According to my next door neighbor...

Her next door neighbor, Joe, my neighbor twice removed I guess, will be arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow. Case: EBAY Inc vs Merch Exchange.

I don't know the particulars of the case. Though I vaguely heard mention of it on NPR as some kind of patent infringement. Bad, Bad E-Bay.

Some things you should know about Joe:

1. He drives a Mercedes.
2. He gave me four twelve packs of Corona at New Years. - You can come over and drink
Supreme Court beer if you want. I haven't touched it yet.
3. I helped his wife move a TV once.
4. He put a little fence up around his flower garden. My next door neighbor does not like it.
Too much copper.
5. He has a better plaster job in his living room than I have in mine.
6. He's obviously a lawyer.

Joe's brief brush with fame tomorrow has me thinking about all the weird stuff that's happened to me since I moved to California. I mean growing up in various parts of the country the most famous person I ever met was some guy name Wilson Steen the State Senator(State not Federal) from Glens Ferry Idaho. He spoke at some weird Boy Scout thing once. But writing a couple years of moving here I had the following happen:


1. I met Alan Cranston the Federal Senator from California. - His car broke down on Labor Day
weekend 1979. He ended up in my gas station looking for a tow truck. I offered him a orange
soda. He passed. I spent two hours sitting on a brick wall with a federal senator. I wonder
how much a lobbyist would pay for that type of access?

2. I was invited to a New Years Eve party that Dave Packard was at. (Yeah, of Hewlett
Packard.) He reminded me a lot of Alan Cranston.

3. I met the Philippine National Poet. He taught me to spell, while he taught me to write fiction.
He and I bought the first two personal portable computers on campus. A Kaypro and an
Osborne.

4. I met the main script writer for Twelve o'clock High, he was old even then. He taught me
nothing about writing, despite my taking a writing course from him. Rather, he thought
I was weird. The feeling was mutual. The man wore the same shirt to class for two years.

5. I had the little woman from the Poltergeist movie call my house about twice a week for a
year. Her nephew lived with me. Zelda Rubenstein, watched the Superbowl with me one
day, she agreed I was big, and she told me of all the plane crashes she'd been in. Later I ran into Stephen Speilberg at the Boy Scout National Jamorbee. I told him we had a mutual acaquaintance.

6. I went up to Boy Scout camp to visit a friend who was going to be the camp director. He took
me over to a house where the base guitar player for the Steve Miller band was hanging out
with his gold record on the wall. He chopped up a line of cocaine, snorted it, and told me he
was an Eagle Scout too, from Oakland. We spent the afternoon talking about cool places to
hike in the Bay Area.

7. I had a friend, George, that was prison guard at Pleasanton Federal prison while Michael
Milkin was there. Michael Jackson would write letters to Milken and tell him to cheer up.
To help him, Mike would send Mike pictures of his Chipanzee. Saying "Here is a picture of
my new Monkey" George brought a lot of letters from Michael Jackson over to the house.
Ten years before everyone else in the country, I learned Michael Jackson was pretty damn
weird. Also, he has really bad hand writing.


I could go on like this for like twenty items. My relatives think I make this stuff up. But no, its just the coincidentces that happen, like my neighbor twice removed.