I believe My humor's wearing thin and change is what I believe in I believe My shirt is wearing thin and change is what I believe in
When I was young and full of grace, and spirited a rattlesnake When I was young and fever fell, my spirit I will not tell You're on your honor, on your honor
-I Believe, Michael Stipe (REM)
An evening post because tomorrow I pick a jury, and the several days that follow will likely leave little room for this diversion. A jury trial is the most utterly consuming thing we do in my business, the sine qua non of a trial lawyer. Reputations are at stake, not to mention the dispute that someone pays us a great deal of money to place before a jury. It is part homily, part drama performance, part oral law exam on topics we don't always know will come into play, but we're expected to be ready to argue all the same.
It's a great deal of fun at times; others not so much. And my blood pressure was 168/102 this morning when I woke up knowing I'd be at work into the evening. Clearly, I'm reaching the end of my useful life as a raconteur in a courtroom.
My opposing counsel, against whom I tried my first case a quarter century ago, clearly feels the same way. Tonight he referred to the trial as a "hemorrhoidectomy" when we were on the phone with the judge trying to figure out what to do with his co-counsel's Covid diagnosis earlier today. We're still picking a jury tomorrow, but will adjourn until after lunch on Tuesday so he can get up to speed on the facets of the trial that had been left to his erstwhile associate. It's not perfect.
But we'll get this done, and now that my adrenal glands have turned into little piles of dust after years of no-kidding war and televised hearings and all the other stuff that's comprised this never boring life, my biggest challenge will be staying awake.
At least I managed one good night, sneaking off to Wyldswood Friday after shooing clients out of the building and dealing with another weeping into the phone because the opposing party had taken to the airwaves impugning her personally, treating her settlement of a nonsensical case against him as proof he was in the right. In fact, he threatened to ruin her working class family financially, and they paid him a fraction of what it would cost to defend the case to go away. A rich turd. I may actually devote some effort to making him squirm, on the house.
Wyldswood was lovely, if overgrown from all of the rain.
Then it was off to the Elks Lodge for fried shrimp and Dot's tales of who was sleeping with whom in 1981. All good, all a tonic for the woes of the moment.
The next morning I had visions of going to play a quick nine holes first thing, but instead trekked down the new location of our favorite feed store, which moved after the landlords sold the strip mall where they'd been as long as I can remember, to buy a little fish food and goose feed. Gus and Other Gus were thrilled with the pile of crumblies.
Once they were fed, I realized that the creeping worry about trial would impact my backswing, and opted to switch trucks and drive my beloved 2017 Ram back to Panama City.
Clearly, it had been there at the Perry Airport for a while.
Yes, those are weeds growing through the bumper. It's been a wet summer.
[I'm thinking Issac would advise I shouldn't have my license plate numbers visible in this post, but I'm too technologically benighted to fix it.]
After an uneventful drive back to Panama on Saturday I spent the rest of the day working on trial prep, then walked out to find the mighty old Dodge stone dead. A 2017. Original battery. I'm thinking even I can diagnose this one. After my partner Ashley produced jumper cables and got me on my way, I arrived in a sea of the Great Unwashed at Auto Zone in search of a new battery.
The young, apparently poor gentleman ahead of me in line was pleading for a new battery to replace the one he'd plunked in front of the register. No receipt, no new battery.
But the chain smoking "old" 63 year old (smokes will do that to you) was fairly affable with me, wheeling out the new battery on a cart and changing it while I sat there impotently ("You standing here in my way's just going to make this take longer", he admonished). I figured we weren't buddies and stayed in the cab, but once he was done he sidled up next to me to complain that he had two 30 year old salespersons (okay, sales ladies) working inside, and he'd concluded they were basically worthless. "They paid me $20 an hour at Wal-Mart automotive and I didn't have to do sh*t, then I come here and work my ass off for $15 an hour while they don't do jack."
How does one respond to this vocational catharsis? "Yep, different generation I guess." Meaningless, but the best I could do sitting there in the fading light of a Saturday night spent at an auto parts store.
Then I went back to the condo for my fifth straight turkey sandwich for supper. There's been no time to cook an actual meal, and I'm too cheap to go out to eat. The turkey has been in the fridge since July, so it has the added benefit of being a zero calorie exchange by the next morning, if you follow me.
Today I went to the gym just after the sun rose, bought groceries for the firm in my exercise clothes (the glamorous life of a managing partner), then leaned into getting ready for trial right up until this Covid diagnosis had us all on the phone with the judge at 6:45 on a Sunday evening. I reckon that's where this narrative began.
What of the song lyric at the beginning of this blog? Well, I was thinking about some of the ridiculousness of the political moment, starting with this bit of non-insight from a Republican (of course) who'd like a paying gig in the state government of Michigan.
Then there's this gem about how the Rs have coopted the Democratic policy of diverting investment from evil things to, well, start punishing folks for not investing in evil things.
It's like when they take a break from book-burning, they look around and think "what other execrable position can I take to own the libtards?"
Horrible. Just horrible.
But if you're wondering how someone could be this bad, this objectively bad, ask them about why they do something and listen for that one word that seems a free pass to all sorts of mayhem: "believe".
As in what Trump's lawyers told the press they remembered from when they all got C's or worse in Con Law back in law school.
Can't find the article, but apparently a lawyer representing him went public with what she "believes" about the circumstances that led to the search at Mar-a-Lago.
For all you non-lawyers out there, my profession takes the word "believe" in the context of a legal argument, as opposed to a throw pillow, as an object of scorn. I used to verbally beat that word out of young lawyers who worked for me before they all decided to stop working.
"No one cares two sh*ts for what you believe unless you're in church or at an AA meeting. Never utter that word in an argument in court. 'Think' is almost as bad. If you 'think' something is so, that tells the judge you're not sure. Just state the facts as facts, and shut up."
I've given that speech enough times.
[Monday morning postscript: I reckon I didn't really finish my thought here. Always clearer in the morning. My thesis was going to be that we all live in an empirical, tactile world in which we know things from experience. I know it's hot and humid out here in the dusk on the patio by the bay, typing this. Likewise, I can know things I haven't experienced but are someone else's empirical, tactile experiences. I've never been to Greenland, but I'm pretty sure it's there based on photos and my own grandfather's accounts of his time stationed there, twice (Grandpa had a way of angering his superiors).
But beyond that we stray from knowledge to belief, and here's where the trouble begins. A belief is, as a matter of taxonomy, not based on fact or it's not a belief. The New Testament leans into this distinction. Beliefs are fine, but when they're combined with certitude they tend to be a recipe for trouble. I believe that my mythical god, who seems to look and think surprisingly like me, his servant, doesn't tolerate gay marriage, or homosexuality for that matter. Or interracial marriage. Or eating shellfish. How do I know this? I don't, of course, I just believe it. And if I don't believe with absolute certitude, my loyalty to the deity somehow comes into question.
So belief isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly if it has some utility in helping my neighbors lead better lives. But it has to be approached with a humility that always leaves open the possibility that we might just be wrong, because we have no facts upon which to base this framework for understanding our lives.]
And I guess I'll get to apply my sage advice to all those young lawyers, starting tomorrow morning. A long week begins, but at the end of the journey Friday arrives and with it P. Here we are going on four years into this ride, and we've never been better. And not just because I've been gone a lot--I know what you're thinking. Hoping the days fly by until the prettiest eyes ever to come out of Bluegrass, Tennessee, meet mine late Friday at the Tallahassee Airport. I do believe in the magic of all that.
Good luck tommorow. After you win - We can scrub your license plate from your blog 😉