real world update, part twelve

A secret plan is now revealed. . .

So I'm just standing, ya know, stoned drunk and dumbfounded smack fucking dab in the middle of two evils wondering which is the lesser. Adelstein is on my left, reclined on my sofa and drinking my liquor. He got hair goo on my Bose earphones.

Adelstein is a greasy mother fucker. He's vindictive as hell, a squirrely mean little weasel. He connives and he schemes. He slithers.

On my right side, Richardson has taken up residence. His jacket is now off completely and haphazardly hangs on the back of a dining room chair. He sits to its right at the table facing me but slightly askew. There are the three folders, a laptop, a printer, and an increasingly growing pile of what looks like newspaper clippings and stories downloaded from internet news sites that he keeps pulling from pockets in his jacket, from his pants, from every nook and cranny of both his briefcase and he the laptop case. It appears haphazard, but I suspect their is a system.

Richardson is a crafty bastard. Awkward as all fuck in person but when it came to organizing, manipulating, spinning, twisting or outright fabricating numbers and data, Richardson was strong slick and smooth. Put him in a data stream and it's like fighting a croc in the water. It's violent, it's bloody, and you know you're gonna fucking lose. He tends to be gruff, and he bitches a lot. But I've known him since I was a kid, so for me there is also a kinda curmudgeonly uncle quality to him. We share the belief that people are stupid, 'cuz they are. He's a complete fucking mess on the outside, but inside his mind is a master of organization and planning.

Which way to turn?

I settle on Richardson because, like I said, we've got this pseudo-familial thing going on. I take a couple of steps and sit down at the table, "What the fuck, man?"

He tells me I am thoroughly screwed: legally, socially, and eventually physically.

Between drags on those awful Benson & Hedges cigarettes he's smoking he explains to me that for the past five weeks copies of the documents in those two folders we're freely circulated through the best and brightest criminal law firms on the entire Eastern seaboard, from New York to Miami. He shows me a website some Harvard Law students created where they posted the documents along with a real time message forum, e-mail and IM services. They reviewed precedent and argued minutia. Eventually over 1500 possible solutions to my current problems were posted from all over the world. They debated, they argued, they strategized.

Some seemed to be created by drunken fraternity brothers with obvious repressed latent homosexual urges.

Most however were created and posted by the perceived cream of the criminal law crop of all ages, experience, and levels of skill. It is widely believed that whoever pulls my tight white hot ass from the stone of a certain conviction serving serious time will be crowned King of the Defense Lawyers.

As a related issue he relayed to me the details of my current odds at a dozen or so underground off-shore on-line gambling websites. He clicked and tapped and then turned the laptop back so that I could see the screen. I could clearly see that the numbers were overwhelmingly stacked against me, but there was still heavy betting on both sides. Side bets has arisen covering issues such as "how much time will he get?" to "What color tie will the judge be wearing on the day the verdict comes in?"

I'm suitably impressed. My Father, The Bastard, has not forsaken me. It would have taken months and a small army of bureaucrats to do all that shit. But then again, my Father, The Bastard, has never been known to spare any expense to preserve and protect the family name.

"Well, what's the outcome?" I ask.

"Sadly, but not surprising, at least not to me," he pauses briefly for dramatic effect, "the consensus is that you had better not drop the soap in the shower.

"Well shit." I suddenly begin feel heavy from the gravity of my situation.

"That's why we decided to go nuclear. We have created a hydrogen bomb of a plan. Its execution all but guarantees our mutally assured destruction. However, like Obi Wan, it is our only hope."

"I see."

I get up and shuffle across the floor over to Adelstein on my sofa. I kick him softly yet sternly and grab the vodka bottle from his hand while ripping the iPod headphones from his greasy head, "Get your ass in here. Sounds like there's fucking work to do."

He groans and begrudingly sits up.

I walk back across the room and sit back down at my once pristine imported Italian glass dining room table, now covered with my unfulfilled fate in document form. I grab a smoke from Richardson and spark it up. As I exhale my first deep drag right into Richardson's face, I raise the bottle and give it good three count chug. He sits there silent and stoic, with a well-practiced patience at not giving into the rage caused by a tantruming petulant child.

Adelstein gets up like a punished dog. He walks across the room and stops in the doorway. He leans against the frame and looks at Richardson with a knowing grin.

Richardson continues, "and it just might be crazy enough to work."

real world update, part eleven

So um, it's Saturday night a little after 11:00. I'm standing at my open door looking out at two tired looking guys in suits holding luggage. I stand there for a moment simply staring and somewhat numb from the vodka.

One of them, the older fella, sighs a greeting, "Hey Colt, your father called. He sent us down from the corporate office. . . "

I slam the door in his face.

And wait. And wait.

There is another knock. I open the door. "From the office? I gave at the fucking office."

Slam.

Again I wait. And wait. And wait.

Hmm, testing their patience, or mine?

Either way, who really cares? I know the bastards aren't going away. My father's, The Bastard, dogs are more persistent than the fucking cops. They oughta be, they get paid a buttload more.

I open the door. The older fella pushes past me into my home, "Colt, we don't have time for. . . "

"Don't have time? Don't have time!" I feel myself growing belligerent, that's definitely the vodka. "Look at this thing on my fucking ankle. I'm not going fuckin' anywhere! I've got all the time in the world."

"Exactly. Now let's get to work."

The other fella struts past me and now both men are standing in my luxurious hi-rise condo looking out my beautiful windows at my marvelous views of downtown. I close the door and stand there staring in bewilderment. Damn that vodka. Eventually the younger dude, Adelstein, gently drops his bags into an out of the way corner. It seems as though he is saying something like, "Yo Colt! Wha'dup dahg? I really dig your crib. Pour me a drink! Where dem honeys at?"

I say "seems as though" and "something like" because either from the vodka or from that last big hit I took off the stash Diego left or probably both, he sounds a whole lot like that fucking teacher in those Peanuts cartoons. Shit man. You're already annoying. Just shut the fuck up. And no, I don't know why he talks like that.

But he just keeps jabbering away about partying in the ATX and hooking up with fly ass bee-otches or some such crap, looking at me with this dumbass look on his face like I'm a Santa Claus or Jesus or a fucking rock star. Cripes man, it's not like I'm Diamond Dave in his prime or anything.

And he just won't shut the fuck up. I just turn and walk away.

And while the younger fella's justa jabbering, the older fella, Richardson, quietly sets his stuff down on my imported Italian glass dining room. He sets up a laptop, plugs in a printer and wanders into the kitchen. I try to tell him that my house is not his fucking office and to get his crap off my table but he ignores me.

I hear him shuffling through my kitchen cabinets and drawers, banging around in there. Richardon hollers out "Is there no fucking coffee? Cripes, man! What a fucking crock of shit!" I hear him rip the cellophane off a pack of smokes and the sound of a Zippo clicking. In a few moments the air fills with unforgettable stench of those cheap ass Benson & Hedges cigarettes he started smoking in the 1970's after their marketing campaign convinced him it was classy.

The poor old fool. I hear him fumble through the fridge, virtually empty except for a few styrofoam takeout trays with leftovers from that yuppie hole. He is still cussing about the lack of coffee. Eventually he settles for a glass of water from the tap. He walks out of the kitchen, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, his water in one hand and a dirty bowl he got from the sink that he has already begun using as an ashtray in the other. He carefully places them on the table. He sits down at the table in front of the laptop. As he sits he loosens both his red silk company tie and his belt with the corporate logo buckle. I don't know if he wear all that corporate logo shit because it's part of his uniform, if he actually thinks it looks good, or if he is just a cheap-ass sorry bastard and he gets the company swag for free. He's a fucking tax lawyer by training, so I betting on the last one.

Richardson leans over, opens his briefcase on the floor and pulls out two folders. He meticulously sets them down side by side on the table. One folder is green. The other is red. He explains to me that the green folder contains something he calls "evidence for the defense". The red one contains documents he calls "evidence for the prosecution". It's three or four inches thicker than the green one. You can clearly see the case against me has got girth, baby, girth. But really now, who really believes what you read anymore. So whatever man, whatever.

I look back in my living room, and Adelstein has settled onto my sofa, shoes off and reclined. He has put on my iPod and while jamming out to something I can't hear he chugs heartily from my bottle of Grey Goose. It seems he also has made himself quite at home.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I speak in a low controlled scream.

"Why Colt, we're here to help you."

"I know that. But specifically, what the fuck are you doing in my house?"

"Helping you. Your father gave us specific instructions to find a way out of your current legal entanglements. And he also refused to sign off on an expense account. He said you got plentya room in your three bedroom condo. We're staying with you."

"Holy fucking shit. The bastard."

The conversation flows like that for several minutes. I'm cursing my fate and my father, The Bastard, and Richardson keeps babbling on about the job he's here to do and how I'm stuck with them.

While I'm ranting, Richardson pulls out one more folder, a standard plain manila folder. He sets it down by the other two. "So what's that one for?" I ask.

Richardson picks it up so I can read the hand-written label on the tab: 'PLAN B'. "This is what we do if Plan A" he says while gesturing at the colored folders, "doesn't work." He shifts his grip slightly and one side of the folder falls open.

It is empty.

Mother fucker.

real world update, part ten

The corporate calvary my father, The Bastard, sent to my aid has arrived. They showed up on my doorstep last night.

Last night as I was about to go to bed I hear a knock on my door.

I open the door slowly and see two tired looking guys in wrinkled suits standing there with briefcases and overnight bags slung over their shoulders. They have almost identical red ties and both have little golden bolt pins of the company logo on their lapels.

Sometimes my father, the Bastard, really is a prick. Is this his idea of a joke?

These are the allegedly top notch guys my father, The Bastard, sent to help me in my current predicament? Cripes man, is he just yankin' my chain?

Unfortunately the men need no introduction. I've known them both for years. I can't say I'm happy to see them. They are not exactly knights in shining armor.

One of the guys is Jacob Adelstein. They say he's family, but I'm not sure how. I think he's like a cousin or something on my mom's side of the family. He's around my age, I think a few years younger. I've seen him hanging out at large family events for years. He might be family, but he's not close enough to get a piece of the family pie. Having not being close enough to be given a piece of the pie he's trying to earn it by working for Barrington Industries. He's one of the herd of business lawyers who works on contracts for the company.

Don't go thinkin' I know all that because I care or know or even know that much about him or the family business. My only concern for the family business is that the monthly checks keep coming. As for knowing about him, well. . .

He's the kind of guy you always try to avoid, but somehow Jacob always found a way to slither up to me at family gatherings and make casual chit-chat. And by chit-chat I mean him blathering on while I politely smile and nod until I can find a socially polite way to walk away. His hair and demeanor are dark and slick and his shoes are as polished as his personality. He's an ingratiating little weasel, generally over eager to suck-up to me. My Lord, is he ever annoying.

And he's standing at my front door.

The other guy is Don Richardson. I've known him since I was a kid because he works for my father, The Bastard. He was usually the guy that answered when I tried to call my dad growing up. In a weird way that makes him almost more of a father. He's a tax attorney by trade. He exploited some loophole in business tax law during the 1970's that saved The Company millions and millions. As a reward, my father, The Bastard, promoted him to his personal staff as one of his chief assistants. As near as I can tell he hasn't done dick since.

I always got the impression that he was so surprised by his original success he was too scared to move lest he screw things up. Plus he's spent the better part of the past thirty years working directly under my father, The Bastard. The experience has left him as submissive and loyal as a beaten old dog. I would guess he's probably somewhere in his mid 50's, although the stress of spending his prime years working for my father, The Bastard, makes him look like an older man. I hear he's divorced. He should have retired years ago but they say he's got another 10 or so years of child support to cover.

These are the guys that are here to save me?

Great, fucking great.

I'm doomed.

real world update, part nine

So last night about 11:00 or so I'm just chillin' at my pad, because as I've said earlier, I can't going any fucking where.

For a day at home it had been a surprisingly pleasant day. Early in the afternoon I called the manager at that yuppie hole and had him send me some lunch. 45 minutes later Diego shows up with this salmony thing in a styrofoam box, a bottle of Grey Goose, and a bag of weed. He tells me the booze and the grass will help me pass the time until I am released back into the world. Damn, Diego really is a good guy.

Maybe I'm actually feeling isolated, maybe I'm just bored, whatever the reason I invite him in. I pour a couple drinks from the vodka and load a bowl in a small pipe I keep in a desk drawer. We mostly just sit, sipping vodka and passing the pipe while Radio Paradise plays on my iMac. Maybe that's why I kinda like Diego, like me he also appreciates the silent camaraderie of men.

Soon the drinks are gone and the bowl is empty. Diego says something about having to go back to work. I don't know it it's the warmth from the vodka or the buzz of the grass, I guess I'm just feeling generous. I pull two C-notes from my wallet and hand them to him, telling him here's a little something extra for the family fund. Diego thanks me, says God will bless me, and leaves.

God will bless me? Whatever.

I mostly just chill on the sofa or hang out at MySpace while listening to music, sipping the Grey Goose and loading the occasional bowl. As the afternoon melts into the night I find myself with one hell of a righteous buzz.

Well, drunk and stoned inevitably leads to what? We've all been there, you know the answer. That's right, drunk and stoned leads to hungry and horny. So I call the manager at that yuppie hole and place an order. An hour and a half goes by, which is an unacceptable amount of time considering who the fuck I am. I don't give a rat's ass if Saturday is a busy night. Barringtons are not to be kept waiting. Next time I talk to the manager at that yuppie hole he will certainly get an earful about improving service for the important customers.

Finally there's a knock on my door. It's the Hot Waitress with the rockabilly tattoos and the small diamond stud in her nose.

Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom! Another hour and a half goes by and she leaves with a generous tip after completely satiating all my appetites. Sometimes it doesn't suck to be me even if I can't leave the house.

Which brings me back to where I started. It's about 11:00 on a Saturday night and much to my surprise I am actually contemplating going to bed, because really now, what is left for me to do today? I'm feeling drunk, stoned and spent.

There is another, this time unexpected knock on my door.

Hmmm, who could that be? As I walk across the room I briefly entertain the inebriated fantasy that the manager of the yuppie hole sent another hot waitress with desert to make up for the slow service earlier. I can always go another round.

No such luck. I open the door and see two men in wrinkled suits standing there with tired expressions. They both carry briefcases and have hanging luggage bags slung over their shoulders.

The corporate calvary my father, The Bastard, is sending has arrived.

family history, part thirteen

Huh, it's kind of appropriate, don't you think, for the thirteenth chapter of my family story to be written on Friday the 13th.

Anyways. . .

Aunt Olphelia called earlier tonight. She's back in New York, still living in Old Grandad's once private hideaway on the 13th floor of The Barrington Building. She was calling to apologize for any additional trouble she might have caused me. I reassured her and told her just to chill. I'm a grown up, we all make choices and eventually have to pay the fiddler. She found out about my current predicament when my father, The Bastard, called her to bitch her out for getting me mixed up in her nonsense and adding to my legal woes. He really can be a giant dick.

Yeah, she's still a little miffed at all the calls she gotten over the past few weeks from all the chicks in bands who called wanting the record deal I promised them for services they provided during the big annual music festival. Her standard response: "He promised you what? Well darling, the name of the label is SCREWED RECORDS, so you might just be screwed, but go ahead and send me your demo and I'll give it a listen."

She's cool and all and doesn't let my father, The Bastard, bring her down either. Being his second and youngest sibling, she accepts him for the ego-maniac he is.

She once told me that being mad at the way my father, The Bastard, acts is like being mad at the sun if you get sunburned. It's the fucking Sun. You know it's out there. You know it's going to burn you. It's not the Sun's fault, it is just its nature. It's you own damn fault if you leave yourself exposed for too long. And as she is my father's, The Bastard, youngest sibling like me we both grew up in a world that revolved around him.

She knows a lot about that, you know the Sun and all. She inherited Grandma Milly's, God rest her soul, skin condition. An experimental treatment she underwent in the late 1950's managed to clear it up, but it left her with a complexion that is literally ghostly white, almost like the face of a mime. As a result of the treatment, the slightest exposure to the rays of the Sun cause her skin to fry like bacon on a Saturday morning. And of course, after the first family vacation in the early 60's at the Florida beach house we used to own, Old Grandad sued the hack doctor and sucked a couple more millions for the family fortune from his malpractice insurance. I've seen the snapshots in the family album. Aunt Olphelia did vaguely resemble the perfect pork accompaniment to a couple of eggs over easy with a side of hash browns.

Aunt Olphelia was born in 1947. Old Grandad blamed her conception on a business trip to Mexico where he discovered a then local cocktail, the margarita, that was quickly becoming all the rage. Subsequently, she was coming of age when the whole hippie movement was coming to fruition. She became the ultimate hippie.

Some might think it odd, perhaps oxymoronic, that a woman born into the height of establishment power and privilege could be a true hippie. She explained this apparent contradiction to me once during my teen years in a smoky San Francisco bar. She considered herself to be the ultimate hippie. Because she had a world of affluence and influence she had the most to rebel against. Not that she was foolish enough to turn her back on the family money. She recognized that poverty was one flaw in the whole hippie scene.

Being the ultimate hippie, she embraced the whole hippie free love thing with all the passion that we Barringtons show in all our pursuits. Few know this, but her zest for this lifestyle has earned her a couple of places in the history of that era.

In order to more fully explain I need to back up a bit. As the sole daughter in one of America's richest families, Aunt Olphelia never had a desire that went unfulfilled. Both Old Grandad, and Grandma Milly, God rest her soul, doted on her every whim. And as a child, Aunt Olphelia's most common whim was food. She grew up to be a rather large woman. The long and free-flowing multi-colored hippie skirts and dresses that were the style at the time were not at all flattering to her full figure. Many thought she resembled a tent dressed in that garb. This earned her the odd and unflattering nickname of "Hippie Campground", because dozens if not hundreds of unwashed and unshorn young men spent nights beneath the free flowing folds of her dresses.

In 1964, in order to escape what Old Grandad believed to be the coming destruction of America caused by the impending 1960's counter-culture movement, he moved his illicit and adulterous affairs from his penthouse apartment on the 13th floor of The Barrington Building in Midtown Manhattan to a more secluded lake house in upstate New York. I guess he watched the press coverage of The Beatles first trip to America and didn't like what he saw. In 1965, 17 year-old Aunt Olphelia first exercised her independence and moved in.

Old Grandad had a back entrance installed in his penthouse suite, an express elevator that went from ground level to the 13th floor. Aunt Olphelia took full advantage of this to transform Old Grandad's former love nest into her own.

Aunt Olphelia has exceptional skill, and yes it was an incredibly awkward moment when she explained it to me, at the practice in the um, shall we say, performing a certain sex act. Ah hell, let me just come out and say it. Aunt Olphelia is a master of the skin flute. At the time she greatly enjoyed, and from what I have heard still does, bringing musicians into her home atop the Barrington building with this elevator to indulge her physical passions. As the elevator was going up, she was going down. She prided herself on her skill to cause her companion to reach the top at the same time as the elevator. One traveling hippie musician was so impressed he named his band in honor of Aunt Olphelia.

Additionally, a very famous group from that era originally named one of their big hits in her honor. It was only after Old Grandad had his lawyers send threatening cease and desist letters to the record label that they changed the name of the song to what we all know: Cecilia.

real world update, part eight

So it's like going on what, an eternity or a couple weeks or something, after my last court hearing where that asshole judge sentenced me to this crazy weird Max Headroom version of the old ball and chain.

What a mother-fucking-cock-sucking-festering-pus-filled-prick.

Cripes man, if a judge can't handle it when you refer to him as Your Well-Hungness because he thinks its a crack at that whole "is he naked under the robe thing?" (apparently this judge is not).

I meant it as a compliment. I mean really, it would take a couple of grapefruits down there to be a judge wouldn't it?

But the asshole apparently didn't see things the same as I, so here I sit, in my luxury high-rise condo overlooking downtown. I am virtually chained to the phone by some little box the bastards installed. Apparently if I wander more than three feet out my front door it calls The Man and tells him I'm stepping out.

This is something I am allowed to to do twice weekly, to attend to my court ordered therapy sessions with my court ordered therapist, the prick.

To add further insult to injury, the asshole judge also suspended my fucking license and impounded my car to try to make sure I don't drive. You got that? The asshole judge impounded my car! He said something about "evidence blah blah blah". The sight of seeing my ultra-luxurious European sports car being towed off by a couple of Bubbas in ripped shirts like a common Ford or something from an expired meter was almost as grievious a mental blow as the moment that deputy slapped this contraption around my ankle. If those bastards put one scratch in the high-gloss finish gently buffed by the delicate hands of petite Asian women with hand woven silk polishing clothes, why I swear I'll tear someone a new one.

So for the moment, I am walking. The therapist's office is only a dozen or so blocks from my condo, near the other edge of downtown. Walking gives me some opportunity to be out and interact with people. While the pants leg of my Armani suit conceals the hellish device on my ankle, it does nothing to conceal the GPS eye in the sky that watches and tracks my every move. Twice now just for fun I have called the local police and been patiently bounced through their phone system until I get to speak to the desk jockey cop whose job it is to monitor me and make sure I don't go astray. I pretend I'm lost and use him as kind of a personal OnStar to safely guide me to my destination. What a hoot.

And none of that makes it any fucking better. What the fuck is wrong with this country.

House arrest is what they call it. House arrest? Don't they know who they're fucking dealing with here? I'm not some God-damned whiny-ass Nobel Fucking Peace Prize Winner. I'm a Barrington.

The Man's got me caged like a wild fucking animal.

And man, and am I ever ready to prowl and pounce.

I'm single. I'm filthy rich. I'm insanely attractive.

And those are just three of the reasons why the judge is full of shit.

As for the shyster? What a worthless pile of dung he's turned out to be. It's his mother-fucking fault things went so horribly awry at my last hearing. He told me to sit down and shut the hell up as soon as I began ranting. He just didn't say it loud enough.

I must confess, I did go a little nuts on his ass after that fat deputy snapped the lock on that thing on my fucking ankle. But c'mon, he's a lawyer. I didn't think they had feelings. Or souls.

Turns out, I may have been wrong.

I spent about ten minutes pacing around this conference room in the courthouse doing some exaggerated broken leg stagger on account of the ankle monitor, all the while screaming out a string of obscenities that would have made the most hardened marine blush. Every one was directed at the shyster. The fucking twat. My daddy's not paying his daddy's law firm $500 an hour for this shit.

He quit. He mumbled something about not having graduated near the top of his class at Stanford to put up with my shit for any price and walked out the door.

I'm not worried about it. He's hardly the first allegedly top notch lawyer that hasn't had the balls to stick with me through difficult situations.

The sucky part is I had to call my father, The Bastard, and tell him the shyster quit. It was a challenge to get a hold of my father, The Bastard. He's currently in the Dominican Republic, officially on business, but the only business he's tending to is the same business that other rich asshole white guys go there to take care of.

When I finally reached him, after he was through laughing, he told me to relax and sit tight, he'd take care of things and hung up. He called me back about 10 minutes later and said that he was reassigning a couple of guys from corporate to come down and clear this whole thing up. He said they had a couple of loose ends from previous business to tie up and that they would be in town by the end of the week.

So for the moment I am waiting in my electronic prison.

Since I can't go out and mingle with the beautiful people in the real world, I have decided to do so in a virtual one. I have been busy hanging out and meeting hotties on MySpace. Like using your hand, which I haven't had to do in about twenty years, it's just not the same. But for now sadly, my options are limited.

real world update, part seven

Okay, um, so like The Man sucks ass.

There I said it. Take that Mister High and Mighty Judge.

Oh yeah, one more thing. . . go fuck yourself.

I had a court hearing last week, a review of sorts, so the judge could evaluate my "progress" with the court ordered therapist, the prick, and determine whether or not to allow me to continue my probation on the good side of the steel bars. All was going well. It was just another routine jump through the hoops to appease The Man so he leaves me the fuck alone for another month and I can go on living my life as I please as a prisoner of this fucking city.

As I said, all was going well. . .

The judge is literally seconds away from pounding his gavel to end the damn hearing. All is fine, stay the course, blah blah continue my therapy sessions blah blah blah community service blah blah blah.

Whatever dude. I still think the shyster could have, should have, gotten me a better deal in the first place. But whenever I say that the shyster reminds me about my circumstances and the drugs those asshole cops found in the trunk of my luxury sports sedan. Of course the drugs were inevitably ruled inadmissible. There is a reason why my father, The Bastard, is is paying the shyster's father's law firm around $500 an hour plus expenses. However, the best legal representation money can buy can't change the fact that despite what it read on their fake IDs, the girls were high school seniors at the time of my alleged infraction.

It cost my father, The Bastard, signifcantly more than what he's paying the shysters to minimize my family name in the legitimate press following my arrest. Tabloids always hound the rich, famous and attractive. We Barrington's are no more concerned with them than those at a picnic are concerned about mosquitos. They are an unavoidable annoyance to be swatted if they get to close.

But the legitimate mainstream press is another issue entirely. Those bastards aren't mosquitos, they're a pack of rabid wolves. And once they get a taste of blood. . .

I'm sure you remember how proud Old Grandad was of our family name. There was nothing Old Grandad hated more than to see his name printed outside of the business or society pages in the Old Gray Lady.

My father, the Bastard, inherited his fierce protection of the family name from his father, Old Grandad. And like Old Grandad, he is also a philandering asshole, but that is a story for another time.

Don't think for a minute, because I sure as hell don't, that any of my ongoing legal drama has anything to do with me in my father's eyes. I truly believe my father, The Bastard, doesn't care dick about me. He'd throw me to the wolves in a heartbeat if he could do it without tarnishing the legacy of his name. But he can't. So fuck him. Let him spend a small chunk of the family fortune protecting his name's legacy for the ages.

You want truth? How much truth can you afford? The rich and the powerful have always had the ability to bend and define reality to their liking, whether it be through the construction of grand monuments or purchasing permanent obfuscation. Google my name if you doubt me. Or try to find mention of my arrest in the news.

Now I'm ranting. My court ordered therapist, the prick, tells me that I do that when an issue strikes close to the bone. I usually just tell him to fuck off.

Anyways, the asshole judge is dramatically raising his gavel in the air, as he often does when he thinks he is going to make some grand pronouncement or dramatic point. What a douche.

And this intern law student in the DA's office who is looking to make a name for herself walks in. She's looking way hot. Damn, what is it about a red-headed woman in a department store business suit that makes me all a quiver? I've seen her before, she's been at all my court proceedings. I was planning on banging her.

I am still planning on banging her, and because I'm a Barrington, single, and insanely attractive it is a certainty that I will. But now I will sadly do it more out of spite than for the sheer joy of doing it that it should inevitably be. You might wonder what's the difference. Le'me tell ya. . .

If I bang her out of spite, I don't offer to buy her breakfast in the morning and she's got to pay her own cab fare home.

So anyways, this smokin' hot red-headed law school intern in a department store business suit walks in with a recent issue of SPIN magazine, you know, the one with the coverage of the recent big annual music festival, tucked under her arm. I swear she walks in slow motion like in some TV shampoo ad to the prosecutor's table across the aisle from where I sit with the shyster.

She puts the magazine on the table, opens it, points and speaks in hushed tones to the asshole assistant district attorney who is covering The Man's side in this hearing.

The asshole assistant D.A. slowly stands up, "Your Honor, there are new . . . "

Before he can finish the sentence the shyster leaps up screaming "Objection! Objection!" Damn is he ever quick. Guess that's one of the reasons he gets paid so much.

The law school intern chick glances and moves closer to me with seductive coyness while lifting and tilting the magazine so I can see what she's pointing at. Yeah, she wants me.

She's pointing at a large photo of the next big thing, Nirvana 2.0 or whoever the fuck it is, hanging out after their critic fellating gig at some local hotspot. I recognize the band because I was at the show.

I also recognize the image of myself, clearly visible standing at the bar in the background of the photo. I have a beer in one hand and a blonde in the other.

I'm not really sure what all happened next because it happened both really fast and in that weird slow motion way that you experience bad things.

The outcome is that a judge who was already pissed off about what he perceives to be my exploitation of his previous generousity thinks I am further taking advantage of his good nature.

He is not a happy camper.

It is a sad day when you find yourself a defendant in the courtroom of an angry judge.

That was last week.

Right now I am sitting on my high-rise condo balcony, overlooking the city in the cool breeze of spring time evening. It is a glorious night.

Except for the electronic monitor strapped to my ankle that will alarm if I step more than three feet out my front door.

Fucking judge.