I’m back.
Forgive me. It’s hard to write a column when you are serving a Pappilon-like existence tossing a ball against a jail cell for three months without access to the public forum.
I was out for the last three months, serving a suspension for writing bad columns that were, according to the powers that be, “an embarrassment to the Jacksonville, Florida and Federal bars and was a personal affront to the ASPCA.”
Editor Heath Brockwell mentioned that he could not tell which was a bigger flop: (1) Warren Beatty’s attempt in “Ishtar”; (2) Jennifer Lopez’ and Ben Affleck’s eye-scarring waste of celluloid in “Gigli”; (3) that whole idea of changing the format for the Jacksonville Bar Annual Meeting to a Q&A rather than giving nominating speeches; or (4) my October column that was tossed before publication on four metrosexual men and one Toyota car salesman with a speech impediment going to day spa for some waxing, exfoliating and manicures and pedicures.
Brockwell also said the column was truly tasteless and offensive. Laughable. I don’t know if all of you know Heath Brockwell, but for him to call something I do tasteless is like Al Pacino telling Anthony Hopkins he is “overacting.” As part of my work release agreement and my probation as set forth by Diane Gill, Brockwell, Jim Moseley Jr. and Jim Bailey, I am required to at least talk about law league sports as a meaningful topic in my columns. Fine. I’ll talk about the Law League football playoffs if I must.
At the end of the regular season, the State Attorneys were undefeated and clearly the top seed. Akerman laid down during the last game of the season to have one loss and finish as the second seed. The two-loss Jerry MacGuires were the third seed. The fourth seed was a tie between Florida Coastal School of Law and Pappas Metcalf.
The playoffs were set by valid tie-breaking procedures. After reviewing the procedures, it was determined that FCSL had bested Pappas Metcalf in a tiebreaker. Unknown to the Jacksonville Bar, apparently Holland & Knight is planning an acquisition of Pappas Metcalf as several H&K attorneys are playing for the Pappas & Metcalf team. I know this because the H&K mergers and acquisition handbook, available at Amazon.com for $23.95, states that it prefers to conquer firms from within. It’s sorta like a Trojan Horse theory. But I digress. As soon as the playoff announcements came out, I get a call from H&K partner Alan Wachs stating the tiebreaker procedures are bogus and that the playoffs, in the event of a tie, should be determined by a vote among the three-member commissioner panel.
I know this is taking on the length and tedium of a column on professionalism but bear with me. The other do-nothing members of the commissioner’s office are Brendan Rager and Tysen Duva. Rager has always been with H&K. We were able to hold off the H&K acquisition of the law league by having Coffman Coleman’s Tysen Duva as the third commissioner. Not surprisingly, H&K hires Duva away from Coffman Coleman. Suddenly, Duva is on the phone telling me that he and Rager vote to have a play-in game between Pappas and FCSL. Congratulations to Tysen Duva! Just two weeks into joining H&K and he manages to become the leader in the clubhouse in the “Who-Is-Selling-Out-Faster” derby, just ahead of Kato Kaelin and Robert DeNiro. Dan Bean is in the sell-out derby, too, but at his age and condition, it’s harder to keep up. Luckily, order was restored as FCSL summarily dispatched Pappas in the play-in game.
That left the State Attorneys as the top-seed playing fourth-seeded FCSL, and second-seeded Akerman Senterfitt playing the third-seeded Jerry MaGuires. In the playoffs, FCSL bounced the State Attorneys 28-14 and the Jerry MaGuire’s upended Akerman 34-7. In the Championship game, FCSL bested their one-year-old record for unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in one game, while the Jerry MaGuire’s took home the trophy with a 35-18 dismantling of the future of the Jacksonville Bar.
The MVP of the league was MaGuire’s Rick Britton. Britton waited patiently for two games while Joe Camerlengo maintained his paper-thin hold on the quarterback job. After two games, the Jerry MaGuires had a nice playbook, a mission statement and a couple of leads on some promising college players for lucrative Arena Football League contracts, but no wins. Britton took over the signal-calling job for the MaGuires. As a result, the team tossed away the playbook and had huddles where the play call was “just get open.” The MaGuires never lost a game the rest of the season. As an added bonus, Britton becomes the first football MVP to be a hybrid look-alike between Mr. Clean sans earring and Uncle Fester. In all fairness to Camerlengo, he did find himself in a new position, scoring three touchdowns in the playoffs.
There. I did it. Chock-full-o-sports that nobody cares about. Heck, I play all law league sports and I get bored just writing about it. Now back to more urgent topics.
Because I am the first columnist of the New Year, I thought I would set forth my personal wishes for 2004. Here they are:
1. I wish that I do not come in enough close contact with Braxton Gillam so that I will have to shake his hand. The last time I shook his hand was in September and I was diagnosed two weeks later with the broken hamate bone in my hand. That handshake is the biggest male overcompensation statement right up there with that ridiculous guy that has the abdominal workout commercials trying to smile and talk normally through a full out six-pack flex.
2. I wish that Dan Bean breaks down and starts buying his clothes at Rosenblum’s. Hey, Dan, it comes with free lifetime tailoring on your suits!
3. I wish that Lamar Winegeart gives another rousing speech about “amateurism” in the practice of law. Having a lawyer talk about unethical conduct in a romantic way is good times!
4. I wish that I finally receive that jailhouse pounding that I so richly deserve for all the people that I offend in this column. Hear, hear!
5. I wish that we could finally end the straight-jacket confines of the Bar Bulletin and the Daily Record and start reeling off what I really think in this space. So much so, I am gauging interest in a no-holds-barred e-mail column by having people e-mail me telling me they want in on the e-list. I am serious about that. If you don’t want NC-17, don’t ask for it.
6. I wish that Adrian Rust would remove his boat trailer from my front yard. It’s ruining the aesthetics of my 1967 Chevy on blocks and my Busch Light 40-ounce beer collection on my lawn!
7. For all his underhandedness, and because he refuses to return the copy of “Anger Management” that I loaned him, I wish that Tysen Duva goes without a Park Bench for 2004. And for that matter, the same thing goes for Sherri Worman and Greg Holland for their conversion (looky here! I can use real legal terms!) of my DVD copies of “The Big Lebowski” and “Joe Dirt,” respectively.
8. I wish that more male members of the Bar will follow the lead of Jason Burnett and me and purchase Bath & Body Works’ Milk Thistle skin care kit that comes with moisturizing soap, facial cream, and even has a nice white tea wrinkle reducer for the eyes. Nothing like a nice tight-face feeling to get you started on your day in the trenches. Six more months of that stuff and we both will have prettier faces than Ru Paul.
9. I wish that Hank Coxe would stop referring to me as “that amateur” when he talks about my columns. Hey, Hank, when was the last time you put it on the line and wrote something funny in print? It ain’t as easy as it looks being the Buffoon of the Bar! Besides that, judging by his last column, Braxton Gillam is the real poser comedian of the group!
10. I wish to have one real Friars Club-like roast of a member of the Jacksonville Bar where the doors are closed and personal sensibilities are checked at the door. It would be good times, with Erik Berger playing the role of Foster Brooks.
There you have it. A good New Year to you, too!