By Beauty Damned

He's The Man

I'm helping my dad type revisions to the last chapters of his nearly finished novel. It is a non-fiction tale chronicling his representation of the original owner to the domain name "Sex.com." This article here gives a pretty good summary of what the case was about. It was landmark quality, a huge win for my dad (considering his client's case was one that nobody thought could possibly be won), and in the end, it makes an incredibly good true plot for a story.

Charles Carreon, one of Kremen's lead attorneys, added, "Sex.com provided the best test case imaginable, and Mr. Cohen turned it into a test of endurance. Although Gary takes the top prize, all domain name owners will benefit from the law this case has established..."

Following is a very small excerpt from what is a long, riveting and sordid tale that is much, much more than a courtroom drama or a narrow, technical view of a lawsuit's birth and progression. Every lawsuit is in essence, a story. Some are far more interesting than others. This particular excerpt doesn't hold a great deal of relevance to the premise of the case itself, but it conveys a pretty good picture of my dad's writing style and I loved every minute of it while I was revising it. It also really reminded me of how similar he and I are as people and it made me feel proud to be his daughter.

Eventually, the band starts up. Plutonium Pie, a power trio that plays all original material. There’s only one way to play rock guitar – louder than hell, with total confidence, loving the great big clangorous chord blasting out of a big Marshall amp. You only have to hear a guitarist play a few chords to know whether they have it or not. It’s got to have the acid burn, folded into the melodious, raucous noise that conquers all. This guitarist had it. Big black guitar, huge amp, confident strum, reliable effect. I order another Bass ale and settle back.

As the band gets going, I start to wonder whether the musicians are related by blood or ethnicity. The drummer’s a girl, and all three are dark-skinned, looking very Indian, as in Dravidian, with long wavy hair, black as coal. There are only five people including the barmaid hearing this gig, but the members of Plutonium Pie don’t seem to notice. They nail one tune after another with precision and authority. The drummer flails away beautifully, her hair a dark, penumbral halo around her youthful face. The bass player is always right where he’s supposed to be, and the guitarist is a calm, dark god, working up and down the neck of his instrument, commanding platoons of power chords to destroy each other. Pretty soon I’m dancing around like a fool next to the sprawling metal coils of disemboweled refrigeration equipment.

It continues that way for about an hour. Then the band takes a break to go out on the back porch for some beer and conversation. I buy a round for all the band members. They’re very easy-going, and start rolling joints with that easygoing style musicians have, like having pot and music is a divine right. The swampy night air out on the back porch is thick enough to eat. The porch runs the length of the back of the house, which has lean-to structures built helter-skelter all around it. There are makeshift shades and awnings everywhere, all destroyed by the sun. Even in the dark, with the pot smoke drifting by on the tepid breeze, you can tell everything is sun-beaten. The wood’s rough and splintery, the plastic is frizzy, the cotton awnings are frayed. There is refrigeration equipment everywhere. I wonder idly if Churchill’s doubles as storage space for a refrigeration company.

The band members are fun people. I can’t help but tell them about this crazy case I’m working on. Wow! Sex.com! That’s a mind-blower! A lawyer, you! No shit! Yeah, yeah, no big deal, just y’know… They huff their joints with subdued pleasure, and thank me for the beer, and pretty soon it’s time for them to play more rock and roll, and we blast through to the other side of 2 a.m. By the time I leave, I’m tight with everybody, including the biker chick barmaid and the sad-looking drug dealer I tip for watchin’ my car outside the place. I saw him watchin’ it."

Posted by Maria at December 15, 2004 05:36 PM