The Bar Exam - Gang Initiation Ceremony for Lawyers
The Bar Exam — Gang Initiation Ceremony for Lawyers
The next stage in my development as a Ramones fan occurred when I was studying for the California bar exam in the summer of 1986. Of course a bar exam is what is known as a “qualifying examination.” You don't get a high or a low score, it's strictly pass-fail. You pass, you're a lawyer. You fail, you remain a law school graduate, a Juris Doctor, which sounds quite nice, but doesn't give you the right to practice law and charge for the service. This is much stiffer than a college or grad school exam, that you assume you'll pass. The statistics for the California bar, that draws thousands of candidates to “sit” for the examination, a three-day 18 hour gruel-a-thon held in numerous auditoriums filled with narrow convention hall chairs pulled up to flat folding tables. The exam is given three times a year, and the pass rate is always less than fifty percent. So it's the sort of thing that makes grown men and women freeze up inside about. Studying seems like the last thing you'd want to do. You study all these years and then you have to fucking jump the intellectual Grand Canyon on your mental motorbike as a last (hahahaha) gang-initiation trip. I graduated from law school in June 1986, and did everything before I finally got down to studying. I bought a new motorcycle on credit, a Honda 500 Ascot with shaft drive in cherry condition. I prepared my study area and prepared all of study materials with great care, even making special book-covers for the case outlines with humorous photographs. For example, the Family Law outline had pictures of famous horror couples, Frankenstein and his bride, Mr. & Mrs. Mummy, and the Property outline had a photo of sort of goofy samurai hacking down goofy peasants. You know, ways of humanizing your study materials so they scare you less. All that stuff to learn.
My study-buddy Robin Kaufer used to ride motorcycles together. She had one of the first Honda Rebel 250 cc “econo-choppers” and I noticed it in the bike parking lot outside the school. We hung together through 2nd and 3rd year at UCLA, and I remember she took our friend John Hays to the gay pride parade on Melrose one year, ridin' him around on the Rebel. She was part of the Lawpoets scene, as was John and Tom Brill. Robin and I studied hard once we got going. We made flash cards and quizzed each other on legal rules. Then we'd fire up and kick it into high gear, doing four one hour essay exams in one hour, giving us 15 minutes on each exam. This regimen was quite successful, and I sailed through the essay exams a couple of months later, but at the time I was anything but confident.
Every day, I woke up in our tiny bedroom at UCLA student housing, and the exam was one day closer than the day before. More real and more threatening, because everyday there was one less day until I would have to walk into that examination hall and sit down for three days to live or die as a lawyer. Until then, I was preparing. A friend told me that a good way to steel your nerves but not sap your energy was to have a large glass of milk with a heavy hit of Kahlua every morning. That the tryptophans, coffee and alcohol together were a stress reliever that didn't cause energy loss. I found that this was absolutely correct. I was on the Kahlua breakfast diet, with a stiff chaser of Ramones. I particularly dug into Subterranean Jungle, an album in which the Ramones are depicted with a heavily-bombed subway car as the backdrop. The album is as rackety-smooth as a subway ride, and gets you there dependably. On “Highest Trail's Above,” comic-book hero lyrics ride Johnny's guitar like a dragon as he reveals beautiful chromatic shadings in high-speed chord shifts. On “Somebody Like Me,” Joey's “oh well,” delivery made me feel so much better about being a hedonistic fool.
Somebody Like Me
Tired of naggin'
Nothin's ever happen'en
That's the attitude that isn't fun!
A bottle of wine — a tube of glue
I don't know what to do —
I am just a guy — who likes to rock and roll
I am just a guy — who likes to get drunk
I am just a guy — who likes to dress punk
Get my kicks and live up my life
Tired of complaints I am ready for fun
But I'll make friends with anyone
Are you out there somebody like me
If you are, I hope that you can see
I am just a guy — who likes to rock and roll
I am just a guy — who likes to get drunk
I am just a guy — who likes to dress punk
Get my kicks and live up my life
Don't go to school — don't make me laugh
Can't hardly spell — can't do math
In the bar or out on the street
At the concert at the boutique
I am just a guy — who likes to rock and roll
I am just a guy — who likes to get drunk
I am just a guy — who likes to dress punk
Get my kicks and live up my life
Next Page --->
The next stage in my development as a Ramones fan occurred when I was studying for the California bar exam in the summer of 1986. Of course a bar exam is what is known as a “qualifying examination.” You don't get a high or a low score, it's strictly pass-fail. You pass, you're a lawyer. You fail, you remain a law school graduate, a Juris Doctor, which sounds quite nice, but doesn't give you the right to practice law and charge for the service. This is much stiffer than a college or grad school exam, that you assume you'll pass. The statistics for the California bar, that draws thousands of candidates to “sit” for the examination, a three-day 18 hour gruel-a-thon held in numerous auditoriums filled with narrow convention hall chairs pulled up to flat folding tables. The exam is given three times a year, and the pass rate is always less than fifty percent. So it's the sort of thing that makes grown men and women freeze up inside about. Studying seems like the last thing you'd want to do. You study all these years and then you have to fucking jump the intellectual Grand Canyon on your mental motorbike as a last (hahahaha) gang-initiation trip. I graduated from law school in June 1986, and did everything before I finally got down to studying. I bought a new motorcycle on credit, a Honda 500 Ascot with shaft drive in cherry condition. I prepared my study area and prepared all of study materials with great care, even making special book-covers for the case outlines with humorous photographs. For example, the Family Law outline had pictures of famous horror couples, Frankenstein and his bride, Mr. & Mrs. Mummy, and the Property outline had a photo of sort of goofy samurai hacking down goofy peasants. You know, ways of humanizing your study materials so they scare you less. All that stuff to learn.
My study-buddy Robin Kaufer used to ride motorcycles together. She had one of the first Honda Rebel 250 cc “econo-choppers” and I noticed it in the bike parking lot outside the school. We hung together through 2nd and 3rd year at UCLA, and I remember she took our friend John Hays to the gay pride parade on Melrose one year, ridin' him around on the Rebel. She was part of the Lawpoets scene, as was John and Tom Brill. Robin and I studied hard once we got going. We made flash cards and quizzed each other on legal rules. Then we'd fire up and kick it into high gear, doing four one hour essay exams in one hour, giving us 15 minutes on each exam. This regimen was quite successful, and I sailed through the essay exams a couple of months later, but at the time I was anything but confident.
Every day, I woke up in our tiny bedroom at UCLA student housing, and the exam was one day closer than the day before. More real and more threatening, because everyday there was one less day until I would have to walk into that examination hall and sit down for three days to live or die as a lawyer. Until then, I was preparing. A friend told me that a good way to steel your nerves but not sap your energy was to have a large glass of milk with a heavy hit of Kahlua every morning. That the tryptophans, coffee and alcohol together were a stress reliever that didn't cause energy loss. I found that this was absolutely correct. I was on the Kahlua breakfast diet, with a stiff chaser of Ramones. I particularly dug into Subterranean Jungle, an album in which the Ramones are depicted with a heavily-bombed subway car as the backdrop. The album is as rackety-smooth as a subway ride, and gets you there dependably. On “Highest Trail's Above,” comic-book hero lyrics ride Johnny's guitar like a dragon as he reveals beautiful chromatic shadings in high-speed chord shifts. On “Somebody Like Me,” Joey's “oh well,” delivery made me feel so much better about being a hedonistic fool.
Somebody Like Me
Tired of naggin'
Nothin's ever happen'en
That's the attitude that isn't fun!
A bottle of wine — a tube of glue
I don't know what to do —
I am just a guy — who likes to rock and roll
I am just a guy — who likes to get drunk
I am just a guy — who likes to dress punk
Get my kicks and live up my life
Tired of complaints I am ready for fun
But I'll make friends with anyone
Are you out there somebody like me
If you are, I hope that you can see
I am just a guy — who likes to rock and roll
I am just a guy — who likes to get drunk
I am just a guy — who likes to dress punk
Get my kicks and live up my life
Don't go to school — don't make me laugh
Can't hardly spell — can't do math
In the bar or out on the street
At the concert at the boutique
I am just a guy — who likes to rock and roll
I am just a guy — who likes to get drunk
I am just a guy — who likes to dress punk
Get my kicks and live up my life
Next Page --->