For another five minutes, anyway. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and especially to chelsadilla for going so far out of her way to do awesome stuff for me.

My birthday got under way last night at around midnight when I demanded that, because it was past midnight, chelsadilla should give me my present. She insisted that anticipation was important for some reason, and I took the position that it was August 24 and, goddammit, it was my birthday. I also threatened that if she didn't play by my rules for my birthday, i.e., it's your birthday at midnight, I wouldn't play by her rules for hers, i.e., I would tell her what I got her for her birthday three days in advance. She caved and gave me my gift. And it was awesome. There was a Superman card that played the Superman theme, a toy Mr. Pricklepants from Toy Story 3 (for NO REASON), and an iPod Touch. I'd mentioned a few times that I wanted something like an iPod, but I didn't think chelsadilla'd listened or cared. I guess I was wrong. Then chelsadilla stayed up with me while I updated the software on the iPod and loaded some music on to it. For some reason, having a wi-fi enabled MP3 player still seems sorta crazy to me.

All of this was in addition to some smoked sea salt she'd gotten me while she was in California a few weeks ago.

Chelsadilla had offered to treat me to dinner. She'd asked where I wanted to go, and I said that I've always wanted to go to The Melting Pot, but that I'd be more than happy to split the check with her there because it can be sorta expensive. She insisted that we go there and on paying herself. I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea, but we went.

We had an appetizer cheese course, then the main course--which consisted of various meets that you cooked yourself in simmering red wine--and then a dessert course. Honestly, the main course was the least good. The cheese fondue was pretty good, and the dessert was fucking amazing. I have no idea how much chelsadilla spent, but I'm sure it was too much. I honestly don't know how The Melting Pot justifies its prices. I think half the price would be appropriate for what you get. As it stands, I don't know how often I'd go back.

At the end of dinner, chelsadilla snatched the check away and reached in to her purse and discovered, to her shock, that she didn't have her wallet. She immediately started apologizing for ruining my birthday. I told her it was ok, that I would pay and she could pay me back if she wanted. She started crying. It was kinda cute. I wasn't at all upset that she'd forgotten her wallet, but it was funny how upset she got. In the end, she left and came back to the apartment to get her wallet while I waited at the restaurant. All in all, a small price to pay for dinner and a good time.

So, yeah, my girlfriend set a high bar for birthday celebrations. I'm up to the challenge, though, and I think I can outdo her for her next birthday. I'm certainly going to try, anyway.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Fun Shit I've Done , Restaurant and Bar Reviews

I think that, if I'm wrong about the way I approach life and there is, in fact, a heaven, it's a lot like Madison. Only not really.

Or maybe not. All I know is that, if there's a heaven, it's a place where all your friends are. I've only been around for 28--nearly 29--years. And in that short span, I've met an almost inconceivable number of people. And, because I am who I am, I've hated the vast majority of them. But I miss the ones I haven't hated so much nearly every single day. There have been so many people in my life that have mattered to me more than they've had any idea. And, in my heaven, they'd all be there.

They'd all be there, and they'd all get along, and we'd all do things and hang out. Maybe it would be the case that not everyone was always there. But everyone would always be back just when you started missing them. And you wouldn't go years and years without seeing the most important people in your life.

If there is a heaven--which there isn't--but if there is a heaven, it would be a party where no one ever got tired or so drunk that they threw up. Although, obviously, people would get drunk. If there is a heaven, it's a place where everyone gets to be themselves and is accepted.

If there is a heaven, it's a lot like Madison, except that more of the people I miss are there.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 1:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)| Filed under Existential Nonsense

There are people that get really stuck on a specific song. I'm one of those people. Sometimes I'll listen to a certain song for days on end. Even when I'm not listening to it, I'll be singing it to myself or it'll be playing in my head. Then I'll obviously get sick of it. Then I'll come back to it. Lately, I've been rediscovering some of them, and I thought I'd share.

"Clementine" by Washington

This is a really simple song, but I really like the singer's voice and delivery. Everything about the song is incredibly infectious, I think.

"Set the Ray to Jerry" by The Smashing Pumpkins

This is such a sweet song, I think. The music is just so mellow and kinda dreamlike, but the bass line keeps driving the song along. I've listened to this one a hell of a lot.

"Never Going Back Again" by Fleetwood Mac

This is one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs. The guitar is really interesting, and I think the singing goes with it really well.

"All the Things She Said" by T.A.T.U.

Some times I get bad music stuck in my head. I had this one on constant repeat in my mind for about six months in college. I stand by it as an excellent piece of pop wackiness.

"Fitz and Dizzyspells" by Andrew Bird

I have no idea where I first heard this song, but I woke up one day with the whistled melody from it gnawing on my brain one day. I tried everything I could think of to identify the song, but I couldn't connect the tune with a name or an artist. Then, one day, chelsadilla and I were in the car driving home and we were talking and I realized that this song was on the radio. I was actually kind of disappointed by the actual song--I imagined it going differently--but it's still worth a listen.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Music Reviews

Two of my best friends from college got married this weekend. With a few exceptions--one of which was especially notable--pretty much everyone I knew in college was there. So were friends of the bride and groom that I've come to regard as my own friends. And chelsadilla came, too.

I was obviously happy for my friends. It was obvious that they belong together to almost everyone for years and years. I remember seeing the very beginnings of their relationship, and I remember hearing about happy they both were. I know how happy they were yesterday, and I'm extremely happy for both of them. I know that their marriage is going to last for a long, long time, and I'm looking forward to watching it all happen.

But while I didn't lose sight of the fact that the focus of the weekend was the wedding, something else kept crossing my mind--and I'm not talking about the fact that I delivered the best speech of the evening. I hadn't seen the vast majority of the people that were at this wedding since college, and I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing. But what I was amazed by was how easy it was to fall right back in with these people.

Like alot of people, college was the time when I really became who I am. "College" is a vague concept, though. I can articulate the exact factors that mattered most: Flagstaff, NAU, and The House mattered. What mattered most, though, was the people. Some of the people at this wedding saw me on the first day of college--a day when I was at the height of my awkwardness and insecurity. If I remember correctly, I had green hair, I was wearing all black, and my shirt said something like "Everything I need to know I learned from porn."

And it was with--maybe because--of these people that I went from being that ridiculously awkward seventeen-year-old student to being the slightly less awkward but certainly much more confident twenty-eight-year-old attorney. I was closer to some of these people than to others, but there was nonetheless this overwhelming sense of familiarity and belonging when we were all together. "Ruby Can't Fail" came on, and everyone ran to the dance floor. They all had the same moves. They all smiled the same way. They interacted with each other just like they used to. I scowled because I hate dancing. "Hey Ya!" came on, and I forgot about how much I hate dancing and ran onto the dance floor with everyone else. And I shook it like a Polaroid picture, just like I did six years ago. And we laughed about our North Korean friend and human bowling and hikes gone terribly wrong.

There was another thing I noticed, too. At one point, I was catching up with someone and she said something like "Every time I hear about what you're up to, you're doing better and better." And it struck me that the same could be said about everyone. Everyone that was part of my group of friends in college is doing really well. They're doing good work for themselves, their families, and their communities. I looked around at all of these people and I didn't feel inferior or superior; I felt proud. Part of the fact that everyone's doing well is obviously that everyone I was friends with is talented and driven, but I also like to think that we influenced each other and pushed each other along at times.

In any event, this weekend was a great time. Congratulations to the bride and groom.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Hanging Out With My Friends

The case is available in .pdf form here.

I just finished reading this case, and I have two observations. First, I will never, ever be able to spell "Schwarzenegger" from memory, and I think it's hilarious that the Terminator's name will be on what will almost certainly be a hugely important Supreme Court case for years and years.

Second, this is one of the most interesting District Court decisions I've read in a long time. Even setting aside the highly controversial nature of the case, there are so many strange and interesting things about it. The procedural history is worthy of a law review article itself. It involves a question of how to weigh direct democracy and protection of minority groups. The government refused to protect the amendment, so random people had to step in. Oh, and the guy who decided the case--Judge Vaughn R. Walker--is one of a tiny handful of openly gay judges in the country.

But, of course, the most interesting things about the case are the issues and the outcome. I think Judge Walker got the result right, but I think that he may have packaged the case in a way that will be difficult if not impossible for higher courts to swallow. Reading the decision makes it seem that the pro-Prop-8 people--that is, those who supported the ban on gay marriage--were borderline incompetent in the presentation of their case. I frankly have a hard time believing that the attorneys for that side were as bad as the decision makes it seem. I think that this is one thing that makes the decision an easy target for people who would want to make the case the result of judicial activism rather than a reasoned application of existing law.

Another problem, as I see it, is that Judge Vaughn spends nearly as much time discrediting the Prop 8 proponents' expert witnesses as he does actually applying the law to the facts. Judge Vaughn decides to completely disregard the testimony of David Blankenhorn. It appears to have been the correct decision given that Blankenhorn doesn't seem to have done more than recite--incorrectly, apparently--the results of various studies he played no part in. That's all fine, but I question whether it was necessary to spend so much time taking him and the other expert witness to task. I suppose Judge Vaughn felt it was necessary to make the rationale for his decision abundantly clear, but I think it makes it easier for people to portray him as a pro-gay-agenda zealot.

The judge makes several findings of fact. Essentially, he concludes that gays and lesbians have been severely discriminated against, that denying them the right to marry hurts them and society in various ways, and that sexual orientation has no impact on a person's worth or ability to be a good person or a good parent.

The plaintiffs apparently argued that Prop 8 violated their rights under both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Vaughn rules that they win under each provision.

In his analysis of the due-process issue, Judge Vaughn starts from the premise that marriage is a fundamental right. He recognizes that the important question for these plaintiffs is whether the right to marry someone of the same sex is a new right or simply a necessary extension of the already-recognized right to marriage. The judge then makes what I believe to be the strongest argument in favor of protecting gay marriage by analogizing the current situation to the one presented in Loving v. Virginia.

One of the arguments advanced by opponents of interracial marriage was that black people were not being denied a right white people had because, while they couldn't marry a white person, they could still marry someone. It just had to be someone of the right skin color. The Supreme Court rejected that argument, holding that the whole point of protecting the right to marry is the right to choose who you marry. If you're in love with a white man, it doesn't do you any good to be told that you can marry any black man you want.

Opponents of gay marriage often argue that to allow gay marriage is to redefine marriage. Judge Vaughn--correctly, in my view--disagrees and points out that the whole point of the fundamental right to marriage is the right to choose who you marry. According to his decision, denying a gay man the right to marry the man he loves is a violation of that right that cannot be undone simply by saying "But, hey, you can marry any woman you like."

Judge Vaughn goes on to strike down the gay-marriage ban on Equal Protection grounds, too. While the judge applies a rational basis analysis, he makes it clear that he thinks that strict scrutiny should apply. The judge rejects in turn every proposed rational basis for the ban, pointing out that some of them are absolutely absurd and even helpful to the plaintiffs' position. Judging by the decision, Prop-8 supporters' justifications were pretty weak. They assert, for example, that banning gay marriage would "increase[] 'the probability that each child will be raised by both a father and a mother.'" Although the ban's proponents apparently attempted to show that having a father and mother was preferable to, for example, having two fathers, the court found that the evidence overwhelmingly showed that this was not the case. More importantly, the ban's proponents apparently made no attempt to demonstrate how keeping gay people from marrying each other would increase the number of heterosexual married couples. It's as if the ban's proponents think people will just give up on being gay.

In any event, I think that most of the analysis is good, if a bit short. It'll be interesting to see what higher courts do with the case. It will also be interesting to see how the case is received.

While I think the constitutional questions posed are really interesting, though, I really care about one thing: that whoever finally resolves this issue gets it right.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)| Filed under Legal Rants , Philosophical Rants , Rants on the News