careena collins & the bologna pony

i'm a bit delirious right now, having spent all evening slogging through the fifty or so pages of reading for tomorrow's civ pro class.

don't you just love it when, on the eighth page of a case, the judge writes, "We need not wax longiloquent"?

first of all, i've checked the dictionary, and "longiloquent" is not even a word. still, i think that i know what it means, which leads me to this question:

why can't they stop waxing longiloquent on page one instead of page eight?

anyway, on to the business at hand. the responses to yesterday's blog were wonderful. first, i have to give props and thanks to "absent bargee" for his/her totally ass-kicking poem. not only was it a nice synopsis of the semester (you brought up some highlights that i had forgotten), but it was a really good poem to boot!

it makes me glad to know that menlovian has been a positive part of the semester for some of you guys. although i've been accused of having an ulterior motive, really the only reason i spend so much time on this thing is because i think that law school pretty much sucks, and i want to do my part to make it less crappy for all of you. of course, my motives are not purely unselfish, as i actually have a lot of fun writing this silliness, and these entries serve as a nice reprieve from the ongoing tedium.

anyway, my point is to say thank you, absent bargee, for your kind words an hilarious rhymes.

speaking of my wonderful readers...

i can't believe that someone wants to share their torts outline with me!

THANK YOU! though i don't know who you are, this act of kindness may actually help me to avoid failing out of school at the end of the semester. in other words, if your friend menlove and his stupid blog are still around for second semester, it'll be partly your doing.

i don't know if you believe in karma, but i do, and i know that this act of kindness on your part will surely be returned.

you can send your outline to menloveBLS@hotmail.com

i assure you that i will not dilute its power by disseminating it to anyone else. thank you again!

i'll keep that email box open for awhile. if anyone else wants to send me any love mail / hate mail / feedback / blog topic requests /death threats / outlines (for those in need of a karma boost) / homemade pornography, feel free to do so at the address above.

oh yeah, i forgot to mention to my torts hero, thank you for not making me have to give you the "bologna pony" in return.

your use of that tasteful and scientifically-accurate phrase brought me back to a long-neglected memory from my childhood.

i grew up in the long beach area, and i had a buddy named cesar (but for some reason everyone - including his mother - called him "sizzle"). he used the phrase bologna pony all the time.

so it got me thinking about sizzle, how i've not seen him or thought of him in many years (he moved away before we graduated high school). anyway, sizzle was my friend who always corrupted me somewhat. whenever i was doing something bad for the first time, sizzle was there showing me the way.

it was with my little homie sizzle that i first dared to shoplift, to smoke cigarettes, to "visit" construction sites in the middle fo the night, and so on.

however, as great and as influential as the kid was, the reason why sizzle's spirit endures today is because he corrupted me in a really important way:

he got his hands on the first porno that i ever saw.

i think that most guys remember the first time that they saw filmed fornication, and the wonderful way that it made them feel. as you can imagine, it was a very special moment for me.

the tape sizzle showed me was called "careena collins greatest hits", and it was a collection of scenes by some porn star named - you guessed it - careena collins.

anyway, the movie changed my life in an instant. it was as if everything suddenly made sense to me.

thanks to careena collins, i had a purpose in life.

my first priority was to find a way to get a copy of this treasure so that i could enjoy it in the privacy of my own home. the problem was that both sizzle's family and my family each had only one vcr. plus, as a thirteen-year-old, i had very little unsupervised time to enjoy these types of movies, much less spend two hours hooking up vcr's and dubbing them.

the solution involved me skipping school for the first time ever. the story is too long to recall here, but in a nutshell, i hid in the hills behind my house rather than go to school one morning. after both of my parents and cesar's mom had gone to work, i went to his house and tried to find the key he was supposed to have left for me under a potted plant.

unfortunately, sizzle had fucked up and the key wasn't there.

obviously, this is not the end of the story. it takes a lot more than a missing key to keep a 13 year old truant from his pornography.

so, in a rapid series of tortious and criminal conduct, i found an open window, slid into sizzle's house, and walked calmly through the front door two minutes later with his mother's vcr under my arm, and scurried quickly back to my house.

needless to say, i had never hooked up two vcr's to a single tv before, and it took me until the early afternoon before i had things set up correctly. by the time it the dub was complete, i had about fifteen minutes before sizzle's mom came home.

fortunately, sizzle had come by after school and was there to sprint home with his vcr the moment i was done recording. he was a good friend.

unfortunately, i left the tape in our vcr less than a week later, where it was found by one or both of my parents.

(this is a different story altogether, though you can imagine that i had some explaining to do when they saw that their vhs taped which was clearly labeled "Halloween 1991" now contained some extremely graphic triple-x action.)

why am i recalling all of this today? well obviously it's because i'm procrastinating before i start the con law reading. but more importantly, it's because your use of the phrase "bologna pony" got me thinking about sizzle, and also about careena collins, and made me wonder, "where are they now?"

i have been unable to find anything about my old friend cesar online, but apparantly there is a wealth of info to be found out there about careena collins.

for instance, at http://adult-pornstar-mall.com/pornlist/starpgs/Careena_Collins.htm, there is some really great biographical information about her (as well as a pic), which i've excerpted below. strangely enough, it all relates back to the study of law! check it out:

"Porn Star Careena Collins is a petite brunette beauty who has enjoyed a pair of stints in the hardcore business. In between, she went to college and earned a law degree (emphasis added). Not your typical porno strumpet, eh? Well, Careena Collins Stands out from most of her pulse-pounding peers in many ways and has one of the most devoted fan followings of any hardcore star. With her drop-dead gorgeous good looks and always-scrumptious little 5'3" figure, Careena Collins exudes an irresistible sexual allure that only seems to grow stronger with each new flick. A dazzling deep throat specialist, she continues to be one of the hottest performers in hardcore..."

"In 1987, Careena left the porno scene for the school scene. She spent the next seven years pursuing her education and ended up with the aforementioned law degree. In the end, though, Careena found that she preferred the wanton world of hardcore sex to the no-ethics world of weaselly lawyers. She leapt back into the porno fray in 1994, startling long-time fans with a newfound nasty streak. In fact, since her return Careena Collins has been one of the most voracious vixens in all of porn..."

now, i don't mean to wax longiloquent here, so let me just make a few observations...

first, how great is it that careena collins found it more ethically palatable to allow herself filmed having anal sex than to work in the "not-ethics world of weaselly lawyers"?

i mean, let's look at careena's track record here. this is a woman who has always treaded on moral high ground by acting in films such as:

• "Blowjob Queens from Hell"
• "White Bitches in Heat"
• "Ramb-Ohh"
• "Mad Jack Beyond Thunderbone"
• "Sodomania Slop Shots"
• "Butt Banged Naughty Nurses"

as well as my personal favorite, "Meat Pushin' in the Seat Cushion #3".

(no, i don't know these titles from memory. careena's entire filmography can be viewed at adultfilmdatabase.com)

anyway, i don't mean to make anyone feel to weaselly, but it looks like that's exactly what we are. regardless, it's good to know that if the whole lawyering thing doesn't work out for me, perhaps i'll be able to find some opportunities in the wanton world of hardcore sex.

talk to you all again soon.

-menlove

the penultimate p-funk

through the wonders of modern technology, i've now discovered how to email my blog postings without actually being logged in to the blogger.com website.

what does this mean? i can now post discretely during class without anyone seeing what i'm doing...

(booyah)

so pitler's class is about to start, though i can hardly believe how strange it feels to be back in school after nearly an entire week of freedom. actually, it doesn't feel so much strange as much as it feels... terrifying. how can it be that in just a week we'll be taking exams?!?

i started "outlining" for torts this weekend. by outlining, i mean that i sat down and began to fathom the sheer enormity of the material that i need to synthesize in order to keep from completely bombing on the exam. i have over 100 pages of class notes! this might sound impressive, but perhaps you'll reconsider when you realize that every other line of my notes is an incomplete thought. e.g.:

"the key element for an NIED claim requires that the claimant be within..."

or

"Tony: intent could mean two different things... it could mean purpose, and it could mean... something about ??"

i have line after line of this stuff in my notes. basically, what this means is that i'm only smart enough to keep about half a sebok sentence at a time in my mind. it all works out to a logical continuum:

i don't understand the cases assigned... i can't follow the lecture... my notes are garbage... my outline is worthless...

the only reasonable conclusion is that i will fail the exam.

who do i have to fuck around here to get a decent outline???

one final, completely unrelated note... i was thinking about robyn and how much i have been liking her lately. it got me thinking about how little we've seen her these days.

think about it. didn't it seem like she "combined" classes like five out of the final six weeks? and on those weeks when we met, weren't we there for only twenty or twenty five minutes, maximum?

maybe that's why she left her position at the law firm... rather than working 80 hours / week, she only has to work 80 minutes.

i'm not hating on you, robyn. i cherish our time together.

i know how most of the guys feel about professor schneider. it seems to be about 50% love, 50% hate. but how do the women in our class feel?

here we go... grandpa P in the heezy. i hope everyone is excited for another big dose of crystal-clear instruction, peppered with perfectly-executed socratic dialogues, and scintillating hypos which will masterfully illuminate even the most subtle contours of the law, as only professor pitler can deliver!

(sending email now... let's hope this works!)

phew!

such a relief to have the paper over with...

i'll be out of town for turkey day, but i wanted to post two quick things before i go.

first, for those of you whose minds are still frazzled after the memo, enjoy this short clip, which i consider to be the greatest minute of film in the history of amateur videotape. make sure you watch til the kid in the orange shirt blows your mind.

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/robotdance.html

second, just out of curiosity, what did you conclude on your memo?

Were you right? What did you decide on your memo? A&C waived privilege A&C retains privilege Could go either way on appeal I am not in your legal writing class! view results Create free website polls $5 Web Hosting!

let's relax

here are three poems for all you anguished, angry, gossipy, sleepy, stessed, kind and caring souls out there. the first is about love, the second about sex, and the third one will hopefully get you back to work.


The Rain
by Robert Creeley

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent--
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.



i like my body when it is with your
by e. e. cummings

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh....And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new



Lying in a Hammock at Williamm Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
by James Wright

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

lactation cessation

once again, i have to say that i am enjoying and totally approve of the attempted love connections happening on our message boards... nice to see that theobald has some theoballs, and is trying to turn idle chatter into mutual oral pleasure. if you and your anonymous paramour are looking for a place to get down, i'd suggest the boom-boom room (the little room that shares a window with hunter's classroom).

oh yeah... can we watch?

anyway, good luck theobald, and let us know how it works out for you. and if anyone else cares to post their personal ad, by all means, proceed.

before i proceed any further, can i say what's up to my new friend "Carbozo"? what's up carbozo! great name... it's good to have you aboard.

so i was a little bummed in torts today thinking that we've only got 3 or 4 more classes with big T until the semester comes to an end. it was a fun class, as usual. tony's latest haircut was the shit (props to our classmate who had the balls to ask him what he had to drink!), and he started class off on the right note by pulling some absolute optimus prime shit on the lecturn.



who knew it could do that?

anyway, it was a fun class. sebok's three greatest lines were: 1) "divots in her mind"; 2) "cessation of lactation"; and 3) "zone of ickiness." also great was the image he painted of himself perpetrating a false arrest, battery, and possible IIED against his cat as he forced it into its carrier.

due to the impending legal writing due date, i think that this will likely be my last post until tuesday. i've arranged to have a few friends fill in for me as guest hosts until i get that piece of shit handed in, so enjoy the variety.

before i go, though, there's one last piece of business to take care of...

thank you to all who nominated a classmate to present the laparotomy pad. please cast your vote below for the person you'd like to have give our gift to big tony on behalf of our entire class! we may have a run-off if no one wins a clear majority.

To Tony With Love! Who should give Sebok the laparotomy pad? Knox Brina D. Allison Jacob Shireen Demian O. Tom Hunter I am not in your section, Menlove! view results Create free website polls $5 Web Hosting!

good luck with the memos...

-menlove

ornery

big ups to brooklyn!

what does that mean exactly? big ups?

whatever it is, i think we should also give some sizeable ups to our very own tom hunter. not only is he an all-around nice guy who's quick with a joke and a smile, he also came through on the 18"x18" laparotomy pad!

nice job, tom! you da meng.

as he stated, we need someone to make the presentation to tony on the last day of class, so if you'd like to nominate anyone, by all means, do so here...

so anyway, i've got a lot of things to mention here, but not much time to do it, as i've got about fifty pages of a sweet little bedtime story called tort law: R&R awaiting me.

first, i have to say that there's been some great stuff on the discussion board from my last post. we've got people telling me to chill out, to drink water, to chew gum, and to write something funny. we've got the incredible image of pitler banging on his podium with a gavel. we've got people accusing each other of being ornery. (ornery!) in a wicked twist, we've got conflicts between theobald and pseudo-theobalds! great shit. and finally, we've got angry mussivand riffing brilliantly on r. kelly's (actual) and r. pitler's (theoretical) partaking in the delivery of golden showers (AKA yellow discipline). all things considered, a great day on the message board. you all kick ass.

(by the way... who hasn't r. kelly slept with? more to the point, who hasn't he filmed himself having sex with? mrs. sheffield?!?! you've got to be kidding me. no one pisses on sheff's wife with impunity. i give it three months before he goes all dickens v. puryear on r. kelly's ass, and introduces mr. kelly to the business end of a louisville slugger.)

now in terms of my new powdery study aid, i've been high as hell for 48 hours, working non-stop in an ecstatic frenzy, chain-smoking happily. it's almost unreal, but i've pretty much finished my torts outline! and it's really good too! so my plan is in full-effect from here until further notice, or until i go into massive cardiac arrest, whichever happens first.

i'm just fucking with you. truth be told, i didn't like snorting coke that much. though i did the way it smelled...

just kidding. truth be told, i was all set to start my new habit, but it turns out the stuff is ridiculously expensive. i tried to take out a new stafford loan to cover it, but the good folks at FAFSA weren't exactly cool with my idea.

still kidding. truth be told, i wouldn't know where to buy any cocaine, even if i wanted to. and even if i did, i'd probably be too scared to use it.

and that's the triple truth, ruth.

in other news, a friend told me that menlovian had been given a shout-out on someone else's blog, so i'd like to return the favor. it's written by our very own aaron warshaw, one of the smart dudes in grandpa p's class, who also just happens to be a really nice guy. if you're looking for some great writing and an informed take on politics, music and current events, check it out at http://warshaw.blogspot.com/

oh yeah, just one other thing before i return to my sweet, sweet torts reading... did you know that larry ferguson (of ferguson v. writers guild of america fame) wrote a lot of other movies aside from beverly hills cop 2? here are some highlights from his c.v.

Rollerball (2002) (screenplay)

Maximum Risk (1996) (written by)

Gunfighter's Moon (1995) (written by)

Beyond the Law (1992) (written by)

Alien³ (1992) (screenplay)

Talent for the Game (1991) (written by)

Hunt for Red October, The (1990) (screenplay)

Presidio, The (1988) (written by)

way to go, larry! even though rollerball is the only thing you've done in eight years, you've got a few gems under your belt. keep pluggin' and chuggin', and i know you'll strike gold again.

let's all keep pluggin' and chuggin'. talk to you soon.

-menlove

white stripes

our first exam is in three weeks. fuck me in the goat ass. here's the issue: i don't know anything about crim, yet in 21 days i'll be sweating my way through the exam.

i've been feeling a creeping and increasing dread with every passing day as the clock ticks down to zero hour. i can't focus. i can't sleep. when i do sleep, the evil monkey who lives in my room tries to kill me.



i don't even derive any pleasure anymore from covering myself in bread crumbs.

here's what it boils down to:

i haven't learned anything in law school except for the word mandamus and the location of all the best crappers.

i don't have any study aids except for the helicopter game.

my notes look like they were dictated by chewbacca.

the only outline any 2L has given me is for contracts, and i don't even take that until next semester. plus, the guy who wrote it is a menlove as well.

my GPA going into finals is a mid-C, based on the scores we've received in civ pro and writing class, so i'm nowhere near even the middle of the curve.

in short, i'm fucked. basically, i have to learn three month's worth of material in three weeks.

desperate times call for desperate measures. i'm not giving up hope just yet. i think that i still may have a way out of this mess. it'll be a lot of work, yes, but i may reach new levels of scholarship and jurisprudencial understanding in the process. what i'm planning to do is a bold and unprecedented approach to the study of law. yet i believe that if all goes as planned, i may do well enough to stick around long enough to actually be able to use that contracts outline in 2005.

my solution:

temporary cocaine addiction.

you heard me right. i remember seeing around school these magazines with a cover story that asked, "Are Your Classmates Stoned?" and thinking, why the fuck would anyone want to come to law school stoned? tony would totally blow your mind and all, but how could you follow the discussion? and what if you got socraticized??? just wouldn't work for me.

but it seems that a short-term cocaine habit would be absolutely perfect. i could put in twenty hour work days, hardly needing to sleep at all. i'd be able to participate in class, or at least to follow what the smart kids are saying. i'd even start making some friends because i'd suddenly be the wittiest and most energetic 1L in our section.

in other words, tons of benefits with hardly any downside.


the new and improved menlove

the great experiment starts tomorrow morning at 830 a.m. i'll let you know how it goes. also, if any of you have conducted similar experiments in the past and have any words of wisdom to impart to me, i'd be much obliged.

in other news, i'd like to say hello and welcome to "fact-finder." thanks for the valuable info on the laparotomy pads. what we still need are some suggestions on a fitting gift for professor pitler, so all you geniuses out there, get on it!

shimmy shimmy ya

so thank you to everyone who voted in the first ever menlovian poll, and congrats to professor sebok who squeezed out a close victory over professor hunter. hopefully there were not too many problems with the voting. i've posted a couple more polls below... let me know if anyone has any trouble.

while we're on the topic of the people's choice, i have to say that sebok was absolutely at the top of his game on friday. once the guy's got a few cups of coffee pumping through his veins, he's unstoppable.

first, he truly seemed to delight in the discussion of dickens v. puryear, similing as he described the poor slob who was handuffed to a piece of farm machinery, beaten senseless by four rednecks ("y'all come out now"), then in the coup de grace, "in an act of symbolic mastery" as tony described it, the guy's hair is cut off, and castration is threatened.

sebok summed it up as a an absolute festival of anthropoligical implications.

friggin' hilarious. yet the cases kept on getting better and better, as 'bok shared his disgust with the asshole defendant in littlefield v. mcguffey, who went by a shitload of sweet names, such as osvaldo kennardo AKA the old man AKA the boss AKA wally luther. sebok basically concluded his discussion of this piece of shit by saying that he would like to "go medieval on his sorry ass."

but by far the best part of any class this week was tony talking about what he'd do if he were held against his will in a stop-n-go. here's his quote, to the best of my recollection...

"if someone tries to falsely imprison me, i say screw you. if they say they'll call the cops, i say screw you too. [when] the cops show up, i'll flash my brooklyn ID card, tell them i'm a law professor, and if they want to get hit with a 1983 suit, be my guest."

Holding: Do not fuck with Anthony Sebok.

anyway, it was a mighty fine performance. sort of bums me out that we've only got three more weeks with him.

maybe we should start thinking about some sort of torts-inspired gift for the guy... and something for pitler as well. they're both good professors, and great characters, and i doubt that any contracts and property professor combo will be able to top those two.

if anyone has access to a laparotomy pad, get on it ASAP. as for pitler's gift, i'm open for suggestions. either way, i'm in for five bucks.

turning now to a bit of sad news, it was with a heavy heart that i learned this weekend about the untimely death of russel jones, AKA old dirty bastard AKA dirt mcgirt AKA ODB AKA osirus AKA cyrus AKA dirt dogg AKA big baby jesus AKA unique ason AKA russel tyrone jones AKA joe bananas... (osvaldo kennardo didn't have shit on this guy.)

dirty was a founding member of the wu tang clan, a group whose beats and lyrics comprised a major part of the soundtrack of my high school days. a one-man multiple tortfeasor / verbal assassin / killer bee / lyrical chameleon... here's to you, russel jones.


O.D.B.... 1969-2004

i guess that's about it for now... just a few other things before i return to the reading for our now hyper-accelerated criminal law class.

someone inquired as to how long it took me to compose the hypo. i figure it took about 50-60 minutes. i had the basic story down pretty quickly, as i had the silly punchline in mind all along, but i spent a long time going back through it and adding all of the crass and ridiculous flourishes such as the sticky ejaculate and el guapo's last words.

in other words, it was a huge waste of time, but hopefully an enjoyable read for all of you.

in the spirit of wasting time, i'll close with a pair of polls. again, i'm still in the test phase, but i think i'm getting the hang of making these things.

menlovian poll #2 Pick the right one. Pick me. Do not pick me. view results Create your own free website poll

nosey menlovian poll #3 How do you manage your nose hair? little scissors tweezers electric trimmer keep my shit natural view results Create your own free website poll

one giant leap...

thank you to all who read and enjoyed my insane little torts problem. thank you even more to those who responded to it. though the analysis was probing and creative, the "master issue" was never uncovered. perhaps it was just too subtle. anyway, here it is:

ned is barred from recovery because he can't tell his ass from a hole in the ground.

"Hey-O!!!"

jeez, that sure was a long hypo to write for such a sorry-ass punchline.

anyway, on with the show. i'm proud to say that i am ready to upgrade this blog to menlovian 3.0. that's right... at first it was just words, and not much else. basically a plain old weblog.

then came version 2.0. i fiddled around with the html, and figured out how to post a dazzling aray of pics, everything from donkeys to captain kurtz to your pictures of your wonderful classmates.

recently, menlovian has been operating under version 2.9. the highlights of version 2.9 included my posting the hypo and links to the helicopter game. additionally, v2.9 was marked by an onslaught of allegations of some sort of machiavellian subterfuge on the part of your friend menlove. (i have to admit that i have enjoyed these accusations a great deal...)

now, after many hours of trial-and-error, it's time for the next innovation. welcome to menlovian 3.0.

granted, this is still very much in its beta phase, so bear with me as i work out the kinks. still, i'm pretty satisfied with the results thus far.

so without further ado, here is the first menlovian poll!

menlovian poll #1 who is your favorite professor? grandpa p hella nan big tony robin i am not in your section, menlove! view results Create your own free website poll

hypo, baby!

sweet little "el guapo"

Ned Nederlander, an elderly farmer residing in the fictitious state of Confusion, lives on a parcel of land that shares a common border with another piece of land owned by his neighbor Dusty Bottoms. Ned is engaged in the business of growing soybeans, which he sells twice monthly at a local farmers market. Ned is grows exactly twelve bushels of soybeans per month, in accordance with the mandate put forth by the Department of Agriculture. In return for following the mandate, Ned receives an annual subsidy of four thousand dollars.

However, Ned also maintains a secret thirteenth bushel of soybeans that he grows on a small plot of land beneath his back porch. On the first Friday of every month, Niederlander trades these soybeans with Lucky Day, a local hashish peddler. Immediately thereafter, Ned spends 48 continuous hours in a drug-induced stupor.

Ned lives alone on his farm, his only companion being an old gray donkey named El Guapo. Every morning at precisely 9 a.m., Ned leads El Guapo to the Hershey Squirt River, Confusion’s only source of fresh water. El Guapo typically spends an hour or so drinking and bathing in the Hershey Squirt’s brown and mucky waters, then another half hour sunning himself on the sandy river bank, where he lazes in the sun, and shoos away flies with his gray donkey tail. While El Guapo bathes and lazes, Ned typically either naps on the sandy river bank, swims in the river, or masturbates furiously while concealed in a thicket of brush.

Ned has two ways of reaching the Hershey Squirt River. He may lead El Guapo down the road, along the perimeter of Dusty’s adjoining land, or he may cut directly across Dusty’s property.

Ned spent several years taking the road, but found it rather unpleasant. For one thing, it took him twice as long to reach the river by that route. Furthermore, the shoulder on the road was quite narrow, and it was extremely upsetting to Ned (and arguably to El Guapo as well) to have to travel such a great distance with so many cars whizzing by only a few feet away. This was particularly true when Ned was high on hash; the sounds of the honking horns and the gravel kicked up by the cars only served to severely harsh his mellow.

Therefore, Ned began leading El Guapo directly through Dusty Bottom’s property. At first he did it just once or twice per month (only on the days that he was high), but it wasn’t long before he and El Guapo were cutting through Dusty’s land on a daily basis. In fact, it has been months since Ned has used the original route along the road.

The benefits of the shortcut are numerous. For one, there are many acres of wild orchids growing on Dusty’s land. El Guapo found these orchids to be delightful both to smell and to nibble upon. Furthermore, Dusty’s property used to be the home of a summer camp, so there were several old but still attractive trampolines, see-saws, and swimming pools along the way, which both Ned and El Guapo would enjoy.

As the months passed, Ned and El Guapo’s daily sojourn wore a path through even the most thickly overgrown parts of Dusty’s land.

Dusty was very much aware of their presence, and it angered him endlessly. He was tired of having his orchids nibbled upon by the old gray donkey, tired of finding clumps of donkey fur along the banks of the Hershey Squirt River, and tired of accidentally walking into the sticky ejaculate Ned would leave in the thicket. So, like a good little tortfeasor, he decided to do something about it.

On the first Thursday night in the month of November, Dusty spent several hours digging a gigantic pit in his property. The pit was approximately twelve feet deep, and was situated directly along the path to the Hershey Squirt River. “Ah reck’n this’ll teach’m,” he said with a laugh (Dusty had a proclivity for using contractions). Satisfied with his efforts, he went in for the night to watch his favorite episode of the Cosby Show, the one where Theo gets his ear pierced, and Cliff sits next to him on the bed, and the two of them lean back and forth together, Cliff trying to see the ear, Theo tries to conceal it; hilarity ensues, etc.

Early the next morning, Ned slung his secret 13th bushel of soybeans over his shoulder and carried it to his secret meeting spot for his monthly rendezvous with Lucky Day. The deal went down as planned, and a few minutes later, Ned was blazing up a globule of some of the dankest, stickiest, blackest hashish ever to have been criminally possessed in all of Confusion. He was more fucked up than he had ever been in his life, and was not even halfway back to his farm when, subdued by the hypnotic powers of the hashish, he tumbled down onto the ground, and slipped into a deep and rich slumber filled with brilliantly vivid dreams replete with orchestral scores.

Now Lucky Day was a drug dealer with a conscience, and he realized that that day’s product might have been more powerful than what Ned could handle, especially considering that Ned was an octogenarian. He went back to Ned’s farm to make sure that the old fellow was all right, but was unable to find him anywhere in or around his house. All he saw was the gentle old donkey El Guapo, who was fidgeting anxiously in his barn because he desperately needed a bath, and was jonesing for a sweet little taste of orchids.

Lucky knew that El Guapo needed to be brought to the banks of the Hershey Squirt, and in an act of infinite kindness, loaded the donkey into back of his Escalade, and tore off down the main road towards the river. Of course, as this is a torts problem, Lucky lost control of his vehicle while he was hollering at some honeys driving alongside him in a convertible. The Escalade began to swerve back and forth, then began to roll off the edge of the road. Unfortunately for Lucky and El Guapo, the Escalade just happened to be passing over a bridge as it began to roll. The bridge’s guardrail had been in need of repair for over a year, but Confusion’s Department of Transportation lacked the manpower and the funding to fix it. Therefore, the car rolled right over the edge of the bridge.

As they plummeted towards the earth, both Lucky and El Guapo comprehended the fact that they were going to die, causing them a degree of unhappiness that was significantly more than mild. Strangely enough, just before smashing back to earth, El Guapo turned to Lucky Day, and in his rusty, braying donkey voice, wailed: “I’ve always loved you, Lucky.”

Both died instantly upon impact.

Several hours later back at the farm, Ned finally woke up from his slumber, and struggled groggily to his feet while rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Hot damn, kilogram!” he said. “That sho’ was some bubonic chronic.”

He realized that poor El Guapo had been all day without drinking and bathing in the runny, muddy, chunky waters of the Hershey Squirt, so he ran back to El Guapo’s barn. You can imagine his surprise when he found it empty.

“That crazy ol’ Donkey must’a decide to take hisself to the river!” he exclaimed. “Don’t worry, Guappy. Daddy’s on his way!”

Ned sprinted off towards Dusty’s property, and began following the trail that he and his donkey friend both knew so well. Resisting the urge to play on the see-saws and trampolines that he and El Guapo had both enjoyed so often, the old man ran on and on at a seemingly impossible speed toward the river. However, he skidded to a stop as he came across something he’d never seen before along the path.

“What in tarnation* is that?” Ned said with a start. He crept nervously up to the edge of the pit, not at all able to tell what it was that he was looking at.

“El Guapo, is that you?” he asked tentatively as he continued to move closer. “Guappy, why ain’tcha answerin’ me? Wake up, boy!”

Believing that he was looking at his donkey lying on the ground along the path, Ned leaped forward quickly to comfort his fallen friend. Of course, it was not El Guapo, because El Guapo was a couple of miles away, being moved into a Confusion State sanitation truck, one shovel-full at a time. Rather, it was the pit that Dusty Bottom had dug the day before. Ned fell to its bottom (which was, strangely enough, dusty), breaking both his hips, shattering his illusions, and lacerating his pride.

You are the lawyer to whom Ned tells this tearful tale.

You have three hours to answer the following question (100 poins): What possible claims does Ned have against Dusty, Lucky, and the state of Confusion?

***

please list any responses to this hypo – serious and otherwise – on the discussion board. by the way, there is one “master issue” that i hope someone will be able to spot. let’s see how smart you all are...

i enjoyed writing this ridiculous little exam question. i hope you enjoyed reading it as well.

-menlove

read the answer to the torts hypo or return to menlove's greatest hits

*The noun and interjection tarnation illustrate suffixation, the addition of a suffix to a word. Tarnation and darnation (the latter probably having come first) are both euphemistic forms of damnation. Tarnation seems to have been influenced by tarnal, another mild oath derived from (e)ternal! The Oxford English Dictionary cites late-18th-century examples of tarnation from New England, indicating that it has been part of American speech since colonial days. - Dictionary.com

brutish, unreflecting myrmidon

i have to say that those of you who post in response to these columns have really been cracking me up lately. thanks to everyone who posts, especially those who log in.

as your friend menlove is drowning in his con law reading this evening, tonight's log will be written by a very special guest author, kahlil gibran. so without further ado, here's kahlil!

***

Greetings people of Brooklyn Law School. Earlier this evening, Menlove contacted me and asked me to fill in for him for tonight's entry.

"A guest writer?" I asked him. "That's pretty pathetic, my friend. Hasn't Menlovian jumped the shark enough already?"

My stupid friend Menlove had no response. So I continued, "Besides, don't think for a second that I believe that you're working on Con Law tonight. Five to one odds you've spent all night watching the Real World / Road Rules Challenge marathon."

Still no response.

"Alright my idiotic young friend, I'll cover for you just this once."

I apologize on his behalf for his laziness and ineptitude, the depths of which appear to be bottomless. Perhaps you'll enjoy the following excerpt from my classic book The Prophet. I assume that some of you must be fairly bright, and may even find some of what I've written illuminating. Feel free to share your reactions and interpretations on the message board, or if you rather, you may continue posting your typical fascinating insights on the helicopter game, internet pornography, or about people who choose to read Glannon while moving their bowels...

Hasta mo' pizza,

Kahlil Gibran



Then a lawyer said, "But what of our Laws, master?"
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?
What of the cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers?
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course?
What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

tony's got juice

the blogger.com servers have also been a bit menlovian over the last several days, and i have not been able to post anything for awhile. regardless, it's good to be back, and i must say that i've been loving the responses on the boards as of late.

first of all, thanks to the person who recorded big T's immortal S&M remark for all of us. seems like tony's been on a roll ever since we started assault and battery. other memorable comments from last week included a great little nugget about "swinging both ways," as well as the stunning revelation that he gets to enjoy a nice glass of wine at the barber shop. how sweet is that?

i love the idea of sebok sucking down a few glasses as his curly locks hit the floor. speaking of the most famous hair at BLS, the coiffure has been a bit unruly as of late, no?

second, to the person who got "spotted" bringing glannon into the bathroom, keep your head high. there's nothing wrong with taking shit seriously, especially with exams just around the corner. my dumb ass usually reads comic books in the bathroom, so you're light years ahead of me.

though i must say that my favorite commentary over the weekend was posted anonymously (and repeatedly - four times!) in response to my last post. whoever you are... i feel your pain, and respect your decision to put down the books and to rent some porn instead. perhaps in your future responses you could share some reviews and recommendations of the films you've most enjoyed.

finally, to the person who kicked my ass on the helicopter game, know that i'm training hard to recapture the title. every minute you spend studying for crim, i'll be getting stronger, honing my piloting skills, and creeping ever closer to your mark. it is only a matter of time...

anyway, good luck everyone on what will undoubtedly prove to be an incredibly shitty week. exams are right around the corner, the legal writing assignment will be upon us momentarily, outlines should have been started weeks ago, and our professors are unrelenting with the reading assignments. basically, the month of november is going to suck in about twelve different ways.

i'll try to keep the mood light this week with some time-saving tips which will prove to be utterly worthless, a torts hypo that will in no way extend your understanding of the law, and an earth-shattering piece of investigatory reporting into the secret lives of zipursky and goldberg which will in no way be rooted in anything even remotely resembling the truth.

bullshit, etc.

i've been having fantasies lately that i won't do so poorly this semester that i'll have to drop out at the end of the semester. i was even thinking about what it's going to be like when we all get our report cards and class rankings at the end of the semester.

what will that be like?

do people tell each other what they got? i'm sure that some people will make a point of broadcasting their high ranking loud and clear. does that change the way those people are responded to in class? do our professors get to know our ranking? how will i feel about my friends who did better than me? how will they feel about me? i guess my real concern is trying to figure out to what extent this whole underlying competitive aspect of BLS will change the dynamics of the friendships that are being developed daily. hopefully, not much will change, but i do worry about it.

anyway... although the response to my call for reviews of the sebok / goldberg / zipursky magnum opus was severely underwhelming, i would like to extend my sincere gratitude to "brook lynne" for the excellent entry. i have to say that yours was the best (it wasn't even close) - and your name was also pretty clever - so here's to you!

welcome also to "Black Sheep of the Family Clan" and "Unnamed Ass Pincher." to the former, i'd like to say that i'm curious as to how you became the black sheep; to the latter, i'd like to cordially invite you to pinch my ass at any time. lord knows i need it.

so it dawned on me that we only have about a month left with our two most entertaining professors, sebok and pitler. i will truly miss these two. i have to admit that with every passing week, i enjoy pitler's class more and more. i'm trying to figure out some way to get invited to another pizza party.

remember when schneider mentioned how at a faculty meeting, pitler made an impassioned argument in favor of installing an escalator which would carry us up and down all nine floors of the school? that just plain rocks. i love the idea, and i love the idea of pitler bringing it up at a faculty meeting even more. in fact, i would pay good money to see the look on hunter's face when pitler brought up that little gem. who do you think shot down the idea? what other crazy stuff do you think pitler brings up in meetings?

on the school-improvement front: perhaps we could also have a fire pole installed for those of us who like to get downstairs in a hurry, or a gigantic waterslide from the sixth floor to the front door of the school... turn the courtyard into a splash pool.

on the gossip front: has anyone heard rumors about a professor marrying a BLS student?

on the time-wasting front: today in the library i managed a high score of 1,520 on http://addictinggames.com/helicopter.html i defy any of you to top that.

and finally, on the reader-participation front: here's a fun little picture i found of two of our very best-loved professors:



can anyone guess what sebok might have said to bring about this wonderful look on hunter's face?

typical tuesday

a civ pro midterm, a tough con law class, and a marathon election all in one day...



the horror. the horror.

swarthy bootstrapping eunuchs

hey kids... sorry it's been a few days since written anything. i've been completely bogged down in studying for the civil procedure midterm, which really was a horrible way to spend the weekend. i really have not been able to retain any information in civ pro this semester. i do remember that on the first day of class, professor hunter told us that "he who controls the procedure controls the trial," or something to that effect. well that just makes me feel horrible. i can't even understand the procedure, much less control it. when it comes time for the midterm, i'll be lucky if i can even control my bladder.

what procedural issues are raised by menlove wetting himself during the midterm?

it's not always easy dwelling so far to the left end of the bell curve. just last week, i thought that i'd done really well on the blue book quiz with my score of 74 - or that i'd at least done average. turns out that my classmates had an average of something like a 90! therefore, my "average" score was purely menlovian.

i'm almost at the point where i'm wondering if i shouldn't just stop studying altogether, and accept the fact that i've only got about a month left of being a law student.

i mean, can you imagine how embarrassing it will be to have to go through life with the stigma of being a law school dropout? has anyone ever made anything of themselves after dropping out of law school? i don't think i'll be able to bear the shame of constantly having to explain to people how i was too stupid to even last one semester, how i wet myself in class, how i spent all three hours of the con law exam discussing the word mandamus. how will i show my face to any of you, or to my friends or family?

basically, my only viable option at that point will be to cut off my testicles and seek some sort of monastic sanctuary with the kasha varnishka band of eunuchs who inhabit pico de aneto in the pyrenees . as you all go on to earn A's in contracts and property, and to write for the law review, i will spend my days tending to the gelding beasts of burden, massaging a soothing balm into their tired hoary hooves, and in the evenings i will make cheese.

so at least i've got that going for me.

in the meantime, i'm glad that i've got all of you here to keep me company on my meteoric descent into the deepest bowels of humiliation and regret. specifically, i'm glad that "Mrs. Pugach" and "Darby_Bootstrap" are here with us. thanks for logging in dudes! by the way... what does it mean when someone talks about a "bootstrap" or a "bootstrapping" argument? i've heard sebok say this from time to time in torts.

speaking of the big bokker, i was checking out the reviews of his books on amazon.com, and i came across something that, frankly, pissed me off a bit.

evidently, sebok wrote a book called Legal Positivism in American Jurisprudence, part of the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law series (an excellent collection; i've long enjoyed the entire cambridge studies library...). though i haven't read this particular book, i can only assume that it is a brilliant refutation of the tenets of legal negativism.

what bothered me though was the following review that someone posted about his book:

"Tony Sebok is no longer the 'swarthy young intelectual' from Brooklyn. He may now take his rightful place among the well respected names in contemporay jurisprudence. To Posner, Calabresi and Unger, we may now add Sebok." (emphasis added)

"swarthy young intellectual"??? swarthy? did he say swarthy? where the fuck does someone get the nerve to call T-bone "swarthy"?

now, i have to admit that i don't actually know what swarthy means. but to me it sounds like a way of saying that someone is covered in like a swarm of bugs, or like he's got a bunch of warts or something. it doesn't sound good.

i don't like it, and i'm not going to stand for it. not on my watch.

ok, granted, we can now add sebok to posner, calabresi and unger. i definitely agree with this part of the review. posner, calabresi and unger are my boys. especially unger. that kid is crazy! me and him used to kick it together at the compton swap-meet. damn, that dude could spit some game.

but if i ever found out who called my boy T swarthy, i'll be gettin' all depraved-heart on that ass.

***
ok, so it's getting late and i'm getting stupid. i still can't believe that people read this garbage.

let me wrap it up with a final note, a little contest for all my menlovian brothers and sisters in the room:

when you've got a moment, go to the amazon page for Tort Law: R&R by sebok, zipursky and goldberg. here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735526206/qid=1099285163/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-9078004-0568657?v=glance&s=books

you'll see that the book has already received one five-star review. clearly, it's a five-star work, yet i'd like to see more than a lot more reviews than just this one.

here's the deal... i want to see who can write the most amusing book review. that is the only criterion: it has to amuse your friend menlove.

contest rules:

• you've got to give the book five stars in your review.
• you should review it with your menlovian nickname so that i can pick a winner.
• there are many different ways to amuse me. be creative.
• finally, it'll have to pass amazon's editorial standards in order for them to publish it. you should check out those standards before you write: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0735526206/customer-review-guidelines/103-9078004-0568657

naturally, i would suggest that you complete this activity between 9:37 and 10:52 on either monday or wednesday morning.

-menlove