By Jason Wilson
Listen, I don’t want to stifle your creativity, but that thing you built there, it looks like a pile of shit.
From Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern
I’ve been following Justin Halpern on Twitter for sometime, and I just read his book this past Saturday. As a child and as a father of two children, I could not possibly imagine either growing up or being like Sam Halpern, but that does not make me laugh less at the stories or quotes. There is an odd attraction to the vulgar frankness of the life lessons his father dispenses, and I think it is one of the reasons why 1.4 million Twitter users follow Justin.
But what does this have to do with legal publishing?
Well, pretty much nothing.
There is zilch in the anecdotes that will reveal what we need to do to adapt to the new digital imperative, how our jobs will change (or how we should “redefine” them) to meet the needs of a digital-only environment, what new methodologies or processes we need to adopt to create useful, informative content, or whether the duopoly will kill us all. No, nothing useful like that.
The only purpose in mentioning it is that there is something—and I can’t put my finger on it yet—about the unfiltered observations of an aging, intimidating, profane, sexist, and most decidedly “my way or the highway” retired physician. Take this gem, for example:
Do these announcers ever shut the fuck up? Don’t ever say stuff just because you think you should. That’s the definition of an asshole.
This certainly puts blogging in an interesting light, and perhaps says something about the value of many essays and posts these days. I can just see Foxworthy building on this theme now:
You might be an asshole, if you’ve ever blogged and didn’t have anything worthwhile to say.
I guess the point I’m making here, and one that Dr. Halpern tries to make, albeit a bit more crassly, is this: be honest, don’t take shit from anyone, and respect people’s time, talents, and intellect. Which is probably pretty good advice at any time.
[Image (cc) *hiro008 | *Image is not Sam Halpern]
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My father used to say something which I remembered to this day, but wasn't very polite. I was a backsliding Christian.
"Babydoll, in your life, God's got a hold of one ass cheek, and the devil's got a hold of the other. You just got to make a decision who will win the tug of war!"
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