Wilmette notes: My Corona

     When I heard that our Northern Suburban Chief Caren Jeskey had come down with COVID, my first thought was: "Great! I can't wait to read her take!" But I suppressed that thought, and came up with a better one: "Oh no! I hope you're okay." Then slyly hinted: "At least you know what your topic will be for Saturday." She did not disappoint. Me, I'm jamming into subway cars and packed delis in New York City. So my COVID diary is no doubt next (And yes, the title is meant to be an echo of "My Sharona.")

By Caren Jeskey

     That dreaded moment when you know you have it. 

     Monday night, you're laying in bed, and your throat feels funny in a way never experienced before. It seemed that the mucus was especially clingy. Droopy Dog tired.
     You’ve been running away for over two years, successfully evading the evil beast, yet it turns out your days were numbered. (I am a big fan of talking about myself in the second person when I want to deny reality. It isn't me this horrible thing is happening to; it's this other person).

     When I woke up in the morning I tested myself using the cheek, throat, and nose swab method I learned from this smart Canuck video. As I squeezed four drops of the sample into the little hole on the testing strip, the pink liquid made its way from the solid control line towards to the T line. I was accustomed to the liquid permeating the rest of the strip without a 2nd line, but not this time. The second line was as dark as the first. I was positive for COVID-19. After 15 minutes it was still as clear as day. Same went for the 2nd test I took.
     Well, shit.
     I made the first available appointment at Physicians Immediate Care on Golf, my whole family’s go-to place for rapid antigens and PCRs. The first test, the antigen, came back negative. I asked the nurse to please do it again, using the 3 step process, and she balked. How odd. Even though it’s best practice, seems our medical system is not there yet.
     Hey Canada, you’re looking better and better and better. If I could only find a way there. Forever. (Editor's note: for a stinging rebuke to this line of thinking, see Neil Steinberg's column this Monday).

     She said they’d do a rapid PCR, which was fine by me. The PA came in with my official “You’ve Got COVID” paper. I felt I had failed in a huge way.
     I’d gone to a concert at SPACE on Evanston Thursday evening. I kept my mask on and was not close to others, except my friend, but I had a long conversation with a group of people outside after the show. I’ve learned that Coachella became a super spreader event. We are not safe, even outdoors, and especially the way I was behaving. I’m sorry. I stood too close and felt too comfortable with fellow humans, knowing that the surge was here. I’m not sure why I did that. I’m embarrassed. It may be the biggest mistake I've ever made.
     Or maybe it was this? I went to a family gathering on Saturday night, the first once since last summer when things were safer. I masked the whole time, with the exception of three or four quick photos. No one else was masked, except the family members I’d driven there with, and they stayed outdoors the whole time. My first thought was “did I give it to them” in the car to and from the party? That is, if I'd been exposed Thursday. That thought was just too much. So far they are in the clear, and if you pray please pray for them. If you hope, please hope for them. Let's all wish each other well.
     As I type this, the continual coughing segment of the adventure has begun. Folks I know have gotten pneumonia and lengthy bronchial coughs post-virus. A friend sent me a YouTube video about how to use certain stretches to keep the lungs in better shape while trying to force mucus up and out. There are variations that can be done without getting down on the floor, and Adrienne is my favorite YouTube yogini for floor work.
     I have followed public health guidelines and have not left my property since I was diagnosed. (Burns me up to think about the people I know who have been as reckless as flying just a few days after being diagnosed and are not following recommended quarantine and isolation guidelines in general.
     It occurred to me that I have the disgusting thing that has killed at least 1 million people in the U.S., including my former landlord Angelo back in April of 2020. A sobering, yet surreal, thought.
     I spent Tuesday sobbing on and off about the children in Uvalde. As the facts present, all I can think is “many so called ‘good people’ with guns could not stop one 18 year old with guns.” The Good Guys With Guns myth makes me want to vomit. And scream. And we have to be very careful. Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz have eyes on the Oval Office. God help us all.

Songs about Lawyers #5: "Don't Be a Lawyer"

Burl Moseley

     Songs about Lawyers Week concludes with a bang. Thank you for indulging me. 

     In case you didn't check out the Justia web site mentioned yesterday, let me plug one can't-miss song from their round-up, the joyful, pointed and altogether true "Don't Be a Lawyer" performed by Burl Moseley during season four of the CW show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
     This is too much  fun to overlook. Great production values, solid dancing, true lyrics: "The job is inherently crappy/that's why you've never met a lawyer's who's happy."
     Here's an irony: Moseley, made his TV debut on "Law & Order."

     Although, despite all the shade tossed on the profession, in this and the other songs I've featured this week, there is deep dark secret that I've noticed manifested by the actual lawyers I've come to know: many people love the work. Some are really well paid. And a few even manage to do some good, from time to time. There, I said it.

Songs about Lawyers #4: Divorce songs

Patsy Cline

     I'm helping a certain slick Fi-Di attorney celebrate his belated commencement, so this week am featuring music about his chosen profession.

     People who never have reason to hire a lawyer in their lives rush to them when they get divorced. Yet we haven't even mentioned divorce songs, which leads us to country music. As a Montgomery Gentry fan (surprise! I saw them twice, once at the Grand Ole Opry, once outside Chicago) I have to start with "Man's Job," which is more a delicious chuckle at a former wife's poor choice of romantic partners. But it does begin with a satisfying bass rumble of, "It tore me up to sign them papers, that set you free..." though skirting the legal world after that.

     Still, it's worth a listen for the way the singer gets his back into the lyrics. "You were riiighhht when you said he's everything I'm not..."
     Classic country music is an endless exploration of divorce. "A Church, a Courtroom, and Then Goodbye," was the first hit for legend Patsy Cline. More to the point is the classic country chestnut, "Will Your Lawyer Talk to God" by Kitty Wells.  ("I hate the sight of that courtroom," she sings, a sentiment that no doubt many of my lawyer readers will come to embrace.) A Facebook friend offered up "D.I.V.O.R.C.E." by Tammy Wynette, though that focuses on the emotional and not the legal aspects of the proceedings. 
    And while awareness of the Montgomery Gentry song is from the smithy of my own experience, I should add that the Cline and Wells songs are not from my encyclopedic knowledge of music, but cribbed from Justia's web post, "The Law in Music: 20 Cool Songs About Courtrooms, Lawyers and the Law."  You should check it out.

     Meanwhile, perhaps I should explain how I came to be an occasional country music fan. Because it does seem off brand for me. A magazine asked me to interview the great Loretta Lynn, and due diligence (you don't have to be a lawyer to use the term!) demanded that I listen to her music. By the time I was done, I was hooked. Nice lady, by the way. Hugged Edie, who by happenstance ended up sitting in on the interview ... well, that's a story for another time.

Songs about Lawyers #3: "Lawyers, Guns and Money."

   

     I grew up in Cleveland, and so of course went back at some point—25 years ago probably—to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
     More like the Rock and Roll Mausoleum, if you ask me, a collection of cases of fringed jackets and sequined platform shoes leading to, if I recall, some kind of cheesy glass and starlight holy of holies at the summit. It was the least rock and roll place I've ever been to. A judgment confirmed anew each year when they usher in another off-key group of entrants, like this year. Dolly Parton is a lovely lady, with wonderful charitable impulses. But to admit her to an establishment supposedly dedicated to rock music before Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, should result in the building being torn down and the ground sown with salt.
     Or worse, before Warren Zevon. One of the great wordsmiths of rock and roll. I couldn't focus on lawyer songs without his essential, "Lawyers, Guns and Money." It should have been the first, but that was too obvious.
     "I went home with the waitress/the way I always do," has to be one of the better opening lyrics in popular song. "How was I to know/she was with the Russians too?"
     Plus I don't like it, and include "Lawyers, Guns and Money" even though it isn't nearly my favorite Warren Zevon song (that would have to be "Studebaker") nor even in the Top Ten. Or 20. 
     I think it has something to do with the entitled, reprobate narrator. "Send lawyers, guns and money. Dad, get me out of this." You could see Donald Jr. singing it. I don't like "Excitable Boy" for the same reason. How can you like any song with the lyric, "Then he raped her and killed her and took her home"? It's just grotesque.

     I'd much, much rather listen to his last album, "The Wind," an act of bravura creativity written and recorded while he was dying of cancer. Or the marvelous tribute album, "Enjoy Every Sandwich," the title taken from Zevon's deathless answer when David Letterman asked him what he learned from dying. You know a musician is special when his songs are covered by both Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, as they are on this album. The Wallflowers' version of "Lawyers, Guns and Money" is quite good too.

     Returning to the Hall of Fame, Jackson Browne was admitted in 2004, and his "Lawyers in Love" is even worse. It was a big hit almost 40 years ago and I cringed at the thought of hearing it again, with its sha-la-las and chiming piano and warbling, near-yodeling "Ah-aaaas." Browne deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as much as I do. Then again, the whole thing is a joke, so why not? There is no justice in this world. 

     

     

Songs about Lawyers #2: "This Song."

George Harrison in the video for "This Song."

  

     "Songs about Lawyers" week continues. If you missed the first installment, you can find it here.

     I hesitated to include George Harrison's "This Song" in my week of tunes related to attorneys, since it never mentions lawyers or the law, specifically. You have to know the backstory. In February, 1976, a trial began against the former Beatle,, accusing him of stealing the tune for "My Sweet Lord" from the Chiffon's 1963 hit of Ronnie Mack's "He's So Fine." 

    The song is an upbeat, joyous, piano-driven middle finger waved at the lawsuit, which had just begun.
    "This song, as far as I know, don't infringe on anyone's copyright, so..." Harrison sings. 

    Harrison had recently found himself in court, on the stand, guitar in hand, demonstrating the process by which he allegedly wrote "My Sweet Lord" and trying to point out the musical differences between it and "He's So Fine." 

    Had Harrison waited until the case concluded, in 1998, 22 years later, "This Song" probably would have been far slower, darker and more melancholy. It has a certain buoyancy that would be ground out of him.

    After I watched the proudly cheesy and amateurish video (which Harrison directed), shot in a Los Angeles courtroom, and was glad I included the song. Besides, it's got that great sax solo. 

     There's a lot going on in the video, including the Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood, in drag, mouthing Monty Python's Eric Idle's screech, "Could be 'Sugar Pie Honey Bunch'? Naw! Sounds more like 'Rescue Me!'" (indeed, both classic Motown songs echo the introduction of "This Song" as well as each other, a reminder that there is a lot of borrowing in music). 

     The song is larded with such sly winks at the case, including "This song has nothing 'Bright' about it"—Bright Music owned the copyright to "She's So Fine," and in turn was owned by Allen Klein, who until recently had been Harrison's manager, putting him in the unique position of profiting from both the release of "My Sweet Lord" and, potentially, from its copyright infringement settlement. Their animosity also helps explain what should have been handled with the quiet cutting of a check ended up a legal "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a case that has been described as "without question, one of the longest running legal battles ever to be litigated."

     Harrison released the song Dec. 3, 1970, and it became a huge international hit—the first by a former Beatle, and his biggest solo single. That is highly salient to the lawsuit, equal to the two songs' similarity. Without that pot of gold, the parallels would have been a bit of music trivia, like Mick Jagger singing backup on Carly Simon's "You're So Vain." Indeed, honorary Beatle Billy Preston released his version of "My Sweet Lord" three months before Harrison did, and nobody sued anybody.

    The similarities were obvious. Radio stations would start playing "He's So Fine" then segue into "My Sweet Lord." In 1971, country music star Jody Miller put out her version of "He's So Fine," designed, rather maliciously, to highlight the two songs mirroring each other, complete with weeping slide guitar. Harrison said it "really putting the screws in."

    Harrison might have been proud, and creative, but he wasn't an idiot. He first felt chagrined when the resemblance was pointed out, and remembered thinking, "Why didn't I realize?" Later, as the legal noose tightened, he tried to downplay his gaffe, blustering, "Well, it's not exactly the same." 

     In his autobiography, "I, Me, Mine," Harrison does his best to feign outrage, dismissing the merits of the suit with, "It's a joke ... just greed and jealousy and all that."

    Despite the clear borrowing—it's the same tune—the case itself was maddeningly complex. Since it defied belief to suggest that a talent like Harrison, fresh from the Beatles, merely copied the music, the judge suggested it was a case of "subconscious" plagiarism. 

     Harrison said he tried to give the plaintiff the rights to the song, just to be done with it. But his lawyers (boo, hiss) wouldn't permit it.  Judge Richard Owen ruled that it was "perfectly obvious" that "the two songs are virtually identical."  Which they are. During the trial, a keyboardist was recalled pointing that out when they were recording "My Sweet Lord" in May, 1970. Which didn't help. Maybe he wasn't forceful enough. In September, 1976, Harrison was found to have inadvertently copied the song. Which is when the years began to really clock by, determining the judgment. Harrison was eventually stuck with a $1.6 million penalty,  which observers felt was excessive, ignoring the role his fame as a Beatle and the artistry he brought to "My Sweet Lord" played in its success in favor of the tune, which is not exactly hummable. 

     Eventually, factoring in Klein's double-dealing—he used information he knew from producing the song in suing Harrison—in 1981, the judgment was cut to $600,000, which included Harrison gaining rights to "He's So Fine." He did not, however, cut his own version.

     Instead he left us with, "This Song." Written, Harrison notes, at "the end of a nightmarish week in court." 

    One noteworthy thing about "This Song" is, it isn't the only mainstream rock song about copyright infringement. There's also Weird Al Yankovic's "Don't Download This Song." (Set to the tune of "We Are the World," with a plot development borrowed from the end of "White Heat") It's worth seeing for the whimsical animation, and of course Weird Al's spot-on satire: "'Cause You start out stealing songs, then you're robbing liquor stores, and selling crack and running over school kids with your car."
     That always reminds me of that cultural moment, an eternity ago, when the Napster free music sharing website first appeared, and I took the plunge and downloaded the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," while my wife, an officer of the court, remember, stood over me, remonstrating, "You're committing a crime!"
     "So I'll send Mick Jagger a check," I said. 

     I never did. I hope he doesn't sue me.  

   

Songs about Lawyers #1: "Alas for You."

     My hometown of Berea, Ohio isn't known for much. There is sandstone: large quarries that left picturesque lakes, in my youth, that eventually filled up into silty, not-quite-so picturesque bogs. There is a university, Baldwin-Wallace, with a modest reputation for its music program.
     And "Godspell," written by John-Michael Tebelak, who graduated from Berea High School in 1966, a dozen years before I did.
     That put the joyous musical on my radar more than would be typical for a 1970s suburban Jewish kid. The show didn't have the dark, dramatic swoop of "Jesus Christ Superstar," which came one year later, but still managed to upset some Christians, who didn't like to see their faith rendered into show tunes.
     And "Godspell" is fun, bouncy, with the campy, Rudy Vallee-esque "All for the Best," and an actual minor hit, "Day by Day," covered by the Fifth Dimension, Judy Collins and Cher.

     Not music I choose to revisit much, to be honest. Lately though, I've been listening to the show's "Alas for You," simply for the dig at lawyers (You can also watch the video version from the movie, but it's cringingly awful). The song begins:

Alas alas for you
Lawyers and pharisees
Hypocrites that you are
Sure that the kingdom of heaven awaits you
You will not venture half so far.
Other men who might enter the gates
You keep from passing through.
Drag them down with you.

     Why do I like this? I'm not sure. The law is interesting and important. I respect the legal profession, in the main, being the husband of one lawyer and the father of two more. Not to forget my many friends who are lawyers or judges. So I'm not slagging them personally. There's just something funny about tweaking lawyers, even in their absence. Even if they don't perceive the tweak and wouldn't care if they did. A sort of private joke, I suppose.
     Anyway, this week my oldest boy is having the graduation ceremony from New York University Law School that got scrubbed last year, due to COVID. Not coincidentally, I'm taking this week off, so as not to be left with a big mass of vacation at year's end, to do some gardening around the house, and attend to other duties. So in honor of his belated commencement, and so as to not leave you with nothing, I've come up with the next best thing: A week of posts on songs about lawyers. Enjoy. Or don't. Up to you. Either way, see you next Monday.

 

"I swear on GoD."

 

     We are hit by such a barrage of scams, come-ons, grifts, ploys and frauds of all kinds, you'd think we'd be more discerning by now. Yet those who bat away the pleas of Nigerian princes fall 100 percent and forever to the oily entreaties of lying leaders. It's very worrisome.
     While I have no problem ignoring the hammering of crooks, commercial or political, at my various electronic doors, there is my playful side, and sometimes I just can't help screwing with them a little bit. Yes, I know I'm not matching wits with Lex Luthor, but merely causing a flash of puzzlement of someone in a basement boiler room in Burkina Faso. If that. But I occasionally do it anyway, for my own amusement.

     I don't owe anything to the grifters, and they approached me, so I'm free to respond as I please. There is no rule that I must stay on script. Besides, I figure every second they parley with me, who is never sending them a dime, is a second they can't use to squeeze the retirement fund out of some gullible elderly couple in Idaho. So I am actually doing some small amount of good. Besides, I can be bored sometimes, and it's interesting to see how they handle it. Usually by fading away.
      Although it was a little disconcerting to see Facebook friends this week posting the amounts they received back from their Facebook settlements, because those of course were real, I think, although they followed the scam pattern. I do wonder what the fraudsters I respond to make of our exchanges.

         But eventually I get bored, and move on. An important skill in social media, one that many never seem to master.