Holy Hullabaloos, The Blog

Read This Funny Book By Wendy Molyneux

The funniest person is Wendy Molyneux.  If you don't believe me, you should look at her pieces on McSweeney's, which are all linked here.  Also, she has a website or I guess it's a blog, although on the blog she says she's starting a new blog, I don't know why.  Anyway, maybe check out her blog.  Also, she has this book out called "Everything is Wrong With You: The Modern Woman's Guide to Finding Self-Confidence Through Self-Loathing," which is very funny, and I say that even though I'm not even a woman, mostly.  Boy, people looked at me weird when I was reading that book on the T and squealing with laughter and peeing myself and belching.  Since I'm not a woman, I don't really know if Wendy's book would actually help you better yourself (if you, unlike me, are a woman), but I still think you should check it out if you are a person who is good.

Two More Fun Reading/Signing Events Planned

I'm happy to announce that I've got two more fun Holy Hullabaloos events planned, in case you were thinking about maybe following me around like the Grateful Dead or Phish or Penn & Teller or one of those hip famous acts that people like to follow around all doing nitrous hits and whatever.  I'll be reading at a very cool bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina called Malaprop's on Thursday July 30, at 7:00, and then I'll be reading at the BU Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Kenmore Square on September 29, also at 7:00.  So, put that together with the Brookline Booksmith event on June 17, and you could make quite a nitrousy road trip out of it.  Drive your RV to Brookline in mid-June, park it next to Zaftig's on Harvard Street, and then once that reading is over, start making your way down to North Carolina, maybe stopping in Baltimore on the way for one of those nauseating Old Bay Crab things, and then after a couple of hours in Asheville, do a couple of more whippits and then turn around and head back to Boston.  What an awesome summer, dude. 

Seriously, though, if you know anyone in or near Asheville, can you please tell them about this reading?  I love you.

March Madness

So, I thought I'd say a few words here about March Madness, because what else is there really to talk about in March other than March Madness?  Can you imagine how crappy the month of March would be if it weren't for March Madness?  All these way-too-cold days with no days off anywhere or holidays to break up the monotony?  Anyway, I've been a fan of college basketball since I was a kid.  Not a huge madman like fan or anything, but generally a fan.  As a kid I rooted for BC, since they were the only real player on the college basketball scene, but when I went to law school, I went to a bunch of Stanford games and became a much bigger Stanford fan than a BC fan.  I was even at the game in February of 1995 when the Stanford Tree got into an actual, not kidding around fight with Oski the Bear, the Cal mascot, right there on the court in Maples Pavilion.  Karen and I were in the stands close to where the struggle took place, and a cop came by and asked the fans in our section if we had seen which mascot had started the fight.  It was Oski, that piece of crap.

I don't really know if it was Oski, just in case someone was thinking of bringing a libel suit.

In the past, like everyone, I participated in various March Madness pools.  I've never done well.  I'm looking right now at the result sheet for the pool that the Chief Justice ran at the Supreme Court in March of 1999.  That's right, if anyone ever sneers and asks you if these pools are illegal, just tell them that Chief Justice Rehnquist used to run a pool at the Supreme Court every year, and that should shut them up.  I came in sixth to last in this particular pool (the sheet I have doesn't include the final game results), which was two positions higher than Justice Breyer and about five behind Rehnquist.

Recently, though, I decided not to join any more pools unless the buy in and possible winnings are so high that they would justify paying attention only to the pool and not to who I actually want to win.  The problem with your typical small stakes pool is that it splits your loyalties.  You want to root for the underdog #13 against the #4 team when the game is tied with 42 seconds left, but you've picked that particular #4 team to make the Sweet Sixteen in your pool, so you can't really put all your emotional energy into rooting for Cornell or whoever.  It's just not worth it for the possibility of winning $278. 

I should admit that this year, with no Stanford and BC out in the first round and the BU hockey team being the best hockey team in the country, I've paid very little attention to the basketball tournament.  Instead I watched the Hockey East semifinal and final games for the first time ever, and I've also printed out the brackets for the Frozen Four tournament.  Go Terriers, crush the Buckeyes on Saturday.  Whoo hoo. 

Does anyone know why they don't sell BU foam fingers anywhere?

Book Website Revamped!

Not a huge news item or anything, but I've revamped the actual book website for Holy Hullabaloos so that the Newdow theme song should play as soon as you go there, and the blurbs scroll across the screen while you listen.  Indeed, the song and the blurbs end at just about exactly the same moment.  Eerie, really, I'm sure you'll agree. 

Still Crushing Yackle

Just in case you were wondering how Holy Hullabaloos is stacking up against my colleague Larry Yackle's important and serious hardcover book about regulatory rights or whatever it is, here are the current Amazon Ranking standings: Holy Hullabaloos is at #446,441 as of this writing, while Larry Yackle's important and serious hardcover book about regulatory rights or whatever is standing firm at #1,517,273.  In other words, we're still crushing Yackle.  It's not really even a contest, is it?  Just imagine what's going to happen when Holy Hullabaloos actually comes out! 

Clerkin' for RBG, Part 4

Part 3 here.

    What about RBG herself?  Usually the first thing people ask me about her is whether she is really as short as she seems in pictures. It is true that Justice Ginsburg is short, maybe even quite short.  But listening to people who haven't met her talk about how short she is could lead you to believe that she is some sort of miniature person who could fit in your shirt pocket or the palm of your hand.  In fact, she cannot fit in these tiny places.  The second thing people ask is whether she is as serious as she seems in interviews and public appearances.  Indeed, it's true that RBG is an extremely hard worker who tends to be very businesslike when it comes to her job.  For example, unlike other judges who might wander back into the clerks' offices to chat about a case or do a few yoga stretches, if RBG wanted to talk to one of us about something, she would buzz us on our phone intercoms.  The jarring BBUUUUZZZZZ interrupting our research or memo-writing or trout fishing or whatever would inevitably startle the hell out of us.  Bill decided at some point during an early month that it would be appropriate upon hearing the buzz to drink a tall calming glass of scotch before picking up, and although we never actually got the scotch, we did regularly pretend to take a drink under these circumstances for the rest of the year.  Indeed, to this day, if I happen to smell the perfume RBG used to regularly wear, I feel the need to get right to a fake bar, even if the woman who is wearing it is just a friendly nun I happen to be tickling at the time.

    Nonetheless, people often overstate RBG's seriousness.  As I once showed in a profoundly flawed scientific study of Supreme Court humor, for example, Justice Ginsburg gets infinitely more laughs from the bench with her jokes than Justice Thomas does.  As I also pointed out in that article, RBG, contrary to popular opinion, does in fact laugh herself.  Not like a hyena or anything, but she does chuckle from time to time.  And then there was the time that she took us to a Gilbert and Sullivan production at a local high school and played along with the director's invitation to come up to the stage during intermission to dance with some other cast and audience members.  The sight of a Supreme Court Justice on stage twirling around with her hands in the air to a goofy song next to a spinning six year old girl is not one that I can soon forget, no matter how many times I undergo hypnosis.

    Another thing people generally ask me about is whether I had any contact with the other eight Justices.  The answer is not too much, but there is a nice custom at the Court whereby each Justice's group of clerks gets to take out each Justice for lunch sometime during the term.  We had pizza with Justice Scalia, Indian food with Justice Breyer, and classic American with Justice Stevens.  The only Justice we didn't have lunch with was Justice Kennedy, because we were informed by his clerks that we would have to get dressed up to be seen with him in public.  Since we generally showed up to work in bathrobes and hair curlers, we declined the invitation.  I'm often asked about who is the most "normal" of the Justices, and the easy answer is Justice Thomas.  CT's jurisprudence may threaten to send the nation back to the middle ages, but he did seem like a genuinely friendly and kind and down to earth person, and I say this not just because he laughed at my "Why-did-the-guy-get-fired-from-the-orange-juice-factory?-Because-he-couldn't-concentrate" joke.

    So, how would I summarize my year clerking for RBG?  Nearly any clerk will tell you that working at the Court is an unforgettable experience and that it was a privilege to work on the nation's most important legal issues with one of the nation's greatest jurists.  I'm sure I would say the same thing if I wasn't such an ass.  It is true that I will probably never have another job that will come close to equaling the excitement of that year, and I do owe Justice Ginsburg a lot for (inexplicably) hiring me to be her law clerk.  But when someone asks me what I remember most clearly about the year, I don't think first of the legal issues or oral arguments.  Rather, my mind leaps immediately to that one magical February night when, emboldened by four margaritas, I sat shirtless in the Chief Justice's chair screeching "Order in the Court" over and over until the guards finally dragged me out of those majestic bronze doors and threw me headfirst down the marble stairs.  Have I mentioned how many stairs are out there?  Damn, that hurt.

    Ok, you can leave the stall now.

Holy Hullabaloos: The Cover

So, it looks like the new cover to the book is finished, and here it is.  Kudos to the awesome art department at Beacon, thanks!

Monkeybicycle #6 Available for Preorder

If you're looking for something to read (and really, who isn't?) maybe you should check out Volume #6 of Monkeybicycle, a sweet publication that has previously placed pieces and stories (I think) in best nonrequired reading and elsewhere.  I've got a story in there called "The Advisor," which is about a law student who volunteers for a presidential campaign and attracts the attention of the candidate because of his senior college thesis on Confucius.  Wacky zaniness ensues, you can believe you me.  Anyway, my story won't be the best thing in there, I can assure you.  There are some great short story writers in the volume, including Ryan Boudinot and Kim Chinquee and Michael Czyzniejewski and on and on.  Check it out.  It's available for preorder now from the monkeybicycle website for only $12, and it will be available April 25, just in time for the end of April reading season!

I Have a Reading, I Have a Reading!

So, I've got my first reading for Holy Hullabaloos scheduled, yippee.  Brookline Booksmith is a great independent bookstore in Coolidge Corner, which I've been going to for years.  I'll be reading from Holy Hullabaloos and signing books there on June 17, at 7:00.  If you're in the Boston area, I hope you'll come.  To sweeten the deal, I'll buy everyone who comes a hamburger.  No I won't.  But come anyway!

RBG Symposium Today at New England School of Law

Hi.  If you're in Boston today and have some free time, perhaps you'd like to stop by the New England School of Law sometime between noon and 5 o'clock for a symposium on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hosted by the Law Review at NESL.  There are six former clerks for RBG speaking, including Hugh Baxter of BU and myself.  I'll be talking about Justice Ginsburg's footnotes and telling a little story about how she and Justice Scalia got into an opera footnote skirmish once when I was working for her.  Rumor has it that the symposium will also be on C-SPAN, but I don't know the details of whether it will be shown live or, if not, when it will go on the air.  Hope to see you there.