barrels gone wild

it's nearly midnight, and i have 40 pages of torts to read, so of course i'm wasting my time here. i tried doing some studying earler, but my brain felt somewhat like a laparotomy pad migrating from the peritoneal cavity through an abscess into the bowel.

anyway, on with the inanity. the coolest thing about the FRCP is all of the goddam parentheses. how annoying is it to write Rule 12(b)(6) dozens of times in your notes? it(drives)(me)(fucking)(c)(r)(a)(z)(y)(.)

instead of writing Rule 12(b)(6) a thousand times, what's wrong with just 12b6? do they think that we wouldn't understand what they were talking about without all of the gratuitous parentheses? also, why does the word "Rule" have to be capitalized? is it a proper noun? is this some kind of holy text like The Bible, The Constitution, or The White Album?

i know what some of you are thinking... yes, the Rules Are Vitally Important, that's the whole point of hunter's class, right? we must know the rules, respect the rules, and lick the rules' balls, don't you get it?

no, i don't get it. that's why when we get our report cards, you'll make law review, and i'll make a doodie in my pants.

i would be remiss if i didn't jot down a few memories from today's torts class. my favorite line of the day was, "she was depressed, she was sedated, she was hungry... you do the math." sebok also once again submitted to his compulsive need to draw a bell curve on the board.

but of course, by far the greatest moment of the class - and perhaps of the entire semester - was when he whipped out his Square D switch:

"did it look... LIKE THIS!?!?!" we all jumped in shock and delight, some of seemingly wanting to burst out in a round of applause as he pointed out the nodes for the alligator clips, and demonstrated the great "action" of the switch. "there's no phantom zone on this one, baby!"

anyway, once again, i must say that sebok is the man. the dude keeps his pimp hand strong.

one final thought... you likely noticed how sebok casually mentioned that the Square D switch was a gift from last year's torts class. obviously, he's fishing for a new present this year. i'm not saying that we actually have to get the guy anything, but if we did, what would be the best torts-inspired gift? i'd love it if someone posted an idea here. of course, no one reads any of this crap except me, so i won't hold my breath.

here's to the vultures!

here's to the vultures...

you descend within seconds after the professor tells us to take a quick break. jockeying for position, you tear into the professor's brain like a mound of carrion, the alphas gorging first, the rest hopping nervously around the perimeter. your hunger for knowledge is insatiable; your questions are many.

you ask not whether hunter wants to pee.
you care not whether sebok craves caffeine.
you think not of the needs of hellerstein.

but for the rest of us...
you take a "quick break"
and turn it into to 15 minutes of freedom.

here's to the vultures!

bad eggs, bad meat, bad women

i just consulted the newest version of the US News & World Report law school rankings. good news.... we've moved down to 67! way to go everyone! at this rate, next year we should be able to slide down to tier III, and by the time we graduate, if we're lucky, we can probably lose our status as an ABA-approved school altogether.

which schools have now surpassed our beloved BLS in the rankings? let's take a look...

#63 - illinois institute of technology... this is a school where people learn to repair vcr's.
#64 - indiana university - indianapolis campus... the bloomigton campus' retarded step-brother.

hell, we're now just one spot ahead of rutgers.

Rutgers!

anyway, sorry to complain, but it just pisses me off. maybe you all should stop reading the worthless garbage i'm putting out into the world, and get back to studying, so that you can land a halfway decent job, and move us back up the list.

on an entirely different note, i had hellerstein again today. i did a great job of paying attention for approximately 30 minutes. unfortunately, con law is 110 minutes long. i haven't a clue as to what's going on in there. evidently, there have been a lot of cases regarding the commerce clause, and many of them found their way into our textbook. what i pretty much learned is that there was some bad meat, and some bad eggs, a chicken that got sick, and some hookers who were being transported across state lines. congress had something to say about all of this, and then of course the court said something as well, or perhaps they said many things. and what does it all mean? in a word, AFFECTATION. in two words, i don't know.

what i DID learn in class is that back in the day, hellastein used to roll in the bronx with his two little homeboys: moon and stewie. moon's dad was a cabbie, and stewie's dad was a token-taker for the MTA, but the best news of all is that each of them had previously received a law degree from... that's right... BLS!

hella also told us a great story about this girl he used to date, and how she was getting dressed before a date, so he had to chill with his date's dad while she got ready. here's his tale, to the best of my memory:

"so i'm standing there with her dad, waiting for her, and he says to me, 'so i hear you're going to law school.'

'that's right,' i said.

'you ever hear of the sick chicken case?' he asks me. i had taken a political science class about the supreme court, so i say, 'sure, that's schechter poultry.'

'i work for them,' he says, 'i pluck the chickens.'

'great,' i said, 'get me a beer.'"


it was a great story with a typically-great hellerstein delivery. i laughed, but now that i write about it, i sort of feel bad for his date's dad. i mean, here's this poor slob. his job is to rip feathers out of screaming chickens. even worse, he works for this schechter character, who doesn't even have the decency to pay a fair wage, and who works his men an insane amount of hours.

so he gets home from a long day of work, covered in chickenshit, and riddled with beak-pecks, and who shows up at his door, but that goddam kid hellerstein who's off to harvard law school, but before he goes, he's going to bang your daughter, and he has the nerve to tell you to get him a beer.

classic.

***

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strong as hell

great time in crim law today. pitler started the week off right, as always. we spent a LONG time going over the four states of mental culpability. there was one teacher-student exchange that became an instant classic... (fortunately for you, i was there to record it)

Student: "Yes, but if you look at what Judge Gabrielli wrote in the Strong dissent..."

Pitler (interrupting): "Well, it was strongly worded. We can debate if it is strongly reasoned."


you go, grandpa p! what was even better was that we made no headway through today's assigned reading, so there is no new homework for wednesday's class. halle-freakin'-lujah! what this means is that i'll be able to get ahead on my work for this week, or in other words, watch Cosby reruns all night!

lightning strikes

i don't know how all of you feel about being called on in class, i'm sure some people don't care about it. others of you probably want to be called on, secretly hoping to hear your name.

i'm not that guy. i'm terrified about it, especially in torts. whenever sebok grabs his pen and leans over the seating chart, i feel like i'm in a car that has lost control and is sliding in slow motion off of the road. i don't breathe, i don't blink, and my heart stops. one of these days, he'll call my name. that's simply a fact that i have to accept. it's only a matter of time. there are like 100 people in our tort class, and sebok calls on about 3 people / day. that means that every time the lightening misses me, it's only going to be more likely to strike the next go-round.

i have this secret fantasy where i somehow gain access to sebok's seating chart, and put a mark by my name so that i can somehow avoid being called on for the semester. would this even be possible? really the only chance would be to do it during break, while sebok is off to take care of his caffeine jones, but how would it be possible? what, am i going to creep behind the podium in front of all of my classmates? wouldn't that mean that i'd have to somehow gain access to his pen as well? i can't very well have a blue ink check mark next to my name, when everyone else's is black, can i? and what if it's not a check, what if it's his initials? how could i possibly forge those? anyway, keep your eye out for me. i'll be the guy infiltrating sebok's podium, mission impossible-style during our ten minute break.

hella-stein

back to the regular tuesday schedule today. hunter cracked a joke, which is extremely rare. in regards to the FRCP, she noted, "whoever wrote some of these rules, frankly, should just be shot." it got a modest chuckle from the class.

hunter really is a good teacher. she takes plenty of time to answer everyone's questions; what's more,she conducts class in a manner so that she'll have time for our questions. think about it, how many of our profs finish everything on the syllabus every week? hunter finishes everything, 100%, every single class. i respect that.

has anyone else noticed that weird window in our civ pro classroom? what goes on back there? i can't figure out what's on the other side of that wall. it's got these weird black blinds which are always drawn shut. the only other place i've seen a weird indoor window like that was at a sex show in amsterdam... that's why i kind of half-expect for the blinds to be lifted, and for there to be some strung-out couple boning back there. that actually would be a great diversion during class.

anyhow, today we had hellerstein for just the third time. i have to admit that i really like the guy. he was busting all sorts of jokes, calling McCardle a "damned cracker" and so on.

i've noticed that the dude loves to drop all sorts of names. he's always mentioning the famous judges before whom he's argued, the other scholars he's worked with, and so on. today he casually tossed off a story about representing a couple of black panthers ("two bro's" as he called them), and how he was cold-chillin' with the bro's at leonard bernstein's apartment, perusing bernstein's collection of mozart's original manuscripts, smokin' blunts, and whatnot. i might have made up that last part, but it was still an interesting digression in con law.

by far the best comment he made in class was about how he had nine penis enlargement messages in his inbox. that was easily his funniest comment of the semester, since the first day of class when he referred to the microphones hanging from the ceiling as "dingle-dangles."

blossom's numb nose

legal writing was extremely low key. everyone was relieved to have their memoranda finished. it turns out that schneider thinks that mayor blossom DID endure substantial injuries. therefore, it took me only seven hours of work to come up with a completely wrong conclusion. regardless, the class was no problem. we spent a good thirty minutes working alone on some exercises where we had to make a bunch of poorly-written sentences sound better. The sentences all looked a bit like this:

#12 The defendants were extremely instructed by the judge that they must in order to follow the letter of the statute as it was written per the intentionality of the elected legislature, first, to take necessary precautions from further injury causing pain to a person's body; second, being unbiased in their decisions; and never to hurriedly thirdly tell a criminal that he wasn't what was he said he mustn't.

table dancin' ho's

easy class today. pitler was crackin' skulls in crim as usual. at one point, he made a fun socratic game where someone had to guess what word he was thinking of. it was like wheel of fortune, but with a much less amiable pat sajak. pitler said that the word started with an R and ended with a Y. my guess was "rugby." i'm not sure what the answer was, but i think that it had something to do with the law. today's cases were also pretty cool... young girls dancing lewdly for tips, a religious fellow shoving knives and axes into some poor slob's heart, and finally a guy trying to steal some booze who ended up setting a boat on fire. good stuff. strangely enough, pitler began the class with an apology for a comment he made in our last class. evidently, he had ruffled someone's feathers by calling a woman in a case we'd read a "slut." did someone actually complain against this? i say stand by your words, P... no need for apologies. sometimes you just gotta call a ho a ho.

consume / disburthen

say what you will about BLS, but they certainly do like to shove food into our faces. think back to the mounds of food at the post-convocation reception. a more recent example of this was this past thursday's first class celebration. during the hour or so that i was outside, i believe that i consumed cotton candy, a candy apple, bbq sandwich with cole slaw, a hot dog, one really crappy sushi roll, a hot pretzel with mustard and a shitload of mini black and white cookies. overall it was a pretty nice spread, except for one glaring omission: where was the beer? still, i waddled out of the courtyard with more than a fully belly, but also with a low-quality BLS hat.

some of my friends had their luncheon with the professors this afternoon, and reported that it was more of the same. huge piles of sandwiches and cookies, soft drinks and chips galore... but unfortunately there was virtually no one in attendance, including professors. the word is that only professors hunter and schneider cared enough to come claim a free meal with their students. pitler made it pretty clear in class that he "doesn't do" these types of events, and promised to take his advisees out for lunch really soon. i'm sure he's really excited to get to know everyone better. anyway, props to nan and robyn for at least giving a shit.

speaking of giving shits, i am sure that by now all of you have realized that you always have to go up or down a flight of stairs to find a bathroom in this school. it almost seems like the custodial staff changes the locations of the bathrooms on a daily basis, because i could have sworn that i could take a piss on the fourth floor, but today it had changed into a women's restroom, and i had to walk up to five.

i've been on a month-long mission to find the best bathroom in BLS, one that is quiet, well-lit, and at least semi-private. let's face it, if you're going to spend twelve hours a day in class or in the library, and the school keeps shoving hot dogs and bbq down your throat, from time to time you're going to have to go number two. and for me, "time to time" = every day. i've had a chance to sit in many of our school's bathrooms over the last month, and have found that some are clearly better than others.

possibly the worst place to go is the bathroom in the men's locker room. what's the deal with this anyway? is our locker room supposed to be like a gym? if so, we should do this thing right, and get some showers and saunas. i say if we've got to hear some dude's bowel functioning while we're digging our tort books out of our lockers, we might as go all the way and turn it into a full-blown men's locker room / gym, and maybe get some weights and treadmills, stacks of cheap towels along one wall, a scale, and maybe even some dudes walking around with their dongs hanging out. otherwise, let's just decide that it's going to be a place to keep our books and coats, and find somewhere else to poop.

one of the best restrooms i've found so far is on the 8th floor. this is where our professors have their offices, and presumably it is meant to be their bathroom, but no one has ever stopped me from using it. it is extremely quiet in there, and is fairly well-lit. the only negative is that to get there, you have to walk pass the desks where some of the school secretaries sit. sometimes they give me a funny look when i waddle past them with an A.M. New York tucked under my arm, but fortunately they have the decency to avoid eye contact with me when i emerge twenty minutes later.

i've been having trouble finding restrooms in the library. i know that there is one in the basement, and i think that i once used one on the second floor. does anyone know of any others? there must be a hidden gem somewhere among those stacks of books. anyway, i'm not going to disclose the location of my favorite bathroom just now, because part of what makes a bathroom great is that few other people know where it is.

Menlovian

somehow i have managed to get through four weeks of my first year of at brooklyn law school. this blog will be about those four weeks, and possibly the weeks yet to come, depending on whether my lazy ass has the free time or the inclination to continue this thing.

i'll try to be honest with what i write here.

this experience is crazy. every so often i'll have a class where i feel like i'm really getting it, but most of the time, i have little idea what is going on. i'm learning a shitload of new stuff, more than i've ever learned in a single month in my life, but understanding none of it fully. why am i not studying right now, you may ask? i have no answer for that, just as i'd have no answer for most of the questions asked in class.

i think i'll start today with some brief impressions about how i feel about my five BLS professors. i'll also go ahead and brief it for you...not out of kindness, but because it's all i know how to do anymore.

Menlove v. The Professors of BLS

329.nvas.6y, A.2b.`~:_wtf?

Procedural History: The trial has been going on for nearly a month now.

Facts: I am a first year student at Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn, NY. The D's in this case are my professors: Hellerstein, Sebok, Hunter, Pitler and Schneider. I have spent several hundreds of hours briefing, reading, and not sleeping, but seem to be learning less than the vast majority of my classmates. I will very likely finish this semester in the bottom quarter of my class, and will never even be allowed to wipe my ass with a law review, much less write for one. In short, I am screwed.

Issue: Is my pathetic state of academic stagnation my own fault, or are my professors liable?

Discussion: To answer this question, we must take a brief look at each of the plaintiff's five professors...

Pitler (Crim) - The dude is basically cool. He's got a kind of sarcastic sense of humor which is sometimes funny. I don't think that this guy really gives a fuck about teaching any more. He rarely takes his lectures much further than the reading assignments, so his class is fairly low-stress. When I look around the room, all I see is people reading the Times and instant messaging. It's just that kind of class.

The guy loves his podium. He puts an elbow on it, then palms his face with his hand. He'll stay in this position and talk through his hand for up to twenty minutes at a time. Sometimes he'll put two hands on his face, but only when he really gets warmed up. Eventually it starts to look like his face and hand are melding together, fusing into one sarcastic blob.

Pitler can get crazy socratic right up your ass. If he senses weakness, he'll keep you on the spot for a long, long time, responding to your every attempt with a snarky question. It's funny because it's usually happening to someone else.

The bottom line on this class is that it's easy. Pitler is not malicious, not always enthralling; basically a nice guy.

Hunter (CivPro) - Hunter has her shit together. She comes in with a plan, and executes it very well. She calls everyone by their first name, which somehow makes the proceedings seem more humane, and she tells you in advance when you're going to be on call, so that's cool. Hunter really hasn't much of a sense of humor, or at least not one that she shares with us. Like civil procedure, the class is very dry and structured. The only thing we've read so far that's grabbed my interest was the complaint from Jones v. Clinton. It's pretty cool that I get to pay 34K per year to read stories about the President of the United States fondling his erection.

Hellerstein (ConLaw) - A nice guy so far. We've only had this class twice, so there's not much to go on. I like Hellerstein, but I have no clue what's going on in class. The textbook weighs in at a scant 1600 pages, and the font is miniscule. I seem to be incapable of learning anything in this class. Really about the only thing I've learned is the word mandamus. I don't know what it means, but I know that it exists. Mandamus. I like the way it sounds.

Schneider (Writing) - She is nice, and I keep hearing that the class is really important. She has no teaching experience, and doesn't always explain things well. I can't read her handwriting on the board or on my papers. That's pretty cool that my writing professor's handwriting is not legible. Schneider is definitely trying really hard, and is always happy to answer questions or emails. In fact, I think she sent out about a dozen emails to our class this week. One says that the paper is due on Monday morning. The next one says that the paper is absolutely due on Monday morning (emphasis added). Good stuff.

I love that she gave out her phone number on the first day of class. The bottom line is that she is very nice, is improving every week, and is pretty easy on the eyes. Hopefully the class will continue to improve, and she'll teach me how to write gooder.

Sebok (Torts) - I had to save the best for last. This dude is brilliant. He knows it, and so does everyone else in the room. He's also one hell of a funny motherfucker, yet he never cracks even a hint of a smile. He used to terrify me, and I'm sure that a lot of people dislike him, but going to his class is like going to see a play, and it's usually a very enjoyable one.

The cool thing in this class is that a lot of the cases are friggin' nuts. As it turns out, people do all sorts of stupid shit to each other. I think that my favorite one so far was the kid who was vomiting out of the window of a moving car. Basically, that's the only information I've retained so far in Torts, that once upon a time there was a boy who was puking out of a moving car window, and his head smashed into a cement post. I think I'll write about that on the exam.

The bottom line is that he's my best teacher so far. Unfortunately, I only can follow about 50% of what he's saying. There is no doubt that I will get a D in this class.

Holding: My professors are generally good. I, however, am one of the Menloves of the world.

Disposition: I'm fucked.

***

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