It's been awhile!

It feels like forever since I've posted a blog here. For the most part, I blame this on having been unusually busy- even for me. Sometimes you get so caught up in the moment that you lose time to reflect on the humorous qualities of life.

Here are some recent highlights:

1- My Nose Job- Unfortunately, this title doesn't mean that I now have a little dainty honker on my rather large cabeza or head. A little less than a month ago, a surgeon- after a few pleasantries- stuck a hot wire into both sides of my nose, burning and reducing a structure known as a turbinate, which had been enlarged since perhaps my amateur boxing days. "How do you feel," he asked as I sneezed a fine red mist of blood on my YMCA weight loss shirt. "Just peachy," I replied in a nasal voice that would make the next couple weeks of court interesting...

2- Back to the Weight Loss Challenge/A Random workout- Out of respect for my nose, the Torturer had me working out in doors. I raced up a treadmill with a 20 percent incline for what seemed like an hour, but was probably only ten minutes. The woman next to me in the elliptical machine was so impressed that she kept asking me for tips...okay, the tips were on her legal situation, but in any case I made it through the workout in flying colors. Red and blotchy pink as I recall...

3- Back to Law School- As I traded notes with a co-consul, I found out that our hearing was going to be in front of a visiting judge, who was none other than my former trial advocacy professor. This threw me into a state of mild shock, remembering how tough my teacher had been in law school. Still, I asked all the tough questions that I'd planned to ask and defended my client vigorously. At the end of the hearing the charges were dismissed. "A+++, counselor." My teacher graciously said... I replied in a still nasal voice "Thank you, your honor."

Cooking with Hitler- Part II

I returned from court on Wednesday to find an family email from my brother Carlos, aka Hitler. My brother was nicknamed Hitler by my childhood friends partly because he used to beat us up in order to play our video games. And while time has made Hitler much smaller than me, it has done little to mellow him.

"We will wait, first, for Ray to show up, and secondly, if he brings any ribs to enjoy them…" wrote Hitler. "I will make/bring enough chicken for us all in the event Ray runs out of time to get the spare ribs…" I could almost feel the lecture coming through the email- the youngest brother who is always missing family poker night, family dinner night, family bowling Sunday....might now leave his father without ribs!!!

Admittedly, I had been somewhat remiss in my family dinner obligations what with my absence during my jury trial. My past contributions, while tasty, had been courtesty of El Rancho Restaurant and the like. The last time I had cooked for the family had been... well, let's just say a little while.

So, I prepared early this time around. I marinated a couple racks each of pork and beef ribs. It's a simple marinade- some citrus juice, brown sugar and red chili form the base of my marinade with other spices added to taste. I stuff the ribs into a small plastic trash bag with the marinade and leave it overnight in the fridge.

I made a practice run of ribs and tri-tip in the morning for my house and left everything ready to cook after getting out of work.

Unfortunately, I didn't get out of work until close to 6pm. I rushed home, fired up the Orion, added some more rub to the ribs, tequilla to the cooker and beer to the chef. Then I ignored most of the phone calls that began arriving at around 7pm.

Hitler: "Are you planning on coming today or tomorrow?"

Mayra: "You know, we are kind of hungry and all there is this chicken Milanesa that Hitler made..."

My mother: This call I answered. She wanted to know how long it would take me to show up. I told it'd be another twenty minutes.

At 8:15 PM, I walked into my parent's house carrying 2 racks of pork ribs, 2 racks of beef ribs, and a selection of barbecue sauce.

Better late than never, right? I walked into my fair share of lectures, but once the family was eating all was forgiven. Hitler even gave me his recipe for chicken Milanesa- superthin chicken breast dipped in egg and breaded with a fancier version of shake and bake, then you fry it beyond recognition!

All in all, a good night at the family dinner.

The YMCA weight loss team and 24 suicides

This past Friday, the two teams in the weight loss competition got together for a challenge worthy of the Biggest Loser Show itself. We were assembled and told we were to be taken to room MP1.

"Multi Pizza Room," wondered Pamela. If only... We were taken to a room near the front of YMCA with multiple traffic cones assembled in a line.

"Run to the second cone, touch the ground, then run back to the first cone, touch the ground, then onto the second cone and so on...." instructed Carlos. "Once you are finished with the suicides, do ten squats."

The winner of the competition was to be the team that (1) remained standing when the time ran out and (2) completed the most cycles.

It was an exercise seemingly designed to be difficult for the overweight. Balance does not come easy when you are carrying a extra hundred pounds! Every time I ran and touched the floor, the momentum of my body almost made the rest of me hit the floor as well. And the squats made my legs feel like jelly.

But, not wanting to let down my team, I persevered and gave it my all. And when the bell rang ending the event, I was on my feet for at least a minute or two...

"27 suicides for the Transformers. 24 suicides for the Super Frogs." announced Carlos.

My team had lost. But as we walked out of the MP1 room, I glanced at the wall mirror. If I squinted just right, I could see a skinnier me.

Just a matter of time...

Cooking with Hitler

My brother Carlos, often referred to as Hitler by my oldest friends (this story to come later), and I are scheduled to cook on Thursday night for the family. I'm thinking of making some ribs or a beef roast to go with whatever dish Hitler makes. And what does Hitler specialize in? Believe it or not, my brother is famous for making dishes so pretty that Martha Stewart's cellmates would be jealous. Picture a golden ham sprinkled with tons of little cherries and pineapples attached via little toothpicks.

"Are we going to eat this or take pictures," said my father impatiently as the women in the family "ooh and aaah." My sisters and my brother like pretty things.

I wonder if the real Hitler also liked pretty things.

Me, I tend to lean towards cooking enormous hunks of meat. On Thursday, I'll be using my Orion cooker- It's the contraption pictured above. In a little over an hour it can take the fattest and thickest chunk of beef and make it so tender that it falls apart with a fork.

The Orion uses one bag of charcoal and gives off flames during the initial stages of the cooking- so it's pretty fun to use during a cookout. You feel like you are in the middle of a gothic bonfire. I got one for my friend Frankie when he got married.

If they say marriage is hell, then why not have a cooker that spits flames?

The weight loss competition resumes!

This past week, I rejoined the YMCA's latest installment of the Team Challenge weight loss competition. It was nice to see some of the familiar characters from the last competition. Pamela is back as is Carlos the torturer, but this time they are on a competing team.

My first workout was with a new personal trainer, named Sam. Sam seems to be a firm believer in exercises that use your own body weight- modified push ups, pull ups, lunges, etc... I used to be able to do a ton of push ups and you'd think that push ups are easier when your belly is..um..closer to the floor, but it was a struggle. Still, by the end of the class, I felt completely conscious- which is probably a step towards better fitness. My new team mates were also very motivational- I even got cheerful email reminders from our captain.

Later in the week, we had a nutrition class where we were faced with the catch 22 of weight loss- you need to burn more calories than you eat in order to lose weight, but if you eat too little then you don't have the energy to work out. I've decided to err on the side of eating too much for now. The perfect diet is one of moderation- lower on calories but with a good balance of carbs, protein and fats- depending on your needs at the time.



On Saturday, I decided to take a class with Carlos and his little brother(le petit torturer?) in order to help burn some extra calories. It was a boot camp style class that was absolutely exhausting- I was tired for the rest of the day- but was also exhilarating. I ran up and down hills and did a variety of military style drills.

GI Ray? Just a matter of time...

Some thoughts in September

It's been almost a month since I've posted anything. Mostly I've been involved in a jury trial that has consumed most of my time with any leftover time given to the rest of my practice and my wife.

A jury trial is what many of us lawyers live for. A trial tests the pinnacle of your skills as a lawyer. You compete with another lawyer in shaping what the jury will consider to be evidence. Surprisingly, there are relatively few lawyers that know how to try a case. I haven't seen statistics, but it wouldn't surprise me to hear that most lawyers will never in their careers participate as lead counsel in a jury trial.

A criminal jury trial is even harder than a normal trial, because you are faced with the prospect that your client will lose his liberty if you lose the trial. If you don't break down a certain witness with your cross examination, you could lose. If you don't relate well to the jury, you could lose. There are a million things that could go wrong and you should be paralyzed with stress. Yet, I find that you feel very alive while you are trying the case.

In my recent trial, there was a moment where I was able to ask the police officer if he in fact was the person who committed the crime! There was another moment when I confronted an eyewitness with his alleged methamphetamine addiction.

At the end of the trial, the jurors weren't able to convict my client because I'd raised a doubt about every piece of evidence in the case.

A friend asked me if this was justice. It's another way of asking whether a guilty person had gone free. I can't break client confidentiality by answering this question directly, but I'll try a generic answer.

Like many Americans, I believe in the presumption of innocence. My job as a defense attorneys is to protect my client's rights under the constitution. I'll do this to the limit of my abilities because it keeps the system honest.

It's better for a guilty person to be free than for an innocent man to be incarcerated. You have to believe this to be any good at jury trials.

A guest column- by Sam from the Y

Here's a few thoughts from one of the trainers at the Y.



Closing thoughts:


The comments at the end of this season that I appreciated hearing the most were not of numbers, pounds, and inches, but of confidence. Each of my players felt so much more capable, and even more important, much more willing to push themselves during each workout.

One of the rewards of exercise is a growing feeling of control. When you are feeling out of shape, you feel out of control of your own body. It's a strange and uncomfortable dis-connect that can permiate other aspects of our lives. Without stetching out on the couch for some analysis here, I am sure that we can all come up with examples of how this affects us. At every level, it is good to feel your body respond to what you are asking it to do; push ups, sit ups, dead lifts...and lo and behold, your body does it, albeit grudginly at first, but it does it. I was fond of reminding my players that the workouts didn't get any easier, they each just got stronger and more fit.

Each of them began to enjoy the feeling of overcoming the discomfort to finish the set, to add one more lift, to run just a little faster. In turn, they enjoyed pushing and encouraging one another.

As a self described gym-rat, my favorite aspect of a good workout is to know that most of my pains are self inflicted, and I wear them like trophies. I wish for each of you the same feelings of accomplishment.

Keep going. It doesn't get any easier, you just get stronger...and isn't that the point?


Sam

Thoughts on the weight loss challenge- a final review.

The weight loss challenge is now over.

"How'd I do," you might ask.

"It's not about the pounds," I say as you begin laughing...

But it's actually true this time! I lost a few pounds over six weeks, but also lost a few inches around the midsection. My shirt no longer has the tell tale exploding button. You've probably seen it. That button on a dress shirt that is so tight around the belly that it's in danger of bursting out like a gunshot.

Others were similarly happy with the weight loss challenge. Pamela was satisfied with her increase in conditioning and will try it again. Carlos, the torturer, aka trainer, was satisfied knowing that he has introduced another group to the fears...errr...cheerful part of exercising. One young bloke lost not only enough weight to win the competition, but actually became a year younger! Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit...

At least two contestants left the challenge looking completely skinny- I'll call them Joe and Ms. Tour de France. But, then they entered the challenge looking completely skinny... Why were they in the contest? Rumor has it that heavy people attract groupies...



Or maybe not..

Our trainers would probably say it's for increased conditioning,better muscle tone etc.. You know all that healthy stuff.

Many thanks to Carlos, Sam and Danny for training us beyond the limit of normal couch potatoes.

Until the next competition....

Some thoughts on Cohen, Sinatra and life

I was half asleep on the couch the other day after a session at the gym, when a Leonard Cohen special came on the television. "Leonard who?" I thought, but was too tired to change the channel. I lay sprawled across the sofa, listening to this old guy sing. A good rhytmn, nice deep voice, incredible lyrics.. Soon I was sitting straight up and watching the television transfixed. This cat can sing!

He had a cool style to him and songs that really made me wonder why I hadn't heard of him before. I thought he was cool in a way that Sinatra only pretended to be.

To me (and I realize this is a minority opinion), most Sinatra songs give me a headache. Strangers in Night and Seventeen are good songs- but most of his songs have a frivolous quality to them that makes me feel like switching the station. Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars... Give me a break.

But, Cohen seemed to sing his songs with a authority that came from a lifetime of hard won wisdom.

"Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried I might win."

"Ah but a man never got a woman back. Not by begging on his knees. Or I'd crawl to you, baby and I'd crawl at your feet."

It's good stuff. A cool facade, a smooth delivery, and layers of depth.

If only my closing arguments could be so good!

"You can take Joe off your list of contacts"

"Hey, and by the way, you can take Joe off your list of business contacts," said my brother Carlos casually in the midst of a conversation about the family dinner that night.

"What do you mean," I asked.

"He died this morning," said Carlos with his usual tact.

"What?" I said, trying to make sense of things "Are you serious?"

Carlos was serious, but almost immediately the conversation returned to the family dinner. In my family, men dwell little on feelings of loss and much on ribs and related meat products. But, as we talked about the ribs for the family dinner and whether I would show up on time for once, I thought about Joe.

Joe (a pseudonym) was one of my brother's closest friends. He was a hell of a nice guy. I knew him as a client, but his relationship with my brother Carlos went back to the beginning of Carlos' career as a nurse. Joe was a mentor to him, but due to health concerns was unable to keep working.

I met Joe as a client referred by Carlos and was surprised to see that he was not only gay, but proudly and loudly so.

"Are you sure you're my brother's friend?" I was tempted to ask on many occasions. My brother, to say the least, isn't the world's most sensitive and reflective man. His nickname among my childhood friends was Hitler. He was proud of that nickname.

Joe, on the other hand, was almost completely without guile. He was a client that shared his feelings, fears and concerns. Sometimes he drove my staff to the point of madness with his continued questions and worries. But, in the end, we were able to end his worries with a complete victory in his case.

However, he would still call me afterwards from time to time with lingering concerns or worries.

But, now I guess he's off my list of contacts for good. He's off of Carlos' friend list, but is definitely not forgotten.

My gruff brother took a full plate of food from family rib night to Joe's partner and stayed up with him. He may not have tact, but my brother is always there for people.

Reunion

"Are you sure you went to high school with these guys?" the wife asks me. I glance around the room of people at my 20th high school reunion-Chula Vista High Class of 1989. Only a few faces seem familiar.

"Well, I might have represented that guy with the shaved head," I say as we take our seat at a table.

"I can't believe it's been twenty years," says the guy sitting next to me.

"I can't believe any of you went to school with me," I start to say, but the wife cuts me off with one of her famous "Be nice." looks.

"I can't believe it, either, I say" as I listen to the guy's story about how he's sellling insurance nowdays. He seems happy- selling policies and living the single life.

Another former classmate tells me about her life being married to a Navy seal turned policeman. She seems like a nice person and I probably would have enjoyed knowing her, but with a few exceptions the evening goes like this. People mention that I look familiar and I wonder if I've ever seen them before.

I talk to a few people that I remember, but don't really see any of the old crew. I looked forward to seeing maybe 10 to 15 people, but if they're here I can't recognize them. I wonder if maybe I look different also- I was a skinny kid with braces. Now, I'm a supersized lawyer with an easy smile. Some one asks me if I'm in politics.

"Sure he is," my wife says laughing.

I spend the evening surveying the room, drinking my vodka tonic and enjoying my wife's company. I decide that it's a good time even if I don't remember anyone. Maybe it's better not to remember?

The band, finally, gives up on 80's tunes and plays a few Latin jams. The wife and I get out and dance. Then we dance some more.

We talk and joke a bit more with the people at our table and then take off.

"Are you sure you went to school with these people?" she asks as we walk back to the car. The air feels tropical, reminding me of Puerto Rico on our honeymoon.

"Sure. Even if I don't remember them, they're all friends."

More fun with kettle bells!

"I can't breathe," said Pamela, sweat pouring down her forehead.
"That's good," responded the Torturer "You'll lose more weight that way"





As I drove up to the YMCA parking lot, I saw my team hopping up the hill leading to the lot while swinging the kettle bell up and down between their legs. They looked like characters in a grown up version of Romper Room. Carlos stood by with his characteristic Torturer smile. I was tempted to keep driving, but then he spotted me.

"Um...what exactly are we doing today," I asked when I met up with the group.

"Working the core."

"Okay..." I said doubtfully as I grabbed a kettle bell and set to hoppping.

I spent the next half hour hopping like a five hundred pound bunny and trying to avoid swinging the kettle bell into the family jewels. Then, Carlos relented and let us into the gym to exercise on elliptical machines and normal gym equipment.

I was never so happy to see the elliptical machine!

Hump Day!

It's Wednesday and I'm beyond tired. In 32 minutes, I have to take off to an afternoon of court in the Imperial Valley, but it's hard to motivate oneself to travel to 120 degree weather. I look forward to court, but the walking from the parking lot to the court house feels like a leisurely stroll in an oven.

But, responsibility calls...

Torrey Pines Death March and Return of Ruben

(In the above picture- Ruben is in the blue, I'm the muscular man in white, the torturer is wearing black, and Pam is on the other end of the camera! Others remain anonymous due to witness protection rules...)


This Saturday morning, Carlos the torturer got us together at Torrey Pines for a nice stroll down to the beach. It was a beautiful day, there was a wonderful blue ocean and there were only occasional sounds of rattlesnakes along the path.

My friend Ruben, who quit after the first meeting of the weight loss challenge, showed up with an eye towards entering the next competition. Also present were a couple members of Carlos' team, another trainer, and the professional cyclist from the last competition. There were also a couple significant others- two quiet puzzled looking men who seemed to wonder what exactly their women had gotten them into. My significant other, she of the thin waist line, stayed at home watching Lifetime and relaxing.

Torrey Pines is a beautiful place to go to the beach- clean sand and ocean as far the eye can see. Unfortunately, Carlos had us start some two miles of windy dirt trails away from the beach. I don't want to say that he exposed us to dangerous wild life, but I think the following picture speaks for itself:



Pretty scary stuff, no?

It takes a brave heart to be a member of the YMCA weight loss team.

The Smith Machine will Smythe you!

Here's a guest column from the always welcome Pam.

“Good thing I work from home as any hope of putting on deodorant this week has faded as I can no longer lift my arms past my hips. I wonder if they taught the torturer in school to say, “You can do it” to everyone he meets. And when are we going to get those t-shirts so the 100+ fit, svelte, tone YMCA members surrounding us in the gym and class understand our motivation rather than thinking we are in the wrong place and should be in the pool wearing bathing caps and skorts.” Pam

Yet another victim of the torturer. As I went through the workout Monday night, I thought about how working out can be a humbling prospect when you are out of shape and heavy like I am. At 19, I was never the biggest guy in the gym, but was always one of the strongest. Now at 38, I'm definitely the biggest guy in the gym! But, I'm nowhere near the strongest.

There's too much that goes wrong when I hit the weights. Today we used the infamous Smith machine, which is a cage with different resting points for the weights that you'll be lifting. I used to love the Smith machine, but Monday was a bad night for me and Smith.

When I tried to squat, I felt a pain in my knee and was relegated to doing squats that consisted of sitting down on a big box wooden and getting back up again. It felt like the equivalent of getting up out of my lazy boy at home, except without beer.

When I did a bench press in the Smith machine, my back ended up seizing up, which limited me to the lightest of weights- maybe a full third of what I could lift before.

The worst part of the workout though is probably looking at the mirrors that are spread throughout the gym.

"Look at that jelly belly trying to lift a tiny weight over his head," I say before realizing that the jelly belly is me!

The competition and a guest blog

First a guest Blog- from another member of Carlos' team. Pam is the emotional leader of our team and her good humor keeps us on track.

If I wrote down the measurements correctly then the good news is I lost inches in my chest but apparently it sunk to my waist! I told Carlos that next weigh in I am wearing Spanx like the celebrities use on the red carpet. I do feel better and maybe it is the beginning of when I melt away. Thanks to the team and the “torturer” (after his class last night I am finding it difficult to lift my arms for my weekend dining) for keeping me motivated to keep going.



Pam

Now, on to your regularly scheduled blogging.

On Friday night, we had a team weigh in and a competition with the other two teams. After two weeks with the torturer, you might think that we were all too banged up to compete with two other teams- but the other two teams have their own torturers..er..trainers. They are allegedly pushing their teams just as hard as Carlos is pushing us. The official results aren't in yet, but it seems like every team has lost weight and inches.

The competition required us to see which team was fastest on three machines- the bike, elliptical and the treadmill. It was only a twenty minute interval, so we all went all out. Carlos would come around to offer encouraging words- "Is that really the fastest you can go? Are you still warming up?". Just kidding. He was actually very supportive tonight.

I actually ended up second in my event- the bicycle. I was 0.07 miles behind the first place finisher, an employee of the YMCA that I suspect has competed in the Tour de France before.

I was proud of the team effort, though we somehow ended up last among the three teams. The way I see it- we're keeping a low profile until the final competition.

Next up, a hike in Torrey pines this coming Saturday. I invited the wife to come along. "Hiking?" she asked with a tone of voice that made me realize that I'll be joining the group alone. The wife prefers to hike on a treadmill with mp3 music. I prefer to hike in my dreams, while napping on the sofa...

Kettle Bell Hell

"Go for twenty. Okay fifteen." said Carlos the "torturer" with his usual smile. His bald head gleamed with sweat and I imagined for a moment that I could see my reflection there- a 6'2" man struggling to lift a tiny kettle bell over his head for what seemed like the millionth time.

"Come on, you can do ten." Carlos barked. Ten? I was aiming for five at this point.

I struggled to lift the tiny kettle bell, but ended up dropping it on the ground in defeat. It was an hour and twenty five minutes into the workout and I was beyond tired.

The workout had begun with a session on the elliptical machine.

"Exercise at your level 7," Carlos intoned, meaning that we should find our internal level at which we were expending 70% effort. But, looking around at my group, the sweat was pouring down at an external level of 9 or 10.

"At least, we're not doing kettle bells," I commented to a team member.

Every five minutes, one of us was taken from the elliptical machine and subjected to a...well...torturous workout on the treadmill. The workout consisted of walking up a step incline while shoulder pressing a heavy medicine ball. By the end of my turn with the medicine ball, my shoulders were sore and I was out of breath. I could have happily ended the workout then, but the session had just begun. Carlos pulled out the devious little contraptions.

"Kettle Bells?" one of my workout partners said in disbelief. Carlos just smiled.

The kettle bell was designed by Russians almost a hundred years ago. It is an innocent looking thing- a little ball with a handle that weighs almost nothing until you lift it over your head a few dozen times. Then the weight feels heavier and heavier.

Carlos had us alternate lifting the kettle bell with various exercises- squats, running while carrying weights, etc. My shoulders ached with each repetition and I thought the workout would never end.

Then a surprise, the torturer relented.

"Okay," Carlos said finally "Just walk around the building and the workout is over.."

There was a skip in my step until he handed me two heavy weights to take with me. You'd think I had enough weight to carry...

But, I survived to workout and to blog another day.

My jealous mistress

Yesterday, I missed my first team workout. I was stuck in a desert courthouse over in Imperial County. I was defending a client in a multi-defendant drug case. It was a tough case in which a preliminary hearing lasted over a couple days. There was a good deal of good lawyering and the case drew me in obsessively.

Today, I was the last lawyer to cross examine the special agent on the stand. I watched four of my colleagues, distinguished criminal defense lawyers, pepper the agent with questions. It was fun to watch the different styles- an outraged lawyer, followed by a methodical questioner, then a folksy examiner and a scholarly lawyer. Good lawyers come in all sorts of styles. Finally, it was my turn. It's hard for me to analyze my own style- maybe a plus size version of Jimmy Stewart with humor?

Under my cross examination, the agent admitted various facts that helped my client. I won't go into them here as it's an ongoing case, but I received a few compliments from court staff and it felt good to have held my own amongst my colleagues.

Unfortunately, by the time I left Imperial County, there was no way to make it to my workout. I had a quick dinner of chicken, drove home and fell asleep with a little feeling of guilt.

Next workout on Wednesday. The torturer awaits..

The Y in YMCA stands for Yowww!

Yesterday was the revenge of the trainer. Our trainer Carlos, affectionately known as the torturer, came up with a workout that made all of us in the weight loss team regret that we'd ever heard of hamburgers or of a life before healthy eating.

The three of us in the team that showed up to the 2nd workout were all late. Probably a mistake. Carlos looked at us with a smile, sweat gleaming off his shaved head.

"Let's get started."

He cut short the warm ups and led us outside behind the building to a long concrete fence that looked like the setting for a rifle execution. Carlos' smile grew wider as he explained that we were to do wind sprints.

A wind sprint is the YMCA's answer to waterboarding. You run as hard as you can for 5 yards, touch the floor and run back to your starting point, touch the floor and continue the process for ten yards, fifteen yards, twenty yards and twenty five yards until you drop. When I was in the boxing club, wind sprints were relatively easy- at a hundred pounds lighter, I moved through them like greased lightning. Now, the only thing greased about me was the breakfast sitting in my belly.

I stumbled through the first five yards, staggered through the next ten yards and somehow dragged myself through fifteen yards. I don't know how I made it to twenty and twenty five yards. By the time we were done, I was ready to fall over (maybe into a nice sofa). However, Carlos took us straight into squats, kettle bell exercises and a myriad of other exertions.

All in all it was sheer torture for legs that already have a tough enough time carrying me around. By the middle of the workout, we were all exhausted. By the end of the workout, we were beyond exhausted.

But, strangely enough, I awoke the next morning feeling strangely refreshed and full of energy. It made me think that there might be something to this exercise racket.

Weight loss challenge and booze

Some twelve years ago, I entered law school as a relatively skinny man. Little did I know that my life style was about to change. My circle of friends changed from the undergraduate hoops playing gym rats to a circle of carne asada eating, long island drinking future lawyers and such. Slowly, I changed also. Instead of starting out the day with a workout- sometimes it was a meeting at Denny's with a study group.

It just got worse as I actually entered the profession of law. Suddenly I could afford to eat out daily and there were many more happy hours.

This brings us to last night. After a strong weekend of eating light and a couple tough gym workouts, I found myself out with one of my closest buddies- a supersized lawyer that we'll call Jake.

We went out for drinks after a long day in court and at first, I stuck to my regimen. I ordered roast chicken for dinner, while he wolfed down a steak salad, a plate of cheese and most of a pizza. But, then the stresses of a day in court got to me. I had a couple drinks to relax and before I knew it, a couple drinks turned into several.

I shudder to count the calories from yesterday, but choose instead to concentrate on tonight's workout in hopes that I'll get back on track again.

The road to skinnyville is lined with many detours.

Weight loss challenge

My good friend Ruben and I joined the YMCA's weight loss challenge this past Friday. We were placed into teams of four and given workout schedules with weekly weigh ins. I'm already feeling changes in my behavior. I've been eating less and hit the gym for my hardest workout in months on Saturday. Tonight is my first workout with my team.

It's strange to reflect on my weight, because for most of my life (maybe the first 28 years) I wasn't overweight. I was always what you might refer to as borderline athletic. I wasn't a star in anything athletic related- but I could always run for a few miles, bench press over a couple hundred pounds and could defend myself decently in a fight against anyone I was likely to encounter. I could always stand to lose a few pounds or spend extra time in the gym, but I was reasonably content.

Now, I think I can still defend myself (given a big enough stick), but I don't think I'd make it running a few miles unless I was being chased by someone. I could lift a couple hundred pounds on the bench press, but my back would make me pay for each pound.


The truth is that I'm proud to have hit 20 minutes on the elliptical machine and ten minutes of swimming. It's a long way from where I used to be. But, the journey back is never impossible so long as I have breath and sufficient health. Hopefully, with the help of my team, I'll begin the trek back to good health.

Rays Law

Men are much more sentimental than women give us credit for being. We're just sentimental about stupid things. I may not remember the first conversation I had with my wife, but I'll never forget the first time that I saw my red mustang. It was half destroyed from a front end collision, but was absolutely beautiful.

A few bucks and several weeks later, it looked as good as new and I placed my personalized plate- ("Ray's Law") on the red mustang. It was the beginning of an adventure that lasted from law school to my second job as a prosecutor in the Imperial Valley.

The car was really too tiny for it's 6'2" gorilla of a driver, but somehow on weekend nights, it fit me and a zoo crew of friends as well. We'd drive to the worst (and most enjoyable) areas of Tijuana and Ray's Law was always quick to find us a parking spot or, occasionally, a quick exit.

The radio was always blasting good music- from Rock en Espanol to Marvin Gaye to Vicente Fernandez, the stereo knew no international boundaries. I once blasted country music while driving down Compton looking for some good barbeque.

With me as the driver, the car had it's share of accidents and breakdowns. Once it broke down in East LA at midnight as I was on my way to visit a friend. A couple of times, the car left us stranded in Tijuana- looking for a late night mechanical fix to bring it back across the border. There also was the time I rear ended a semi-truck..

Despite its sporty appearance, the mustang was never really the fastest vehicle. I would race with two other friends and would invariably end up in third place.

Yet, I still miss the car. My Tundra is more comfortable, practical, etc- but Ray's Law just doesn't seem to fit it as a personalized plate. It fit better as a motto for a car that followed it's own rules- never the fastest, but always reaching its destination in style.

Regarding Eddie

I have a friend who is a murderer. You would never have guessed it to look at him. He's kind of an overgrown kid, prone to nervous laughter and a fantastical view of the world. When I first met Eddie though another friend, he talked to me about the power of the mind. He said that I could use these self hypnosis tapes to improve everything in my life. I mumbled something about not being quite happy with mediocrity, but he made me take a tape back with me. Of course, I fell asleep listening to it. We kept in touch throughout the years- occasionally he would join my group of friends for a movie, a fishing trip or just a drink at someone's house. Eddie began to get increasingly involved in Eastern philosophy and would call me at work to read me some passage from the Dalai Lama, insisting that as a part Asian, this was my heritage. He'd try to talk to me and the other guys about the possibility of astral travel. We'd laugh at the idea of sending your spirit to travel around the world, but Eddie was always good natured about our reactions. He would just laugh along with us. His good nature was something that I always enjoyed about him.

So, how does this bring us to murder? To be honest, I'm not really sure. One day, Eddie started a relationship with a woman named Anna- a sweet woman that he saved from an abusive relationship. They dated for almost ten years- sometimes going out with my wife and I. Often, they would break up and Eddie would be despondent, but they always seemed to find their way back together. Eventually, they had a child together- a wonderfully messy boy that always seemed to have a face smeared with chocolate. On a couple occasions, I remember kicking the boy and the father out of my office for smearing chocolate across my furniture and wall. Eddie would laughingly apologize, then call me later with yet another quote from the Dalai Lama.

During Eddie's last breakup with Anna, he was living in a small room in a house near a park. He seemed to be the normal Eddie- doing well at his job in Albertson's as a meat cutter, enjoying the simple pleasures of an occasional movie and trying to spend as much time with his son as possible.

Then, one weekend, I received several calls from Eddie's mother. When I called her back, I found out that Eddie had been arrested for throwing Anna off a second story balcony, eventually killing her.

Due to confidentiality rules, I can't tell you what Eddie told me about the incident when I went to see him, but the San Diego Union ran a series of articles on Eddie and the incident.

All I can say is that it is tough for me to picture my friend behind bars. I keep expecting the phone to ring with another quote from Eddie on eastern philosophy.

Here's a quote that he probably would have liked:

"Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion."

Who you gonna call?

A ghost was seen in my house. Honest. My neice-in-law, who is only slightly prone to exaggeration saw a black shape scurry across one wall and then disappear down a hallway. Her shrieks at seeing this ghost, almost woke the dead. And her sighting has lead to a number of ghost stories told by similarly honest members of my wife's family.

"Stop laughing," my wife would invariably say as I cackled away each time her sister or aunt would tell a new story. She's right. Ghosts are no laughing matter.

In fact, I once almost came face to face with a ghost... It's a terrifying tale, so I'd suggest you gather together with your loved once before reading on.

It happened once upon a time, when I was, uncharacteristically sprawled across a sofa watching something enlightening on the television. I heard a noise behind me that almost made me choke on my cheerios. There was a sawing sound that seemed to be coming closer and closer.

Once commercial time came, I rushed to see where the sound was coming from- but it had disappeared.

I returned to watching the TV and began to reassemble my lap top and dinner plate in the right configuration, when the sound came again. I leapt up from the couch, but couldn't quite tell where the sound was coming from. Could it be the backyard?

I went to the garage for a suitably big stick, but when I returned the sound was gone again. I then proceeded to walk the perimeter of my house listening for the sound and looking for anything suspicious.

"What the heck are you doing," asked my wife when she arrived to see me stalking around the yard in my underwear, brandishing a pool cue. I explained about the sound. She just rolled her eyes.

As it turned out, that sawing sound was a mouse gnawing on the pipes. (I'll detail his capture later- lets just say that he became a ghost.) But, for a while, it could have been explained as a ghost.

I think a ton of ghost sitings are explainable by normal phenomena mixed with an overactive imagination.

My father has, I believe, the best approach to ghosts that I've seen. He once heard people playing on an old family pool table in the middle of the night. He reasoned that since it was unlikely that a robber would play pool that it must be a ghost. Thus comforted, he went to sleep.

My wife's family doesn't take the same attitude towards ghosts. Her niece ran when she saw the black shape on the wall. Other family members shivered upon hearing of the sighting and gave their own ghost stories.

I tend to be unafraid of ghosts, like my father, but to play it safe, I leave a light on downstairs so the black shape can find its way around...

No reason not to be polite to the ghosts among us.

Just another Monday

It's 5:54 PM and I am taking a small break from the paperwork accumulated on my desk. Just outside my office, my paralegal team is concentrating on their work, they are quiet, save the constant typing of the computer keyboards. This is MSA, or marital settlement agreement week, and we are going over maybe five of them this week.

I am going through messages, to make sure nothing important was missed, and have about three cases that I need to deal with tonight.

This is the unglamorous side of law, just paperwork and phone calls (or, more accurately, emails).

A good friend of mine is in a murder jury trial and I truly envy him at times like this!

My reward after another hour of this- Palapas a great new restaurant in Chula Vista. Do you like real pollo asada? Do you love Mexican style fruit stands? This is the best of both.

Nice guys finish first?

A friend of mine is constantly asked how he can be an effective lawyer, being so nice.

His answer, white teeth flashing, "I'm not always so nice."

But, bravado aside, I've always thought that nice guys like him get a bad rap. I don't think that jerk do well in the legal profession, because of a many reasons. One, who wants to hire a jerk. Second, whenever someone is a jerk in a legal proceeding, he is always inviting the other attorney's "A" game. Whenever the opposing attorney is giving me a difficult time, it makes me more likely to respond in kind.

In real life, my friends tell me that jerks get all the pretty women...then, pause, look at the picture of my pretty wife and say that I'm an exception to the rule.

"Or maybe you're just a bigger jerk than we thought..."

But, in reality, I think that normal men and women are attracted to people that make them feel happy. Nice guys, so long as they aren't doormats, tend to do better with pretty women for the simple fact that they treat them better. The "jerk" that you see out with Ms. Universe, probably isn't a jerk to her.

Of course, there are exceptions, but I think that nice guys actually usually finish first.

A bit of a break from blogging

I'm working on a couple longish blog entries- a humorous family piece, "My brother, Hitler," and a kind of sarcastic political piece on "holier than thou" activists that do drugs.

But, it may be a while before either comes into print.

In the meantime, I wish you all a Happy Easter!

Some Poetry

First, some honesty- from a lawyer, nonetheless! Although I really enjoy poetry and admire good poets, 90% of the poetry that I've written in my life was probably written to impress a girl. Like many of my friends, I spent a good deal of my pre-married life chasing after pretty women. At UC Berkeley, many girls liked poetry- so I ended up writing a ton of cheezy poems.

Some of the poems were just funny invites to a coffee or a dinner.

Others were more traditional "come hither" poems- "come share with me a lover's night, no moon, nor stars, just you and I, two lights in darkness, together so bright."

For a period of time when I was seeing an actual poet, I wrote more traditional poems- about world issues like AIDS- "I write to you, who could never write to me, your night has passed to stars that we can no longer see, etc, etc.." I think some of these poems were even published, but I have no illusions about the skill level.

Here's a sample (reproduced by memory) of my work.



The Baby

She lies next to me tonight
Her slender arms clutching a
Baby Doll she thinks she
may never really have

Tears run slowly down her
Small brown eyes and she looks
out to the world through
a watery prism that sees only
the pain that remains

A night of red, gray, and black
when a man too much like me
showed her what a woman was for
A friendship betrayed under a moon
that had belonged to lovers
the light of the stars faded
Never to return

No, she cries
The tears fall faster now
I put my clumsy arm around her
and she just clutches the baby tighter
Finding in the baby doll the hope
She can't find in me anymore

She lies next to me tonight
Her slender arms holding a
Baby Doll that I wish
We could have really had



And that's why I became a lawyer instead of a poet!

Here's a link to some poetry that I like

Willie Perdomo

Geoff Bouvier

Lizz Huerta


The first two were teachers of mine- they had to put up with having a hypercritical lawyer in their workshops.

"So, what exactly is so great about Kafka's weird sentences?"
"What if I don't especially feel like writing about my childhood?"
"What's the point of this?"

But, they were both incredibly patient and informative. I recommend their poetry books to anyone with an amazon.com account. Perdomo's poetry is fun, incisive and actually educational about social issues. You can learn a lot about the streets, reading his work. Sometimes, it's more fun to listen to his work as you'll see from the link. As a fellow "mutt", I enjoy his takes on what it feels like to be considered both black and Latino.

Bouvier is more cerebral and nerdy in his approach- the finely constructed sentence turned on its head, hidden messages in the poetry and such... You can easily spend an hour contemplating a single poem in his book "Living Room." His best work is not online, but in the book, so I urge you to buy a copy (or, if you know me, borrow mine.)

The third poet, Lizz Huerta, has no books for purchase online, but has a blog where she will be posting a poem a day. I haven't read enough of her poems to launch a full critique- but the poem that I linked- "To Know" is a brilliant analysis of your typical Latino father- sacrificing for his children and swallowing his pain, but perhaps sacrificing his children by his emotional distance. It has a beautiful allusion to the story of Abraham and Isaac.

I have always loved poetry- Gustavo Adolfo Bequer, Neruda, Emerson and many others were inspiring to me and enriching to my life. It's wonderful to see how a tiny poem can have a depth that is so profound. Sometimes even just a line sticks with you. Like "if eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being."

Pretty cool stuff. Poetry- it's not just for chasing women!

April Fools Jokes

I've always been something of a joker. My instinct has always been to find the funny side of life, even in stressful situations. Moments before my surgery for cancer, I was joking with the surgeon about whether he'd paid his malpractice premium. Friends say that had I been on the Titanic, I probably would have been doing stand up.

So, in the spirit of April Fool's day, I thought it'd be fun to scribble down a few stories about funny pranks that I played on people.

Story #1- The Chicken Incident

On of my closest friends- I'll call him JC (because as a lawyer he might sue me!). Anyway, JC and I had the exact same model of phone. We were running errands for work and my phone was almost out of charge.

"Do you mind if I charge my phone on your charger," I asked.

"My phone isn't fully charged yet," he said, not bothering to look at me.

"But it has more charge than my phone. I'm almost out."

"I said no." he said, still looking ahead.

Inwardly, I seethed with irritation. I really needed my phone as I was expecting a call from my fiance (and now wife). So, I did slight of hand. While JC looked ahead, I switched phones on him- placing my phone in the charger.

We drove around for a while and out of boredom, I checked to see what ringtones he'd downloaded. It turned out that he had the same funky chicken ringtone that I had. It gave me an idea.

"So, we're here," J.C. said when we had arrived back at court for the afternoon calendar. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah, see you," I said, but I followed him down the hall way a few steps back. I waited until he approached a group of officers that were his witnesses for the afternoon. Then I dialed his phone.

"CACKLE DODOO DODOOO! CACKLE DODOO DODOO!" came the sound from his ringtone. with any accompanying disco beat. The officers that were with him stared at him and then burst into laughter.

"Nice phone, counselor.."

Story #2- Sing, mothertrucker!

When I was a teenager, I had an interesting relationship with my oldest brother Mario. We would steal from each other. Nothing serious- mostly music and clothes. He would see a cassette of mine that he liked and, being bigger than me, would take it. I would respond by going to his house or car, and taking two CDs. Then he might snag my favorite sweater, while I would respond by taking his shirts. Being ten years older and actually having money to buy good stuff, Mario almost always came out losing in the exchange. He would complain to my father, but it fell on deaf ears.

"You should be setting an example for your brother. You're the older one." Papa would say and Mario would grumble.

Then came the famous car crash of the Pontiac T1000. In addition to larceny, my brother and I shared bad driving in common. No one else in the family had crashed as many vehicles. My latest victim was my Pontiac economy car- chosen by my father because it could not exceed fifty miles per hour and was presumably very safe for me. As it turned out, it wasn't very safe for my Aunt Betty's car. I totaled both cars in a collison that happened while I fiddled with my new car radio.

The Pontiac ended up at my brother's used car dealership. He took the car radio out and put in his car and showed it off to me while I grumbled.

"I'll give it back to you when you get a new car," he said. "In the meantime, try singing?"

But, when I got my next car- a wonderful Datsun pickup that you could drive with either keys or a screwdriver- Mario refused to give me the radio back. He offered me a used radio from the dealership and easily deflected my attempts to take it by force- I was tall and gym strong, but my brother Mario has always been street strong.

I ended up returning to the dealership when he wasn't present and borrowing a slim jim from the car lot. This was a tool used to open cars without a key- it was a slim piece of metal with a hook that you could use to jimmy a lock.

That night, I drove to his house in Tijuana and parked next to his car. It took only a second to open the car and another few seconds to remove the radio, but I felt like I was going to be discovered at any moment. Sure enough, I'd just finished locking his car back up when Mario emerged from his house.

"Dinner?" I asked, dropping the radio surreptiously at my feet and kicking it under my car. My brother grabbed me in a headlock, but then dragged me into the house and fed me. It was a wonderful dinner of meat, tortillas and salsa. After about five tacos, I got ready to leave.

"Can I borrow a piece of paper and a pencil," I asked.

"Not a problem, Mario said. He advised me to be careful when I went clubbing, evidently thinking the paper was to jot down phone numbers.

Instead, when I left, I used the slim jim again and left a note in the gaping hole where the radio had been.

"Sing, mothertrucker!"

A night out on the town- Remembered

Back in my college days in Berkeley, cars were hard to come by. Because of the lack of parking and the general lack of funds, few of my friends owned a car. I was lucky enough to have an Audi that my dad helped me buy at an auction for 1500 bucks. As you might expect for a 1500 dollar car, it had few of the bells and whistles normally associated with a European luxury cars. The windows rolled up with a handle and the air conditioning worked by rolling the windows down. The color was a combination of silver and gold..shall we say a rusty gold. But the Audi was reliable and fit a ton of my friends.

One day, my friend Suli asked me if I could loan him the car for a date.

"I don't think so. No one drives the Audi but me.”

"How about if you come with us and I pay for your drinks?"

I still wasn’t crazy about the idea, but free drinks were free drinks, so I reluctantly agreed.

On the way to the car, I bumped into my friends Cody and Brian and invited them to join us. If I was to be the third wheel, then why not add a fourth or a fifth wheel? Soon, a car full of four guys was on its way to San Francisco for Suli's date.

We parked in a rough area of San Francisco. There was a large group of mostly black males loitering on the corner as we walked to the apartment where we were going to pick up Suli’s date.

“Where are you, young uns going,” came a gravely voice belonging to a large man on the corner. “Why don’t you come and talk at us?” He looked over a group much the way a coyote probably looks over a chicken coop. Suli was black and nerdy with a pair of glasses thick enough to use to start fire in survival situations. I was tall, but as always I was as threatening as a six foot tall teddy bear. And Cody and Brian were short white guys...

“It’s cool, man” said Suli in the whitest inflection known to man. His voice shook, but he couldn't help sounding like Bryant Gumbel. He was black, but grown up in an Asian neighborhood. The guys on the corner looked at his dark skin and seemed unhappy. “We’re just going to pick up my woman and we’ll be out of here.”

“Are you for real? Damn Oreo.” came a voice with a lot of bass. This was from a guy who looked jittery as he approached us. Was he coming off a bad drug trip? I mentally calculated the odds of reaching the car if I took off running.. It didn't seem likely that any of us could take any of them in a fight.

“Hey, don’t be messing with my bro. You’ve got to show respect,” came a booming voice in a very realistic African American inflection behind me. I turned to look in the direction of the voice- there was Cody, all 5'2" of him, walking towards the guys with a Jefferson strut “This is your hood, but that’s his woman we’re picking up. Cool?”

Laughter ensued. “Man, you’re alright..” said the gravely voice and the guys left us alone after that.

Suli's date ended up being a good sport- she danced with all of us at the club and even treated me to a non alcoholic drink for being the driver. We stayed at the club until closing time and all became instant friends.

"This is the best date ever," she said "Four dance partners!"

On the way back to her apartment, Suli feel asleep. Cody and Brian started tossing pennies at him to try to wake him up. Eventually, his date joined in the fun. Suli would paw at the location where the pennies landed, but wouldn't wake up.

We dropped his date off at her apartment and Suli finally woke up halfway on the bridge back to Berkeley.

"Where's my date?"

Brian hit him with a another penny and a I drove the Audi back home.

Goddess of Cleanliness

Those of you that know me, know that my natural state is somewhat messy. My truck is filled with miscellaneous junk- ties that I've discarded after court, a brief case or two, papers, tools and God knows what else. It's often an adventure to fit passengers in my truck. My personal office within my law office is similar- the desk top is filled with papers that I am working on and the drawers are filled with books, electronic gizmos, tea canisters, tools and much else.

Yet, when you come to my house it's impeccably clean. A nice lawn leading to a beautifully decorated entry way. Sometimes the door will have a wreath or roses for Valentines or a similar holiday decoration. Inside the house you'll beautiful and comfortable golden sofas, a mahogany dining table with a matching vanity cabinet- the cabinet filled with beautiful crystals and the table set with a candle motif centerpiece.

The only thing out of place in the house is probaby the ruffled man wearing half a suit who is sprawled half in and half out of a leather loveseat with one hand on the remote control and a lap top on..well...his lap. He blogs away, while his wife watches, as observant as a CSI investigator, looking for any signs of messiness. Seeing if the man's leg will knock over the glass of juice...

The man, of course, is me and my wife is truly a Goddess to put up with my messiness. She graciously allows me a spare room and a garage for my messy habits! The rest of the house, thankfully, is hers!

Dancing Machine!

On Friday night, we went out dancing with a group of a friends. There was a great local band, playing more and more latin songs as the night went on. The night started out with Mustang Sally and graduated to "Negra Tomasa," "Suavemente," and other great songs.

As a confession, I should say that I've always been a lousy dancer- uncoordinated, completely unabashed, and close to impossible to get off the dance floor. A couple of times, I dated very good dancers who tried to improve my skills, but were continually frustrated. As one of them complained; "All you seem to care about when you are dancing is goofing around and making yourself laugh.."

Luckily, my wife is in on the joke- though she groans when I offer to give people lessons in any type of dance they want ("You don't know how to dance the tango? Come on, I'll show you.")

On this Friday night, one of my friends- Tony- was paired up with a ballroom dancer. She went over the steps that he should follow for the cha-cha-cha and many other dances. My wife and I watched as she patiently guided him through the different routines.

"Maybe someday, he'll be as good as I am?"

"Yeah, right..."

Meanwhile, the rest of us just moved in random to the music. It was a great night- lousy service, but a great band. We had a table of about 8 people, and there was generally only one couple left at the table with purse watching duty with everyone else dancing.

If you get a chance, check out the South Bay Bar and Grill on Friday nights. That big dancing bear that you see, just might be me.

Give thanks to the turkey! A eulogy of sorts....

My great aunt had her funeral yesterday. I didn't go- largely because of work, but also because I really hate funerals. I rationalize not going by reasoning that I never really knew my great aunt well, though I do have one memory that lingers.

It was Thanksgiving Day and I was six or seven years old. I had been shooed out of the kitchen all morning by my mother and sisters and was now looking at the spread table with all the excitement of a rather large chihuahua running after table scraps. The table was filled with fresh baked rolls that smelled like butter. There were bowls full of stuffing, mashed potatoes and my mom's famous gravy. And in a starring role, just inches from me, was a perfectly golden turkey. I could barely contain myself.

Looking around the table, I could see that the family was eager to eat as well. My two sisters were eying the warm rolls. My three brothers, like me, had their eyes on the turkey. There were two turkey legs and four of us... Only my father was indifferent to the food, seated at his recliner, with an eye on the game.

As my mother carved the turkey, a special guest, my great aunt looked at her sternly from her small seat of honor at the head of the table. It was unusual for us all to be seated at the table, usually at Thanksgiving we grabbed food and spread out throughout the house, but my great aunt's presence demanded a certain formality.

"Se ve que le pusiste mucho esfuerzo a la comida, Nancy." said my great Aunt in Spanish.

"What? Oh. yes, it took a lot to put this together. I hope..espero que te guste." replied my mother, graciously as she expertly sliced the big bird.

The moment, my mom put down the knife, my brother snaked an arm across the table and grabbed one of the turkey legs. There was a brief commotion as one of my sisters reached over for a roll and the rest of us leaned forward to serve ourselves.

"Jesu Christo. Que hacen?" came a voice that froze us all in mid air "Todavia no le damos gracias al senor." By this she meant that we had yet to say grace, which was definitely not a tradition in our house.

I thought for a half second and then quipped; "Gracias al senor? Ok, Thanks papa." and grabbed the second turkey leg. Everyone but my aunt laughed. A free for all assault on the food followed.

My aunt never came back to our house after that, but it became a yearly tradition to thank the "senor" or my Dad at the Estolano house.

I hope that my great aunt in heaven, looks down at us not as heretics, but with a sense of humor about religion and family. I hope also that my uncle, who offered a middle finger as his final words to priests coming to see him, is also looking down at us with a smile.

In this world, we take religion too seriously and don't leave much room for the idea that God has a sense of humor and a keen understanding about the people that he created. Too many people have died over differences in religion when the real differences between us as people really aren't that great. Most of us could be friends under the right circumstances- maybe over a turkey leg.

Hard drive blues

On Friday, the hard drive crashed on my computer at work. Everything was backed up, except my mp3's, which I really never considered backing up. So, now I'm going to need to rebuild most of my mp3 collection- minus what I had on my Sansa, my laptop, and old computer. I think I'm definitely going to start with the following songs:

The Sky is Crying- Elmore Leonard (and maybe the Stevie Ray version)- This song encapsulates the essence of the blues. His woman left him and the sky is crying...look at the tears running down the street. A nice guitar lick.

Negra Tomasa- Jaguares/Caifanes- A great beat to it. In my bachelor days, my friends and I used to play the song to set the mood before going out.

Y Que Paso- Banda Limon- One of the great the hell with you songs. The woman left him, but now she's back and he's wondering...did she forget something? A truly distinctive voice by the lead singer.

I guess I told her- Robert Cray- Alanis should listen to this song to learn the meaning of the word irony. Cray is so good that this pick could be one of 20 songs. "He doesn't live here anymore" is heartbreaking.

Luna Llena- Elvis Crespo- One of the best songs to take your lady on the dance floor and show your meringue chops. Some great lyrics as well.

I can't stand losing- Police- A top 40 song, but one of the greatest "loser" anthems ever. If I ever feel sorry for myself, I just have to play this song and instantly I become aware that there's someone worse! "But you'll be sorry when I'm dead, all this guilt will be on your head." Classic.


Voy a pintar mi Raya- Banda Arkangel- you have to listen closely to this song- beautiful lyrics about a man giving up his woman to the men that she now loves, but in the last repetition of the chorus, there's an almost imperceptible change of a word- changing the meaning of the song entirely. He's actually saying; "Go ahead and go with him, I know you'll be back."

Revolver- Rage Against the Machine- brilliant, but sad reflection on sexism and domestic violence. You can hear the beating through the staccato of the music.

El Rey- Jose Alfredo Jimenez/Vicente Fernandez- a much deeper song than most people realize. Every man is a king and his word is the law, so long as he realizes that he rules only himself.

Baby Grand- Billy Joel/Ray Charles- a wonderful song about their greatest love- music, but also a song about how fame/riches are fleeting.

Fight the Power- Public Enemy- I love just a couple lines in this song; "Elvis was a hero to many, but he never meant nothing to me. Motherfuck him and John Wayne." A good song to listen to on occasions when you are angry with everything.

Estolano Law, now corporate!

It's official. I am now a corporation! Effective March 2, 2008, the State Bar of California has certified Estolano Law as a corporation.

Now, it's time to buy the corporate car, right? Well...only if the office manager (the wife) agrees. So, you may see me driving the pickup for some time yet.

But, hey, a corporate man can dream, right?

The Weekend of Terror!

If you were to bump into my wife and I, you would be struck by how nice we seem. Both of us smile, are generally polite and try to make people around us as comfortable as possible. People are always telling me how sweet my wife is...and they are generally right. My wife is a sweet lady with a huge tender heart.

Which is why it's perhaps surprising that my wife is one of the biggest scary movie fans around. She won't watch exorcist type movies, but she's taken me to see just about every other scary movie that has come out in the theaters since 1999. I tend to prefer comedies, but because she enjoys her movies so much, I almost always defer to her to pick the movies. And the movies that she picks are always terrifying.

It must make a funny scene to see us at the movies- a pretty slender Latina laughing at all the scares, sitting next to a large guy with his hand covering his eyes and jumping out of his seat. In real life, I'm a somewhat brave person (I think)- but in a theater audience, I'm chicken little- nervously anticipating the next appearance of the villain.

So, this weekend when my good friend Chryseis invited us to a Friday the 13th party- as a horror fan, Maria was anxiously anticipating it. The party lived up to it's hype- there were Jason masks decorating the previously swank downtown gaslamp condominium, the movie itself on the television and plenty of lucky charms and 13's scrawled on the wall. No, the party wasn't scary- but it was kind of fun to talk to people about their favorite scary movies. It seems that everyone is scared of the exorcist. A friend of mine at the party, another tall and tough looking guy, admitted that he was made queasy at the sight of movie blood.

On Sunday, we saw the movie called "The Last House on the Left." My review? It was absolutely horrible- I almost walked out at one point. I couldn't believe how gory the movie was. There's a scene with a garbage disposal that reinforces my desire to never wash dishes. Of course, the wife and the rest of the audience loved it!

This coming week I think I will stick to the Disney Channel...

E & F Enterrprises

The nostalgia bug has hit me and I'm going to go even further back than high school in this post. We're talking 7th grade.

In 7th grade, my best friend was Frankie Fernandez. We were both sons of businessmen and fancied ourselves to be born entrepreneurs. We would dream up schemes to make money. Sometimes, we even acted on our schemes.

One of these schemes was a candy bar business based on a pyramid principle. We had our parents buy us boxes of Hershey's Big Block candy bars for wholesale prices at Price Club (this was before it became Costco and everyone was a member!) and organized students to sell the candy bars for us in two seperate junior high schools. The business worked in principle- we sold a ton of candy bars with very little work. Every once in a while we lost a candy bar to a teacher confiscation or to a dishonest saleman, but the candy bar sales were consistently turning a profit.

The only problem is that we would spend our profits at the 7-11 for slurpees and comic books. We would make, say, twenty dollars in a day and would spend all of it without any thought as to how we'd be able to buy more candy bars to sell.

But, the important thing is that we had a ton of fun. To our young minds, we were brilliant businessmen and we enjoyed thinking of ourselves this way. It didn't really matter if we were able to sustain a profit.

Years later, Frankie and I remain friends. Somehow neither of us became businessmen...

Where are you Paul?

I've been thinking a lot about my high school days recently. Thanks to facebook.com I have been messaging with people that I hadn't had contact with in almost two decades. I think most people would find that I haven't changed much in two decades in term of personality- maybe a little more outgoing and confident, but basically I'm the same guy. In high school, like today, I didn't really fit into any one group, but was comfortable in many groups. I had friends in student government, amongst the soon to be drop outs, the chess club, the drama department, the dungeonmasters, the cholos, etc.

This brings me to my friend "Paul." Where I was generally popular in the sense that I had a couple dozen or so friends, my friend Paul had no one but me that he really socialized with. He was an outcast from even the outcasts. As a Jehovah's Witness he would try to recruit his fellow high school students, without much luck. In fact, this is probably how we met.

I came from a family background that was generally skeptical of anything "too religious"- so I wasn't very open to the notions from the JW, but I felt bad that Paul seemed to have so little happiness in his life and tried to help him be happier. To a naive high school version of me that meant making him more like me!

The only problem was that you really had to be me to get away with...well...being me. For instance, though I fancied myself to be a good dresser, my wardrobe in high school extended to sweats and superman shirts, with an occasional airplane shirt thrown in. I combed my hair when I felt like it and actually sported an afro for a few months. (Yes, I didn't really start dating until college!) But, I difficult to make fun of for my clothes because 1) I really like those airplane shirts, 2) I didn't really care what people thought, 3) I was ready with a comeback to any jokes and 4) if someone "got me" with a wisecrack, I wash ready and willing to laugh at myself. Not so for Paul! Even with an "improved" wardrobe, he had trouble fitting in.

I took Paul once to a get together that I'd organized for about 10 of my buddies- a typical guys night included playing pool and a number of stupid games that we organized- like "Dofus on the pool table." Dofus involved one of us getting up on the pool table and telling jokes or doing funny things until he made the new "Dofus" laugh. Paul refused to play along with any of the games and somewhere around the time that he informed us that we would go to hell for drinking alcohol, my friends Frankie and John jumped him! This was actually something of a initiation- as dumb high school guys, we were constantly hitting and fighting with each other. We never really hurt each other, but were very prone to rough housing. Unfortunately, Paul was unused to rough housing. He went rigid with fear to the point where he didn't try to defend himself and I had to pull the guys off of him.

Paul left shortly after that and I never tried to introduce him to my friends again. I decided to give up trying to "help" him and just remained his friend. We kept touch for years after high school- going to a movie, talking religion- until one day he just disappeared. One day, I cam back from school break to find that there was no one at his apartment complex.

I've often wondered since then what became of him. I hope that he found a place where he felt free to be Paul.

A human chameleon

As a lawyer, you have to be a kind of human chameleon. No, you don't actually change color, but you have to be able to blend in with many different types of people. I may begin my day in jail talking to a felon with numerous tats and end my day talking to a society wife with fine jewelry and a purse whose name I can't pronounce. Both of these clients, if I am to help them, have to believe that I understand where they are coming from even though my background is nothing like either of them.

How do I pull this off? It's not by faking it. Through a lifetime of interacting with people, I've come to understand many different people. As a child working for my parents, I sold jackets to both policemen and bikers. As I grew older, I took advantage of opportunities to get to know people different than I was- sometimes I was the only one drinking beer at a wild party; othertimes, I was the only person that had never fired a gun at a gun show (where I was selling leather jackets).

I learned a lot about the different cultures that my clients come from. I don't pretend to understand everything, but I know enough to allow my clients to fill in the blanks for me. As I might tell the felon, "I don't know what it's like to spend a single day in jail, but I've known many people in your shoes. And I know how to help you like I've helped them."

The essential elements in people that I come across are always the same- we are all looking for similar things from life. Sometimes only the way that we express our needs differs.

I went to a birthday party the other day that was for a writer that I don't know too well, but who has always struck me as a charming and fun person. I must confess that I didn't take my wife to the birthday party because I stereotyped the kind of crowd that I'd be mingling amongst. A lot of artists are prone to philosophical discussions about the strangest things. I once was asked whether I felt like a member of the "Raza cosmica" because of my mixed heritage. So, I expected that my wife would be bored by the over-educated conversation. Instead, I took my good friend Paco- an insurance salesman who is comfortable in every environment.

But, when I got there, the conversations were a lot more light hearted and silly than I expected. I discussed a potential cheesy radio ad with one guy and talked video games (which I haven't played since I was 12) with someone else. It was the kind of soft banter that everyone enjoys. I could picture my wife in the scene with a glass of wine, enjoying the lively banter and telling a few jokes of her own.

The night reminded me again of how similar we all can be.

We do what we can..

There's a Sheryl Crow song that always makes me think. Here are the lyrics:

Downstairs they're playing Kenton
The house set to swing
I lay in my bed
And listen to everything
Cause Leo's in rare form tonight
His trombone sings so sweet
This is the room
Where they all come to meet

He said
I do what I can
I live for the moment
And that's who I am
Yeah that's who I am

And isn't it good
If we could freeze moments in time
We all would
But I do what I can
I do what I can

Downstairs he's playing Kenton
The Magnavox sighs
But oh how the music has changed
In all of our lives
He says "nobody listens
To modern jazz"
And I'll never have what those guys have

He says
I do what I can
I work for a living
And that's who I am
Yeah that's who I am

And it's good to be alive
But everything's different since Leo died
I do what I can

Is this the end of the modern world
What could it mean for a young girl
Who sees the pain on his face
He does what he can

The procession on the TV screen
What could it possibly mean for a man
Who's come this far just to turn around
Could there still be life in Kenton's swing
With the Kennedys gone and everything
Those sad rows of houses with their optimistic colors
Democrat grandparents and draft-dodging brothers
Riots down the street and discontented mothers
We do what we can

Downstairs it's quiet
Less alive somehow
Somehow he was everything that I am now

And he says
I do what I can
I work for a living
And that's who I am
And that's who I am

But it's good to be alive
And these are the choices
We make to survive
You do what you can


The song makes me sad in a way that is difficult to explain. It makes me think about opportunities lost. We make choices to survive and bury our dreams. Sometimes these dreams haunt us late at night. We think, what if? I remember my dreams and sometimes it's painful to consider that their time has passed.

Sometimes I stay awake late into the night and don't even realize that I've fallen asleep until the sound of the alarm clock blares me back to reality.

I think about what was lost by bad decisions, but then I see the sun shining through the window and think that I'm still alive. And like Crow says, "it's good to be alive."

As long as you are alive, there's hope.

Dancing with myself!

I'm in a Billy Idol kind of mood today. I feel rebellious. I feel like checking into a motel and destroying all the furniture. Throwing that television out the window and into the swimming pool.

I have a federal court case later today- so I'll put on the suit and try to hide the Rebel Yell. Mine is a profession filled with rules upon rules. I spend too much time obsessing over rules. There are even rules about which form of questions I get to ask witnesses.

But, even within this profession, there have been rebels that have changed the system. Melvin Belli was a San Francisco lawyer that brought criminal law tactics into civil court and became a millionaire. Other rebels aren't as successful. There was another San francisco lawyer, who in a wrongful death by dog case, imitated how the dog attacked by getting on all fours in front of the jury. Her client, I think, lost more than just his case that day.

So what is my rebellion? Stay tuned...

A new beginning

I feel good, though my body has been failing me recently. I feel lucky, though things haven't rolled my way. I don't know how to explain other than to say that there's a feeling that I've picked the right road to my redemption. I'm reminded of the skinny kid that I once was, who used to fail but who never gave up. I won't give up either.

I love this life!

Strange days are these...

Mighty peculiar brother!

I have a five finger theory of happiness (ask me and I'll tell you about it) and I'm about three fingers short of where I should be- but somehow...things seem to be feeling better. I really should feel much worse at this moment.

The big news is that I'm leaving the law firm that I co-founded. It's not easy, but sometimes fate forces your hand. Pretty soon it'll be R.E. on my lonesome again.

More news on my future as it becomes available.

I'm calmer than I've been- kind of like the Poker player who is losing chips at a small rate, while waiting for the killer hand. As long as I don't run out of chips, I can theoretically still win.