minutes before the start, I made the short walk. He announced in one of the function rooms on the mezzanine, so I trudged up the stairs.

I could see Joe's people did a nice job. He got all three TV stations to cover him. The Big Paper was there. The crowd of supporters filled the room nicely, giving his opener a good feel.

Joe made a good speech. He made a case for electing a neighborhood guy. It was an old argument in our city, but it still played in some wards, where people felt downtown came first. When it was over, while the camermen were breaking down their equipment, I walked back to The Hall to report that the opposition had gotten off to a sure footed start.

The second I walked back into our office I knew something was wrong. Everyone was distracted and agitated, like something bad had just happened. I asked Judy, our back room secretary what was going on.

"It blew up," she said.

"What blew up, Judy?"

"The shuttle. It blew up a minute after it took off. We all saw it."

I went to the TV in the press secretary's office. It was all true. Poor Joe, the day he, the challenger, announces his candidacy for mayor, The Challenger explodes 73 seconds into its flight. His big opening announcement was blown off the 6 o'clock news and into the back pages of The Big Paper. This was why I thought about the Challenger this afternoon, as I tossed Joe's musty manila folder into a trash bag.

If I had put this into a work of fiction, the symbolism would seem very heavy handed, don't you think?

The Big Bully Turns 90

2010-01-17T18:29:00.005-05:00

I first met The Big Bully over twenty years ago, when he was thinking about running for governor a second time. It was a cold, gray St. Patrick's Day. TBB's first campaign had been crushed at the polls by a mediocre (and, it turned out, corrupt) incumbent who cultivated an Everyman image. The Big Bully was a high powered, wealthy businessman who was many things, but he was not Everyman. He wasn't mediocre or corrupt for that matter. What he was: hard driving and exceedingly unpleasant.

The Big Bully needed a campaign manager. He wanted me, and he conducted a whirlwind courtship that lasted all of two and a half hours. I was in The Kid's employ, and I had spent a year searching for a way out. I had vowed, like every kid trying to flee a stifling small town, to grab the first ticket out. There was no way I was going to refuse to take that trip. Ironically, it was The Kid who made the introduction.

I enjoyed the courtship. I was easy. He had me after five minutes, but how often do you get a big shot like TBB laying the flattery on? So I enjoyed it. When he decided to run I quit The Kid, vowing (to myself, mostly) never to return. I kept that vow.

Did I mention that TBB ended up giving me $2.5 million of his money to spend? Did I mention that we started the campaign about half a light year behind the governor? Did I mention that the governor was exposed as corrupt about two months into the campaign, and that we soon had a horse race on our hands?

Well all that happened. We lost in a photo finish. I'll be describing that campaign, and the next one, the one we took in a landslide, in future posts. My main interest at this point is not nostalgia (although that first campaign with TBB was my last pay phone campaign--the next one we had these large, brick like objects called "cell phones".)

The Big Bully turns 90 on Tuesday. I have very complicated feelings about that guy, but I have to take my hat off to a survivor who put his money where his mouth was. The Big Bully didn't let little things like the impossibility of the job stop him. Because of my two campaigns with him, long odds do not daunt me either.

Which is why I won't give up on this country.

Great White Hope Passes

2010-01-11T20:25:00.002-05:00

On the day The Facist Beast discussed his possible return to elective politics another pol of note, The Great White Hope, announced he would not be running for Governor this year.

The Great White Hope is the right wing pol who forced the Young Senator into a primary for the GOP nomination four years ago. TGWH lost in September, but his efforts didn't help the YS, who lost in November. The YS became the first incumbent Senator from our state to fail reelection since 1936.

The Great White Hope, a graceless and divisive pol, told us all that while he was ready to be governor, we weren't ready for his leadership. Personally, I think he is in a personal situation that prevents him from running. I don't know what it is, but that's my surmise.

Still, this direct slap at the public gives me a new appreciation of The Big Bully, who was elected governor twenty years ago. The people certainly weren't ready for him. It took him three tries before he won. (I managed the second and third campaigns)

The Big Bully didn't let little things like no support and a forbidding personality stop him. If he could be governor, then anything is possible.

In the end, that might not be good.

Now I Am Free

2010-01-07T10:20:00.002-05:00

I had an early appointment this morning at The Big Hospital. I had x-rays taken of my right humurus and my right ankle. I broke the first on Mother's Day, and shattered the second in a terrible fall down the stairs.

I saw Pete, the surgeon who put my arm back together and rebuilt my ankle. He did a great job on the ankle. My outcome has exceeded everybody's expectations, including his. My ankle is flexible, and once I got my tendons stretched out (after basically 4 months in bed) I walk without a limp. And no, my ankle doesn't ache when we are about to get wet weather.

He discharged me. I know what to look for by way of trouble. Told me not to hesitate to call if I felt there was a problem. And that was that. My wife and I walked out. Walked out. Can't tell you how good it feels to say that. Every single visit has seen me taken in by wheelchair. My first post surgery visit to Pete's office my wife was to accompany me. She showed up at the rehab center so sick that I sent her home. So I was hauled there by myself and dumped at X-ray.

I found out the meaning of vulnerability that day. I was in xray on a very crowded day in pajamas, hospital slipper sox. No ID, no money, no cell phone. Talk about feeling exposed and powerless. I ended up being at The Big Hospital for hours.

I never felt so grateful to get back to the rehab center.

Today I walked in and walked out. The day after the surgery where my ankle was rebuilt, when I was half crazy with pain and painkillers, I never thought the day would come.

Today I begin to reclaim my life.

The Young Senator Announces

2010-01-06T11:20:00.002-05:00

The Young Senator announced his candidacy for Governor of the state on Monday. He made his proposal for a two tier tax sales tax system the centerpiece of his announcement. Predictably, the usual suspects went on the attack. The two party chairs, who are widely unknown and largely irrelevant agreed that raising taxes was a poor idea,

Our local talk radio, dominated by right-wingers, were a chorus of disapproval. The Facist Beast, about whom I will write later, was especially withering and personal in his denunciation of the candidate. We also heard from the local Tea Party tendency. All we got from all was what they are against.

I'm agnostic about the two tier sales tax. Our state does exempt a lot more stuff from the sales tax. All food, most clothes, over the counter drugs and many personal services to name but a few. A review of this is in order.

It's clear that there needs to be a serious reexamination of government at all levels. The United States is effectively insolvent at all levels. This is the Big Ugly Fact that can hide in plain sight because no one, and I mean no one, wants to deal with it.

So I give the Young Senator a lot of credit for raising the Big Ugly Fact right from the start. The road back to national solvency will be hard and painful. YS has proposed a new tax, a most regressive one, that will fall heavily upon the poor, the working people and the middle class.

As this campaign progresses I will be very interested to read what sacrifices YS will be demanding from the upper middle class and the downright wealthy, as their part in righting our listing ship

I Wondered About the Year 2010

2010-01-05T18:10:00.003-05:00

When I was 16 I read a scifi novel, "Stand on Zanibar." John Brunner wrote a compelling, sprawling story set in the year 2010. A large part of the story takes place in Manhattan, which was under the Fuller Dome.

I don't really want to review the book. He got a lot of the future wrong. He missed the digital revolution completely. There are no PCs, or laptops or net books, or Ipods, or cell phones or anything like that. He didn't anticipate environmental degradation, except maybe sideways via overpopulation. About the economy of 2010 he says not a word. We can infer from the novel that by 2010 there had been a move away from gasoline engines. No explanation why. He also didn't anticipate the ruinous War on Drugs. In 2010 pot is legal, a big industry.

He did get genetic typing right. In SOZ it is a tool of government to enforce draconian laws regardin, as we would say, "reproductive rights". In 2010 large families (more than two children) are penalized by law and stigmatized socially.

I loved this book and can still recommend it. I hadn't thought about it in years until the year 2010 actually rolled around.

At age 16 I wondered about 2010 and what my life would be then. If I could have had a vision of myself at this very moment I wouldn't have known what to make of it. Like the MacBook I'm writing on. The keyboard I would have got, but this is no typewriter. what is this cool, bright TV thingy that the words appear on.

I would not have understand the cell phone I just checked for messages. An couple of hours ago a big shot from Medicare called to give me some information that will allow me to settle a client's case. He obligingly repeated his message into my voice mail. I'm going to play it back it back for the judge and opposing counsel Friday morning.
I would have been impressed by the big hi-def TV. But I wouldn't have gotten watching "Have Gun, Will Travel". I didn't like that show when I was a kid.

I would have been pleased to see I got married. I would not have believed that I became a lawyer. I had no such thought in 1970. I would not have understand how a kid who wanted to paint portraits ended up becoming a political operative, a court official and a practicing attorney. Actually it all made sense as it happened, but you have to take my word for it.

I guess even though I wouldn't have understood a lot I would have been encouraged. The adults around me were a bitter, frustrated bunch. I could see it on display at family gatherings. My parents, the most materially successful ones of the extended family, always hosted. I used to wonder if that was all I had to look forward to in the year 2010, when I would be even older than most of the relatives who were bumming me out.

I couldn't have known in 1970 what my life would look like forty years on. But it is kind of fun to look back and try to remember my fears and my hopes for myself.

I'm Free (I Think, Sort Of)

2010-01-05T17:38:00.003-05:00

Without getting excessively personal, 2009 was a terrible year for me. Like a bad novel, or a great Paddy Chaefsky screenplay, a routine medical procedure mushroomed into a full-blown medical disaster. I had to sepnd three weeks in the hospital, then two months in rehab to deal with, in part, a terrible skin infection. I got six hours a day of IV antibiotics for most of that time.

I was released, then ten days later had to go back into the hospital. Another infection. I did eight more weeks of antibiotic (just an hour a day), most of it at home and administered by my wife, who was great about doing something that did not come naturally.

I had my follow up appointment at The Big Hospital with Dr. F, who has been on this case since August. She pronounced my treatment done, took out the pic line. Just like that! Now I wait to see if the infection has been stamped out.

I'm not pinned down by any treatments. I feel as good as I've felt in years. Which is why I sort of feel free. It won't feel real until I pass a month with no sign of infection.

Today, however it was clear sailing. I did something I never do: I took my wife for a home visit to meet a client and his wife. I've been dealing with this guy for months over the phone. Today I finally met him.

He lives at the highest point of the coastal town where he and his family reside. They have incredible views.

After our meeting, on the way home, we detoured to drive by the seaside cottage where we first lived together. Unusually, there was a serious covering of snow in this community right on the Atlantic Ocean. We stopped in front of our former place; it's strictly a summer place now. The snow was unshoveled, and all the shades were drawn.

We stopped at the state fishing area and got out. The water was gunmetal gray; the horizon, an hour before dusk, was bright yellow. The Big Island, in the clear dry air, looked like an alien vessel hovering above the ocean.

We stopped on the way home and got a pizza at Tommy's.

A Bad Idea for Everybody

2010-01-03T11:02:00.002-05:00

The political columnist for what I used to call The Big Paper (it's a pathetically diminshed thing these days) dedicated his big Sunday column to our local Republican Party. The GOP, barely alive as a statewide force, is planning on spending this critical election year picking out members of the club to expel. The Republicans are promoting a "closed" primary. Starting in 2012, they want to limit their primnary to people who have registered (or to use the local term of art, "affiliated") as a Republican.

There's a back story to this. After a century or so in the determined hands of nobless oblige Yankees and their ethnic followers (personified by the very tough Yankee who towered over our political world for nearly forty years), the local GOP is now dominated by the same sort of self-identified "conservatives" who are the face of the national Republican Party. They are led by our Governor, a right-winger who slipped into office eight years ago, and is now slipping out.

The back story: Four years ago the tough Yankee's son, who inherited Dad's seat in the US Senate, was forced into a primary by a mayor who is an unabashed new-style "conservative". He sings from the same hymnal as our Governor, but without his polish. The mayor was bankrolled by the Club for Growth.

The Young Senator's crime: He insisted on thinking for himself. He cast some high profile dissenting votes, most notably against our attack on Mesepotemia in 2003. He was not forgiven by the local extremists, even though he was proven right.

The irony was that the Republican National Committee poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Young Senator's campaign. The smarter folks in Washington figured out that the Young Senator could win, and the new right wing hero would lose in November. The Young Senator, despite his occasional dissent, never equivocated about his Republicaness and made it clear he would vote with the GOP to organize the Senate. He is an honest man.

Because he was honest, I did not consider voting for him, after he beat the hero handily in the primary. (My wife, however, did for reasons that hd nothing to do with the actual election) Young Senator won the September primary, but it probably cost him the election. He managed 47% of the vote against the winner, a still youngish, but stuffy Democrat whose career had seemed wrecked just four years before. (There's a moral there: you're never done in politics until you say you're done)

In the upside down world of our local Republicans the Young Senator was a fake Republican who was foisted upon them. They are oblivious to the fact that their backstabbing did him in.

Why this excursion into the weeds of extremely local political history? Because it illustrates the ominous direction in which our politics are headed. The Republicans have decided to stop being a political party as those of us who think and care about such things have known it.

American politics have been, by tradition, practical necessity and invention, been the exclusive domain of two parties. Since the mid-1850s those parties are the Ds and Rs. The "national" parties were really quadrennial coalitions of the state and territorial parties.

All politics is local, the man said. The parties traditionally welcomed all comers. They still did that when I was coming up in this racket. I actually received a personal invitation to join the Republican party. I never got an invite from the Dems, then as now, the party that dominated public office. On the other hand, I've never been told that I didn't belong. And back in the 1980s even my greatest mentor called me a "Communist". (That was OK. I loved him just the same).

The Dems still operate that way. Unfortunately, the GOP will no longer do so. It seems that the national party, in alleged memory of Ronald Reagan, are promoting a checklist to determine if you have an acceptable level of Republicaness. It's got 10 items. You are allowed to disagree on two. Which two? Any two? The columnist doesn't say.

This is bad. The Oppostion party, nationally and locally, has decided to become a very tight club, a tiny amount of dissent maybe tolerated at the margins, but broad agreement required. Or face expulsion. We've never seen anything like this.

This attitude, combined with the now established beyond a doubt fact that the national GOP's sole idea to return to office is rule or ruin, means the next few years will be very trying. I have no doubt of their willingness and capacity to ruin. It seems not to occue to them that ruling a ruin will not be very gratifying.

As for the Young Senator. He left the Republican party the year he left office. He declined to join the Democrats. He had declined to endorse George W. Bush for reelection, and supported Obama last year.

He's announcing his independent candidacy for Governor tomorrow morning. He's leading the early polls.

No Resolution

2010-01-03T10:41:00.002-05:00

I don't make New Years' resolutions. I never have. Even when I was a kid the lack of any real commitment to the thing resolved was usually apparent. Even when the adult in question was sincere, it was usually a fleeting thought, brought on by a sudden near miss of some kind, or by guilt. (Did I mention I was brought up in the middle of a bunch of Irish Catholics?)

I do make resolutions. They have been few, but I meant them all and acted upon them. I made my first resolution in the middle of high school. There have been less than a half dozen of them since. All were brought on by an intense, impossible to ignore reaction to my own life at the time. For instance, after two and half years in the employ of The Kid, I resolved to leave City Hall. It took me a year, but I did.

My point is, I make resolutions to change only when it's inarguable that I must change, first and foremost for my own good, but also for the others close to me. I think I'm like most people.

If I were to give advice to anybody facing a personal situation that must change, it would be to face the situation with brutal realism, craft a course that actually addresses the situation (don't waste time with illusionary options) and then don't wimp out when the things you hopefully put in place start to get results. Live with what you brought about.

The Nasty Naughts End With a Bang

2010-01-01T12:15:00.004-05:00

Literally. We were upstairs watching "After The Thin Man" on TCM, when we heard a terrific crash outside. Moments later we heard the loud growl of the fire trucks, accompanied by a couple of police cruisers and the EMTs.

A car had crashed into our next door neighbor's yard. The cops and firefighters were around for over an hour.

This morning we saw the damage. A drunk driver had veered off the road, lurched to the right, mowed down our neighbors' tree and crashed into and through the front of the house. The lower level was a terrific mess. Their couch was pushed six feet into the room.I could see from the tracks in the snow that if the drunk had made his lurch a couple of seconds larer, he would have plowed into our house.

As I write there are a couple of carpenters putting a quick bandaid on the house.

What a way to end a nasty decade!

Gun Play

2009-12-30T10:36:00.002-05:00

In 1987 I wrote a play. I had a stroke of good luck and had a commitment to get it produced by a locally respected company. This company produced its shows in a converted carriage house on the grounds of a mansion on the most famous street of our World Famous Resort.

My script called for a gun. Specifically: a .38 snub nose revolver. After we cast the show and started rehersals we started to search the prop collection for a suitable gun. Their collection was pathetic. A crummy little starter's pistol and some toy pistols. Nobody liked any of them.

One night, after the director gave his notes, the gun situation came up again. I told the company, "I'll get a gun."

In 1987 I was working for The Kid. The Kid was the mayor of our city. He was a few months younger than me--I was 34. He occupied that beautiful office on the second floor as the result of the spectacular political catastrophe that had consumed his predecessor. I had been in City Hall for nearly three years. My job had required me to become very well acquainted with all the people who actually did the work of the city.

So I had no problem calling up the Police Commissioner and discussing my problem.

"Charlie, I need to borrow a snub nose 38. I need it as a prop for a play."

"You wrote a play?"

"Yeah Charlie. It's going up in three and a half weeks. But we really need this gun."

"OK. I'll tell my assistant to make arrangements."

Yes. It was really that easy. An hour later the assistant called me up and told me the gun was ready. All I had to do was walk down the street to the decrepit Art Deco police station, head down to the armory, and pick it up.

I headed down Washington Street toward the station. The cop in charge of the armory asked me if I wanted it with the firing pin or without. I asked him to remove it. Ten minutes later I was walking back to the Hall with a .38 and a shoulder holster.

Nobody asked me to sign for it. That's right. I had an official weapon of the PD and there was no record of it anywhere. The City was lax that way.

After I got the gun, I realized that The Kid wouldn't be happy that I brought a gun, even a non-functioning one, into his office. I hid it in my briefcase. Brought it down to rehersal that night. I gave them a little talk about what became known to the company as The Gun. I showed it to them, told them the firing pin was removed, that it couldn't be fired. I squeezed the trigger a few times to show them.

Most of our women cast members wanted nothing to do with The Gun. A couple were interested. All the male cast members wanted to play with it. I paid attention to The Gun. If anything bad happened because of that weapon I (and the Commissioner and The Kid) were going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Nothing bad happened. The Gun, when it made its appearance late in the second act, was a big hit. The Kid attended a performance and never guessed (or asked) where we got the 38.

My biggest problem was giving it back. I had no paperwork for the revolver. Officially it wasn't gone. After a couple of weeks of frustration I ended up walking into the armory and dropping it on the counter. Told the cop in charge it never officially left, just put it back where it belonged. Then I left.

I never heard a word about it.