More Grilling of Idiots & Scumbags Along With an Interesting Hypothesis

I mean, what did you expect? Read the title of this blog.

It's "The Angry Redheaded Lawyer." It's not "Little Miss PC Smiley Face, Lifelong Member of the Shiny Happy People Club Who Never Offends Anyone Ever."

Who'd want to read that blog? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Grandma (if any of mine responded, that means someone came back from having been dead for many decades; only one would even know who I was)?

I didn't think so. The title's too long anyway but we'd all know the "lifelong member..." part was implied in there.

So, life has been getting in the way lately. At least the good news is I shouldn't be as stressed in things & my husband won't be trying to drive me out of this marriage. I warned him that I already lived through an alcoholic father & really couldn't take more strife in my home life as an adult. You can call me selfish, you can call me heartless. But unless YOU have lived through such an experience, you don't get to say shit to me or anyone else who has. A few days ago, I even said to him "You didn't grow up with an alcoholic father like I did."

Hence, this article. As far as I'm concerned, you owe shit to an abusive parent. My father certainly won't be living with me as a broken down elderly person. My major requirement for any parent expecting to bunk with me is that they have to live where I live, which I don't think either of my parents would agree to. I'm not giving up my career, dreams or sanity for these people & I know they wouldn't want me to do it either. I've even said many times that my living in NC would be asking for trouble.

Brava to Emily Yoffe for essentially telling those analogizing their happy home lives and families to fuck off when it comes to telling others how to handle relations with their parents. I'd dump a therapist telling me to do that in a second & would question the person's sanity.

It's not gratifying to forgive if you don't feel it in your heart. No one died & appointed you God, all right? Not your place to tell me or anyone else what to do in that situation when your parent wasn't abusive to you & let's see: supported your dreams, didn't make you a social outcast, didn't force you to do adult things b/c they were too much of a fuck up to be a real parent, etc.

It's for that reason that I told my husband that however he wanted to handle elder care for his parents was his affair & I would have nothing to do with those decisions. He lived it & he's got his own choices to make there. As far as I'm concerned, it's got nothing to do with me. I'm pretty sure he feels the same way with respect to my parents & elder care they'd need (or not, since most of my relatives died in their 60s; no one I know of who's related to me lived into their 90s).

Maybe I'm also colder because I never had grandparents around to have a loving relationship with. You can't miss what you never had, as they say.

The moral here is keep your damn mouth shut on things you don't know about. Throw "till death do us part" at me & I'll tell you to take my place if you're so pro-abuse. If you get in my face over financing an abusive parent? Why don't you put your money where your mouth is, hot shot?

If you aren't going to be doing that, then you don't get to speak on that subject. If you do, the person you're addressing it to has the right to punch you in said big mouth. I also guarantee you will create resentment against you b/c you came from a Ward & June Cleaver existence. Not everyone lived your little utopia, kid.

See how easy you can make those well meaning assholes feel like shit for using phrases like "He's your daddy!" and preaching about forgiveness?

Anyone see last week's episode of Bar Rescue? If you didn't, I warn you that you definitely don't want to watch it while eating. If you are massively phobic about bugs like I am, you will definitely be creeped out. Even if you aren't bug phobic, I still think you'd be creeped out.

I still want the owner of that place to die horrifically or get sent to Pound Me in the Ass prison (thanks Office Space). For one thing, this guy expected his employees to work in the environment they were in. Let me say the word "trash pit" doesn't do it justice. I would be physically unable to set foot in there since I have hardcore phobias. I would never patronize a place that had an infestation & if I happened to be someplace & saw that particular insect around, I would refuse to pay for any food I had there and immediately walk out. I would also scream & it would become a huge issue for the owner. I won't even go to places in NYC that are grade A if the restaurant inspection report says anything about sightings or evidence of infestations, rats, etc.

When Jon Taffer confronts the owner on this bug issue the owner's response is "There are bugs in Austin!" (where this bar is). I promise you this man isn't getting any from anyone. If this business looked as it did & had that kind of infestation, imagine what his house is like. This was like Psycho Boy's house except they weren't serving the general public there.

He apparently also had a cat to kill more things but the place reeked of cat pee since no one bothered with a litter box or letting the cat go outside.

Then you find out later this owner was making his employees work off the clock & didn't have them on any type of payroll. Husband & I were wondering why the hell anyone worked in those conditions since, as I said, I couldn't even set foot in there myself (my husband outright said this to me, in fact). That goes for any workplace. If I see bugs, you're going to hear about it loudly from me since I won't work in those conditions. I'm not spreading mess in my clean home & I've got phobias. Nope, I never worked in a restaurant & I never did janitorial work. I'm not someone who did "dirty jobs," not even as a teenager.

The guy never got on board & Taffer did the makeover for the employees. If I'd been him, I'd have left & called the board of health on this owner.

The update after the show said this owner kept up his shit & the main employees they profiled had gotten wise and were leaving.

As a business owner, people like this piss me off to no end. First off, you've gotten a business to fuck up while so many other people who'd be a trillion times better can't get financing or have money to open a bar, restaurant, whatever.

Second, no attorney could represent this guy in-house since they'd be going down for him not putting anyone on the payroll. Can you say "illegal?" Any of you in Texas want to risk your law license to represent such a filthy asshole?

Third, this guy is an obvious idiot who's got no business serving anything consumable to anyone. I don't think he's even got any business having any real position of power. He's a moron & not just that but a moron who thinks he's exempt from health codes, labor law and probably even the rules of dating. He ought to be shoveling horse crap along the highway.

Finally, if I were one of these hosts I'd have far less compassion. I'd be reminding these fuckers that they called ME and if they weren't going to take my help after I showed up then I'd be billing them for my travel & lodging costs.

We lawyers don't screw around; I guarantee some attorney doing a reality show like this to improve law practices would demand that from some obstinate prick who gave him/her trouble.

Some free advice: no self-respecting lady or gay man wants to date a guy whose business is overrun with vermin. Steve, I think his name was, seems like a guy who should be plastered all over those "don't date this guy" websites (gay & straight alike).

This story outright infuriated me. I'm calling Adam Slipakoff an elitist asshole here & now. Maybe old fart is more appropriate since he doesn't sound like someone who's been to law school in this century. Sounds like another scumbag who needs to wake up & join us in modern times.

I'll bet he's from the same cloth of law firm partner who'd tell one of these grossly underpaid employees to quit moonlighting as a waitress because "it harms the firm's reputation" while never solving the lack of pay given to the person that caused the moonlighting in the first place. Believe it or not, I was in a program in college (in Atlanta, where this firm is) where we talked to attorneys in different practice settings. The BigLaw attorney told us the story of a law firm partner who did just that.

For you old fart law firm partners & anyone else who hasn't gone to school in this century, let me clue you in on a few things:

1. College costs a shit ton of money. It's no longer a few thousand dollars to attend. Even community college & public schools cost a pretty penny. Go read up on today's tuition rates instead of assuming everything has kept pace with what you paid in the '70s and '80s.

It's even more expensive than when I went 10 years ago. College graduates are leaving with six figure loan debts. That is reality.

2. Requiring a college degree for a $10 an hour position makes you a dick. End of story. I made $12 an hour when I started in a law firm after making $10 an hour in college jobs. I also made $8 an hour working retail in Atlanta. It didn't require me to buy expensive business clothing or spend lots of time with lawyers. Let's also face it: plenty of people in our profession are assholes. You & firms like yours aren't doing anything to change hearts and minds when it comes to nasty stereotypes about lawyers.

Frankly, you can take your $10 an hour & shove it where the sun don't shine. If most of our nation's college graduates don't start becoming hustlers, pimps, hookers, drug dealers & so forth if this keeps up, I'd be shocked. People like you are driving them there.

3. Know how bad it is in the legal profession? How there's a glut of lawyers & not enough jobs for them? Why the hell are you making it worse for the college graduates & people who said "I'm not taking on five & six figure student loan debt to do a menial job,"? Are you aware of how classist you sound, Adam? I think you should be.

If I worked for you in that capacity, I would do the bare minimum & I wouldn't give a damn about you or your firm. Why would I put real priority in a job where I can't live on my own? It would be a mere transition & I promise you it's a mere transition for anyone with a brain.

This little requirement is not just classist but makes any pro bono work any of your people do for the less fortunate i.e. poor people a complete & utter joke.

I hope you get off your ass & do some pro bono assignment where you have to deal with poor people & one of them confronts you on this. I'd love to hear just what you say to him/her. All the better if it was some poor person who was completely relentless & unimpressed with politician speak.

4. Give smart people no place to use their talents in a pro-social way & you WILL end up with anti-social behavior. That's not a threat; it's a promise from me to any of you (including you politicians who think outsourcing & giving illegals all the jobs is a peachy keen idea).

That anti-social behavior will end with you, your friends, family, loved ones and anyone close to home on the business side of the consequences. Make people who are starving & they'll be stealing to survive. Give no one a shot to do anything unless they've got money & you will be digging your own grave if you've got money. Who's going to be a target? That's right, Sherlock. It will be YOU with your six/seven figure salary who will be a victim of theft, robbery, home invasion, etc.

Educated people aren't the same as uneducated poor people. The sooner you get that & not fuck up the world for them, the happier your life will be. Remember, those people will be funding your elder care & selecting your nursing home. If I were them, I'd be making sure you got nothing & had to become a beggar on the street to have even a stick of gum that day. They probably won't bother to wipe your butt either.

You're not creating any kind of respect for you or "elders." This sort of thing is merely engendering hatred, anger, all sorts of things you'd be wise not to have the future of America feeling about you. Are people in China going to be able to rob you on the street or shoot you on sight? Cops can't be everywhere & even they could turn on you if you get out of hand. Don't underestimate educated people or anger over the current laws on student loans. Oh, and people with nothing to care about have a lot of time to be angry & will channel that anger someplace. If you think they won't, you need to get out of the utopian bubble you live in & join us in real life.

5. Finally, student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy (public or private). Just because you could doesn't mean today's graduates can. Thank your little lobbyists at Sallie Mae & the financial industry. You can get off your butts & lobby for changes here (at least on private loans since they are "fuck you, pay me") or you can pay living wages that take these burdens into account.

The race to the bottom is only going to get your behind burned. Frankly, I'd rather not see the lawyers or financial industry people I know aren't scum paying the price because of the actions of scumbags who don't represent everyone in town. Let me assure you that the statement of Adam Slipakoff doesn't represent the viewpoint of all attorneys & definitely not all business owners of any stripe.

It also helps when you didn't come from the privileged background this Adam Slipakoff seems to have emerged from. When you've seen the value of experience over a college degree play out in real life, you tend to be less obsessed with everyone having a degree.

Now for that interesting hypothesis: I was watching Unsung last night & they were having a special on disco. Some of the people profiled said disco really ended because Middle America felt the gays, minorities & women were getting too uppity.

Now I wasn't even alive then so I really have no idea if that's true or not. I can tell you that my husband doesn't like disco but that's because he doesn't like the music; however, he likes other so-called "black" genres (honestly, I've never thought of disco as a "black" genre but I guess others do?).

A lot of people of that time said the same thing & never said a word about race or anyone getting uppity.

I could see some truth there considering we have old dinosaurs still in government in those places & based on the news stories you see, you do have to wonder how many dinosaurs still live in Middle America and try to foist discrimination on others daily. If the Republican's strategy to win the presidency in the last election was any indication, the "racists ended disco" theory has some credibility to it.

Maybe this is one more thing we can blame on old people in politics. Can we? Maybe THEY were responsible for the other reason advanced for the end of disco: parents not wanting their kids exposed to the sexy lyrics. How about "parental control," folks? Maybe actually be a damn parent instead of expecting musicians and the rest of society to raise your rugrats for you?

Did we have that problem in the '70s as well? I thought that crap didn't start until at least the '80s. Were adults trying to abdicate all parental responsibility before that time? Again, I wasn't there so I don't know though apparently the word "booty" was verboten when that song "Shake Your Booty" came out. We could snort up coke, take speed and wear hot pants out in the open but we couldn't use the word "booty" in a song?

Interesting theory about racism ending disco, don't you think? If it's something else we can blame on detestable characters in society, I'm all for it. I'm just not sure if the causal link is there.