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It was 36 years ago today that I officially stepped onto the career path I remain on.
Despite the universe's best efforts to screw up my law board sitting and then my UB application; despite a second-semester sudden eviction from my first apartment and a final-semester of distractions with mono and what turned into a very bad relationship; despite having no job when my final Buffalo lease ran out and being forced to move 400 miles back to live with family until Rochester called and said "come back 350 of them!" a month later; and despite nervousness into early December 1984 about how I did on the damn bar exam,.... I passed.
I cleared the character and fitness interview process that following January, which back then you couldn't even begin until you got word of your passing the exam, and you had all of about three weeks, pre-Internet, to get certificates of good character from every legal-related employer you ever had, one of whom for me was in the UK. And finally, my file was transferred from the Albany Board of Law Examiners to the Rochester Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, which invited me to join them on February 22, 1985, to step onto the stage at Nazareth College before the assembled Justices, to first hear a gauntlet of boring welcome speeches from various poobahs, to take the state constitutional oath, to sign the Roll of Attorneys, and finally to be sent on my way to wreak legal havoc anywhere from Lewiston to Long Island....
and the fucktards had my name misspelled.
Sorry. Your Honorable Fucktards.
It was right on my JD. It was right on the exam papers. It was right on the application. It was even right on the invitation letter. But when I walked in to the Arts Center lobby and got to the tables- nametag, Bar Association membership packets (free the first year!), the chance to order a fancypants, hand-calligraphed, suitable-for-framing certificate of my admission (from a Rochester company owned by a family that had been doing it for the court for generations and with whom I would later become close friends with), and, finally, The Roll.
Spoiler alert: it's not a roll like a scroll-
- but a dumb old bound book. Might have even been three-hole-punched. It's still an important part of the ritual, though, because every time they go and disbar some dude or a dudette resigns, there's always this line:
...and striking name from roll of attorneys.
I wonder if some minion actually goes in and crosses it off; I picture Captain Bligh stripping the lawyer of their medals, their Mercedes, their mistresses or misters....
I almost didn't have to worry about this ever happening, because when I went to sign the sacred Roll, with two Ls, there was my last name, with four:P
You'd think it would be easy for people to get it right. Far more efficient to spell it with one in the middle and two at the end like the good Lord intended. But it's a Thing, and always has been. The alternative spelling dates back almost as far as the name itself to Merrie Olde England, and most genealogy sites mix the one-Ls and two-Ls like it was nothing. Even one of our most famous living blood relatives has it misspelled on his headstone:
That would be Thomas Edison's youngest son by his first wife Mary, who was my great-great-grandfather's youngest daughter and is therefore my, ummmm,
which, consistent with our share of Edison's estate, means absolutely nothing!
Anyway, back to almost as long ago in a galaxy almost as far far away: they fixed it before I signed. Don't ask me how; maybe the minion who strikes the names also had a typewriter and some white-out to correct it on the spot. It's all been correct on everything received from that and all the other state courts since, mostly bills for registration fees, and when I ordered the fancypants plaque from Scott and Lisa's family, it came out fine, too.
But it all began today- from Rochester to back again here, from courtrooms from not-quite-Lewiston to at least Nausea County on Long Island, through storms and car accidents and now this damnable pandemic, I'm still here.
----
And if you think that's impressive, just think of what a 40th anniversary means to a guy who's also still here, even though he's largely associated with the line that says he isn't:
Dave Kane began his life behind the midday WCMF microphone on this day in 1981. I was still in Ithaca; it would be almost the whole four year difference before I would arrive there, settle on them as my go-to radio option (their overnight DJ Janet moved there from Buffalo around the same time I did), and while I was mostly away from the radio middays during the Dave Kane Thang, I caught enough to know there was a brain behind the voice and a heart underneath both. I discovered that he played "Alice's Restaurant" every Thanksgiving at noon, and on the many I was there, and many more after we moved, I would tune in to the Masacree, even though I owned the record and could recite it by heart without hearing it.
If you think law's a tough business, try radio. CMF stood for "Community Music Federation," and in my years moved from a funky neighborhood studio in a northeast corner of the city to a converted old Sears on Monroe Avenue. The ownership bounced around, as well, between various local and then national conglomerates, culminating in a short time when, for realz, Dave's not here; the new owners, Megadodo Communications (one of the great broadcasting houses of Ursa Minor Beta) let loose Kane-O and several other staff while trying to renegotiate the deal of their morning man "Brother Wease." When that didn't work out, Dave was once again here, and along with getting himself named to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame, he has maintained his traditions of the Thanksgiving "helpings" of Arlo, the noontime lunch request hour, and at the end of every workweek at 3, the playing of Jonathan Edwards' famed Friday Song "Shanty" followed by a cavalcade of "weekend" bumps ending with Porky Pig's proclamation of "that's all folks" and Tommy Chong's utterance of Dave's Not Here....
or he did, anyway, until a few months ago, when Megadodo shuffled the deck once again, moving Dave's hours from 10-3 to a noon to six shift. "Shanty" was moved to 5 p.m., and, with an hour still to go, Tommy's line was replaced by Moe Howard's equally immortal Quiet Numbskulls I'm Broadcasting!
But that changes today. For these historic 24 anniversary hours, the station has rebranded itself-
- but more significantly, Dave's going back to his longtime 10-3 slot, which likely means Moe will be retiring and we will end each Friday at 3, as we should, with a hearty cry of Dave's Not Here! But only until his next show.
I got to extend a short summary of the above too-many-words to him the other day, and got this response:
And thank you, as well.
Despite the universe's best efforts to screw up my law board sitting and then my UB application; despite a second-semester sudden eviction from my first apartment and a final-semester of distractions with mono and what turned into a very bad relationship; despite having no job when my final Buffalo lease ran out and being forced to move 400 miles back to live with family until Rochester called and said "come back 350 of them!" a month later; and despite nervousness into early December 1984 about how I did on the damn bar exam,.... I passed.
I cleared the character and fitness interview process that following January, which back then you couldn't even begin until you got word of your passing the exam, and you had all of about three weeks, pre-Internet, to get certificates of good character from every legal-related employer you ever had, one of whom for me was in the UK. And finally, my file was transferred from the Albany Board of Law Examiners to the Rochester Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, which invited me to join them on February 22, 1985, to step onto the stage at Nazareth College before the assembled Justices, to first hear a gauntlet of boring welcome speeches from various poobahs, to take the state constitutional oath, to sign the Roll of Attorneys, and finally to be sent on my way to wreak legal havoc anywhere from Lewiston to Long Island....
and the fucktards had my name misspelled.
Sorry. Your Honorable Fucktards.
It was right on my JD. It was right on the exam papers. It was right on the application. It was even right on the invitation letter. But when I walked in to the Arts Center lobby and got to the tables- nametag, Bar Association membership packets (free the first year!), the chance to order a fancypants, hand-calligraphed, suitable-for-framing certificate of my admission (from a Rochester company owned by a family that had been doing it for the court for generations and with whom I would later become close friends with), and, finally, The Roll.
Spoiler alert: it's not a roll like a scroll-
- but a dumb old bound book. Might have even been three-hole-punched. It's still an important part of the ritual, though, because every time they go and disbar some dude or a dudette resigns, there's always this line:
...and striking name from roll of attorneys.
I wonder if some minion actually goes in and crosses it off; I picture Captain Bligh stripping the lawyer of their medals, their Mercedes, their mistresses or misters....
I almost didn't have to worry about this ever happening, because when I went to sign the sacred Roll, with two Ls, there was my last name, with four:P
You'd think it would be easy for people to get it right. Far more efficient to spell it with one in the middle and two at the end like the good Lord intended. But it's a Thing, and always has been. The alternative spelling dates back almost as far as the name itself to Merrie Olde England, and most genealogy sites mix the one-Ls and two-Ls like it was nothing. Even one of our most famous living blood relatives has it misspelled on his headstone:
That would be Thomas Edison's youngest son by his first wife Mary, who was my great-great-grandfather's youngest daughter and is therefore my, ummmm,
which, consistent with our share of Edison's estate, means absolutely nothing!
Anyway, back to almost as long ago in a galaxy almost as far far away: they fixed it before I signed. Don't ask me how; maybe the minion who strikes the names also had a typewriter and some white-out to correct it on the spot. It's all been correct on everything received from that and all the other state courts since, mostly bills for registration fees, and when I ordered the fancypants plaque from Scott and Lisa's family, it came out fine, too.
But it all began today- from Rochester to back again here, from courtrooms from not-quite-Lewiston to at least Nausea County on Long Island, through storms and car accidents and now this damnable pandemic, I'm still here.
----
And if you think that's impressive, just think of what a 40th anniversary means to a guy who's also still here, even though he's largely associated with the line that says he isn't:
Dave Kane began his life behind the midday WCMF microphone on this day in 1981. I was still in Ithaca; it would be almost the whole four year difference before I would arrive there, settle on them as my go-to radio option (their overnight DJ Janet moved there from Buffalo around the same time I did), and while I was mostly away from the radio middays during the Dave Kane Thang, I caught enough to know there was a brain behind the voice and a heart underneath both. I discovered that he played "Alice's Restaurant" every Thanksgiving at noon, and on the many I was there, and many more after we moved, I would tune in to the Masacree, even though I owned the record and could recite it by heart without hearing it.
If you think law's a tough business, try radio. CMF stood for "Community Music Federation," and in my years moved from a funky neighborhood studio in a northeast corner of the city to a converted old Sears on Monroe Avenue. The ownership bounced around, as well, between various local and then national conglomerates, culminating in a short time when, for realz, Dave's not here; the new owners, Megadodo Communications (one of the great broadcasting houses of Ursa Minor Beta) let loose Kane-O and several other staff while trying to renegotiate the deal of their morning man "Brother Wease." When that didn't work out, Dave was once again here, and along with getting himself named to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame, he has maintained his traditions of the Thanksgiving "helpings" of Arlo, the noontime lunch request hour, and at the end of every workweek at 3, the playing of Jonathan Edwards' famed Friday Song "Shanty" followed by a cavalcade of "weekend" bumps ending with Porky Pig's proclamation of "that's all folks" and Tommy Chong's utterance of Dave's Not Here....
or he did, anyway, until a few months ago, when Megadodo shuffled the deck once again, moving Dave's hours from 10-3 to a noon to six shift. "Shanty" was moved to 5 p.m., and, with an hour still to go, Tommy's line was replaced by Moe Howard's equally immortal Quiet Numbskulls I'm Broadcasting!
But that changes today. For these historic 24 anniversary hours, the station has rebranded itself-
- but more significantly, Dave's going back to his longtime 10-3 slot, which likely means Moe will be retiring and we will end each Friday at 3, as we should, with a hearty cry of Dave's Not Here! But only until his next show.
I got to extend a short summary of the above too-many-words to him the other day, and got this response:
And thank you, as well.