187

To hear the opinons and conversations of ridiculous middle-aged, mindle-minded police men of the state is to realize empirically, as a law abiding citizen, what is theorized by the average groundling crook. Idiots in the private sector become demigods with a badge. For Christ.

The beefy, bull headed Minotaur-in-uniform clanked his fork against the diner plate, infuriating me. His enormous calloused paws spiraling the bent fork into my flesh.

Though undoubtedly a dimwit, what transformed him from a man into a trudging elephant worthy of contempt, were his ridiculous blue shorts. The shorts left no crural room on the sides between the polyester and his trunks, an unintended effect of coffee, donuts, and a misinterpretation of who is allowed to be smug.

He turned and walked to me, as if alerted by an instinct born in the wild. His slow, heavy movements kicked off the powdered dander of his ashy knees, like a pachyderm kicking up dust as it walks. Clumsily swinging his heavy trunk-like arms, I think to myself, now and always, ‘If only he would use that gun to rinse himself off one time…”

Summum Bonum

The Premise
The intrinsic value of humans and the path we follow is directly tied to the value you provide based on your particular life stance.

The Arguement
I try and create value to my family and friends through the challenge, and hopefully, procurement of ideals, that ultimately create goals for myself. It is through Me. It is through my pains, sufferings, follies, wins, successes, and glory that I will bestow those awards.

The Execution
No man is an island? That is still yet to be determined, but undoubtedly, to me, the prudent man would be wise to take on a Florida-like peninsular position; Enough of the first colonies to ground you in support combined with enough of the Pacific to allow, seemingly, unending freedom to create and envision.

2009: A Comparison Piece

Exhibit A

Happy holidays and happy (almost) 2010!

This has been a year of many changes. The short version: I graduated law school, celebrated my fifth year college reunion, and moved to Washington DC to clerk for Douglas Ginsburg, a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. I'm having a great year, but I'm also looking forward to coming back to NY next fall. The long version is below if you're interested.

Big change #1: No more school. The biggest change for me is that I will never go back to school (unless it's as a professor). I graduated from HLS in June (my graduation speech is just a bit less than halfway through this recording: http://www.law.harvard.edu/media/2009/06/03/dos.mov), and I miss it already. I'm one of those (very few?) people who genuinely loved law school. What I do not miss (and will not miss) is taking tests, and I likely took my last test, in the form of the bar exam, in July. At this point I also associate Cambridge with school, and I miss many things about Cambridge (including the chips at the Border Cafe). I feel no nostalgia, however, for the days when it seemed both to rain and reach ten degrees below zero. Sorry, Cambridge, you're not perfect.

Big change #2: New job. As I mentioned, I'm now working as a law clerk on the DC Circuit. Clerking is somewhat like being a research assistant for a professor. I read briefs filed by various parties and research the legal issues involved. Judge Ginsburg is an active academic writer and lecturer as well, so it's nice to be able to help out with those projects also. I'm not learning that much content while clerking -- the subject matter of the cases is varied and random -- but I'm slowly learning how to be a better legal writer and a better crafter of legal arguments. I'm itching to start crafting arguments of my own. In the end, it's nice to get paid to sit around and think about thorny problems all day.

Big change #3: New city. Life in DC outside of work is also going well. On the other hand, DC lacks NY's energy, there are fewer different kinds of things going on, and my family and most of my closest friends are back in NY. But I'm having a lot of fun. At a more abstract level, I'm also starting to adjust to the idea that I am neither a student nor a semi-student any longer. When I worked at McKinsey after college I never felt quite out of the world of the student because I knew I was going back for law school. Now the rhythms and routines I develop could (should?) be those that stick with me far into the future -- there will be no more disruptions in the form of a return to school. That's a bit scary, but it's also exciting.

Well that's it. Three big changes in one year, one long email chronicling them.
I look forward to hearing what you're up to, and if you're in DC (or passing through), then I'd love to catch up in person.

Best,
XXXXX

Exhibit B

Happy Holidays and 2010

This has been a year of many changes for me as well, XXXXX. The XXXXX’s Penis version: I went to jail, regressed intellectually, and spent half of my Net Pay on Booze and cigarettes. I’m having a necessary year that resembles and parallels, if my worn down memory serves, being a pubescent and petulant teenager. The long version is below if you’re a masochist.

No real change #1: “Holy shit, I’m the mixture of a stereotypical coned dunce and Ronald Reagan!”. That is what I think when I struggle to remember random shit as I jab 2 dirty fingers to my unshorn throat muff and anxiously search for a pulse, to verify that I am, in fact, still alive. I'm one of those (very few?) people who genuinely live like a true fatalist. What I do miss is evolving as a person and the greediness that used to drive me to hoard new knowledge and skill sets. At this point I associate the drive to progress with the weak excuses, as I am want to have, of a drunken hobo and with an apocalyptic perception of the reality I have created. (Fortunately, at least, this does include the tacos of Fuel City). Sorry, Jonathan, you're self awareness is finally perfect.

Big change #2: Madea goes to Jail. As I mentioned, I recently spent some time with Irving’s finest via a State imposed vacation. Oh, how we love our impromptu “Destination Unknowns”. Jail is very cold and bright. It is so bright that everything is amplified and colors are magnified to a loud, audible din. I laid on my wooden bench defiled by various parties and watched the Cowboys lose through a small window with a black man. Judge Assholeburg, who must be an abject failure in his chosen profession, to find himself in front of a deadbeats on a Sunday morning, is a county magistrate who made me pay $25,000 to get out of jail, so it's nice to be able to help out with his project also. I'm itching to not be a felon.

Big Change, My Ass #3: Spending most of my money on Booze, night life, travels, and traveling while boozed. On one hand, it’s my most favorite thing to do. On the other hand, being consistently hungover has really started to limit my ability to live in a world that every year seems to demand a bit more from me. But I'm having a lot of fun. I think. At a more abstract level, I'm also starting to adjust to the idea that I need to grow up and not black out every weekend. The rumor is that at some point, a 24 year old cute crazy drunk guy turns into a 27 year old bearded alcoholic.

Well that's it. Three big changes in one year, one long email chronicling them. I look forward to hearing what you're up to, and if you find yourself going through hell, keep walking!

Best,

JG

Thinking of Fat Women

As I sit slumped back in my cheap plastic chair that stinks from its owners, at times, questionable hygiene full from the workmanlike holiday feast, I thought to myself, “I need to pull it together.”

Between deep breaths that resemble sighs and the deliberate contracting and contrasting that is the clinching of my ass as I dictate which silent farts I want to let out and which to keep in, like the membranes of microcosms, I feel a bigger part the disaster that is the American populace.

Beaten and torn down by food and drink, tired and annoyed, I think back to something that happened this very morning, something that has convinced me that, now, not only is life worth living now, but it never was.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I stumble out of bed after a listless sleep in a warped and sweat heavy bed that has the squeaks. Now, let me clarify, not those harmonious and pure little noises caused by happy lovers, but the din of a picked cotton mattress beaten into submission to perform its owners hard work, like a pillow top slave.

I stumble out of this bed and, though I stumbled about like a lame man with clubbed feet, I was quick to forego the shower. I hurriedly strap on some clothes I deemed suitable for work and try and manipulate slept in hair. For those of you who have not had the unique pleasure of fixing slept in hair, I would equate it pissing down your pant leg, trying to clean it in a public bathroom, and then walking back to your groups table and pretend you were just a bit to gamey in washing your hands or kneecap. Nobody buys it when you come to work with half dried and half clumped by product hair, like a duck in an oil spill.

I take a load off by sitting in a chair that my roomate consistently made love with until the gyrations of his hips tore a hole in the seat and left angelic white baby Jew stains on the front, thus making it fit to be donated to me, apparently.

In my disgust, I go to my favorites and see videoxx.nx. I’m prompted by my hateful mind to click on the link and give a passing glance to those thumbnails.

In an effort to get to the point, I will spare the sordid and vulgar details of just what exactly was going through my mind, but I admit now before my friends and their god: I ended the morning with a rapid clean up as I was, now, running late as I simultaneously tried to close out: my BBW streaming video and the impure thoughts of the fattest girl I've known(seriously 275 lbs), that completed my self-loathing.

Classical? Baroque? Who gives a shit.

On Mozart:
When one thinks of prodigious behavior, personal transcendent and indelible laws that govern an individual positioned on the outer lying realm of all the possibility and daring of human consciousness, one usually thinks in civilian or, for the lack of better descriptors, fucking bland terms. For example, The grace of the violinist. The focus and discipline of an athlete. The inherent nobility of a leader of nations.

Well, everyone knows Geniuses live in an otherworldly design. What my conclusion of one in particular presupposes is…maybe he didn’t.

Mozart was the epitome of the duality that plagues the grand delusionists, also known as me and my friends, of our time. He was by all historic accounts one of the greatest and most influential musical composers of all human antiquity, past and present. He was also a consistently broke asshole that enjoyed inappropriate humor and sexual harassment, heroic characteristics, past and present (and, dare I say, future?).

A frail man, he lacked the brawn of the noble savage and the stature of the royalty for which he played. His small, weak demeanor belied the strength and influence of his hands, which were usually one of two places, creating brilliant works as miniature pistons pounding the organs keys or creating pleasure, his and hers, second-knuckle deep in a powdered 18th century snatch. In fact, one could argue that he was the first musician to conquer a woman of superior physical prowess because of something other than his looks: The first Musician/Groupie relationship.
But to me Mozart was much more than that. Besides, through voluminous sex and scat fetishes, being a beaconing blaze of woman’s lib, a flawless writer of compositions, and a man after your authors own heart (read: blackout drunk asshole), he was an underrated and, and in his day, an unappreciated economist and monetary theorist.
Despite selling out venues to aristocrats, nobles, and royalty, Mozart was consistently broke and disheveled, remaining that way until his next performance or completion of a composition; a classical junkie whose demons lied in those Ivory Keys (White Ki's. I hate that I don't trust my reader to understand that subtlety.ugh). He pioneered the oft-imitated since financial theory of living affectionately called “Paycheck-to-Paycheck.” Piano Hand to Mouth with great hair (1), the only way to live.
The Hand, The Bitches, The Composition.(2) One word: Genius.(3)










1. Louthan, M., via text message, 2009
2. Derived: Leal, Babs & Olivarez, Esther, via text message, 2009
3. Leal, Babs & Olivarez, Esther, via text message, 2009

Simple Simon Motherfuckers

To instill the fear and withdraw proper deference from an idiot can be at once taxing and illuminating. Take for instance the ire your brain throbes with as the idiot fails time and time again to take their intellectual beating, it's like a Prize fighter with the ultimate chin in face of vicious blows.

But I say illuminating, and I mean that. For, you see, it's the ultimate test of mastery. Sure you can recite to me formulas, but can you teach them to the ignorant masses? Sure you can verbally lambast and make the jokes, but can you crush the prideful into the ranks of the ribald and force your will on the living masses?

It's of my opinion, that is to say, the opinion of a man with the proper credientials and authority to negotiate such topics, as that of a mysgonist and misanthrope, that the idiot serves to sharpen your sword-tongue and tighten your brain-aim for those who can influence action and change. That of the average.

Where is my wine? Bring my beaker so I may wet my tongue and say something clever!

An Ode to a Wedding

I felt sick with revelation the other day; a dark and disturbing truth slowly overtook my breathing. The foulness wasn’t the offense of me and my chum’s perversions nor the wretched location, but the putrid feel of human flesh being beaten and sold, as I’d imagine a moral man would feel watching a big scarred buck at a slave auction.

It was me, Kopechian, and the friendly fiend Cohen we endearingly call “The Jew”. We were huddled around a rustic, cheap table of the, what must have been based on it’s terrible case of the wobbles, weakest wood in a dusty, dirt-floor haunt in border town Mexico. In those days the drug cartels were yet to grow in to the charming organizations they now resemble in the way of death and destruction, but were then much like a pubescent boy learning to manage his awkward gait and negotiate his growing anatomy.

In a filthy, rat infested brothel packed with beasts; both females and donkeys, at the end of a 3 day binge, one grows aware of the burden of man, prisoners of biology as it were.

My 2 villainous friends and I had just murdered our umpteenth beer (in such company, one could hardly be trusted on to keep an accurate count, of course)

“I’m out of money.” The normally garrulous Kopechian conceded.
“I’ve got 10 dollars put in my sock for the cab, that’s it.”
The Jew, of course, would prepare and fight this assertion like a lawyer going to trial.
“What do you mean? Where did it all go? We only had 8 rounds today, last night I paid for the majority of the drinks and you still owe me for the hotel.”
“Yah, but that other stuff.”
“The lines you did off the concrete latrine soaked in piss? That’s your issue”
“Dude, whatever. I’ll pay you back; you know I’m good for it!”
“I know no such thing, deadbeat!”

I sat silent through the menial conversations of money, scanning the grimy, dingy bar. It existed as more than a bar, of course, it was multi-faceted in that in a few minutes down and out women with busted faces, out of shape bodies, and mouthy breathe would clumsily hoof around in worn cocktail dresses too tight and of dull colors that were once bright, like peacocks from New York Sewers.

Jew spoke with authority

“I’ve got the answer to the question at hand, gentleman” the last word emphasized with irony.
“We find the grossest one towards the end of the night. Not the very end of the night, mind you, it mustn’t be when the drunken idiot bouncers are aware, but around 4 am or so. At that time, even the fattest whore will have made some money. We corner her outside on the street after a fake proposition and steal her pocket purse. She ought to have at least $600. That’s $200 each if we play our hand right!”
“You’re a dumbass, because A) the hookers have to give the money to the house to hold and B.) You don’t think 3 white boys aren’t going to be the first people the Mexicans look at in a situation like this?!

“That’s the point! The bottom feeders never give all the money to the house! If they did that, they’d never eat, and look at that one” the Jew pointed across the cigarette smoke to the other side of the brothel, “she definitely eats!”

All this while, I’m still silent from the soreness and exhaustion of another 3 day campaign one happens in to from a hard living. Hating my life and the pain I brought my body from chronic chemical abuse of alcohol and drugs followed by the systems shock of complete sobriety for a string of 5 days, just to repeat the same defeatist lifestyle hurts too much to think upon, that even now as I recount this to you, I feel an uneasiness in my stomach! It’s the avoidance of thought, and, ultimately, disappointment, one feels that delays the inevitable truths, like not checking ones bank statement after a hard weekend of partying because of the fear and shame of ones utter irresponsibility.

As I try to wallow in fantasy, glorious thoughts began to shine through like sun rays through ominous storm clouds, I’m over this crumbling building in a foreign, lawless oasis of debauchery and self-destruction, tomorrow is a new day I think with the hard resolve and passionate fervor of a religious believer.

“3 Shots of Tequila!” jolts me back to reality.

What denigrates me and makes me inhumane is what at the same time flaws me and emboldens me as a human. Maybe it is human to exist as a vile and crude creature. Perhaps evil energy powers us and we are indeed created in a certain likeness. Peering through the finger print smudges of a cocaine mirror, I think, Can I see the devil in my features?

The cavernous, earthy bar did nothing to ease my mind and dispel any fear of my childish attitude, and, like a Mexican Raskilnikov, I would stew in a nihilistic cauldron, a dense mixture of pity and romantic self loathing.

I wish, dear reader, I could transcribe and give life to the treacherous and most devious thoughts that run through a man’s mind when simmered in such a broth. Everything universal is questioned and nothing in sum is wrong. Extremes can be solved for and shocking thoughts quickly fade to basic equations. What is rape, really, when compared to prostitution? What is heroin to a man abusing everything else?

Anyways, it’s about this time when the horns and accordions break me from my throbbing concentration and pull me back to the problem at hand. We remain broke in a foreign country. I don’t mind being broke, I’ve languished in poverty before and like a monk with his vow, would happily do it again. The strong man knows material wealth holds no truth, the minds influence minting the only currency an intelligent man needs. Influence sways everything; guilt, innocence, right, wrong, all mere academic questions.

This pattern tirelessly continues throughout the night, a delicate game of back and forth, like pong, focusing on what’s in front of me and slipping back in to the ramblings of a sickened mind.
“There goes the fat one walking outside” Cohn hissed.

The Jew. Really, only the most self-loathing best friend can love a guy like him. The juxtaposition of a complete asshole and empathetic friend is enough of harassment for most to deem it a terrible venture. A ridiculous, self loathing man, I say. Why else would one hold dear to their bosom someone who constantly proves undeniably the sharpest in any room, the wittiest and most clever at any party, and who possesses as fair a face, arguably, as our hero? Only a masochist, I argue.
Stay with me dear reader, I tell you that dark, troubling recollection of my mental anguish to illustrate in what disposition I struggle with on an everyday basis.

I was at a bar last night, alone, wistfully fingering the ridges of scars on my arms and hands when I happen across the ancient television that hung above the bar like a bulky, electronic spider too heavy for its web. The beautiful ethnic journalist on the local news program morphs from a cheery friend to a forlorn griever with the result of extracting emotion from everyone who watched numbly. In a random act of violence a poor woman was killed on the California border, to what us degenerates felt like was a far-off land. The picture shown on the screen was that of a homely, thick woman who remained nameless and unidentified. Further reports showed no identification, cards, pictures, or otherwise were found. The hot, macabre, foul feeling I told you about overtook me slowly at first, like a creeping tide on the shore, and then, like a switch was flipped, engulfing me like a violent storm wave as the picture was further painted! Only $600 hid away in the depths of undergarments was found on her person.

“I’ll be damned, the Jew had his figures right!!!”

"1 window to let the dawn in

Because my body hustles me from Midnight to Morning."

Like the tail wagging the dog, a healthy, superior existence is drowned in wine and smiling friends! Let's rejoice! Lets give glory! But anon, I have a better idea! Let's take it! Let's do it nasty though. You and I, and we won't shower. Give me the FUNK!

Friday. And the beats are hot!

A thought occurred as I gazed out the smeared window into the foggy and wet day. Should I go tan my fair underarms? A nice juxtaposition; the false sun burning my skin on a day robbed of the real thing. No, No I think to myself. Maybe instead of cooking myself to preparation for a hungry cougar of the wild night, I will instead purchase the newest fashions from out an out of town wares caravan, led by the industrious Edward Hardy. The thin cotton is worn from the whipping of rhinestone reigns, as he sits atop his neon and graffiti’ed coach and barrels toward his home hub city, Downtown Dallas, Texas.

The days have crept by since finding out about the Texas Ranger game that I am attending, but when my mind wandered to the thoughts of tailgates, middle aged men in jorts, warm light beer out of a dented keg, like a metal piñata, a loose collection of plain women and tawdry wives, and a gaggle of awkward 21 year old males, the sun broke through the clouds. Maybe, just maybe, tonight Fortuna will give me the weather to strike out upon the night and the allowance of women, multicultural, overweight, or otherwise, to harass and to lock lips.

Oh, last hour of work!

Why do you torture me with mechanical requirements of advertisements and publication quotes? All I can think about in these dire times, as the rain begins to drop again, is the sour stench and taste of the lethal weapon that I am going to drink on my way home. Like the proverbial flies in Vaseline we all are, Faulkner would give a creeping gothic smile upon my ongoing life creation, Alcoholism, Alcoholism!

I Hate Jason Kidd or The Perfect Use of the Words 'Norman' and 'Neiman'

Upset at the Mavericks win last night, I stifled my burning hate for Jason Kidd as the DART Rail slid across the tracks. Fortunately, the site of a medically defined obese 20-something became the recipient of my anger and frustration.

Pale, fat, and apparently, with no sense of shame, this woman sat unaware of the torture she was putting me through. The bile from the morning’s breakfast of greasy swine rising up my throat and my conscious efforts to force it back down created a water boarding effect. From her 10 year old knobby and worn mahogany Doc Martens in need of a staining to her iron oxide-like hair, I say like, because Rust isn’t malleable enough to knot and tangle like this, I was grateful to hate her and her ilk.

Then it dawned on me, as she stood up to get off the train, an epiphany into the sociological reasons of substance abuse!

Her tawdry, wrinkled clothing stuck in her bodily crevices, the cellulite dimples of her ass showing through her Kohl’s pants and her bra cutting into the skin of her ‘back-tit’, as is the parlance of the day. The skin growths on her neck, back and face a quite literal Mole that looked like a Mountain Hill (see what I did there?). All this, along with her carrying of a cheap plastic purse ripped with hanging cotton strings led to my great discovery.

Simply put, this woman will never know the cheap thrill of a designer hand bag. The superficial feeling of power over her peers who lack specific shapes on their handbags, the delusional thoughts of beauty, as she gazes in the mirror, her patterned purse hiding numerous physical flaws, and the false sense of dignity that stiffens her neck allowing her to walk with poise through a crowded public area silently screaming, “I’m Somebody, Goddammit!”

No, this woman’s only hope for self worth and value lies in the first five fleeting and intoxicating minutes after hitting the Crack pipe. Her strength to carry on in a world where she is a worthless pathetic fuck is made in a dirty basin tub with chemicals and is bestowed with a flicker of the Bic and inhalation of dirty smoke. In the end, perhaps this offensive and gruesome woman is not so different than those I lust after and actively pursue. They are all searching for something. Some go to Neiman Marcus, others, Norman, Oklahoma.

Basketball Season is over

An ominous cloud followed me as I trekked to the gym, contemplating the battle to come. It had been years, 2 to be exact, since my last campaign. This battle, dear reader, is not fought with swords and shields, but with Rubber balls and Elbows, and, as I were to later discover, with embattled lungs and cirrhosed livers.

I scouted the gym, my head on a swivel, as I checked in. My soldier’s uniform clung to me as I took my final steps to no man land. My ZBT bone thug’s n harmony concert T felt stifling. I lamented and cursed my cross trainer Air Max’s, wishing papa wasn’t too poor to send me to battle with Basketball shoes, like the nobleman and sons of heraldry. As I approached the court, there he was, my honorable enemy in all his glory, practicing his thrusts and jousts. To my delight, what is that!? Yes, he has cross trainers too! Another apprentice warrior, surely Aries and other heathen God of wars have looked down favorably on this day, my judgment day.

After a few pleasantries, the battle raged. Elbows flew, Basketballs bricked, Women cried. Bodies fell like knapsacks only to rise again like a phoenix with that orange ball of fire. The court began to populate with other warriors and onlookers, amazed by the skill and abilities of these out of shaped commoners (or the opposite).

Finally, a break in the action and an obvious advantage for one side became clear through the cloudy play. The victor rose while the loser almost fainted. AND THE VICTOR WAS…………………… not me.

Braintree, MA

As the wine goes, so goes the nation.

Hot Hot Boy

His heart pounds against the womb of his sternum and ribs as an unhappy prenatal fetus would, inside an abusing mother. The man on the cardio machine tries to negotiate an historical biography of the bitch nigga Andrew Jackson, his untied shoes, and a tingling in his left arm at the same time....

at least it's not miscarriaged, he thought. Positively, as always. Where's my wine?

Strunk & White?

I like to Smash & Fight.