Insurance Law

Return to blogging

By David Rossmiller

In the past few months, I've had about, let's see, I've got the number written down somewhere here, about eleventybillion inquiries about when I am going to return to blogging, why I'm not blogging, if I'm dead, abducted by aliens, living in a Buddhist monastery, etc.  These are fair questions, and the answers are: 

1. I'm returning to blogging starting this evening.  I don't know that I am going to be able to keep up the pace I once did -- blogging Monday through Friday, federal holidays excepted.  More realistically, a couple times a week seems more probable, but we'll see.

2.  Last year I had a crushing workload, and something had to give. Blogging, although an important life activity and something I really like doing, had to take a back seat.  My workload has returned to manageable levels now, however.  

3.  The worst thing about not blogging? I'd have to say a couple things: not writing any more Trailer Lawyer songs, and not having cause to link to YouTube songs and videos that catch my fancy and which I work into a post. Such as this: last week I became aware that, on a temporary basis, XM satellite radio has a channel devoted purely to ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, who, for reasons I still have not divined from listening to the channel, is now calling himself "The Fireman." Among the songs I heard on this channel is one I have not thought about for years and years, called Junior's Farm.  Now, this is a fairly strange piece that  contains a weird anecdote, which I confirmed by looking up the lyrics:

I took my bag into a grocer's store,
The price is higher than the time before,
Old man asked me why is it more.

I said you should have seen me with the poker man,
I had a honey and I bet a grand,
Just in the nick of time I looked at his hand.

At first, it seems like this is an attempt at some kind of social commentary about 1970s inflation, British decline, indifference to the elderly, post-industrial "future shock" and the like: rather unbelievably, multi-millionaire celebrity Paul McCartney is standing in line in a grocery store, and pathetically, an old man starts complaining to him about not being able to afford food. 

But the next few lines tell a different tale -- McCartney responds to the old man's complaints (perhaps a not-so-subtle hint that some celebrity millionaire should buy the old man's food or maybe even bestow other largesse on him) with a fairly aggressive tale about a recent gambling event.  The point of this gambling story seems to be that McCartney is rich enough that he thinks nothing of betting a grand in a poker game, and what should be more sobering to the old man, McCartney is also the kind of  poker player who doesn't think twice about cheating to protect his investment, even when he holds a great hand.  The overall lesson? While one might risk appearing uncompassionate in front of others by simply ignoring the old man or saying no, there are any number of ways to make the existential point that ultimately we all face the maelstrom by ourselves and have to find our own way to afford our dinner of Friskie's Gourmet.  In other words, according to Mac: "I'm not your insurer, old man." 

Full post as published by Insurance Coverage Law Blog on March 02, 2009 (boomark / email).