As a kid, I wanted to be magician. Plan B soon followed. My suburban upbringing likely repelled me toward anything that didn’t resemble, well, everything else. And so I attended Tulane University in the singular city of New Orleans. I studied philosophy, dabbled in Buddhism (with a brief stint at a monastery), and explored the outer reaches of consciousness on the well-worn path of college excess. I also courted my future wife, nurtured a love for crawfish and Kermit Ruffins, and my friends discovered my hollow leg or oversized liver. (My doctor confirms the latter.) I traded balmy summers and cockroaches for New England winters and Red Sox to attend Harvard Law School. No doubt I prefer roaches to Red Sox; after graduation, I clerked for a federal judge in New Orleans, and my wife and I married there. Alas, we moved to our Nation’s capital. As Bismarck said, you’re better off not knowing how laws or sausages are made. He must not have had in mind boudin, the local sausage of choice. At least I had to see for myself the sausage factory known as the Louisiana justice system. Hence, I’m serving six months as a public defender. And so this blog begins. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
