Pennermag.com

I think my days defending criminals are over.

I’m looking for a job in television. Why? I’m in California. I like to watch TV, why not work in TV.

Back in June when I was thinking about looking for a new job, I applied to the Office of the Public Defender. When I graduated from law school, I thought that I wanted to save people from divorce, from jail, from themselves. After five years, I realized that it didn’t work. Sure, my clients didn’t go to jail when I was representing them, but left to their own devices, well . . . .

So, I find myself today sitting across a badly laminated table from two public defenders. They’re throwing bizarre hypotheticals at me — yeah, I’ll always lie in court and subvert the law to advance my client’s interest. As if all of these dilemma’s arise when standing in court, day after day, with a case load of hundreds of cases, meeting my clients five minutes before my in court representation.

Fortunately, I have another network interview on Friday.

Adam and I find it ironic that I read articles all the time lamenting the lack of attorneys willing to enter public service. Yet all of the times we’ve tried — it’s been an uphill battle — as if these folks are regularly fighting off Ivy League graduates willing to work for peanuts with hundreds of thousands and dollars in student loans.

So, I’m going to take the word of the receptionist who checked me in today. Paraphrasing his, now, sage wisdom, he said, “Why do you want to work here? These attorneys suck. You should get a real job elsewhere.”

Ok, I will.

(more…)

I’m looking for a new zip code. That’s right. Life in the 90016 has been dandy, but I’m on the hunt.

A few years ago, I though my moving to Historic West Adams would make a difference. I had always heard that if well educated folks moved to — let’s call them — gentrifying areas — that it would make a difference.

But I seem alone in my call for better services. 90016 gets red-lined. One of my neighbors has an apartment in another zip code to get a break on her car insurance. Getting services is a major nightmare. Just Sunday, I was told point blank by a technician at SBC/PacBell that my phone/DLS service was not going to improve — even though it’s $100 per month. If I lived north of Wilshire Boulevard or north of Sunset Boulevard, then I could be guaranteed uninterrupted service, he said. Without constant complaints to the public utilities commission, he said, I’ll be lucky to get regular phone service.

You’ve got to be kidding! I recently came to a crossroads. Would my time be better spent rallying for services for which I fork over a bevy of taxes and fees for — or would my time be better spent getting to a place where they already have those services.

This is an on-going debate among some of my neighbors. Despite my best efforts, however, I was unable to rally much help from those around me who are getting short changed as well. A lot of times I get, ‘well it’s always been this way.’ To that, I say, ‘No way.’

One of the most told stories in my family was about a fire on Rapp Road in Albany. The city firefighters wouldn’t come because they said it was unincorporated area. The county wouldn’t come because they claimed the fire was in a city area.

I say, get out before it burns down.

(more…)

In my mind’s eye, I imagine this scenario.

The main Democratic strategists are sitting around a table, it’s late 2003.

STRATIGEST A: “Dean is really firing up our base. Moreover, he’s bringing new people into the fold, getting young people involved like never before as well as those disaffected by the political system.”

STRATEGIST B: “Yeah, this guy really energizes people, and has the real ability, I think, to make George Bush’s greatest strength–national security and terrorism–a weakness. He says without reservation that (1) Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US, (2) we had successfully contained Iraq for 12 years with no-fly zones, (3) Iraq had virtually no Air Force to speak of, (4) there was no Al Qaida in Iraq, as the president intimated, (5) Iraq was not about to acquire nuclear weapons, as the president intimated, and (6) we should not have gone to war.”

STRATEGIST C: “Word has it that the two main contenders for the nomination of our party in 2000–Bill Bradley and the eventual nominee Al Gore–are going to endorse him, along with a slew of other party leaders. This guy has what it takes.”

STRATEGIST D: “Yeah, that’s why I’ve called this meeting. We’ve got to stop him.”

STRATEGISTS A, B and C: “Huh, why?!?”

STRATEGIST D: “He’ll never win. The Republicans are going to pain him, and us, as soft on national security. He’ll lose like McGovern. It will be a humiliation. We need someone who is electable. A war hero. That way, we can run our war hero against George Bush, the draft dodger–the guy who pulled strings to get into the Guard. I say we go for Kerry.”

* * *

What were they thinking? Not eight years earlier, the Republicans chose their own war hero–Bob Dole–to run against draft dodger Bill Clinton, and the strategy failed, big-time.

As for McGovern, it wasn’t exactly a peacenik running against a warmonger. Indeed, Nixon was the fellow who ultimately pulled the US out of Vietnam–a war inspired by the Democrats. Remember, the chant made famous during that war was “LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today.” Democrat Lyndon Johnson was blamed, and when the Yippies protested the war outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Democratic Mayor Daley sent out his police force to beat them into submission. Vietnam certainly wasn’t a Republican war.

So why did the Democrats choose to forget history and pick a loser to run when there was real excitement for Dean?

The answer lies in the identity of STRATIGEST D . . .

Bill Clinton. Think about it. A loss in 2004 means Hillary can run in 2008, and he can get another shot at the famous “co-presidency.”

Hey Bill, way to put your interests above the rest of America.

Forget about the “vast right wing conspiracy.” I think there’s an ineffective centrist conspiracy in the works.

(more…)

Today, I found myself in the mailroom of one of the biggest talent agenies in Los Angeles. I was dropping off some tickets for a friend of mine who works there. It wasn’t quite like the ride from the House of Representative office building to the Capitol, but it’s pretty close in terms of future power brokers.

The mailrooms in Los Angeles are legendary. Some of the most powerful movers and shakers in L.A. began in the mailroom. Whether it’s at an agency or studio, many have gotten their start that way. With college degrees, MBAs, and JDs in hand, many have resorted to delivering mail in order to get their crack at the top. For some it works, they become an assistant (read secretary/slave) to an executive, and if they’re lucky, after a few years of hard work, they may become an executive themselves.

The other day I received a copy of my Social Security earnings record. I got out my calculator and added up the numbers. The bad news, is that I’ve earned a whopping $58,640 dollars in my life. That’s from the age of 15 in 1997 until today. The worse news; I earned a majority of that money before I graduated from college.

After almost $150,000 of education, and consequently $200,000 of debt, I’m not sure I’m getting my money’s worth. And now, for the zillionth time in my life, I’m embarking on a new career search. The question? Should I try to get a job in the mailroom or as an ‘assistant’ in order to make my way to the top?

As you can imagine with monthly student loan payments that exceeed my mortgage, I’m more than eager to begin earning a living — but without experience, it’s difficult to get a job — you know, the original Catch 22. I won’t get ‘experience’ until I get a job.

Until now, I’ve eschewed the mailroom, but, knowing it could double my lifetime earnings in a year or so, it’s beginning to look attractive . . . after all Mike Ovitz had to start somewhere.

(more…)

Where I live in Los Angeles, I can get a pizza faster than I can get the police.

On the November 2nd ballot, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has put, County Measure A. This measure, if passed by a two-thirds majority, would raise the county sales tax from 8.25% to 8.75%. The Measure, which is called the The Public Safety and Homeland Security Tax Act, would ostensibly put more police officers and sheriffs on the street in the city and county of Los Angeles.

I am not in support of this measure.

First, of all the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News have written several stories on the poor utilization of the Los Angeles Police Department. Here s the scenario. Much of the violent crime, including murder, occurs in certain parts of the city. Everyone knows what they are, South Central Los Angeles (renamed South Los Angeles), area of the San Fernando Valley especially around Pacoima and North Hollywood, and so on. So, you re thinking, there are a million cops in these hard hit areas and a few police officers in zip codes of Los Angeles where there are less than one murder a year. You d be wrong. There are as many police officers and homicide detectives in the hard hit areas as the low crime areas. That means the low crime areas get aggressive policing, and the hard hit areas, get over-worked and over burdened police officers struggling to do their job.

What does this mean for me? When I call the police for the regular minor disturbances, prostitutes giving blow jobs to johns in cars on our quiet neighborhood streets, complaints about neighbors who think it s a good idea to blast their stereo on the street rather than in their house, or just suspicious behavior I get no response. Once I was told that they were far too busy with serious crimes to the south of me. Another time the police called me back several hours later asking if I still needed their help. Hmmm, well gee, I don t know YES!

When Mayor James K. Hahn recruited William Bratton to be our police chief this was all supposed to change. Bill Bratton came from New York where Times Square had turned from the Sodom and Gomorrah of my youth to the Disneyland of today. We were going to get a system like New York City s CompStat which gives computerized readouts of where the crime is happening and sends the police there. Bill Bratton was supposed to employ his broken window policy and clamp down on those minor crimes before they escalate into worse ones.

Funny, I haven t seen that. Rather the airspace above my house serves as a quick helicopter path to areas in South Los Angeles, where they are pursuing gang violence. Calls from myself and neighbors to stop graffiti, petty crime, and suspicious behavior, are passed over. Oh, they say, please keep calling. We ll mark these down as incidences and then you ll get more police. Yeah, right. I m not holding my breath.

Do I think that this fifty cent tax hike will get more police. I say, not likely. No doubt West L.A. and Western San Fernando Valley will get safer and I ll just have to wait. I say, no thanks.

(more…)