I Heart Lawyers
31 December 2004My father and I conduct an extensive email relationship with one another now that I live more than .7 mile away from him, mostly comprised of stuff that no one would ever care about. For example, today he emailed me to say that my Roth IRA had made $.39 in a day, and by the time I’m 60, that will be $16. Awesome.
About three weeks ago, we had this exchange, which I feel is way, way too nerdy and wonderful to keep to myself.
C: Remember when I was in 8th grade and I had all of those pictures of that band Green Day up next to my bed and every time you saw them you would go “6 months from now, no one will know who these guys are?” Well that was 10 years ago and Green Day just got 6 grammy nominations today. I win!
Dad: Not necessarily. I think there have been plenty of years since then when Green Day was off the radar completely and were de facto comatose for long stretches of time. So, to the extent that’s so, I win.
Then we got Law School Kyle involved to help refute dad, since he was studying for finals and had nothing better to do.
Kyle: Your father’s initial statement was “in 6 month’s, no one will know who these [punks] are.” I inserted “punks” because it sounds like something your dad would be all surly and say. Anywho, when you were in 8th grade, you were 13ish, so that was like 1993-94. An easy way to disprove your father’s statement would simply be to look at the charts for that period of time, which I am sure you are privy to, being an employee of a pop-culture grist mill. These charts could, presumptively, prove that Green Day was, in fact, non-comatose at that time, thus disproving your father. Your father is aggregating the time from 1994 to the present – unacceptable. Absent such proof, their national presence right now is very probative circumstantial proof of their national presence the whole time. Finally, your father’s statement qualifies as hearsay, as it would be introduced in order to prove the truth of the matter ass! erted. If he is smart, however, he will recognize that the statetement is a statement by a party opponent, and thus admissible regardless of its being hearsay. But, he went to Princeton, so I wouldn’t expect too much.
I hate my life.
To which the reply came…
Dad: Certainly Kyle is correct when he opines that your position would find substantial support should it develop that Green Day has been on the charts more or less continuously since 1993. But even I know that this is not likely to be the case, or, in the alternative, that the evidence will not prove dispositive in either direction. He is certainly not correct when he opines that their mere presence on the charts today proves anything about their status at any other time. To wit: one need only think of Tony Bennett, for example, whose once bright career went dark for years before he was rediscovered for “Analyze This.” John Travolta comes to mind, as well — think of all his years after “Saturday Night Fever” when he couldn’t get work in dinner theater in places like Kansas. I must say, however, that, flawed as it is, his analysis is imaginative and I see greatness in the wings, even if he didn’t go to Princeton.
And, it’s good that you foster these relationships with lawyers in training so that you’ll have people to call years from now if you get caught plagiarizing some book or committing tax fraud.
So now we have ocular proof that going to/ graduating from law school makes you a gigantic tool. And that my father expects his only daughter to age into a criminal mindset.
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