Restaurant Review: "The Road House Bar & Grill"

Disclaimer: I have never eaten at “The Road House Bar & Grill.”

We did not eat out last night. My wife made a delicious zucchini and pesto pizza, which was surely better than almost anything we could have ordered at a local restaurant. So, I am glad we did not go out for dinner. Even if we had, I’m sure we would not have chosen “The Road House Bar & Grill,” located at 1501 Centerpark Rd. First of all, I've never heard of Centerpark Rd., but it sure sounds far away. And second, “The Road House Bar & Grill”? Are you kidding me?

So, we did not arrive at the “Road House Bar & Grill” at around seven o’clock and we were not greeted by a hostess named Naomi, wearing a cowboy hat and boots and a skirt so short that my wife was scowling at me even before I noticed it. But, for the purposes of the rest of this review, let’s just say we did.

So, let’s just say that Naomi led us to our table and gave us our menus and told us that . . . Pamela would be our waitress tonight and she would be here shortly to take our drink orders. Sure enough, Pamela arrived promptly, also dressed in cowgirl-themed uniform, wearing a very tight western shirt that she apparently was unable to button all the way up, poor girl. We ordered our usual: “Two Bombay Sapphire martinis, very dry, gently shaken, one with an olive and one naked.”

“‘Naked’?” my wife said. “That’s a new touch.”

“Just trying it out,” I said. “What do you think?”

“I think I like it.”

Which would have been a nice moment to propose a toast and have a drink, but our drinks had not yet arrived. In the distance, over the country music on the jukebox, and the clacking of pool balls, I heard aggressive the shaking of a cocktail shaker, and cringed.

“What is it, Honey?”

“He’s shaking the shit out of those martinis, goddamn it. I did say ‘gently shaken,’ didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. But don’t worry. everything will be fine.”

But sure enough, when Pamela returned, the drinks were cloudy. I didn’t say anything, though. No use getting started off on the wrong foot. I forced a smile as she set the drinks down. And then I tasted my drink. “Oh Good Lord!”

“Oh no,” said my wife, “They didn’t . . .”

“Oh, they did all right. Olive brine! Goddamn them!”

I took the drinks to the bar. The bartender, wearing a black hat and leather vest and a star-shaped name tag with “Josh” written in magic marker on it, said, “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” I said. “It appears there has been a misunderstanding regarding our drinks.”

“What do you mean?”

“These . . . drinks. They have olive brine in them.”

Josh nodded and smiled. “Yep. Dirty Martinis. Just like you ordered.”

“I assure you, I did not order anything of the sort. In fact, you might notice that I ordered one of the martinis without olives at all . . .”

Josh found the order slip, looked at it, and then pounded the bar with fists that were much bigger than I'd originally noticed. “Goddamn that Pamela!”

“I’m sure it was just an honest mistake.”

“You have no idea,” he said, and unceremoniously dumped the drinks out. “I assure you, Sir, we will make this right for you.”

When Pamela brought our replacement drinks, her eyes were red and she was wiping tears from her face. “I hope these are okay,” she sniffled. They were not. Although unpolluted with olive brine, they were over-shaken, cloudy, icy, eventually watery.

By now, of course, no one was in the mood for dinner, but it came nonetheless. My steak was overcooked and chewy. My wife’s salmon looked fine from where I was sitting, but she did not comment on it. As we finished chewing and swallowing, a fight broke out over a pool game (or at least, near a pool table). Punches were thrown, pool cues and beer bottles were broken and used as weapons, the police were called. We passed on dessert, left too large a tip, and made it outside just as the police cruisers arrived.

Overall, I would give “The Road House Bar & Grill” a C-. Had I ever actually eaten there, I’m pretty sure I would not eat there again.

Letters From Debtors

During my 15 years as a collections attorney, I received quite a few letters from people I sued. Surprisingly, they were not all angry and vicious, and I never got a single (specific enough to prosecute) death threat. Unfortunately, I did not save them all, but I did save enough to provide a picture, I think, of three basic types: the nice letters that thanked me for not being an asshole; the angry letters that, on the contrary, insisted that I was an asshole; and the crazy letters from crazy people.

[I am going to quote from some of these letters, but will, of course, not reveal the names of the people who wrote them.]

The "Nice" Letter

I met "Becky" (not her real name) at a garnishment hearing. I had gotten a default judgment against her and, following the usual "flow" of things, immediately garnished her bank account. She was living with her mother at the time, having just been released from the hospital where she'd been for the last month after attempting suicide. She was, as you might imagine, upset. The money in the bank account was all her mother's money. Becky didn't have a job and although she had applied for disability, she had not yet been approved for it. And, the money in the bank account -- her mother's money -- was all exempt from garnishment because her mother was on social security. We had the hearing, in the courtroom, before the judge, where she told the judge her story in between sniffs and sobs. I agreed to release the garnishment. (I was not doing any favors at this point -- the funds in the account were exempt and I had no right to keep them.)

After the hearing, we went out into the hall and talked. Becky had to sit down. She really didn't understand what had just happened. She cried, and God help me, I put my arm round her as she sobbed great big tears into my suit jacket. This is when she told me about the hospitalization and the suicide attempt, and about how she was living with her mom, and the collectors were calling every day, over and over again, and she felt horrible about it, because her mom was the one who answered the phone (she couldn't - it was too stressful for her).

And this was when I told her what I was going to do. "First, I'm going to remove your bank information from the file and replace it with a notice that the funds in the bank account are 'exempt.' Okay?"

She sniffled and said, "Okay."

"Nobody will be able to change that without my approval, and I will not give anybody that approval. Do you understand?"

"Yes." (Sniffle.)

"Next, I'm going to remove your phone number from our database, so that from now on, it will be impossible for our 'auto-dialer' to call your phone number. Okay?"

"Okay."

"And finally, I'm going to ask you to do something for me, okay?"

"Okay."

"I want you to go home and take a nap. And just take it easy for a few days. Don't think about me, or this lawsuit or anything related to it, okay?"

"Okay."

"You promise?"

She actually smiled and said, "I promise."

"Good. Now, when you are ready to start looking for a job, start looking for a job, and when you find one, I want you to call me. And when that happens, we will set up a payment plan so that I won't have to file a garnishment of your wages. Do you understand?" I gave her my business card. "Call me when you get a job. We'll set up a payment plan that you can afford. Until then, don't even think about me, okay?"

We both left the courthouse. I went back to my office and, I suppose, she went back to her mother's house and took a nap. Maybe a month or two later, I got a letter from her:

"Dear Mr. Wroblewski,

  You have been so kind in all you did to help me get this issue resolved. You may never know it but your kindness kept me alive that day."

It goes on, but you get the idea.

So, what happened to "Becky"? Well, she eventually did get a job, and when she did, she called me, and set up a payment arrangement, and she made all of her payments, finally paying off her judgment last December. She included her final check in a Christmas Card, which read:

"Thank you William for going above & beyond to help me! I sincerely hope you are valued & appreciated in all areas of your life! I hope 2013 is a blessed year filled with lots of friends!"

 The Crabby Old Man

My favorite crabby old man is "John Henry" (not his real name, and not a signor of the Declaration of Independence). He both wrote and called. We had a long and difficult relationship. The first time he called me, he complained about the "auto-dialer" and how whenever he answers it, it hangs up on him. "I have a heart condition," he said, "And this is driving me nuts!" Then, over the next year or so, he mailed small payments in ($25, $30, etc.), irregularly. He was probably not even keeping up with the interest on the debt.

At some point, we sent him an automated "settlement offer" letter, and he called to say that he was "very upset" about that, that he is on "SSI now and can't afford to pay another dime and to leave him the hell alone." [Note: this call was not made to me, but to a collector. I would surely have removed his phone number from the dialer upon receiving such a call.]

Despite his comments to the contrary, he keeps sending checks, for $25, not every month, but most months. Every once in a while, he forgets to sign the checks, so I have to send them back. After another year or two of this, he called and left a voice mail message (which I do not have unfortunately, but which I will paraphrase):

"I've been ending payments for the last six goddamn years and writing checks for five years and the last time I wrote you a check, I requested a payoff amount and didn't get it. I do not plan on paying this goddamn bill for the next 50 years and if you are not smart enough to get me that information, you are a very poor lawyer."

A few days later, I received a letter from him stating that "there is something wrong with your figures and I am taking my paperwork to the judge."

Soon after that, he called the collections line, spoke to a collector, who reported, "Debtor was mumbling words. Unable to understand. Hung up."

His next call, also to the collections line, is reported by the collector as follows: "Debtor called, talked about us asking him out on a date. I (the collector) asked what I could help him with and he said nothing. Said, 'Dirty Lawyers,' and hung up."

The second-last letter I received from him read: "I am a[n] Oklahoma Hellfighter. I am not a rich man.You are a dirty bill collector and very low. I do not have a computer. I can only send by mail and postal service. I have been paying on this bill to the crooked lawyers that can't make a living no other way. I have canceled checks for over 5 years and [the remainder is indecipherable]."

The last communication I received from him was an envelope addressed to me and filled with white powder. I opened it, a poof of white powder billowed from the envelope, and I called the police. The office was evacuated. Police, firemen, emergency workers, lab techs, etc., were dispatched to the office to analyze the contents of the envelope, which turned out to be flour. We closed his file.

And the Just Plain Crazy . . .

In response to a generic lawsuit on a credit card case, I received a "Motion to Dismiss" from a defendant whom I will call "Boris the Spider," for no particular reason. [Not his real name.]. I'm just going to go ahead and quote this at length, so bear with me:

"I motion the court to dismiss this untenable hence futile case for the following reasons:

1.  I repudiate the inflated hence erroneous debt amount speciously presented by the stolid plaintiff.
2. The Plaintiff was implacable and thus refused to accept my payments smaller than their inflexible standard. They vindictively turned my account over to the inexorable rapacity of  a collection agency.
3.  I have fallen victim to the stagnated economy which has pervaded our entire nation and now defines this ominous epoch. Consequently, my financial status is now insolvent, and, unfortunately, I have been reduced to poverty. I have neither savings nor retirement or any such security to be examined, expropriated, let alone, to mitigate my penury. This is an irrefutably fact that can be substantiated by credible witnesses as well as government records.
4. The alleged debt under consideration is deemed as [unsecured]. Furthermore, it accrued by the promiscuous spate of financial mergers endemic to banking and especially within this last unscrupulous, impetuous, and infamous decade. Therefore, this was the "risk factor" waged by the avarice of the Plaintiff.
5. It is illogical  and unethical for the Plaintiff to capriciously offer a payoff discount of up to ninety percent, unsuccessfully, and, after wits, parlay the spurious amount to an arrant hence unreasonable sum. Such arbitrary latitude certainly calls into question their draconian conclusion as well as their misuse of the Court.
6. It is impossible for me to satisfy moreover mitigate this insurmountable debt impugned against me by the Plaintiff. The future portends an even greater exiguity. 

  It would behoove the Court and, all involved, to dismiss the untenable case. Therefore, I motion to dismiss."

I have to admit, I find this Motion to be almost beautiful. Of course, I have no idea what he is talking about. He occasionally grazes important topics, but does not really understand then, or at the very least is unable to write about them in any meaningful way. And yet, you can't deny, he's interesting as hell. Did I get more correspondence from Boris the Spider? Yes, I did. Bonus coverage:

"I am in receipt of your letter dated [date]. Please take note that I have responded immediately to your inquiry. Thank you for extending another debt settlement offer. However,  my financial situation has worsened since our last written discourse. The pervasive effect of the the emaciated economy has left many casualties in the business world. The economic situation is growing critical and the future trajectory dismal at best. I regretfully inform you that I cannot satisfy this debt."

"I am in receipt of your court summons dated [date], and subsequent letter entitled: MAKE US AN OFFER, dated [date]. Please take note that I have responded immediately to your written inquiries and have invariably demonstrated probity and civil decorum in my written discourses in  response.

"Thank you for extending another debt settlement offer. However, my financial situation is dire and has continued to degenerate since our last written discourse. At this time, I do not have enough money for food. My parents have been feeding me. That is humiliating when you are 47 years of age but growing common. However, the baneful economic crisis has metastasized now nationwide. Our nation is embroiled in the great depression of the year 2010.

"Unfortunately, I cannot satisfy this debt moreover afford the option of making tenuous hence fleeting payments. Furthermore, the lawsuit you are attempting to impose against me is patently futile. I have no desirable assets. In fact, I have no retirement, savings, investments, in a word: nothing. My house is 100 years old, less than 800 square feet, has one bedroom, and no plumbing. In addition, the location of my property is deemed undesirable. My vehicles are antiquated and cannot pas standard emissions requirements; thus, they are undesirable and un-sellable. Everything I own is substandard. I am impecunious and live in poverty. Therefore, your efforts as a collections attorney to oppress, enslave, and thus torment, a hapless person, who living in abject poverty, is unquestionably draconian and aberrant to say the least.

"It is offensive to logic for you to invest more time and money pursuing a lost cause nevertheless burdening a court of law than what is literally owed as the debt, knowing that your untenable objective is impossible. Furthermore, the likelihood of a judge looking favorably upon your ignoble quest is imprudent.

"Sagaciously, I wish to quell any skepticism you may bear regarding my inauspicious circumstances. Unlike many of your defendants (debtors), I have never smoked, drank, drugged, gambled, whore mongered, and etcetera in my entire life. I have always worked hard and demonstrated probity, dependability, conservation, and spiritual beneficence. I am highly esteemed in my home town as a paragon citizen. I carry an unsullied police record. I am intelligent, talented, handsome, and sound of mind. I am in a constant state of advancing my education and thus the improvement of my being.

"However, time and chance happens to all, and none escape death. We are irrefutably living in perilous times. Therefore, take head that you, as a seasoned attorney, will be facing the same precarious circumstances in the near future. Thus, be admonished by the ominous presage looming on the horizon portend that your future will also suffer the same daunting fate.

"Until then, bode well my friend. The storm on the horizon is advancing exponentially."

I don't know about you, but I'd have to say that that's a pretty goddamn creepy letter. Not threatening, but creepy. And weird. And, of course, totally bat-shit loony.

I'm going to finish this with one more "nice" letter, so I can sleep tonight:

"Dear Mr.Wroblewski,

   Thank you for your kindness. I will send a $[xx] payment by the 15th of each month.

                                      Sincerely,

                                                Nice Lady

P.S. I don't care what people say about attorneys; I will be a passionate defender of your profession from here on out should a situation require it. :)" 

Some Things are Different and Some Things are the Same

It occurred to me today, while I was sitting around thinking about stuff, which I have plenty of time for these days, that it has been twenty years since I graduated from law school. (Not quite, really -- I think the graduation was in May or maybe June, but close enough, right?) And it occurred to me also just how much the world has changed over the course of these past twenty years. But also, how much it has remained the same. A few examples to illustrate:

• President?

• 1993: Clinton

• 2013: Obama

• Phone?

• 1993: Hanging on my kitchen wall.

• 2013: In my pocket.

• Flying cars?

• 1993: Nope.

• 2013: No, but check out this awesome phone. Seriously.

• Space Colonies?

• 1993: Nope.

• 2013: See above.

• DFW?

• 1993: IJ*

• 2013: RIP

• Age of the Earth?

• 1993: Approximately 4,540,000,000 years old.

• 2013: Approximately 4,540,000,020 years old.

• Me?

• 1993: 30 years old and looking for a job.

• 2013: 50 years old and looking for a job.

• Porn?

• 1993: Dial-up.

• 2013: Broadband.

• World Trade Center?

• 1993: Yes.

• 2013: No.

• "Mind if I smoke?"

• 1993: "Not at all."

• 2013: "Are you out of your mind?"

• Streaming movies on Netflix?

• 1993: Huh?

• 2013: Of course!

• "Trial of the Century"?

• 1993: The People vs. O.J. Simpson.

• 2013: Apple vs. Samsung.

• Salmon Rushdie?

• 1993: Fatwa still in effect.

• 2013: With the publication of Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Rushdie somehow manages to make the Ayatollah a sympathetic character.

• Best college football team?

• 1993: Florida State

• 2013: Sorry, I can't remember . . . . just really didn't pay much attention.




Anyway, that's what I was thinking about. Probably ought to go wash dishes now or something.




_______________________________

* Yes, I realize Infinite Jest was published in 1996, but he was definitely working on it in '93. I mean, hell, it takes almost that long just to read the thing.

"Habemus Papum!"

Well, you do anyway. Some of you, at least. I count myself among the 5.8 billion who are not members the Catholic flock. But, still, the whole idea of the Pope kind of fascinates me: the ritual, the pomp, the circumstance, the smoke, the Pope-mobile, etc. Protestants don't get a pope. Muslims don't get a pope. Mormons don't get a pope. Just the Catholics. They're special that way.

Now the last guy, Benedict (who isn't even dead!), creeped me out a little, I have too admit, with his (albeit quite distant) Nazi affiliation, his seeming obsession with formality, his shifty eyes, and maybe most of all, the fact that he was (I mean "is" -- he's still alive!), a spitting image of the Emperor from Star Wars. (I learned of this via popular internet meme, not being hip enough about pop culture to have made the connection myself, and, also, not giving a rat's ass about Star Wars. Or Pope Benedict.)

But anyway, this new guy. He seems a different. I've seen pictures of him smiling, for instance. He has a kind-looking face. He's a Jesuit (one of "God's Marine's," I've heard they are called -- how cool is that?). He seems to have taken his vow poverty (is this an actual vow, by the way?), pretty seriously. Apparently, he lived in a modest apartment, took a bus to work, washed the feet of AIDS victims and drug addicts, prayed with prostitutes. I don't know about you, but all that stuff seems cool as hell to me. You know, like this guy actually does the "good" church stuff, rather than simply trying to accumulate all the gold in the world and molesting every single boy they haven't gotten to yet.

He gave himself the Pope-name "Francis," which I like, too. And not after Frank Sinatra either, but Saint Francis of Assisi, another one of the "good guys" in the Catholic Church. When he (the new Pope, I mean) delivered his acceptance speech (homily? sermon?), he spoke in Italian (the "common" language), rather than Latin (the "hoity toity" language). Pretty innovative. You know, like Dante, only 500 years later. I've read that his speech was not prepared, just something he came up with on the spot, and that it was only ten minutes long. Which is why there will never be a North American pope. A North American pope would ramble on for hours, reading off a teleprompter and boring everyone to death.

Is Pope Francis infallible? Of course not. There have been reports of some sort of "torture scandal" in Argentina 10 or 15 years ago, (like there isn't a continuous and on-going "torture scandal" in Argentina), but his alleged involvement seems vague and unsubstantiated (so far). It doesn't look like this story has much traction. He just seems like a kind old man, and although one can never be sure, he really doesn't look like a child molester. At least not to me.

So anyway, for whatever it's worth, thumbs up for the new Pope. Not sure how to say that in Latin.

"Whoa?"

I finally got someone on the phone at the Department of Labor today. It did not go as well as I'd hoped. I called, and by-passed the voice mail with my "magic number" (see yesterday's post), and waited on hold for a while, but not for as long as yesterday, when I gave up after about an hour. Today, after only about 20 minutes, a guy picked up the phone and got acquainted with my personal information (social security number, address, stuff like that). I never did get his name, so I'll just refer to him from here on out as Huge Asshole.

Huge Asshole: What can I help you with today?

Me: Well, I've been filing weekly claims now for the past four weeks, and I have yet to receive a single check.

Huge Asshole: Your claim is being investigated.

Me: What is there to investigate?

Huge Asshole: You have been assigned an adjudicator who is in the process of investigating the reason for your separation from your prior employer. He has been given five weeks to complete the investigation.

Me: Five weeks?! Listen, maybe we could cut that short a little. I have a memo from my prior employer that sets forth the reason for my separation. Can I just give that to you?

Huge Asshole: Whoa, whoa, whoa! I am not your adjudicator.

Me (thinking: "Whoa?"): Can I give it to the adjudicator?

Huge Asshole: No. That is not how it is done.

Me: Can I call the adjudicator? Do you have his number?

Huge Asshole: Whoa, whoa, whoa! I cannot give you that information.

Me: Why? If the adjudicator is investigating my claim, don't you think he'd want to talk to me?

Huge Asshole: That is not part of the investigation.

Me: OK. Well, what exactly is involved in this investigation?

Huge Asshole (sighing heavily): First, he sends a letter to your former employer. Then, he follows up with a phone call.

Me: And that takes five weeks?

Huge Asshole: Sir, you seem to under the mistaken assumption that you are the adjudicator's only case. He has very large caseload.

Me: I'm not assuming anything, and I know all about huge caseloads and deadlines. But five weeks? Doesn't that seem like a long time?

Huge Asshole: That is the situation, Sir. Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Me: No. No, I don't think so. Thanks so much.

I really love the way people in Huge Asshole's position always end their calls by asking if there is anything else they can help you with, when in fact they have not helped you with anything at all. I get the same from the mortgage company and the student loan people. It's apparently been added to all the scripts.

Happy Mensiversary* to Me!

It's been exactly a month since my "change in employment status." In that month, there has been no further change in my employment status. I check the job boards daily. I receive an email bulletin from one job-board aggregator, which, every day, has the subject line, "William, we have found X new attorney jobs in Lincoln, Nebraska!" But, so far, whenever I open the email, none of the jobs have been attorney jobs and most have not been in Lincoln. Today, for instance, there were six nursing jobs: one in Lincoln, two in Omaha, and three in other states.

The "new jobs today" lists on every board I checked is exactly the same as it was a month ago. This is not encouraging.

I've applied for quite a lot of jobs: some that I am qualified for (basically all the attorney jobs listed), some I'm probably not qualified for (what exactly do insurance adjusters do, anyway?), and some that I am, frankly, over-qualified for (no offense, data-entry clerks and UPS package-sorters). So far, but for a single automated email, I've gotten no response to any of my applications.

Thank goodness for unemployment insurance, right? Having worked pretty much uninterrupted for about 35 years (if you overlook that rough patch in the late 70s and early 80s), there should be a tidy amount of money for me to at least live on while I continue looking for work. If that's even how the system works. Who knows, really? Well, somebody does, just not me.

But I do need the money, so I have been applying dutifully each week for unemployment benefits, using the Nebraska Department of Labor's handy and convenient website. So far, after four weeks, and four applications, I have received nothing. My applications are "pending." Earlier this week (Monday), getting a little desperate, I tried calling the "Unemployment Hotline." I reached a recording of a man telling me that applications were no longer being accepted over the phone, and then, oddly, telling me to press "1" for English, which I did. Then the recorded voice asked for my social security number "for identification purposes." I punched it in, and the voice said, "I'm sorry, but that is not your social security number. Please call back when you have your correct social security number." And the line went dead.

I tried again. I dunno. Maybe I typed it in wrong. And then I thought, "Wait a minute, how does that recorded voice know what my social security number is? This makes no sense." I got the same result the second time.

So I went to the unemployment office, physically, in person. I stood in line for only a short time and was greeted at the counter by a very friendly elderly woman. I explained my troubles to her and she looked up my account on her computer. "Oh, I see what the problem is," she said. "You answered 'no' to a question you should have answered 'yes' to."

"What question was that?"

She told me, and I'd repeat it but I honestly don't remember what it was. However, I do remember that the actual, correct, answer to the question was 'no' and not 'yes.'

"Oh, I know," said the kind old woman. "But it just doesn't work unless you answer 'yes.'"

I was confused, but glad that she was able to fix my problem. I asked her when I could expect my checks. "Well, you still have to confirm it by phone," she said. I told her about my phone experience, about how the  voice told me they no longer took applications by phone, and that when I tried anyway the voice told me I didn't know my own social security number and then hung up on me.

She sighed wearily, as if she had heard this all before, then wrote down a number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. "Next time you call," she said, "Enter this number right when the recorded voice starts speaking and you will go directly to a person who can help you. But don't even bother trying today. It's always busy on Mondays. You'll never get through."

So I tried it on Tuesday. The secret number worked, or seemed to anyway. I was sent to another recorded voice which told me to call back on Thursday, because my last name starts with a letter between 'S' and 'Z.'

It's Thursday, and I've been on hold since a few minutes before I started typing this blog. I do a lot of re-writing and editing as I go along. We're getting close to an hour now.

At this point, my expectations are low. Here's what I expect: all of my job applications and resumes and cover letters are out there, swirling in the ether, and will eventually be routed into an enormous "cloud-trashcan." My unemployment benefits will continue to "pend" until I am completely out of money, have lost my house, and am living, and eventually dying, in the street.

Then one day, the kind old woman from the Unemployment Office will find my corpse rotting in the mud in the unpaved street that leads to the City Mission. She will say something like, "Oh dear," tuck a check into my shirt pocket, and apologize for the bookkeeping error.

____________________
*Apparently, there is no such word as "mensiversary," although it seems like there ought to be. And, while I'm really not a language snob (I'm not smart enough), I'm simply not going to stoop to the clunky and ridiculous phrase "one month anniversary."

Charlie Janssen is a Terrible Person and He Wants to be Your Governor

Nebraska Senator Charlie Janssen is a terrible person and he is running for Governor. He is currently a state Senator from Fremont (more on that later). In the current legislative session, he has introduced LB 381, a bill that would require registered voters in Nebraska to present a valid photo ID before being permitted to vote. This is the second time he has introduced such legislation. Last time around, in 2010, the bill died in committee. This time around, it seems to have some "traction." In Sen. Janssen’s testimony in support of the bill (March 7, 2013), he testified that requiring registered voters to present photo ID before being permitted to vote was a way to “head off voter fraud” and to ensure that Nebraska uses “best practices” when holding elections.

A couple of things strike me about this testimony. First, if you’re trying to “head off” something, that kind of implies that the thing you are trying to “head off” hasn’t happened yet. In other words, there really is no voter fraud in Nebraska, or at least not much. Secretary of State John Gale, kind of an expert in this stuff, also testified at the hearing, stating that “since we have not experienced any systemic fraud in Nebraska, despite some occasional and isolated incidents, I'm not sure the strict standards of LB 381 and the costs involved are necessarily the best answer for Nebraska.”

I imagine there are “occasional and isolated incidents” of a great many things in Nebraska which Charlie “small government” Janssen would not find worthy of creating new laws to prevent.

The second, and to me even more troubling part of Sen. Janssen’s testimony is his use of the phrase “best practices.” Now, I realize that Sen. Janssen is not an attorney and that he did not attend law school, but at some point I’d like to believe that he may have read the U.S. Constitution, or at the very least, had some one explain the gist of it to him. The right to vote is guaranteed in the Constitution. (No, seriously, look it up.) It is a “right” of all “citizens.” It is not a “best practice.” This may surprise Sen. Janssen, but the phrase “best practices” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. In fact, the phrase “best practices” has no real function in the English language at all. It is, rather, what we refer to as “business jargon.” It’s the kind of phrase you hear at seminars, along with other such doozies as “take-away points”, “paradigm shift”, “mission-critical”, “synergize”, etc. No doubt, Sen. Jenssen, a semi-successful businessman, is familiar with these buzzwords and could probably rattle off dozens more.

“Best practices” is a phrase used, for example, by employers to explain, at company meetings, to their employees that their benefits are being reduced, while making them believe that their working conditions are actually improving. Business jargon, in other words, is bullshit-speak. It is intended to confuse, to obfuscate, to trick. The kind of things that businessmen are well-versed in. I would love to have been at the City Council meeting where then-Councilman Janssen convinced his fellow Fremont City Councilmen to lend his business (RTG Medical) $225,000, interest free, with payments deferred for the first year. He must have really dazzled them. He must have really "brought it to the table", "incentivized" them, "taken things to the next level", "gained traction", spent a lot of "facetime" with them, really emphasizing the "optics", and, "at the end of the day", really convinced them of the "core competencies" of his business. In any event, he won. He got his money, interest free, with the first year’s payments deferred. Nice deal.

By the way, this is the same City Council that passed an ordinance which effectively made the condition of being Hispanic presumptively illegal. Janssen supported this ordinance. More than that, he was positively crazy about it. (It was eventually ruled to be unconstitutional, at least in part).

What we know about Sen. Janssen is that he is a gifted jargon-slinger, and that he is not crazy about Hispanic people. (“Let’s make it clear that the unlawful parties here are the immigrants that chose to break federal and state laws by coming here illegally in the first place.”) He also voted (twice) against a bill that would have provided prenatal care for children of undocumented immigrants. “Undocumented immigrants,” by the way, is a term he does not care for. He prefers the more traditional “illegal aliens.” You have to admit, it’s more effective with his racist constituency.

What he does not seem familiar with is the Constitution, which is disappointing and unfortunate, given that he is currently in the “business” of drafting legislation. Words and phrases like “Justice” and “Liberty”, “Law” and “Equity”, “Election”, “Habeas Corpus”, “well regulated militia”, “Impeachment,” and of course I could go on, but you get the idea. These are not buzzwords. This is not business jargon. This is the language of the Constitution. These are important words that mean important things. Sen. Janssen would do well to learn them, though he does not seem motivated to do so.

The Right to Vote (guaranteed by the Constitution), is not an issue to be solved with bullshit-speak and business jargon. “At the end of the day,” Constitutional Rights are simply too goddamn important to be dealt with using “optics” and “taking things to the next level” by implementing “best practices.” Businessmen have their place, to be sure, but it should be as far away from government as possible. Some things are just too important to leave to people who have no conception of promoting the general welfare, or securing the blessings of liberty. Some things are too important to allow terrible people like Senator Charlie Janssen to be involved in at all.

Animal Update: And Then There Was One

Paco, the old angry cat, died last night. I was sure the old bastard would out-live me. I guess that makes me the old bastard of the house now. I think I'll go crawl up on the buffet and glare at people. And don't even think about trying to open a can of tuna around me. I will mess you up.

And the Wind Cries, "Ammonia"

There are places in the world that are windier than Nebraska (no, Chicago, you "Windy City" you, you're not one of them, not even close), but I don't know precisely where they are. Siberia, I imagine, because, why not? Siberia is more extreme than anywhere on earth except maybe Antarctica, and nobody really lives in Antarctica, other than scientists, who don't really "live" there. You know, they don't buy houses and send their kids to Antarctica public schools and vote for Antarctican mayors and governors and legislators. It's not a real place, in other words. My genius stepson tells me that the winds in New Hampshire routinely top 200 mph, but, with all due respect, I think he's kind of full of shit, at least with respect to this.

It was pretty windy today is I guess what I'm saying. I never checked the weather reports regarding the actual wind speed, but I'd estimate it was between 30 and 40 mph. Enough to blow our trash cans down the alley while they were empty, and then again after I filled them, blowing then down the alley again, even filled with garbage. I eventually dragged them back and put them in the yard.

My project for the day was to sweep, vacuum and mop the front porch. No big deal, right? Well, in addition to being windy, it was also pretty cold. High twenties, though it felt colder because of the wind. I decided I would sweep and vacuum no matter what, but I wouldn't mop unless the temperature hit at least 32 degrees. I didn't want to turn the porch into an ice rink. It was 28 degrees when I went for a run, at about 10:30, and had climbed to 30 by the time I got back, the wind still howling so loud I could hardly hear the usual constant buzzing in my head.

I took a shower and had some lunch and by noon the temperature had climbed to 31. I took the broom outside to start sweeping. When I opened the door, the wind caught it and nearly snapped it off its hinges. Sweeping in the wind is an odd experience. It almost seems pointless, but it's not really. For one thing, you don't need a dust pan. You sweep the debris off the ground and it rises up, gets caught by the wind, and flies away. Who knows where it goes? Who cares?

The vacuuming was easy enough. The vacuum cleaner doesn't care how windy it is. After vacuuming the rug, I checked the temperature. Thirty-two degrees. Damn! Now I needed to mop. I slung the rug over the railing, noticing how clean and white the floor was where the rug had been, compared to the rest of the porch, then went inside to fill the mop bucket.

We're a little short of cleaning supplies. The only suitable product we had was a nearly empty bucket of ammonia. I splashed some in the bucket, filled it up, and headed out into the wind and cold to mop the porch. It took very little time to realize that this would be wholly inadequate. After just a few strokes of the mop, I was basically just pushing muddy water around. I refilled the mop bucket and returned to the porch, and again, quickly used up all the "clean" I had. After two more re-fills, I was out of ammonia, and just pushing a filthy mop around. I was done.

The porch is slightly cleaner than it was yesterday, but I think this is due more to the wind than to any effort on my part.

The Animals

The animals don't know what to make of me. They don't seem to understand why, after years of leaving in the morning and coming home in the evening, suddenly I am here all day long. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I seem to be making them nervous.

Especially the dog, Stella, a dopey golden retriever who is nervous to begin with. Neurotic even, if you ask me. I spend most of the day in the dining room, which I have sort of set up as my "office," because I can spread my stuff out on the table, and as long as I stay seated at the table, Stella's okay, usually laying in her spot under the window, out of the way, but close enough to keep an eye on me. But if I get up to do something, she becomes distressed. She goes with me (or tries to anyway), wherever I go. She doesn't follow me, so much as accompany me, walking as close to me as she possibly can, trying to predict where I'm going to go and get there just ahead of me. Her predictions are not good, and we end up walking into each other, which only distresses her more. She waits for me outside the bathroom door and follows me back to the dining room where, after I have taken a seat, she paces around and around the table, her claws clicking on the hardwood floor. She does this for minutes. Does she count the circuits she makes around the table? I'll have to get back to you on that. Eventually, for whatever crazy reason, she decides she's paced around the table enough, and plops back down under the window. And then the slurping starts. It's like she's trying to get something off the roof of her mouth with her huge, wet tongue. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. Finally, right about when I begin to think this will never end, she quiets down and falls into a sort of half-sleep, ready to spring right back up if I need to re-fill my coffee mug or make a sandwich.

The cat, Paco, sits across the room from me, perched on the buffet, staring right at me. He's mad about something and he can stare for a long time. Longer than I can, it turns out. He's about 18 years old. I don't know how that translates to "cat years," but it's old. Really old. He's senile, and he's pissed off all the time. Unlike the dog, he does not follow me everywhere, but rather saves his energy for when I go to the kitchen, where he sits in the middle of the floor, where he is most in the way, and yells at me. I cannot describe the sound he makes, but it is not the typical "meow" of a typical cat. The noise is somewhere between the cawing of a crow and the bark of a small dog. Annoying, almost painful, and he repeats it, continuously, for as long as I remain in the kitchen. His needs are met, mind you. He's been fed. He has fresh water. All three of his litter boxes are clean. (Don't ask.) And yet, he seems to be demanding something, something he can't do for himself. He probably doesn't even know what it is, the old bastard. But sometimes I imagine that what he's really saying is "Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!" over and over again.

"Not today," I tell him, and head back to the dining room, with Stella close at my side (to make sure I find the way?), before resuming her pacing routine, around and around and around. Click click click. Paco jumps back up on the buffet (which is painful to watch -- he can barely make it), and resumes his angry staring.

I don't know how I get anything done.

Details . . .

Back in the days when I was working an 8:00 to 5:00 job (all of two weeks ago), pissing my life away helping to make terrible people obscenely wealthy (if it is true that "Corporations are people, my friend!", then it is also true that most of these "people" are huge assholes, and that some of them -- I'm looking at you, Bank of America -- are downright evil), I would sometimes daydream about what a "perfect job" would look like. You know, that ideal, fantastical "perfect job" that Alan Watts asks us to imagine if we were living in a world where money didn't matter.

(For the record, all such "daydreaming" occurred while I was on the road, driving from County Seat to County Seat, securing judgments against poor people. No company resources were expended on said "daydreams.")

In any event, a typical day on this "Daydream Job" looked something like this:

I would have no alarm clock. Rather than being jarred awake by a bell or a siren or tricked out of a dream by a soothing "gentle mountain stream," I would simply wake up when I was done sleeping. I would find, I imagined, that I would generally rise at about 8:00 am. I would go down to the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee, and drink it while I read the paper. I might fix myself a light breakfast, maybe a bagel with cream cheese, or a bowl of granola, some fresh fruit, a glass of juice. I might turn on the radio and listen to NPR. I would take my time, because I had nowhere to go. No appointments, no meetings, no court appearances. I had a schedule, if you want to call it that, but it was my schedule. There would be no one to answer to but me.

After breakfast, I might check my email, responding to some messages, archiving others, but deleting most without reading them. Then I might put on my running shoes and go for a run. Maybe five miles, maybe ten, maybe more. It just depended on how I felt that day. After my run, I would stretch a little (I've always preferred stretching after a run rather than before), take a shower, and then maybe just sit quietly for a while. Maybe 15 minutes; maybe 30. Whatever seemed right at the time. You might call this meditating, but I prefer to think of it as just sitting quietly. Whatever you call it, a few minutes of solitary stillness and quiet is practically essential for me to get ready for my day, and was virtually impossible to do while working a rigid 8:00 to 5:00 schedule.

Then maybe I'd make myself a light lunch. A salad or a sandwich, with maybe a cup of tea or a glass of milk. I might check my email again, to clear any messages that came in since breakfast (again, probably deleting most if not all of them unread). Maybe I'd give Facebook a quick scan, or maybe not.

And then I would go to work. My primary occupation would be writing, so I would spend the next several hours working on whatever my current project happened to be: an article, a short story, a novel. On any given day, the work might involve as much reading or research as it did writing. But whichever it was, I would work, and continue to work until my wife came home from her office and the kids came home from school. And we would have supper together. And after supper, I might retire to the front porch, with whatever book I happened to be reading for pleasure, and, under the porch light, I would read, and smoke a cigar, and drink some wine, and then come back inside.

And, the next day, I would do it all again, with whatever variations I felt were appropriate. And this was my Daydream Job.

You've probably already figured out where I'm going with this, but I have to go there anyway, so bear with me. As it turns out, my current situations is not so very different from my Daydream Job. I no longer use an alarm clock, and sure enough, I really do just more or less spontaneously wake up at around 8 o'clock. I drink my coffee. I read the paper. I eat breakfast. Sometimes I go for a run, and sometimes I don't. (My Daydream self seemed to have more energy than I do.) Sometimes I sit quietly (meditate), and sometimes I don't quite get around to it. I eat lunch.

And in the afternoons, I work. But my work isn't writing; it is looking for a job, which is a spectacularly unsatisfying occupation (worse than any unsatisfying occupation you might happen to find is the act of begging for one you really don't want). I manage to squeeze in a little writing-time when I can, but there's no money it in, of course.

Which brings me to the major flaw of the entire Daydream Job premise (Alan Watts, you should know better), which is this: Money matters. It matters a lot. There are no bill-collectors in Daydream Job World. Houses are not foreclosed upon in Daydream Job World. Child-support payments are always current in Daydream Job World. In Daydream Job World, we drink wine and not whiskey.

Details . . .

Looking for a Job You Don't Really Want

The worst thing about looking for a job is that I don't really want one. Which is only half true, really. I do want a job. I want to go to work every day (well, sort of), and earn a regular paycheck, etc. It's been decades since I've been out of work, and I don't like it. The problem is, I don't like any of the jobs I see on the job-boards. They are, as far as I can tell, terrible jobs. Every one of them. But, if I want to receive a weekly unemployment check, I am required to apply for at least two of them every week. Two shit jobs per week. It's not that much trouble, really. And it doesn't take that much time. But, it is depressing and a little demeaning to apply for jobs that I know I do not want, just to satisfy this requirement. I see the purpose behind the requirement. It is not entirely arbitrary. But it is also not particularly useful.

So, I apply away, for jobs I do not want. Jobs with the state government, insurance companies, banks, law firms, etc. I imagine trying to answer even the most basic interview questions like, "Why do you want to work here?" and I can't come up with any answers. Why would anyone want to work at any of these places? The thrill of wearing a suit every day? The opportunity to sit in a cubicle staring at a computer monitor why the fat guy in the next cubicle sucks his teeth? A life-long desire to go to time-wasting meetings? Because I have just a little bit of soul left in me, and I want you to kill it? Because I needed to apply for two jobs per week in order to collect my weekly unemployment check and I swear to God I never thought for a second that you would call me in for an interview. Can I leave now?

I'm trying to make a resume. Is that the right word? Make? Or is it Build? I don't know. Whatever the correct verb, I'm having problems. Not with the "work experience" and "education" sections. I've had jobs that look good on paper, and I have educational credentials that look good on paper. What I don't have is an "Objective" or a "Mission Statement" or whatever the fuck you want to call it. These are big on all the resume-building template sites out there these days. My problem is that I have no Objective. I have no Mission Statement. I have no fucking idea what the fuck I am doing, other than applying for two jobs per week that I don't really want, so I can receive my weekly unemployment check, that I am fucking entitled to, you fucking assholes. So, yeah. Being unemployed is awesome.