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April 28, 2008
My brilliant plan
My morning routine of MSNBC and coffee imported from Iowa is getting less and less tenable. Either it's a Hillary shill promoting some crazy math theory that puts her ahead (it won't be long until her campaign tries to bring back the 3/5 clause) or some conservative harping about Rev. Wright.
Today it was Wright himself making headlines by trying to explain his relationship to Louis Farrakhan at the National Press Club. Last week, he was on Bill Moyers making non-apology apologies and generally making sure he's still in the headlines. It's almost as if he wants to prove that an African-American can't be president by tearing down the one guy who could make it happen.
Perhaps this is all part of a brilliant plan to neutralize Rev. Wright. It's probably just another case of Democrats being unable to keep anyone on message, but what if the goal were to saturate coverage on Rev. Wright early enough in the year to be old by November but late enough in the primary process so as to not imperil Obama's nomination. The convention is still months away. By then, he's picked a VP nominee, given an acceptance speech that will be analyzed to death and spent weeks "bringing the party back together" as per the standard media narrative.
After the conventions, Republicans will try to bring back Wright, but by then, it'll be old news, just like Bill Clinton's philandering was when the Lewinsky scandal broke. After what seems like endless rehashing of the story, people will simply tire of it. Yes, yes, the average TV viewer says, we know that Obama had a nutty preacher back in Chicago.
If Wright is old, what's new? Anything about McCain, who has been tooling around the country in a series of mostly-ignored media events. Later on, when it really matters, people will start to hear about McCain's Bushite tax plan, his plans for endless occupation of Iraq, excused because he assumes (based on implausible comparisons to Germany and Japan) that there won't be any casualties for most of it and a general narrative that he's not the "maverick" we've seen him as after years of favorable media coverage.
Is this a brilliant grand scheme on the part of the Obama campaign? Probably not. But if it was, it's a ballsy bet that could either pay off big or fail miserably.
Posted by rj3 at 10:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 26, 2008
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Before the first line was written, the writers of H&KEFGB were in a bind. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle was such an unexpected hit, a "small" movie about a "small" adventure that redefined the stoner flick and turned the traditional Hollywood interracial buddy comedy on its head. The first H&K made it clear that it is both out-of-touch and anachronistic to reduce all racial comedy to mocking stereotypes about blacks and whites a la Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. Places all over the country, north Jersey being one the of the best example, are full of Asians, Indians and others who don't fit nicely into the traditional mold of racial comedy. All this in a movie about getting high and going out for burgers.
So what on earth could a sequel do to add on to the understated brilliance of the original? Not too much.
That isn't to say that the new H&K isn't hilarious - I was laughing from beginning to end. Neil Patrick Harris, reprising his role as some sort of magical party shaman, is the biggest standout. Yet there was something missing, namely the finely-calibrated dynamics between the various stereotypes that gelled so well in the first movie.
Since H&KEFGB goes far beyond New Jersey, there is inevitably a wider view, but that view somehow ends up being smaller. White people are all racist buffoons who don't understand that minorities think and act a lot like they do. Every other group (including white rednecks, for some reason) looks stereotypical at first blush, but they all end up being upstanding upper middle-class-normative taxpayers with small quirks.
The first movie created a world of supporting characters who were both unusual, stereotypical and endearing. Goldstein and Rosenberg, perverts who smoked pot out of a shofar, were perfect examples of how the first movie turned appalling stereotypes into harmless quirks. They come back, reduced to a cameo that adds nothing to the plot without making room for the riffing that made them hilarious. In their stead, a cast of unmemorable supporting characters move the plot forward, but have no larger contribution to make.
That being said, go watch the movie. You will be entertained. You will spit out your soda in laughter, or you'll come close. But ten years from now, you'll be watching the first H&K, not the second.
Posted by rj3 at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 24, 2008
The frugal yuppie
I paid $4.09 for a gallon of gas today. Ten of them, to be exact.
My first order of business upon taking the bar will be to sell that car after years of loyal service and many great memories, most of which involve going somewhere silly for the sake of taking a road trip. I won't have to worry about gas, but that doesn't mean that I won't still have money woes, even on the $160k I can't believe the suckers who run my future firm will pay me. Food is getting more and more expensive. Another MTA fare increase is inevitable. The weak dollar means imports of every variety will be getting more expensive.
Add to this the inevitable instinct of people (OK, me) who find themselves catapulted into a much higher tax bracket to spend as if they have no spending constraints at all - just ask anyone who won the lottery and ended up getting their dream house and Ferrari repossessed by the bank. I'm not proud to say that I walked away from my summer job with significantly less savings than I'd hoped for.
If I'm worried about rising prices at my pay-scale, I can only imagine how bad this is going to be for your average public defender who makes a third of what I will and has to drive to work every day.
So how does the up-and-coming young urban professional scale back?
1. Housing: The first order of business is finding an apartment. On the one hand, I could live cheaply on the assumption that I will hardly ever be home. On the other hand, doing so was sheer misery last summer and a good location will save me a fortune on taxis.
Then there's the unspoken expectation that a successful New York lawyer lives a certain lifestyle. That means big screen TV, leather sofa and no futon in the middle of the living room. If I want to date, assuming I have any time, the after-dinner coffee is going to crash and burn if I live in a shoebox for the sake of fiscal responsibility. I probably can't get anything acceptable much lower than $2500/month.
2. Clothes. Dress for the job you want. Clothes make the man. Unlike many species of birds, I can't display my colorful plumage without having to spend a small fortune. Nearly all fabric and finished clothing is imported, so as the dollar drops, clothing gets more expensive. Even when stores run sales, the prices are still higher than regular retail prices at the same stores three or four years ago.
My office is business casual, which means no need for new fancy suits, but nevertheless demands an ever-vigilant lookout against letting things get schlubby. Next, there's going-out wear. Fashions change, and the t-shirt and jeans one wears to McGees in Lincoln Park won't cut it anywhere I'd want to go. If I avoid changing after work on weekdays, I can get by with a few outfits for weekends.
The money-saving strategy? Sample sales, higher-end designer resale, planning on exactly what I'm going to get before hitting the stores.
3. Dry cleaning. The silent killer. Last summer, I spent $30 some weeks on dry cleaning. I've recently tried ironing, but it really shows when you show up at work without the crispest, starchiest shirt possible. There's no point in getting a nice shirt if you don't keep it looking nice. I suppose I could cut back on dry cleaning the sweaters during the winter by trying to get out stains myself.
4. Taxis. This is the worst, especially if you're going out in another borough. A $25 fare each way to Brooklyn could mean that getting to the bar or show costs more than the drinks.
The solution. Never take a cab to where I'm going. There's no excuse to not take the subway before 10. After that, I'm not so much worried about safety as for the long waits, which only get longer if a transfer is necessary. One can split the difference: do the longest bit of the trip on a train, then take a cab crosstown if it's too much of a hike to get back from the station. Over time, it will add up.
5. Food. A trip to the local made-to-order salad joint by my office can set you back $15. Yet eating $5 Rafiqi's halal chicken every day will leave you sweating grease all afternoon. Cooking at home on Sunday for the week works sometimes, but eating the same curried chicken salad for three days seems like a good idea until that third day of having the same thing for lunch. So what's the plan? There is always some catered meeting or event, so I could mooch off the buffet spread like I've been doing throughout law school, but that requires a bit more work than I can afford doing when I have actual work to do. At this point, instituting a no-delivery rule at home seems like the best way to limit the cost of feeding myself.
6. Coffee. I've been fairly good with making coffee at home, but with summer comes the inevitable temptation to get a $5 iced drink every morning, which adds up. Preparing iced lattes at home is a little time consuming for the morning scramble to make it out of the apartment, but expensive coffee seems like too much of a luxury and too much of an expense to ignore. Perhaps the best solution would be to but one of these and make cold-pressed iced coffee at home.
The world has changed and being a biglaw associate isn't the ticket to financial security it used to be.
Posted by rj3 at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 23, 2008
I'm not going to graduate!
That title is a bit of an overstatement, but it's less than a month until graduation and I still haven't fulfilled my two-draft writing requirement, at least in the eyes of the school. I didn't get a professor to sign a piece of paper last semester and since he's an adjunct, he doesn't come to school very often. No problem, right? He told me to leave the form with his faculty assistant, but when I looked for the assistant, I was told that he hadn't worked at the law school in several months. So now I'm back on the email runaround with the professor (who responds to my emails on a bi-weekly basis) trying to get this stupid form in his hands so I can graduate. Assuming I don't have any overdue fees at the library.
Posted by rj3 at 9:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 20, 2008
Is Ladysmith Black Mambazo on his workout mix?
When one thinks of the charitable contributions of NFL players, paint rollers usually come to mind. Whether it's a school, a playground or a school playground, the big burly linemen are in suspiciously non-paint-flecked sleveless t-shirts, painting over decades of benign neglect. Reggie Bush tells kids to get exercise. Payton Manning has United Way and, umm, Sprint.
That's why I'm so surprised to see Bears QB Kyle Orton emceeing an Earth Day festival today at the Lincoln Park Zoo featuring such halftime show favorites as Me'shell Ndegeocello and The Chicago Afrobeat Project.
Have I been underestimating the wide breadth of interests of professional jocks? How come we can't have gametime PSAs featuring uniformed players in drum circles, or instructing inner-city kids on how to maintain an efficient compost heap?
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April 19, 2008
The Making of a Mixtape 2008
Tuesday: Some friends want to do a themed mixtape on CD. How high school! I'm totally game.
Still Tuesday: The theme is "Music I'm going to want to listen to in August 2008." That's some high-concept stuff. My August looks like the tail end of a bar trip, moving in (somewhere) and buying lots of business casual clothes. There are a lot of directions I could go here.
Friday: I really have to finish this paper. I think I'll start on that mixtape.
10:20 a.m., Saturday: There's a great audio clip from a movie that I want to kick off my mix, but it's about 2:30, which is just going to kill the excitement of putting on a new CD. I'll edit down to one minute. This should take about minutes.
10:57 a.m., Fifty-eight seconds! Who's the mixtape master? It's me, that's who!
12:07 p.m.: I've downloaded the font I need for the cover art and the photoshopping wasn't all that complicated. It's time to leave the house.
3:12 p.m.: Back home. Do you think I can wedge in some Hold Steady somewhere?
3:15 p.m.: No.
3:48 p.m.: I feel like I'm progressing. I had a New Young Pony Club song in the middle, right as the tempo rises, but although I've spun them to the discerning denizens of the Black Cat, I was never all that in to them and I don't think it really goes anywhere. My other options for this slot are way too long and too hard to chop down in iTunes. Still, it's looking better.
4:12 p.m.: Am I overthinking this? I think not. I don't know the particular tastes of many members of our 15-person mixtape circle and I have no idea of what's generally popular
(when did everybody buy the first LCD Soundsystem album?) so I have no idea what I can include and what I can't. Since so many people will hear it, I have to please a broad audience while being "original." All this stressing over impressions... this really ls like high school.
4:19 p.m.: NYPC is gone and nothing will replace it. If I don't get over myself and put this puppy to bed, I'll never move on.
Posted by rj3 at 3:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bring back the magic
It seems like forever since the last presidential primary and I'm getting a little sick of it. For weeks, it's been flood the zone coverage on every gaffe and stumble of both Democratic candidates and their surrogates or associates. Frankly, I've seen so much of both candidates that I wouldn't mind seeing a third candidate get into the mix, delegate counts be damned, just to make it interesting again.
And by now, the YouTube wars have gone negative. Do you remember "Yes We Can", that treacly video from the dreadlocked guy in Black Eyed Peas? If you watch it again, you have to wonder how on earth it brought people to tears back in January.
Now it's time to get excited again. My candidate (and you should know who that is by now) has one thing Hillary doesn't: the ability to inspire. Here's a short video based on the 1979 classic The Warriors that should buck you up:
Posted by rj3 at 9:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 18, 2008
Earthquake rocks Illinois!
UPDATE: The law school is still standing. I'm surprisingly OK with this.
Posted by rj3 at 9:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2008
Good morning, Catholicism!
All I want to do is drink coffee and watch a little TV before starting out on my day. At this hour, there isn't much on besides the news and there isn't much news besides the papal visit. Every channel, the same view of some ritual with commentary from people of varying levels of knowledge.
Yes, it's newsworthy that the leader of a major world religion is visiting. A quarter of the U.S. population is Catholic. Bottom line, the guy packs stadiums wherever he goes and people rightfully pay attention when he has something to say.
But why can't the other three-quarters of the population get a little love from the cable news nets? It's the same picture on CNN, FNC and MSNBC; it isn't as if we're getting something from the flood-the-zone coverage. If one network had a little guts, there would be an option for people who want... news (and no, a centuries-old ceremony isn't news, it's a current event), but all three want a piece of the papal pie, even if it means chopping up that pie.
I'll just watch this until The Price is Right comes on. I hope they won't be going over-under on the retail price of indulgences.
Posted by rj3 at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 16, 2008
The inner slacker
All this time, I followed the maxim, "if you want something done, ask a busy person."
Right now, I'm not that busy. As you might expect, the few things I have to do aren't getting done. And I don't care. At the end of high school, teachers warned us that college acceptances may be revoked if our grades dropped too much. As college wound down, I was jobless and needed every last GPA point for my resume. This time, I've got a job, I don't picture myself getting any more educated and it's more or less impossible to flunk a class.
At the beginning, it's like a new New Yorker venturing out past the curb during a red light. An email comes in and I respond in a day instead of an hour. A class I would skip if attending meant getting only four hours of sleep gets skipped if I'd get less than 7. Reading gets skimmed if I pick up the book at all. I used to volunteer for this or that within my various pursuits around school, but all I'll volunteer for these days is to buy the next round.
I get to thinking: does this make me a bad student? What about the joy of learning and the importance of pulling your weight on the team?
Oh, put a sock in it. I was your average overscheduled kid with parentally-imbued ambitions to make something of myself. On the heels of every achievement was some other task to start from scratch. I have some time now to release my inner slacker, that laid-back, relaxed guy I beat back into the deepest corner of my psyche for all of these years.
Run free, slacker! Or just hang out on the couch. Whatever.
Posted by rj3 at 1:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 15, 2008
The end is nigh
Yesterday, I picked up my cap and gown for commencement. On the one hand, spending $75 to borrow some accessories for a couple of hours makes me wonder whether KBR owns the company renting the stuff. On the other hand, it's nice to have the cap and gown safely in my locker no matter what I do (or don't do) for the rest of the semester.
I also went to the mandatory meeting at which I picked up my loan information. Three years of borrowing from future me and my payments are breathing down my neck. The main problem: I'm starting work on Sept. 15 (9:30 a.m., 18th floor conference room) but my first payment is due the week prior. Fresh off the heels of my bar trip and the commitment of a security deposit, I couldn't imagine a worse time to scrounge enough cash to send to the government. Will I really have to hit up mom and dad for cash on the eve of my brilliant and well-compensated legal career?
I'm taking bar review in Chicago for the New York exam. I'll fly out to Albany, where I've already booked a hotel room, to take the two-day test. After that, I'll go back to Chicago to pack my entire life in a container, look for a place in New York, then unpack just in time to go on a bar trip... somewhere TBA.
Then there's the small manner of classes. I have one final, one clinic moot and one paper to soldier through before I graduate. Assuming, of course, that there's no snag with deposits, library balances and signatures from professors attesting that I met writing draft requirements. At the moment, my entire interaction with this law school is diffusing a series of mines obstructing the path between here and picking up my sheepskin.
I suppose I can't complain, as this marks the end of three years of complaining about law school. Yet somehow, I feel entitled to glide through this whole mess.
Perhaps I can hire an as-yet jobless public interest 3L to be my personal assistant. I'll consider it yet another introduction to a lifetime of yuppie entitlement.
Posted by rj3 at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Test...test
If you can read this, Thrown for a Loop works again.
Posted by rj3 at 9:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 8, 2008
Two seconds over San Antonio
The all-KU crowd at Kincade's on Armitage was getting quiet. Memphis was up by nine with only a few minutes left in the game. The Jayhawks had switched to a zone defense after a string of unanswered points, botched rebounds and poor shooting. Our little group started clearing out the tab, ready to skulk back home.
The gimmie games against out-of-conference teams were all over. UNC went home, as did Davidson. The whole game had been a back-and-forth and Kansas was only in it by dint of near-flawless free throw shooting.
But you know that.
As the margin began to collapse and the clock wound down, everyone in the bar had their hands on their heads or their were rubbing them together in an incredible buildup of nervous energy.
A missed Memphis three - joy!
A missed rebound from that three - agony!
Missed Memphis free throws - relief, the dint of hope!
The clock goes down, half the bar is doing the pogo. People are screaming at the TVs. All of a sudden, the bartenders have nothing to do. The entire kitchen staff has come out to watch the end of the game. Not a finger in the room was uncrossed.
Ten seconds to score three points - torture!
Off-balance pass to Mario Chalmers - the beginning of an "oh shi...."
But before anyone could get off any comment, Super Mario tosses one up. With two seconds, it was close to being a throw-away - a little closer to the basket than the pointless half-court end-of-game toss, but not much better. KU hadn't been hitting threes all night, getting most of their points in the paint.
The three was necessary, but there was no chance of getting a proper setup.
There was no chance to get off another pass, perhaps back to Arthur, to make a proper attempt.
Was it better than the Superbowl? No, Eli Manning's epic scramble followed by David Tyree's helmet catch wins on the technical level. We had far more nailbiting time and far more comebacks from hopelessness during that final Giants drive. The Patriots were prohibitive favorites.
But try to tell that to anyone at Kincade's last night.
Posted by rj3 at 10:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 6, 2008
A terrible thing to waste on the law
Friday and Saturday nights were the main event of the law school season: the musical. I had a small part (yes, yes, there are no small parts, just small actors) and I'm still trying to get the stage makeup out of the nooks and crannies of my face.
I remembered my lines, the audience laughed and good times were had by all, but the really amazing thing is that it happened at all. From a student body of a little more than 600 aspiring attorneys, there were enough (scary good) singers, actors, sound engineers, lighting techs, costume designers and other theatre types to put on a high production value show while still managing a full courseload.
Then again, nobody sits on daddy's lap at the age of five and says "I want to work in the mass torts defense group at a large law firm in an anonymous office building until I either claw my way up to the top or burn out and put out my own shingle back home." In many ways, law school is the last stop for every aspiration under the sun. Why do you think a firm that pays its first year associates $160,000 a year has to relentlessly wine and dine the perspective fresh meat?
Sure, some folks came straight from undergrad with dreams of helping the downtrodden dancing in their heads, but if you dig just a little deeper, you'll find something else entirely. Some folks killed time at jobs they weren't really interested in until grad school seemed the only way out. Others burned out. Still others found they couldn't hack it in their chosen profession. A few found that the after-college dream job wasn't as exciting and rewarding as it first appeared.
If that assessment sounds relentlessly negative, the story doesn't end that way. Two days into 1L year, former teachers, engineers and entrepreneurs can't go out for a beer without talking animatedly about the hairy hand. It doesn't take long to mint a new legal mind.
Some people have always known what they want to do. Others have to take the long route.
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