Mr. Middlebrow, Esq. or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Pass the Bar

Hello, Internet. Yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you?

So, for those scoring along at home in their lucky souvenir programs, I sat for my state's Bar Exam on July 27 and 28, 2010.

True to the predictions of Snag and some others who went before me, I came out of the exam absolutely certain that I had failed. In particular, my performance on the second day, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), felt so abysmal that I was ready to book a room at the Ramada Inn where I stayed; I was that sure I would be coming back to retest in February. But, I'm pleased to report that (again, as Snag had forseen) I passed. I was admitted to the State Bar in late August.

So now I'm a bona fide esquire. Given the dismal employment picture, I've decided to hang out my shingle; I've even got a TV commercial:

My current job, while not perfect, meets the minimum criteria that I established for myself when I graduated: it doesn't involve me asking, "would you like that with regular or skim milk?" 

Actually, I've been working as a part-time clerk and sometime associate--a "clerksoicate," if you will (which makes me the legal equivalent of Dr. Tobias Fünke's "Analrapist"?) for a solo lawyer whose practice consists mostly of bankruptcy and insurance subrogation debt recovery. On the one hand, it's not exactly the kind of law I'm interested in practicing; on the other hand, it meets the minimum employment criteria that I established for myself when I graduated. Namely, it doesn't involve me using the phrase "would you like that with regular or skim milk?" In other words, it's a real lawyer job. Mostly. And, along with showing me the basics of civil procedure and litigation, he's been helping me get my own practice going. Which means that, in between filing (and occasionally arguing) motions, I'm networking and generally doing what I can to scare up copyright and trademark clients.

My plan now is to get an IP blog going and establish myself as a go-to source for innovators--start-ups, small businesses, and artists--who have IP issues. I suspect half the battle is making them aware that they have issues in the first place. In any case, any and all referrals and leads are welcome and appreciated.

What this means for the future of this blog is uncertain. It's always been a struggle to maintain it and the advent of Facebook and Twitter has removed even more of the incentive to keep it up. I do hope regular readers of A Drinking Song will check out my new digs as they come online. Also, please friend and/or follow me if you're so inclined. I'm also on LinkedIn, though I haven't found that to be of much use, either for networking or entertainment/goofing off.

More than we can handle.

Twenty years ago this weekend, my wife and I went on our first date: a screening of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Raising Arizona.” We had actually been working together for about three months before I finally screwed up my courage and asked her out. I had seen the movie several months before, and chatted her up about it to no end. When it came back for another engagement, that was all the pretext I needed. It turned out to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between not only my eventual wife and me, but among us, the movies in general, and Coen brothers especially.

So I didn’t know quite what to make of it when I read a bit in Entertainment Weekly where Owen Gleiberman alleged that Raising Arizona is the movie that let the “quirky” Genie out of the bottle, leading a path to Juno, which is, you guessed it, the last movie we saw together.

Now, you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger connoisseur of the offbeat than me. Nor do I mind Raising Arizona being labeled the progenitor, or even the godfather, of quirky movies, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Yes, it uses language that pushes well past probability that the people saying it would be saying it, but for the fact that they’re in this Coen-verse of a film. But RA never flashes its badge of quirk as proof of its hipster bona fides. It’s a treasure trove of quotable lines, but no one says anything that’s going to make you wish you were guy saying it. And that’s where I think the genetic relationship with Raising Arizona parts company and Gleiberman’s comparison becomes one of apples and orangutans. What bugs me, is the implication that somehow by starting the quirky snowball rolling, Raising Arizona is to blame for the sins of Juno. And let me tell you: Juno has a lot of atoning to do.

In case it isn’t already clear, Juno drove me just batshit crazy. There was plenty to love about it; and I would even go so far as to call Oscar-worthy in places: the characters, rather than being extruded from some Hollywood pasta machine, were complex and three dimensional. The casting was outstanding; the actors turned in first-rate performances. But the best, most emotionally rich and authentic moments were those where nobody was speaking. And ironically, it’s the things for which it is the most loudly praised—the dialogue and the look-at-me quirk (for its own sake)—at which Juno fails fatally. Though I’m sure they exist, I can’t for the life of me think of a more egregious case of the emperor’s new clothes than Juno getting an Original Screenplay Oscar. Clearly, no Academy screenwriting voter wanted to admit, even to him/herself, that s/he wasn't hip enough to appreciate Juno.

I can’t help but wonder how painful it’ll be to watch Juno in five years. Don’t think so? I’ve got three words: The Breakfast Club. I know pop culture is by nature ephemeral, but this is severe, debilitating myopia of Magoo proportions. It certainly doesn’t help when Diablo Cody drops all the same references to Dario Argento et al. in her EW column that the precocious heroine does in the movie. Diablo? Seriously? You're obviously very bright and have a great gift for observation. But stop trying so hard. Chillax, as the kids say. Not every line has to end up on a bumper sticker. I appreciate the attempt to authentically capture the zeitgeist, or show just how dialed into it you are. But you have to spread it out a little. Or temper it with some self-effacing irony. I know it can be done. John Hughes figured it out somewhere between TBC and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I'm sure you can too.

When I started, I had hoped to make this a meditation on the amazing relationship my wife and I have, and how it all started. For that, you'll just have to tune in again next time.

At least my odds on Jeopardy! should improve.

Well, now I've really gone and done it.

Actually, it's been in the works for quite a while; now the whole story can be told: I'm chucking the ad game and embarking on what I like to call my second act. (Suck on it, Fitzgerald!) I'm going to be a lawyer.

I had been working on a clever post, wherein I liken myself to someone whose lover (advertising) just isn't that into me. Obviously, it never quite gelled (kinda like my ad career--oh!). Suffice it to say that I just didn't see things going anywhere as a copywriter. We had some laughs, some good times. But I knew if I stuck with there were really two options. Either I'd never advance professionally, which would suck. Or, if I were to advance, that would bring with it its own special set of suckitude, seeing the machinations my supervisors went through, of which I wanted no part. A Nagainan dilemma, if you will.

For some of you, this is not news. Goldie, Tammara, Ed, and Stennie--thanks for your support, encouragement, and confidence. For the rest of the regulars, I'm curious about, and would love to hear, your reaction.

What this means for my blogging life, I can't say. Along the rest of my pop-culture consumption and zeitgeist surfing, I'm either going curtail it severely or learn to get better about popping off a quick post whenever I have the chance. I hope it's the latter; we'll have to see.

Like all my 240-odd 1L classmates, I could cite many inspirations for pursuing a legal career--a landmark civil-liberties case, a compelling bit of courtroom drama immortalized on stage and screen, or a bit of political theatre. But as I stand at this precipice, the wisdom that resonates most strongly comes from Mercury Astronaut Alan Shepard's launchpad prayer: "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up."

I look at you, and I sigh.

Despite some initial misgivings rooted in the me-tooness of it all, not to mention my irksome tendency to not stick with things, I am now a-bloggin'.

I've christened my little cyber-nook after the W.B. Yeats poem, which was not only the basis of my wedding vows but serves as a handy abstract of my personal philosophy, for better or worse. Seems fitting somehow. I hope you enjoy.

A Drinking Song
By William Butler Yeats

Wine comes in at the mouth
and love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.