July 28, 2010

My need to write the great American novel is down to a quickly passing, barely noticeable, tumescent stirring about every other week. “It was a dark and stormy might” stands poised, almost priapriscally at attention, ready to pounce on whatever scenario my fertile – or is it fecund? – mind can devise.

I invest no more than $2 per month in Florida lottery tickets. I play my grandfather’s badge number or I let the machine do the picking. I allow myself no more than 4 seconds of “What if” fantasy. It’s cheaper than cocaine and, despite the odds, “What if” is still out there.

The same trap exists for my unwritten novel.

Joyce and Hemingway ain’t got nothing on me.

Then I read the local papers and I’m back to poleaxing pols.

Today’s papers tell me of a Judicial candidate who receives unemployment compensation. In 2008, as many as 2 and ½ years ago, he worked for 4 months at a law firm in Coral Springs. He says “It didn’t work out”. He has been welded on to the lactating mammary like a lamprey eel. He refuses to name the law firm saying it is “irrelevant to his campaign”. Through skill and cunning, and helped by Yahoo yellow pages, the two most likely firms would be Layback & Whackit or White Lipped and Trembling. Neither firm would comment.

The Judge wanabee, whose name on the ballot is Jordan Breslaw, was a chiropractor for 20 years. When he was decoupling lumbar subluxations his name was Jordan Jordan. He had to petition the Court to get his birth name back. Honest.

And I’m supposed to top that in a novel?

Cervantes only had to worry about his war wound and some creditors.

There could be an intriguing plot twist developing. A perpetually contentious political briar patch in Broward County is the need for a new Court House. In Florida the local pols and hacks figure if you can tear down and rebuild perfectly useful stadiums and arenas to replace them at taxpayers’ expense why not do the same with Court Houses.

Suppose the Chinese decide to finance another “shovel ready” project in poor house bound America. Broward County gets its new Court House. There are a lot of accidents in construction. I understand that in addition to the medicinal marijuana that will be grown on the roof, the water fall and salmon stream, there will be a rain forest on each floor to remind us that before Justice there was Mother Earth. There will be a lot of “Oh, my aching back” complaints. Judge Jordan Breslaw Jordan Breslaw can hear the case in Workmen’s Comp Court and then treat the injured workers. That seems like a plan to me. Who knows? If the story of a hooker from Puta Grande, Argentina and 1500 people dying on the Titanic can make it to Broadway all things are possible. How about “Justice – Blind and Dumb in Broward” as a working title?

If I were to tell you that the nation’s largest foreclosure firm, a firm that handles 100,000 cases at any one time, a firm based in Broward County but registered in the British Virgin Islands, is being sued for fraud by its investors you would think its spokesman would be Professor Irwin Corey, wouldn’t you? If it were bound for the big screen it would require the combined cinematic skills of the Coen Brothers and Mel Brooks, right? Maybe a bit of Peckinpah with a soupcon of dialogue by Larry the Cable Guy.

Wrong.

The lawyer who owns the firm, the guy who gives all lawyers a bad name, the guy who signs all those foreclosure letters, the guy being sued by his investors [A Broward County lawyer being sued by his investors doe sound familiar, doesn’t it?] is named David Stern. Two things of note: #1 – He does not run the NBA. #2 – He owns $20,000,000 worth of residential real estate free and clear in Fort Lauderdale. That means he’ll never have to foreclose on his own property. Being a member of the Florida Bar means that all things are possible for those who believe.

A lawyer named David Ice [As far as can be determined he is not related to the late, lamented, and sorely missed Ice Age. Wouldn’t a return to that happy time be the quickest, greenest, most organic, most environmentally sensitive to end the curse of Climate Change, AKA “Global Warming”? Plus, a serendipitous bonus would be the universal release of mankind’s backed up chakra and the gentle stroking of sex crazed poodles.] says that Stern was backdating all his documents. That means the dry heaves of the Florida real estate market will continue until the middle of Chelsea Clinton’s second term.

Beckett, Ionesco…maybe.

Updike, Cheever…never.

Drat.



Kevin Smith

PS – Is it not past time to honor WAL*MART for their contributions to America? We should begin by putting Sam Walton on a stamp. In fact, we probably should give him the Post Office to run. At the very least think how refreshing it would be to have an