Well, I quit my job ... which I really needed ... really, really needed ... but fuck it -- I saw The Train acomin' and knew that if I didn't get off the tracks ASAP I'd be Bao Dai of the Cow Catcher/Bao Dai of Forrest Lawn ... or worse, Bao Dai of San Quentin taking it up the butt from this huge Aryan Brotherhood motherfucker named Leslie.

Now, in writing this, I'm sure it could be said I'm breaching some Yabo Confidentiality Agreement I signed, and a plethora of maxims which apply to my so-called profession. So, it's important to realize ... the following shit may have really gone down or perhaps we can just chalk the last three weeks of my life up to some hellish hallucination induced by some nasty hallucinogen a mad chemist at the CIA (or who works out of his bathroom in Rialto) slipped me in my role as unwitting test subject.

See, here was the deal... I took the job because after I quit my last one to take a new one I was fired about 6 weeks before I was supposed to start, which was OK by me really, as who the fuck wants to help a bunch of ungrateful old codgers save their wealth (even while collecting a nice 6% of that wealth) -- I've had enough dealings with the elderly in the helping hand position ... just this week this doctor kept bugging me about whether or not he should give my dear, sweet, Aunt Nasty, Hanoi Bao's older sister who we all thought would never die, a feeding tube. I think my evil yet sane Sister No. 1 must have given him my work number, because it's not like Aunt Nasty is sane enough most of the time to even know who I am, and she doesn't know where I am no matter how often I tell her and so it's not like she took a freaking Rolodex to the hospital with her (or maybe my favorite uncle, Unc, gave it to the doc, although since Unc has been dead for 20 years....)

Anyway, YES, of course, plug one right into her gut (which is what they do). No matter how lovely this demon seed of a doctor made starving to death sound (and he tried ... he really did), no one is going to fucking STARVE to death on my watch. Shit i have enough problems without the Emperor Himself waking me at night, his ghostly apparition glowing as he screams in French "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTER YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT?"

Of course now it would be "You worthless UNEMPLOYED piece of shit." Yeah, like you worked real hard ... if you hadn't been off chasing pussy on the French Riviera I might be sitting on the throne in Saigon right now getting my nuts washed by some peasant girl and smoking some Grade A opium instead of wondering how I'm going to pay for my next cup of coffee and donate a dollar at the AA Meeting this afternoon.

Anyway, the job, taken in desperation: I should have known something bad was up when I was told that we worked for this one guy (we'll call him John) who needed 4 full time lawyers, plus three full-time paralegals, plus about nine firms of lawyers to whom he paid outlandish hourly rates just to do ... you know, I'm not sure what he does, other than tell other people what to do so still other people can't find him while he interferes in this really bitter divorce between this really wealthy couple so he can steal the companies they built with their community property. I don't know this for a fact, but I would surmise it from his past (and I turned over the only paycheck I got to a so-called "information broker" to investigate the asswipe -- call it "train insurance" as I know that while I might be off the tracks per se, a speeding locomotive often manages to knock one down if one stands ends up too close to the tracks as it passes and/or one can get the living shit zapped out of him by that fucking third rail, if there is one).

I mean the dude has no visible means of support -- well, actually he may or may not own (openly or covertly) one or more highly profitable companies ... he may or may not covertly own part or all of the companies he's trying to "steal" -- well, if he owns them, he probably just wants to loot them and leave a burning hole which would make Hiroshima, as it looked on VJ Day. look like a pothole on Wilshire Blvd where it runs through Beverly Hills. Yet despite having no apparent job he obviously has, or has control of, a fuck load of money.

So I took the job, and on my first day, the boss, inaffectionately known around the office as "Cowboy Joey" -- who has like 18 years less experience in the field than I have, tells me to "familiarize [myself] with the computer." He had told me how he hated being a "micromanager" during the interview, yet immediately after telling me to get familiar with the computer, he sits at my desk and starts fucking around with my computer, inputting passwords, deleting a bunch of shit -- like applications which were needed so my computer could hook up to the network and the internet -- selecting my passwords for me (shit, I forgot to change them yesterday as I was gathering up stuff/printing out things I need to get out of harm's way -- oh well, cie la viŽ), and then, just after he leaves and I sit down he's rushing back in telling me "You have to write a letter saying so and so is sick and can't show for...." and from that point the job turned into a nonstop full bore rush to basically avoid complying with stuff which John, and the people John somehow controls, should, in all fairness and legally speaking, comply.

See, my employer was essentially a vehicle by which John, a convicted Fraudmeister, could do a bad imitation of someone practicing law without a license. Cowboy Joey, during the interview, sort of compared John to Don Vito Corleone (and himself to Tom Hagen), which frankly was an insult to all Mafiosi, not to mention my dear friends Francis Ford Copola and Mario Puzo.

I might be wrong about this, but it could go a long way to explaining why they paid Cowboy Joey big, big bucks despite the fact that, as a lawyer, he didn't know what the fuck he was doing most of the time, and so was willing to do whatever John asked, including, but not limited to (shit, with the ability to use words like that I should have been a lawyer and used my Bar Card for good instead of having a huge running bar tab and trying to pay it off with some idiot's Bar Card I found in a stall of a men's room and mistook for a MasterCharge, but we live, for good or ill, with the choices we make) lying to the court, other attorneys and otherwise getting a reputation I wouldn't wish on Norm Watkins.

What is clear to anyone who isn't blind is that John somehow found this rich couple (the husband from what I heard is a real con artist himself, but no match for John) with a really great business (the type of business can't be mentioned because half of LA would know the identities of the husband and wife, who we'll call "Bob" and "Mary") and with his beady eyes, targeted it/them (it doesn't matter -- I doubt John distinguishes between people and things) as the next in a long line of pirate attacks.

While Cowboy Joey compared John to Vito Corleone, at least Vito had the cajones to use violence as a means of intimidation and retribution. John uses lawyers and sham lawsuits as his button men and bullets. Hell, I even heard him say when some lawyers were trying to collect their fee that "We'll sue them for malpractice." His brother, whom I believe is on parole, expressed surprise, and then John indicated the threatened (or filed) malpractice suit would get rid of the firm's claim for fees. This is an old trick, by the way, and is commonly used by all who do not pay lawyers their fees -- and believe me, any lawyer working for John has earned any fee he or she might have charged.

So, in this particular incarnation of John's last name, first, John got all cozy with Mary and persuaded her to convince Bob to give her "irrevocable proxies" so she could control their multimillion dollar a year businesses which are community property. Then John convinced Mary that she actually owned these businesses -- without regard for the jurisdiction of the Divorce Court -- and I don't mean Judge Mabeline Effrim's Divorce Court TV show which I'll be watching daily at 9 starting Monday if it's still on, although this would make a really great case for her to handle -- and that he (John) should have the power to say what happened. Of course what seems to be happening -- or at least that is my guess is John is maneuvering it so all the money from these companies goes into his pocket eventually.

And when that day comes he will dump Mary, or merely change his cell phone number for the 80th time this year and move out of his rented apartment in (oops, I almost said) and perhaps cool his heels on the same island where one of what I'd guess were many secret bank accounts are located.

That's when Mary wakes up, and if she still has enough money left, or can sweet talk an attorney into taking the mess on a contingency, becomes a fucking train racing down the tracks with no brakeman, or no brakes, because John stole them too, suing all the lawyers and anyone else who did John's bidding in cases involving one or more of these multimillion dollar operations ... took direction from a guy (John) who legally had no authority to give direction....

Jesus, what a train wreck that's going to be ... unless John, of course, has miraculously changed his stripes and is not out to line his pockets ... but like they say, zebras don't change their stripes ... and neither do skunks, punks, or if they have them, hyenas.

Do me a favor, my dear cherished readers, take a moment tonight before you go to bed and pray Bao Dai of Hollywood got off the tracks -- and far enough away from them -- in time.

I'll owe you one....