A Conversation With The Good Doctor

A man used this to help him take his life. I'm hoping that it gives me some instead. Football season's almost over. Baseball season starts soon.

Loss and Return

There are a few moments in life when people can start over. Transgressions are washed away. Memories of the past are no longer automatically tied to the present state of the individual.

Tomorrow should be that day for a small group whose lives are now forever bound by an act, still unclear, which took place a handful of years ago. The destruction which took place can now finally be repaired. No longer will artificial barriers keep them from confronting their selves and each other.

But more importantly, tomorrow is when a son, brother, and friend will come home. To be held and nurtured. To throw a baseball and shoot a basketball. To gamble and hunt. To laugh and cry. To begin anew.

I love you.

(Tryin' To) Do The Right Thing

Before I went into practice, every attorney I talked to said that I needed to be prepared to give more than legal advice to my clients. Attorneys are considered by their clients to be counselors, priests, minor-miracle workers, etc. Fine, I thought, I feel as if I'm a pretty good friend to have, and that's probably what most people need, so I'm set. Well, was I fucking off, to say the least.

Clients do not just need lawyers, but grief therapists, mental health professionals, financial analysts, and parents, just to name a few. They need someone who they can ask a question about anything and get an answer back that they not only want to hear, but can actually implement. Obviously, a single attorney is not qualified to even begin all of these tasks. (I find myself struggling to answer all of their legal questions.) But this fact actually matters little to those who come to us. As it should.

But it puts lawyers in an extremely difficult position. Often the demands made upon them by clients cut into the time they would be spending researching and writing, the hallmarks of any good, compentent lawyer. Not only does a lawyer feel the stress associated by having to fix their clients' problems, but it is compounded when they realize that after they are done solving one dilemma, they must attend to the routine, everyday business an attorney is expected do.

What makes this all the more frustrating are situations like what happened with me today. A client wanted to meet. It was unscheduled, but necessary because of some recent events in which she had been involved. I had other work that had to get done, but penciled her in for the afternoon. We ended up meeting, and I gave her advice on what she needed to do with an aspect of her life. I didn't feel as if I was being paternalistic, but simply trying to convey that her behavior not only threatened her case, but was endangering the relationships she has with her children. Looking back on it, it may have seemed forward, but because of what she had done, I felt it was called for.

To make a long story short, there is now a probability we might lose her. I made a judgment call based on what I felt was in her best interests as a person and not simply in the litigation. Apparently, though, I gave her an answer that not only could she not implement, she didn't even want to begin to hear. My partners backed my decision to confront even before all of this occurred, but I was still left feeling hurt.

I stepped in a role to which I am often called. And rather than doing the best thing for the case and making her happy, I did the best thing for her self. It goes back to something I wrote in the last post: the law is a business now. But what I left out is not only do lawyers perpetuate it, but so do a lot clients. The best-intentioned client can say money doesn't matter, but when those dollars become a greater reality, it's a whole different ballgame. All of a sudden their case becomes a mortgage payment, a new car, or some better clothes. They no longer really want that advisor, but a "yes" man. And when that happens, doing the right thing can become a whole lot harder.

Welcome to the Law

I understand sometimes why people think lawyers, particularly personal injury ones, are monsters. And I fear that this essay will not go far in changing any opinions. But there is such a striking similarity between representing plaintiffs and another one of my favorite past-times that I can't help but think it's worth noting. The past-time? Gambling.

I love to gamble. Cards and casino games aren't really my favorites. What I'm hooked on are spreads/lines/points. The closer, the better and the more money I'm willing to put up. Large spreads are trouble, unless you KNOW you got a sure thing. Of course the more money you're willing to dump, the more satisfying your payoff will be.

Personal injury litigation operates on pretty much the same principles. Law firms for plaintiffs are expected to front all of the money for their clients. They get stuck with the tab for experts, tests, etc., especially if they don't win. If your client recovers, you can take out the costs from the verdict. But if the defendant prevails, you get nada, except the (un)healthy debt you've just managed to rack up.

Therefore, it's in the attorney's best interest to sit down when a case comes across their desk, and look at it much the same as a weekend-handicapper would. If it's going to be close and you got a good shot, then perhaps you think about laying it all out. If it's looking risky, then you skip it and go down the table to the next game. But of course you always shake your head when somebody else nails it, gets the payday, and you think, "Man, I should have picked it."

And the defendant is most definitely the house. Chances are they got more money than you and will go to any lengths, including bending the rules, to insure that at the end of the night you are the one with your pockets picked.

The sad fact is that instead of being spokesmen for our clients, the current state of the legal world has forced attorneys to become advocates for themselves. Firms, especially, new ones, can be made or broken by one verdict or settlement. We are gambling not only with the lives of our clients, but also our entire financial well-being.

And much like gambling, the law has become a business, instead of being the profession it once was. I don't like it, but it's true. The relationship between plantiff lawyers and defense ones mirrors that of bettor and bookie. Neither really like each other, but both know the other is necessary to get their payoff.

It all makes me wish I had been born during the time of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, when lawyers knew for who and what they were arguing. Instead, I'm left trying to figure out how long I can do it for before I get sick of it and myself. Like all degenerate gamblers.

9.(tie) The Hours/United 93 (aka CCS' Head Explodes)

You want to know why The Hours is on here? Because every man I know hates it, and every woman loves it. And it leads to guys writing the movie off as "gay," "boring," and "typical feminist bullshit." Too bad they don't actually pay attention to what the movie is saying about gender roles in our society and then try to be better boyfriends/husbands.

I have had more than one woman tell me that The Hours nails it on the head about how they feel society tells them to behave. Moore's and Kidman's storylines focus around the everyday routine of life which leaves them without meaning and unsatisfied. They cannot be who they want because some outside force (in Moore's case marriage) is impeding them. Moore's act is particularly moving, because it makes you question exactly how many women have given/are giving up the lives and dreams they want so that the hubby and children can pursue their own. Even in today's society where more women are working, how do many often spend their "free-time"? By going after their personal hopes? Or picking up after the kids, doing laundry, and cooking dinner?

The movie centers around the nobility of the fairer sex, and does so by having Ed Harris' character appear in the Streep portion of the film. Harris, who is a poet dying of AIDS, does nothing but lament the injustice of his fate. He has reason to, but he also does what most men do in any relationship with a woman. He makes it all about him. It is his feelings which must come first. Everything must be done on his timetable. While Moore suffers silently in her arc and the audience truely feels for her, Harris takes away any sympathy you might have for his character by behaving selfishly. Moore sets the example, Harris bitches and moans. In other words, The Hours does in fact seem to hit male/female dynamics square on the head and makes it in my opinion one of the best movies of the last 20 years. Not to mention the top-rate acting and the genuine writing.

(In case you think I'm full of shit, go ask a women, who isn't your girlfriend or wife, how they feel about the movie/issue.)

And then there's United 93. It's too bad that the handful of you who read this probably haven't seen it. I can understand why. We live in a country ran by a poor sole of an individual whose administration has politicized 9/11 to such a degree it now makes us feel rather cynical about the whole event. But before you discard Greengrass' fucking masterpiece, try to remember how you felt on that day and the ones immediately following it. Think about the despair, fear, and unknowing.

Moviemaking is an artform. And when done well, it should be commended. But along the lines of why people don't watch the techinal Oscars, they also don't go to the theater for that reason either. People watch a film to be moved, entertained and touched. Most couldn't give fuck what sort of filter was used. The just want to laugh, cry, or see Michael Bay blow something to kingdom come. Maybe it's not intellectual, but it is uniquely human. What makes United 93 great, though, is that it combines the best of both these worlds, and gives each the appropriate amount of respect.

Rather than try to overly-sentimentalize the victims, Greengrass takes almost the opposite approach. He shoots most of the movie in real-time and gives it the feel of a documentary. He rarely uses names, tells little to nothing about the individual characters, and relegates the most "Hollywood" moments to footnote status. ("Let's roll" is barely audible.) He just kind says, "Here it is. You decide." In spite of this, he is still able to pack a tremendous amount of emotion into the film.

I kept having to remind myself, "The plane crashes. You know how this ends." Yet, Greengrass was able to time after time keep getting my hopes up that maybe I just mis-remembered what actually happened that day five years ago. And he was able to send me crashing down with the plane, when they passengers weren't able to regain control, even though I know nothing about them. What allowed him to accomplish this was that he showed you that these people didn't fight back for love of country, political party, or reason to go to war. They did it for themselves, each other, and their families. The passengers sought to regain the plane for the same reasons you, yourself, probably would.

And he did all of this without having to play a single aspect of it up (Attention Oliver Stone.) He knew his audience would be already moved, he just had to make sure you knew why. Never once does he try to give anyone hero status. Yet, by the end you feel as if they all do. It is apolitical, objective, and fair. But most of all, it is representative of all the reasons why we should remember what happened that day.

How Do You Have A Job?

I'm a freshly minted lawyer, and practice with a couple of other people. Two of us were filling out paperwork today for malpractice insurance. Now, the company we're going through has only one set of forms for everybody. So, whether you've lost your carrier 50 times or just starting out, everyone has to answer the same shitty questions.

This becomes important because most of the questions assume that you've had some experience. Unfortunately, that's not us. And makes the question about how much of your billable hours are devoted to varying areas of the law a little difficult to answer. So, I call the wonderful people up to ask what the hell are we supposed to do. And the conversation went a little something like this:

"Hello, this is Black-Hole-of-Life, how may I help you?" in the the least helpful voice ever.

"Um, yes, Black-Hole-of-Life, I'm a new attorney with a new firm, and I was wondering if there was an additional/special application we should fill out as many of these questions do not seem applicable to us?"

"No, there is only the one application."

"Um, well, okay. The reason I asked is because of the question regarding percentage of practice. How do you suggest we fill it out?"

"Well, you should just approximate what you believe they might be."

"Approximate."

"Yes."

Uh-huh. So, let me get this right. The representative for the insurance company just told me to guess on the form I fill out to set my premium. Fan-fucking-tastic. My partner and I could wind up shelling out 6 grand a month, and Black-Hole-of-Life just told me that I might have just as well thrown darts at a board than call her up. What a country. I hate insurance companies.

10.(tie) Menace II Society/Field of Dreams

Okay, there's actually twelve on the list. (No. 9 is a tie, too.) Let's start with Menace.

It came out in 1993 as a response to John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood. See, the Hughes brothers didn't think that Singleton's pic was tough enough. So, they made their own L.A. gang-banger pic. And what a goddamn response it was, especially since they made this movie when they were 21. It has all of the same elements as Boyz: A born and bred gang-banger, someone thinking about leaving the hood, girlfriends, strong/weak parental figures, cops, and violence. But it is all done at such a dirtier, grimier level, you just feel as if the characters are more human and act/react they same way you would. In other words, Albert and Allen accomplished what they set off to do. Look at the characters themselves.

Clearly, in Boyz, Doughboy, Tre, and Ricky are supposed to represent individual segments of the black population, and while they all interact with each other, Singleton never really lets them go beyond the type of man each is supposed to be. The Hughes Brothers just said fuck it. Everyone's got weaknesses, so why not have our characters show that. Caine is clearly supposed to be their Tre. But unlike Tre, he is also part fucking Thug. Such as when he tells the girl he knocked up that it can't be his kid, because he "had the jimmy-hat on extra-tight." O-Dog, who is supposed to counter Doughboy, actually makes you wonder if Tate was the one who wrote all of NWA's lyrics, as opposed to Cube. Doughboy is tough, but in the end you kind of like him. On the other hand, you fucking fear O-Dog and silently hope that he dies, too afraid to actually say it on the off-chance he might actually come through the goddamn screen.

Finally, the violence. Simply, you knew when it was coming in Boyz, you never did in Menace. You knew Ricky was a dead man, but don't tell me you knew O-Dog was going to shoot the bum who offered to suck his dick and then eat the dude's fucking hamburger. Jesus Christ. Boyz was good and deserved much of the praise it got because it was original. But this movie tops it in every way.

On a lighter note, there's Field of Dreams. I know, some of you are thinking it's just typical Hollywood sentimental schlock. It's not, but I'll get to that in a minute. First and foremost, the movie is about baseball, obviously. And in today's world of Barry Bonds, the film takes on cultural significance simply because of that. Sports has had, and will always have, an important role in the lives of many Americans, and until my generation, baseball was king. This movie serves as a reminder to why that was, and maybe should be again. In it's purest form, baseball is a beautiful sport. It's simplicity and complexity work so well together, it's impossible not to wonder if a more perfect sport has been created. (I argue yes, but I think baseball has a pretty good case.)

Second, the movie is about the 60's and what happened to flower power after Ronald Reagan. A little bit of this story line exists in the relationship between Annie and Ray Kinsella. But it is brought to perfection with James Earl Jones' character, Terrence Mann. Mann, the author of the fictionalized work, The Boat Rocker, is a writer who just always wanted to be that. He seems to have once embraced what the sixties were about, but after having to listen to one too many stories about how people rebelled against their parents, he is now completely burnt-out and living by himself. In the end, I think it works as a beautiful analogy for that time period.

Finally, the movie is about fathers and sons and the reason that I say the movie is more than just sentimental fluff. I saw the movie for the first time when I was young enough to still unquestionably love my father, and thought it pretty good. But it wasn't until I had lived a few more years that I really got it. In the film, you learn that Ray's father had at one time been a pro ball player long before he was born. Costner never really got a chance to know that part of his dad, and only knew him after life had worn him down. Largely because of this, Ray's relationship with his father was strained, culminating in him moving out when he was in his early teens after reading Mann's book and not coming home when his dad became ill. The regret he feels is told through Kinsella lamenting about how he stopped playing catch with his old man and it feels unbelievably real.

My dad and I never got along too well when I reached high school and throughout the time I was in college. But the one thing we always had that we could talk about or bond over was sports. We shot basketball, threw the football, and pitched the occasional baseball. And when we were done with that, we would watch them on television. All of it together. One summer though we didn't talk to each other. Not a single word, June through August.

Field of Dreams ends with Kinsella finding his dad, John, out on the baseball diamond. Ray recognizes him, but his dad does not, or so we're led to believe. They talk for a couple of minutes, with Ray complimenting him on his game and introducing John to his granddaughter. As the older Kinsella turns to leave, Ray goes, "Hey, dad...wanna have a catch?" John agrees, and the movie slowly fades out. I cry every goddamn time. You can probably guess why.

The last shot is of a line of cars, going on for miles, heading towards the diamond. To me, it symbolizes all of the people who wish they could have those moments, like Ray's, back with their parents. I know I want that summer back.

"Is this heaven?"

"No, it's Iowa."

My Top 10 Movies

Everyone is doing/or has done one of these, so why not me? I also figured that I would select seem which might cause blood pressures to rise (jff-I'm looking at you). So here are the criteria. (1) Movies must have been considered for Oscar nomination from 1987-2006. I started seeing movies at the theater about then, and it covers the last twenty years. It's a substantial block of time, but also one in which I feel it is really fair to compare individual films. All-time lists are mistaken, in my opinion, because styles of directing/acting/writing change. Other art forms seem to recognize this, so why not movies as well? (2) No documentaries, only dramatizations. I love doc.s, but don't really feel its fair to compare the two types. (Sorry Hoop Dreams.) (3) I have to have seen it in the movie theater. Seeing a film on the silver screen is vastly different than seeing it on a T.V. And because I think seeing it with a group of people in a darkened room is just as important sometimes as the movie itself, I'm going to limit the list this way. Why is this significant? I saw the following movies on tape for the first time: The Usual Suspects, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Silence of the Lambs...oh, and Goodfellas.

An Evening Jaunt

I like to walk around my neighborhood at night as much as possible, because it is rather... interesting. By this I of course mean there are lots of homeless and crazy drunks, sometimes combined into one person. So, it may be a lot of things, but it is rarely boring. And last night was no exception.

I was returning home from a trek up to the Circle K when a group of three, two men and one women, darted across the street and onto the road a few feet in front of me. They were loud, and not really feeling like talking, I kind of hoped they would ignore me. Two of them did, but one had apparently spotted me and determined that I was the sort of chap he could hit up for random, awkard conversation.

"Hey man, where are you off to?" he asked. Instantly I hoped whatever answer I gave him would not be taken as an invitiation to join me for the evening.

"I live down here," I replied.

"Hey man, you smoke that weed?" Apparently, it was immaterial what I was up to, unless the Rice Krispie bar in my bag was actually disguised pot.

"Yeah man I do, but I ain't got any," I said, hoping that this might get rid of him. Unfortunately...

"Ah, man, I hear that. I took a bunch of pills tonight."

"Great." By this point we were stopped in front of the Jack-in-the-Box, and I had a real chance to size him up. About my height, little shorter. Shaved head, cut, and with a ton of ink. All black and white. Kind of sunken eyes. He had a glass in his hand, filled with something. I assumed booze, but it could have been tea. Couldn't really smell anything. We started walking again, mostly so he could catch up with his friends who were a good block or so ahead. When he turned around, I saw that the back of his neck was done. It was a skull, missing a bottom jaw, but with human eyes, and something was coming out of his mouth, but the shirt covered the rest up. The work was good, but it also looked really familiar.

"How long ago these apartments go up?" He asked, gesturing wildly towards the buildings.

"Couple of months ago, bout the time school..."

"Looks like a goddamn high-rise prison with all of the gates."

Thinking about what he had just said, I didn't really have time to absorb it. Because the next thing I knew...

"Hey man, can you hold this?" Giving me little choice not to, I took his glass. And as soon as I had it, the dude was taking off his shirt. And that's when I saw it, and all of a sudden I knew why the skull looked so familiar and why he had made the comment about the apartments.

It was a swastika. And a poorly one done at that. In fact, the art was so shabby it was without a doubt done while homeboy was serving time. He was probably a Brother if he had been to prison, which meant the fellow not only enjoyed getting fucked up, but fucking other people's shit up as well.

I tried not to stare, lest I be accused of being a "fag-it" and getting curbed on my way back from picking up some muchies at ye olde local convience store. But I figured out he was really too messed up to notice. His entire back was covered, and the swastika was the only one which looked like it had been put on him in the joint. I recognized them as all being pretty common for skinheads to wear, since I had seen a lot of the same symbols when I had looked through portfolios before I got my pieces done.

It was at this point several thoughts began running through my head. I don't exactly live in an all-white neighborhood. So, not only did I start thinking about my own safety, but his as well. He may have been an ignorant fuck, but I really preferred not to be a first-hand witness to a goddamn race riot. This didn't seem to cross his mind, at least that's how he acted. But I also noticed that he started walking in more of march, so maybe he knew exactly what he was doing.

I also wondered if he was "true believer" or just ran with the Aryans to survive prison. But just as I started thinking about it, I was really beginning to hope that are paths would be splitting up soon, too.

"Goddamn morons parked all the way down at the Burger King," he turned and said to me.

"Why'd they do that?"

"Beats the fuck outta me, man. Fuckin' mile out of the way. And at goddamn, nigger Burger King." Well, so much for that question. I really wanted to laugh, but I remembered one thing: he could probably kill me with his bare hands, not to mention the glass he held.

So I mustered up an, "Oh yeah?"

"Yep, nigger Burger King." About this time, his friends started to cross over to the B.K., and he followed suit.

"Stay safe, man," he used as a good-bye.

"You too, man, " I answered back.

I really don't know what to make of it. but truth be told, he was the most interesting person I had met in a while. And part of the reason I don't just drive my car into one of the lakes around here. I kind of live for these random moments. there are so many stories out there, some sad, some happy, or in this case, some angry. but whatever it is, they all intrigue me.

ever since I was kid, I've met people this way. for whatever reason, they just come up and start talking. often they are much like the population of my neighborhood, drunk and/or crazy. When I was ten, one homeless guy thought I was his doctor and wanted to know why I hadn't seem him in a while. A month ago, one of the local bums came up and started talking Marx with me. I was in heaven. For being a complete wino, he knew his shit. Had he not been scared off by a cop, I think we would have talked for a while. About two weeks after that, he stopped me in the above-mentioned Circle K parking lot and asked if I wanted to split a case of beer with him. Unfortunately, I had to go back into work, or else I'm pretty sure I would have. In law school, one of my best friends was the janitor. He stayed at my place a couple of weekends. We sat around, drank beer, got stoned, talked classic rock, and passed out to horror movies. And he only talked to me about his life.

i don't know why I listen, or even why they feel as if I'm someone they can talk to. I would to think they see something in me, instead of them just being batshit crazy. I don't really know. but i think i'm better for it. and maybe that's all that really matters. it's enough to keep me walking.

Is Rap Dead?

Nasir thinks so. Should you? In my head, the jury's still out, which I guess means that I don't think so. But if it isn't, then it certainly is visiting Rock at the farm where all good music goes after it dies. And if it is dead, then tell the 5-0 that it was a suicide.

There's no doubt that rap is certainly in a wee bit of a slump. I haven't checked the numbers for Ludacris, but all of the other major albums this year have vastly undersold what was projected. Take Lupe Fiasco for instance. He had one of the most hyped major label debuts (which included guest spots from Jill Scott and Jay-Z) in recent years. Unfortunately, his name only foreshadowed his first week's sales numbers of 58,000. Are you shitting me? We're fucking less than 10 years removed from when everything coming out of P's basement was going gold or platinum, and this motherfucker can't even crack a hundred grand?!!

Now, I'm not trying to say that numbers are everything, and what's popular is what's best. But for rap/hip-hop I think the sales slump is indicative of a fucking problem. People my age might remember when every time you turned on MTV there was puffy, busta or somebody spitting a rhyme in a video. Now you turn it on and it's some dude wearing eyeliner bitching about how tough life is for white twenty-something year olds.

So, I ask, how did rap all of a sudden lose the incredible momentum it once had? And here's my answer. Rap is struggling right now because of two letters all of the artists are familiar with: O.G. No, not that one, but kind of. When I say it, I mean Overexposed-Gangsterism.

Straight Outta Compton came out in 1988. And there's no doubt it not only is a classic rap album, but also just top-notch music. Period. But while E, Dre, Cube, and who-gives-a-shit-what-the-others-names-were might have single-handedly revolutionized the industry, they were also the catalyst for the despair that all hip-hop fans feel now on some level.

What NWA did was they brought gang-life into everyone's fucking home, including pimply-face white kids from the midwest who thought that bustin' a cap in someone's ass sounded a helluva lot more exciting than detassling corn. The thing is, though, those kids grew up, got jobs, and started spending their money on music. And they knew what they liked: hearing guys talk about a life they would never have, particularly one that included lots of women, booze, drugs and guns. So, not only did they buy, but they bought as much of it as they could. Record execs, whose job it is to monitor what people are obsessed with, and exploit accordingly, did just that.

All of a sudden rap went from speaking truthfully about what it was like growing up in the world to telling everyone that success was how many groupies you had, how many gats you packed, and how many benjamins you pocketed. Everyone not only wanted to be Tony Montana, but they also told you they were. Or in Ja Rule's case, that he was the next Tupac.

And it was/is all such bullshit in so many different ways. First, imagine if one of your friends told you the same story 13 times and the nine others after him pulled the same shit. You would tell them to shut the fuck up. So, why can rappers get away with it? Am I the only one tired of hearing about how many bitches they fucked and how much bling they got? Of course not.

Second, beef. This really reached a new pinnacle of absurdity when a record label manufactured a supposed dust-up between it's biggest star and one of it's up-and-coming. And now these motherfuckers actually hate each other. Battling has always been a part of the art. Murder, though, is a different story, unless you're an exec trying to sell a couple thousand more albums. The industry claims to revere Biggie and Pac, but yet it perpetuates a cycle of goddamn violence.

Third, these guys are full of shit. ATTENTION READERS: JEEZY IS NOT THE SNOWMAN. As a friend of mine and I were talking about the other day, if you are a full-fledged dealer, you don't rap. You don't have the time to be sitting down and writing a 100 bars. Conversely, if you rap, you ain't got time to be grindin' out a living. So even while some of these guys might have sold a few bags in their past, they are not the true-life Frank White now. You wouldn't let some white boy from Baton Rouge tell you that he was a Latin King, so why do you let Curtis Jackson tell you he's the real 50 Cent? Or to put it another way, in his autobiography, Snoop claims to have lost his virginity at 13 in a sex sandwich. Uh-huh, and I bang supermodels in my spare time.

These guys have beaten the shit out of the dead horse of being a gangster, and it stinks to high heaven. So, is it any wonder people are getting tired of listening?

However, if rap is on life support, is there any medicine to save it? I think so. Do yourself a favor, and break out ODB's Nigga Please. No, I'm serious. Go listen, and then come back and read the end of this.

Finished? What did you think? First, probably, that I'm crazy if I think this guy's the answer. (And yes, I realize he's dead.) But as Meth tell us on 36 chambers, Dirty got his name because his style has no father. And in that statement lies the truth about what needs to happen for rap to find salvation. Somebody's got to come along like nobody's ever heard before. It can not rely on the players already in the game. Simply, it needs another Big or Pac. Which probably means that while it's not dead, it might as well be. Those two are gone, and there won't be any one like them for a while. And why are they no longer with us? Because somebody wanted to be a gangster and help rap kill itself.

Why We're Missing the Point with Mark Foley

Represenative Mark Foley isn't a pedophile. He may be a creep, but he's no chester. What makes this situation utterly despicable is a 50-something man consumed by power thought he could make sexual advances to teenage pages and get away with it because of who he was. What happened deserves some sort of outrage, but not in the manner with which it is currently occurring.

Pedophiles try to fuck kids. Foley never actually did that. While reading all of the conversations, I have yet to find an instance of where the congressman said something along the lines of, "Hey, you want to come over, have some Jesus-Juice, and suck on my shriveled, limp white penis?" He may have thought it, but he never acted on it. Now, there are fucked up passages, such as when Foley told one he liked to imagine the page's ass going up and down while he was masturbating on his stomach in bed. Not so cool. But commie-pinkos like myself would serve well to remember that speech and thought are protected by the Bill of Rights which we claim to treasure so much, even for pedophiles who should be tortured and then executed.

Additionally, society, and the media in particular, is not being truthful with itself when it labels Foley a pedophile. Why do I say that? Well, the answer lies in two places: (1) the way media has sexualized adolescents, and (2) the laughable idea that age-of-consent laws are in place first and foremost to protect children.

From books to movies to television, girls and boys are being depicted as sexual beings at a much younger age. You want proof? Click on the title of this essay to see a picture of Emma Watson. Ms. Watson, who up to this point is best known for her role in the Harry Potter movies, is all of 16 years old. Yet, she is looking longingly into the camera while wearing skin-tight clothes. Now, is there a difference between this and Foley asking his page how he jacks-off? Certainly. But perhaps the question we should all be asking is, "Why did Foley even see this boy as a sexual creature in the first place?" Maybe he has some serious mental disorder, because apparently he's checked into rehab. Or maybe part of it is because society gave him the implicit permission to view the youngest page in such a way in the first place.

There appears to be some debate now about the age and identity of the staffers, at least in the mind of Matt Drudge. But let's assume for the moment that Foley did make sexually-charged comments to a 16-year-old boy. Que the moral outrage and rightly so. But why should someone be truly upset about this? The first reaction is probably because throughout much of the country the legal age of consent is 18, and many people would say that we have such laws to protect the innocence of childhood. On this I say to both parts, bullshit. We have age of consent laws to protect us adults from ourselves. Let me give you an example. Bruce Willis fucked Lyndsey Lohan when she was 18, at least according to the celebrity gossip mills. If it's true, you know what that tells me? He would have nailed her when she was 16 had it been legal. And truth be told he wouldn't be the only one judging by the way my dad drools at the sight of a certain starlet named Scarlett. So, you can take your goody-two-shoes argument about protection and dump it out the window.

The age-of-consent law is 18 because we as a society believe that having sex with someone younger than that is a bit barbaric and shouldn't be deemed acceptable. But the actual reason it's in place is to keep people, mostly men, from actually banging a 16-year-old, because if it were legal they would. Be honest with yourself. (And please spare me the half-hearted speech of there's a meaningful maturity difference between someone who has just gotten their driver's license and someone who just got out of high school.) Like I said, it's all about protecting us from ourselves.

So, you're probably asking yourself, why, if I believe that society has been asking for this kind of behavior, am I upset about what occurred? Or put another way, why do I feel the outrage is misplaced? Let me explain.

Assuming Foley isn't a mental patient, I think any crisis of conscience he had over what he did probably went like this: "I don't know... talking to a young male about showering may not be the smartest thing. But then again, Ted Kennedy killed a woman and he still gets to be senator. So, who the fuck's going to stop me?" In other words, I think Mark Foley thought his power as an elected representative of the people would surely be enough to keep this hush-hush, particularly when the Speaker of the House seems to be at least in some ways complicit. And that my friends is truly outrageous.

Foley certainly knew what he was doing. Chances are if you're working for a Congressman at such a young age you're also thinking about a career in politics. And if I thought of that, so did he. Foley knew where he was from. Florida is not Miami. Florida is the panhandle. And most of the country is the panhandle as well. What do I mean? Well, the fact of the matter is that most of the country seems to operate under the principle of gays-need-not-apply. The representative knew that a homosexual scandal would sink his political career. But he could also rest assured that it would also derail the dreams of his young heartthrob.

To me if you want to talk about legality and this situation, you should look to sexual harassment. Because if it isn't, a lot of the dynamics are still the same. When I took Employment Discrimination, I laughed at some of the things the bosses/supervisors did, thinking, "What made them think that they would get away with this?" I quickly understood then it was all about power. One, these guys figure that if their victim wants to keep his/her job, then they won't tell. Two, these people probably have little power over there own lives, so they attempt to control somebody else's.

Bring on Mark Foley. I've already explained the first part. When it comes to the second, I'm not now arguing against myself. By his position soley, the dude had power, which I'm sure in turn fueled why he felt protected. But let's not forget, he's also a politician. One doesn't get there by not making few choices when it comes to his ethical flexibility. So, why not try to exert control over a rather powerless individual?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It certainly did for Foley and Hastert. If you want to be upset about something, let it be that.