Inspiring Lawyer Movies: Philadelphia

Imagine if a Yoda-like creature of Lawyerly wisdom lived in each and every law school library.  

"Young Skywalker-Law-Student, write a good outline, you must."

Old, decrepit, and a mystical provider of answers in times of need, Law School Yoda would dwell between the Law Review volumes no one ever reads.  I imagine him sitting in full-lotus position on a stack of dusty Tax Law pages, meditating next to a single candle and a Buddha statue.  The scene would have all the grainy charm of an early-nineties movie, right down to the obvious Animatronic Jim Hensen puppetry of our Law School Yoda.  He would blink awkwardly, mechanically.  When he looks at you from the soft-lit nest of printed pages, cue the theme rising in the background, with all the tinkering audio-baubles of eighties childhood magic.  Think of the scene when Atreyu meets Falcor, or when the Goonies discover the pirate ship.  

"Why, Atreyu, why do seek happiness from grades and jobs from OCI when you know better?"

Disgruntled and frustrated law students would wander the stacks, seeking out wisdom and whimsy in their times of desperation.  Times when coffee isn't enough motivation for that all-nighter.  Times when loan debt, low job prospects, or systemic and fundamental unfairness seem too great to bear.  They would find him in the eerie post-midnight hours of finals, or the wee hours of the morning before graded briefs or appellate arguments.  

I never found a Law Library Yoda.  Instead, I had two things when coffee just wasn't enough to keep going: 1) a fabulous group of friends from my law school year and 2) my favorite lawyer movies.


I love lawyer movies.  Not because they are an accurate reflection of real life, but because they trigger the dreams and ideals of a younger me.  They capture moments and memories of when I saw the potential of what a lawyer could be.  When I had merely a sketch of what good could be done when one dons the lawyerly suit and attaché case.  (Or if you want to get governmental wid' it NA NA NA NA NA NA NA...as Rip Torn put it to Will Smith in Men in Black, "the last suit you'll ever wear.")


There are plenty of real-life examples of inspiring lawyering; warm-blooded, defined, precedent-setting individuals and cases that continually inspire and motivate.  All are surely examples that the hypothetical Law School Yoda would point to with his wrinkly green finger.

Brown v Board (school desegregation) is a bread-and-butter example of lawyers being change-makers.

But some days, give me fiction.  Give me some un-reality for a few hours.  And since I'm taking time away from studying, make it good.  

MUST-WATCH LAWYER MOVIES: PHILADELPHIA

(1993, TriStar Pictures, directed by Jonathon Demme.)

Tom Hanks.  Denzel Washington.  The AIDS controversy.  Need I say more?  Probably not, but I will.  This 1993 courtroom drama casts Tom Hanks as Andrew Beckett, the central character in the recreation of a real-life pioneering AIDS discrimination case from 1987.  Beckett, a gay attorney working for a big Philadelphia law firm, gets maliciously fired after a senior partner notices a sore on his face.  The sore, of course, is heavily associated as symptomatic of the deadly and then-mysterious AIDS virus.  A brief for Beckett's case goes missing just before a statute of limitations deadline but miraculously found - just in time to save the firm's case but to still frame Beckett for incompetence.

In 1987, people knew next to nothing about AIDS, how it was contracted, how it spread, or how to deal with people diagnosed with the incurable disease.  AIDS was a death sentence.  A threat not yet contained or understood.  Because the virus is transmitted through blood or other bodily fluids, it spread like wildfire among drug users and one isolated sexual community in particular: gay white males.  In a few short years, people came to primarily associate AIDS with intravenous drug users and the white male homosexual community.  1987 was wrapped up in the myth of AIDS as the "gay white man's disease." 

The film carefully and agonizingly showcases the powerful stigma evoked by this myth through its unrelenting attention to the most simplistic details of Beckett's experience.  This begins with Beckett struggling to find an attorney willing to even take on an AIDS patient as a client. Enter Denzel Washington's character Joe Miller, once-opposing counsel of Beckett who hung his own shingle to chase ambulances.  Miller meets with Beckett in his office and is - at first - cordial and relaxed in his approach to a potential client.  When Beckett reveals his diagnosis, everything changes.  

Miller glances nervously at everything Beckett touches.  He shuts down and is suddenly reluctant to talk in depth about Beckett's potential case.  After Beckett leaves, he literally runs to his secretary and demands an appointment with his doctor to clarify how AIDS spreads.  Miller, for all intents and purposes, freaks out.

Months later, the turning point between Beckett and Miller happens in a local law library.  A white man walks by with a look of utmost disdain at the idea of a black man (Miller) being in a law library.  Miller glares back defiantly.  Moments later, Miller notices Beckett researching at a common table.  A  librarian comes to Beckett and loudly announces, "WHY YES, there IS a section on HIV-related discrimination!!"  Everyone in earshot looks at Beckett in horror.  This, ahem, librarian (I can't think of something kind to call this...argh...librarian...so we'll call him just that)

then asks Beckett if he would "be more comfortable in a private study room."  Beckett says no.  Librarian stands there.  And...stands there.  He asks Beckett again: "sir, are you SURE you wouldn't be more comfortable in a private study room?"  Then, one of my all-time favorite Tom Hanks moments.  Beckett looks this librarian straight in the face and asks, "No...would YOU be more comfortable?"  After witnessing this exchange arranged parallel to Miller's own passing moment of discrimination, Miller comes over to Beckett's table and begins discussing the substance of his case.  Miller and Beckett become attorney-client.  Miller and Beckett go to trial.  Miller and Beckett make history.

One of my favorite moments in this movie, aside from the heart-rending opera scene, is when a dying Beckett explains to the jury why he loves the law in front of the big firm honchos who stole his career and impugned his reputation:

Suddenly, after my short jaunt into fiction-lawyer-world, I remember how many good reasons there are to be a lawyer.  How the possibilities of what you can do with your license are only as limited as your own mind.  How you can define "lawyer" any way you please, with your actions and capacity for doing right.  

I remember that coffee is enough.  I turn back to the books and cover letters and resumes and welcome the coming hours.  There it is!  That resolve to keep pushing into the wee hours.   

Pumpkin Pie Protein Shake

A daily post-workout treat packed with protein and calcium.  Get a protein 'stache this holiday season instead of love handles.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup ice
• 1 container Trader Joe's Pumpkin Non-Fat Greek Yogurt
• 1 PURE PROTEIN Shake, Vanilla Creme flavor
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Splenda or Stevia sweetener, to taste (optional)
• Pumpkin Pie Spice, to taste (optional)

Solitude and Independence: Same Same, But Different

A Louis CK video went viral a few weeks back, striking cords with many.

I remember a time as an adolescent when I began to think that books and art and research and writing were somehow more fulfilling than interacting with actual people.  What the Hell is wrong with me?  Am I (GASP!) antisocial because I would rather read this book than go to this party?!?

I decided early on that I would officially stop caring what it made me.  As I grew up, I became more of an extrovert.  However, the quiet, reserved thinker still tends to show more often than not.  Watching this video reminded me of a fact that my journey to Thailand has made me profoundly remember: THANK GOD I was one of those weird kids who loved my alone time.  How else would I remember that in a Smartphone world with constant possibility for interaction?

During the past three years, stress and grief would often make me forget that fact.  I would wonder where my love of solidarity went; I would long for it, I would seek it out.  I would get frustrated when I couldn't find it in the same places I used to.  I would distract myself endlessly between work and school and everything else, hoping to again find it someday.

When I supplanted myself from all things familiar - when the internet would go out for days on end and monsoons flooded the streets and all I had was a room with a bed and a Bruce Lee book and pen and paper - I was forced to finally face solidarity.  There it was, staring me in the face for hours on end.  Just me and my brain.  No distractions.  White walls.  A bed.  A toilet.  A fridge with water bottles and electrolyte packets, Baht coins in a cup on top of it, a room key next to a pack of gum that melted in the heat.

At first, the isolation was jarring.  Terrifying, even.  But now...

Now, I remember.

A room alone is far from empty; the mind alone is never a prison because it cannot be confined.  A mind left alone is limitless.

Vladimir Nabokov, the author of the infamous Lolita, explicated the idea in twelve sophistically sanguine lines of Pale Fire's introductory poem:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky,
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
10 Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!

-Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, First Canto

In this canto, the protagonist describes how images reflect in a window by assuming the identity of whatever is reflected in the window's glass pane.  It is a protagonist lost in the ecstasy of imagination, imagining consciousness from every minute and grandiose detail of life - observing closely enough to feel himself float like an ashen fluff caught in an updraft, or the dead bird (waxwing) that smashed head-first into the glass, tricked "by the false azure in the windowpane."   Lost in the illusion of how the reflection of furniture on the inside pane meets the horizon line visible outside and makes the bed "exactly stand...Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!"

But the point of it is this: the mind turns something as simple as a window reflection into pure magic.  It passes the most mundane of details through the imagination and churns out poetry.  Find a lonely window in an empty room, and marvel at what you might find if you shut off the idea that alone = bad.  What wonder lies in ideas when we stop long enough to form good ones!

But for every possibility of turning trivial detail into tremendous beauty, the mind is capable of equally tremendous darkness.

Therein lies the fear.

Therein lies the reason why checking your phone is so much easier than letting the mind wander.

Still - Smartphones and all - the world is still not yet enough to fill the solidarity of the mind.  The physical world, even if broken into each infinitesimal part, strung out atom for atom, cannot annihilate the basic truth of existing as a singular individual.  It cannot fill the self.  Put more simply - at the end of the day, you're always alone.  Whether you're in an empty studio in Bangkok or wrapped up in the arms of a husband or a wife.  For all your contacts and connections and loved ones.  No matter how tightly you cling to everything else, you exist as something independent of all other things.  No one will ever see the movie that rolls on through your head, no matter how many words you write.  People fade out.  They die, they move, and nothing ever stays the same.

People will read that paragraph a number of ways.  For many, it will be too harsh to think about; something to be feared and forgotten as quickly as possible.  The whole idea of Alone summons demons from the darkest cataclysms of the mind, slithering up from the subconscious like the shadows of the monster hiding just out of sight.  It is the adult Boogeyman; it lives under your bed, and you never know when you might feel it there.  You can't see it, but you can feel it lying underneath you, waiting to wrap you in the cold embrace of its truth: no one else is really there.  Even when you're lying next to someone.  It's no guarantee they'll stick around, or that they mean what they say.  Never will you find immunity from death and loss and the destruction of whatever you're holding onto to delude yourself otherwise.

It's no wonder people cling.  It's natural - paleolithic humans who traveled in groups lived longer, healthier lives because of the simple calculus of strength in numbers.  Those who had the strongest urge to be part of the group survived, passing their genes encoded with innate desire to belong onto the next generation, then the next.  This instinct was borne of an era where belonging meant shelter, food, sex, warmth; solitude meant cold, starvation, hardship.  The world was wild, and we were, too.

How wild it is, then, to return to that state - to be alone.

To stray from the safety of the pack.

Henry David Thoreau was one who strayed.  He left his father's pencil factory to live alone in the woods and write poetry.  What a hippie, the world said.  What a hippie, the world still says.  Thoreau summed up his decision for wildness this way:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” 

But Thoreau was never writing about solitude in the evolutionary sense.  Thoreau is not talking about deprivation, starvation, cold, and everything the Ape Brain associates with being away from the group.  What Thoreau wrote struck at the core of a transcendental idea, one which prevails over the Ape Brain in one simple way.

But, in that way, solitude is intensely illusory.  The acute sensation of being alone - of starving shelterless in the cold - no longer applies.  We live in a world with six billion people.  With smartphones.  With Facebook.  With six billion other people with the same alone-hating DNA.

So why the Hell do so many people disparage and still fear being alone???  Why do we all relate to this video so much?

Perhaps we aren't forced to face it often enough to remember how small and weak a beast solitude actually is.  Perhaps all of our distractions have taken us out of practice.  Without that metaphorical check under the bed before we go to sleep, the monster under the bed grows more and more vicious in our minds each day.

Maybe the answer is simple, like so many answers are: face your fear.  Pull the car over and sob like Louie did and wait for happiness to come back to you.  Learn that lesson.

Then, entertain the idea that you can ditch your proverbial pencil factory and wander into the woods like Thoreau.  It won't really be terrifying like you imagine.  In fact, you'll amaze yourself with the wonders you find there.  Maybe then the fear will fade, and one day you will notice how much stronger you are for facing it without your Smartphone.  Only then will being alone feel like independence instead of solitude.

Staying Power

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

The face of defeat is not an easy one to look directly at too closely.  When one observes the exact contours of a dream defunct - the jagged, unnatural angles of its broken pieces sticking out through someone's eyes - people look away, uncomfortable.  Uncomfortable with the reality of philosophical gravity - the always-present possibility of failure.

A Kaewsamrit fighter after losing a title bout

There's something unsettling about the way American culture views losses.  I always feel like people aren't understanding a basic calculus going on here.  It goes something like this:

RULE ONE.  You're not supposed to lose, American culture teaches you.  Losing is for...well, losers.  You don't want to be a loser, right?  Don't ever fail.  Win - don't lose.

RULE TWO.  GO FOR IT.  YOLO.  Jump on in there and take a risk.  Make something of yourself.  Only doers go and get things done, so go do.  Don't be afraid and don't look back, just do it.

We are raised by our teachers and parents to believe all of these things.  But few will bother to tell you how much these two basic ideas actually conflict with each other.

Doesn't jumping in there and taking a risk necessarily involve some inevitable failures?  And if so, isn't it true that the more risks we take the more failures we guarantee ourselves?  So the more we follow Rule 2 the more we will ultimately violate Rule 1.  And if losing makes us losers, and if we aren't supposed to ever be losers, then isn't the inevitable conclusion that we shouldn't ever take a risk?  But then, aren't we violating Rule 2 in order to follow Rule 1??  How on Earth do you follow both??  How do you "go for it" without losing?

The answer is simple; the rules are flawed.  The conclusion is sound but the premises are BS.  You can't follow both.  It's the biggest steaming pile that anyone has ever sold you.  It's not probable.  It's not possible.  Forget it.  The sooner you do, the better.

If we know all of these things, why do we still shame people for losing when they gave everything they had?  Why do we judge them for it?  Why can't we see that both the man who has an impressive stack of losses - in addition to the rare undefeated champions- has lived far more than the man with none?

The first time I saw one of the fighters from my camp lose, I expected the coaches to be angry or upset or disappointed.  But the coaches were none of those things.  The team was none of those things.  Instead, the focus was on what could be learned.  How to improve.  What to do differently to avoid making the same mistake.

Why doesn't the rest of the world work like this?  I thought of how different my Western education was growing up.  Mistakes in academia were always deemed unacceptable.  Coming in second instead of first was a thing to be mourned, ashamed of, and angry about.  God help you if you submit a memo to a judge that has a grammatical error in it.  Misread part of a question on a law school final?  You're sunk.  You're done.  Never speak of it to anyone.

In the fight world, each and every mistake gets broadcast for the audience to see.  There is no hiding behind anonymity.  Academia had taught me that this would probably invite nothing but chastising and mockery.  But you know what?  For all the punches I've not thrown right - for any losses - for any mistake - I've never known a teammate or coach to provide anything other than constructive criticism.  I've been lucky to be around great people.  But, more than that, losses are viewed differently in the fight world.  The people who let their dreams die with a single loss don't survive long enough to come back and do any of the chastising or shaming - those get filtered out right away.  The ones who stick around don't see losses as a destruction of their dream to fight or as a fracture to their identity as a fighter.  Instead, a loss is a misstep to be learned from to become a better fighter.  It makes for a sweeter comeback.  It fuels more fire.  The mourning of a loss is always bittersweet because of the knowledge that the current sting makes the future savoring of a win all the more powerful.

The morning before I left Bangkok to head back home, I sat at a cafe down the street, contemplating and digesting the details of the journey thus far.  I was more physically drained and yet spiritually full than I had ever known.

Water danced in the sparkling sun from a fountain just outside the cafe.  It shot straight up, working endlessly against gravity.  Each drop would rise to the apex of the arc only to fall to the bottom yet again; the pumps and machines would work in perpetuity to keep this silly maneuver going.  They would suck power from the wall, power someone somewhere had to buy from someone who had to convert it to electricity from oil deep in the Earth.  All this work so that water would never stay where it's going.  All this work for what?  For nothing?

All-this-work-for-what was, of course, the wrong question.  The beauty was not in the completion of a loop or the specific getting of somewhere; it was not in the win, or the destination, or the ending.  Life everywhere was exactly as this water; what defined this water, and everything living, was the fight.  Pushing back.  Pushing up, over and over again.  Pushing out and against opposing forces was as basic as a seed breaking through the soil and reaching a new leaf into the sun.  Pushing out and against opposing forces is life-force in its most elemental of forms.  It is the difference between living and dead.  Perhaps this is why fighters so often describe a fight as when they feel most alive.

We fear looking into the eyes of the defeated man because we see a parable of death; we see the moment when pushing out and against opposing forces might actually cease.  Maybe today is the day that mystical energy that fuels us runs out.  From what unnamed, blackened well in the human soul will I dig out the courage and will to keep pushing back?

So what, then, gives fighters staying power?  What keeps them coming back?  Perhaps what fighters know is that failure does not break a dream.  Perhaps fighters just never stop dreaming.

The dream deferred for a fighter does indeed explode; it fires off in a million ecstatic directions, boundless in its measure of ferocity, stretching out past the rational calm self and its facade of reason - funneled into a punch or a kick or a submission, into the moment when nothing else matters but the resounding "no" to the universe's idea that "you can't."

Whatever the reason or the explanation, we continue to watch them and wait, waiting for them to peel up off the canvas and inspire us to get back up again and again and again for all the times we inevitably have yet to fall.

How To Make Healthier Bangkok Grilled Bananas (Kluay Tap)

Bangkok Grilled Bananas (Kluay Tap กล้วยปิ้ง)

Traditional roadside Thai grilled bananas, Kluay Tap

After the three hour morning training session, I was on the usual mission for my latest food addiction - young coconut water.  After the cordial fruit cart woman hacked open a coconut for me with a crooked smile and a machete, I wandered through the street market questing for healthy breakfast options.   Behold! A street stall that looked promising:

Photo Credit: eatingthaifood.com

At first I thought this stall was grilling sausages, so I almost kept on walking.  But, on closer inspection, the woman was grilling what looked like (and turned out to be) short, fat bananas on skewers.  Eureka!  Add a side of pineapple and I'm all set.  After I paid the woman, she took a skewer off the grill and flattened it between two wooden boards, lightly mushing them, and cut them into slices with scissors.  She poured what I assumed to be honey onto them from a jar, put it in a plastic baggie, and sent me on my merry fruit-filled way.  As I om-NOM-NOM'ed on my first bite of Bangkok grilled bananas, I quickly fell in love with them.

Upon researching recipes for traditional Bangkok grilled bananas, I found that the recipe could use some tweaking if I wanted to make a healthy version for myself back at home.  So, for your dietetically-sound gastronomical pleasure, I give you the following cleaned-up version.  Removing the sugar-laden sauce also cuts the prep time down.  At just under ten minutes, it's not much hassle to grill these up before work in the morning or after a brutal training session if you feel like it.

SERVES: ONE

PREP TIME: 10 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 3 medium burro bananas (about 85g each; you can buy one bunch, as pictured, and make this for breakfast all week)
• 1 tbs pure honey (or plain/flavored sugar-free syrup if you'd like, usually found in the coffee aisle of your grocery store.  This would be excellent with any of the vanilla or cinnamon-based flavors.)
• Optional spices, measured to taste: cinnamon, a pinch of salt, Splenda.

PREPARATION

1.  Peel the bananas.  

2.  Grill them until slightly charred.  If you're using salt/Splenda/cinnamon, coat them with it before grilling.  If you don't have a regular grill or you don't feel like going through the trouble to use it, you can use a George Foreman grill or pan-fry with Pam Spray in a pinch.

3.  Put bananas on a chopping board.  Using another flat surface (plate, another chopping board, etc.) press down until 1/4-1/2 inch thick.  Chop into slices.

4.  Drizzle the honey and/or sugar-free syrup over them.  NOM TIME.

Additional ideas:

• Grill only one banana this way and add it on top of your favorite oatmeal with a few toasted almonds
• Grill only one banana this way and add it on top of non-fat Greek yogurt with one tablespoon of almond butter
• Grill two bananas this way and add the equivalent of one sliced-up banana on each half of a toasted whole-grain or sprouted bagel (found in Trader Joe's) with Trader Joe's light whipped cream cheese.

NUTRITION INFORMATION: WITH HONEY

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 276 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 304 Calories from Fat 0

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 0.0g 0%

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 1mg 0%

Total Carbohydrates 77.3g 26%

Dietary Fiber 3.0g 12%

Sugars 56.2g

Protein 3.1g

Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 45% Calcium 0% • Iron 1%

Nutrition Grade B

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

NUTRITION INFORMATION: WITHOUT HONEY

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 255 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 240 Calories from Fat 0

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 0.0g 0%

Total Carbohydrates 60.0g 20%

Dietary Fiber 3.0g 12%

Sugars 39.0g

Protein 3.0g

Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 45% Calcium 0% • Iron 0%

Nutrition Grade B

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Drama Queen Rocky

Know what I always loved about Rocky?

He wasn't afraid of letting everyone see how much of an emotional wreck he actually was.

Always down and out.  The ultimate come-back kid, always coming back up from some new low.  He was the ultimate "drama queen" fighter - you know him.  He goes to your gym, too.  He's the one who's always acting like every setback is the end of the world; every shin splint, every mismatched fight, every loss, every training day where he (or, for that matter, she) felt off, every molehill is made mountainous.  Even the smallest of injuries produces a grimacing limp throughout the gym.

I should clarify before I go further that this was written with no specific person in mind.  "OMG, am I that guy?!?  Is she writing about that one time I bitched about (insert injury here)?!?"  No.  And stop it.  Everyone is guilty of Drama Queen Rocky moments.  I am totally guilty of some hardcore Drama Queen Rocky moments.  So are you.  Some are more guilty than others.

Drama Queen Rocky usually gets under everyone's skin faster than a mosquito in Southeast Asia.  Everyone loves to talk about just how much of a drama queen he is.  He is publicly shamed for "being a pussy."  Everyone loves to point out his mistakes.  But you know what?  At the end of the day, everyone always loves the Drama Queen Rocky.  They have no problem telling him to man up to his face, but if someone says something about him or does something to him that's truly vindictive, his gym fellows take serious offense and will be the first to put the vindictive in their place.  Why?

For every annoying thing Drama Queen Rocky manages to say or do, there is one simple truth to it.  He's usually right.  He's over-the-top about it, but he shamelessly expresses all the things most people are too afraid to say but were thinking anyway.  Yeah, training injuries do really hurt.  Yeah, shin splints and mismatches and setbacks are incredibly frustrating.  Everyone is sinking their blood, sweat, and tears into this endeavor.  We can all see those things - they exist in the realm of the physical, the tangible, you can taste and feel and smell them.  But everyone is sinking their heart and soul in it, too.  Standard-issue manliness demands that the bleeding of the soul and the tears of the heart be masked as much as possible.  Wear leg bruises with pride, but suck up the heartbreak of your most recent loss.  Stuff down all the non-physical pain as far as it will go, and never let anyone be the wiser.

Drama Queen Rocky doesn't follow standard-issue manliness rules.  Instead, he just is.  Unapologetically is.  Shamelessly is.  Honestly is.  And we can all learn something from him.

He's the bellwether of the gym mood, and seeing his emotional struggles pass unfiltered over his raw visage like reflections over water reminds us that it's okay to feel that way, too.  None of us are infallible.  And the minute we stop thinking we are, the minute we stop thinking we're already so damn perfect, then we might actually be wrecked and weak and shameless enough to actually learn something.  To cry and whine about it and feel better afterward.  To admit we need help.  To then receive that help.  To let pain empty out the cup we thought was full, to grieve it's actual emptiness, then to realize the opportunity to fill it with more.  To grow.  To become better fighters (and people) because we grew, and realize that an awareness and understanding of the pain it took to do so was integral in the doing so.  To just be, and not care who witnesses the pain of that process.

Why I Went to Law School

A video blog from over the summer.  I explain why I went to law school, what kind of work I want to do, the perspective of "the law school optimist" and why I want to be a lawyer.

3 Reasons Women Should Love Bangkok

"I'm going to be in Bangkok during that time..."

"So, who are you going with?"

I got this question so much from women before I left that the entire interaction following their brow-furrowing became routine.  I knew exactly what was coming, like a script in a movie.

"No one, just me."

She would look at me with a mixed look of shock and confusion.  The inevitable follow-up "why?!?" in one form or another.  The inevitable explaining about training Muay Thai.  The inevitable explaining what Muay Thai is.  Then, the inevitable "Oh, good for you! I would never do that!"

Bangkok has you now!!!

Part of me always wanted to say, "why the Hell not?!?" But, I get it.  Don't get me wrong.  I respect that most women see this as either crazy-stupid or crazy-awesome or some mixture of both; if I were in their shoes, I would probably see it the same way.  After all, for those foreign to any martial art, the mere act of volunteering to get punched and pulverized (and to fly around the world to do it) seems like some form of sado-masochistic insanity.  Traveling to the land of Hangover 2 seems so far outside the realm of single womanhood to most that's it's too exciting to fathom doing - let alone trying.  For most, it's kinda a guy thing.

The late David Carradine

Add to that the notoriously testosterone-driven image of Bangkok, and you have all the reasons why a lot of women would find my decision devoid of rationality.  Bangkok?  Isn't that where guys go to get cheap hookers and Thai wives?  And drink themselves into bar fights?  And get tattoos?  And do drugs?  Take pictures with abused and kidnapped monkeys?  Where the Hangover 2 took place?  Where David Carradine died of autoerotic asphyxiation, hanging naked in a closet after a tryst with Thai hookers?!?

Sure it is.  All those things do happen.  But you know what?  It's the same way you could view America as one homogenous landmass of Christian Conservatives who weigh 300 pounds and eat McDonald's breakfast platters on the daily.  Last time I checked, America had all of those things, but it had a lot more, too.  The same goes for Bangkok.

You don't have to be going on some athletic-minded Muay Thai adventure to enjoy Bangkok, nor do you have to have a Y-chromosome.  The following are just a few super girly reasons why solo traveling women should love Bangkok in addition to all of the bad-ass manly man reasons.  I've left out the gender-neutral reasons which most go to Bangkok for anyway (food; temples; museums; etc.) to prove a point.  There's something here to whet the appetite of each gender polar extreme, from the girliest to the manliest.  Women should have no qualms about enjoying both.  And why the Hell not?  It's the kind of place where you can spend your morning sparring Muay Thai and planning your next tattoo and then spend your afternoon getting a mani-pedi and custom made business suit for an obscenely low price at one of the biggest malls you've ever seen before you go back to your training camp for the second workout.  Carpe-fucking-diem, girls.  There is no gender-specific prescription for Bangkok, except the one you define yourself.  (Guys, don't get butt hurt and feel all left out; I fully encourage you to set aside your man card and indulge in this list, too.)

1.  THE EPIC MALLS

The thirteen-year-old in me couldn't help it; some of the malls here literally made me stop and gasp an involuntary "SQUEEE!" just beholding their laissez-faire majesty.  The malls here are big enough to get lost in...for days.  They are air conditioned reprieves from the heat.  They are everywhere.  They are unapologetic shrines to capitalism, and they all have Starbucks.  They have H&M.  They have every brand and store you could think of, and most you didn't even know existed.  They have enough in Bangkok alone to need alphabetization.  Safe to say, your consumer side will be piqued and far from neglected.

Central World in downtown Bangkok - SEVEN stories of mall

Aside from the endless list of stores in these malls, most offer a panoply of dining and spa options.  They contain far more than a stereotypical American "foodcourt."  You can get the same McDonald's and Starbucks as almost anywhere else - but you can also sample world-class fine dining for a truly steep discount.  There are Japanese buffets with endless sushi and sashimi, beautiful French-inspired dessert boutiques, and designer coffee shops.  You can get urban-chic steak and lobster plates in a modern cultural fusion restaurant, or go super cheap and get coconuts and mystery-meat-on-a-stick from the street stalls outside.

Terminal 21 Mall's replica of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge

For those who are a fan of Asian-inspired intricate nail art, there is usually a place to stop in for this service...on each mall level.  There are high-end hair salons and dermatology centers offering laser treatments at a fraction of the U.S. cost.  There are banks, massage centers, and day spas where you can disappear behind rice-paper doors and emerge only hours later, waxed and plucked and facial-ed and shiatsued into divine relaxation and refreshment.

2.  THE ENDLESS STREET MARKETS

One guidebook describes getting lost in Bangkok's Chinatown as "the best thing that can happen to you."  After getting lost there, I can see why.

$2 Aluminum Can Clocks outside of Taling Chan's floating market

Sitting in a central location to Asian trade and goods manufacturing, Bangkok is a veritable wholesaler free-for-all.  Street stalls openly displaying every ware imaginable - jewelry, clothing, tourist trinkets, pots, fried scorpions, textiles, bags of beads, leather, dragonfruit...name it - are part of the culture and experience of Bangkok.  For all the city's grittiness and raw, unapologetic grime, the freedom of the street shopping is breathtaking.  The layout of the stalls makes for a maze mind-game into the shopping world.  It's part of the adventure; at the end of the rainbow is your wholesale pot of gold, but enjoying that ride over the rainbow is half (or, let's be real, MOST) of the fun.  What makes street shopping so thrilling is that you never really know what's going to happen or what to expect.  The surprises are what ingrains each thing you buy there with the distinct flavor of a specific, irreplaceable memory.  This, this bracelet, this is the bracelet I bought for 20 cents from a tiny stall next to an insistent Thai fortune teller who told me that I bring great happiness to those around me but need to bring greater happiness to myself.  He touched your forehead, smack on the center, and said "you think your happiness comes from here, but you're wrong.  You think too much."  The people, the smells, the tastes, the experiences surrounding what you buy color the world of those memories; the things you buy in these markets become talismans of all the things you should never, ever forget.

3.  THE CAFES

Perhaps this is overly broad to classify as a "girl" thing, but it seems to me that most would view it that way, so it goes here.

Coffee is everywhere in Bangkok.  Sure, there are Starbucks.  But, even in the smallest of suburbs and most private of streets, you will find an urban chic cafe, complete with Euro decor, air-conditioning, and crepes.

One such locale is Cafe Casta on Thungmangkorn in Taling Chan, the quaint street where you can find Kaewsamrit Gym.  As you walk past, the cafe looks strangely out of place.  Recessed from the street by a stone walkway, the cafe emerges from jungle greenery with white Greco-Roman statues and an elegant gated orange-stucco archway.  The menu is over ten pages long, the first four of which are all devoted to coffee and smoothie drinks.  You can get anything Western you want here, from American breakfast to a steak dinner.  And it's not some mid-level Denny's approximation of "American" or "European" styles.  The cafe's culinary aesthetic is on par with the ritziest of quaint little cafes in any metropolis I've ever traversed.  Moreover, everything here is just plain delicious.  Not to mention, you can get healthier options here and chill out in the air-con between the brutal Muay Thai training sessions.

Photo credit: me-dzine

And all of this, ladies, is just the beginning; just a few on a long list of reasons you should enjoy this amazing city and all of its treasures.

Bangkok Eats: How to Make An Even Healthier Som Tam

I fell in love with Som Tam on Kauai, one of the greenest of the Hawaiian islands, many miles of ocean and years away from my trip to Thailand.  It was everything I loved about what well-prepared food can be; bold, exotic, exciting, satisfying, and yet still good for me.  I'm not alone in my love affair with Som Tam.  This popular Thai dish is served throughout many parts of Asia and prepared a myriad of ways all over the world.  

This recipe focuses on replicating the street food style of Bangkok while keeping this dish in the realm of what most refer to as "clean eating," i.e., avoiding any processed ingredients.  Although the idea of "don't eat crap that was made instead of grown/killed" has been around since forever (see: cavemen), this idea crops up in new fad diets from time to time refurbished with some catchy new spin ("paleo" is one of them).  So if you must call this "paleo" or whatever new verbiage the diet world has bestowed upon "eating healthy" before you can eat it, call it whatever you wish.

But, Lisa!  Isn't this already devoid of processed ingredients?!?  True.  Mostly.  Well, let's put it this way, I want to share how to make a version for yourself that is as nutritionally sound as possible.  So I'm going to be picky, yes very picky, about the dietetic value of anything I'm about to make for myself at home.

Som Tam (ส้มตำ) is a spicy green papaya salad that balances the essential flavors of Thai cooking: sour, sweet, salty, and bitter.  Typically, most versions of the dish contain shredded papaya, lime, tomatoes, dried shrimp, fish sauce, peanuts, green beans, and palm sugar.  For a detailed look into one semi-traditionalist version of the recipe, check out She Simmers.  

Let's get started.

Recipe Makes: 1 serving

INGREDIENTS

• 6oz of a young green papaya (firm, not quite ripe), shredded (can be done with a food processor or by hand with a mandolin)
• About 1/2 a carrot
• The juice of 1 lime
• 1 tablespoon of peanuts
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 6 whole shrimp, grilled with cooking spray / low or no oil
• 1/3 cup long green beans
• 1 Thai chili, to taste
• Fish sauce, to taste
• One garlic clove, minced
• 1 tbs of Stevia or any other no-calorie sweetener, optional and to taste

PREPARATION

• Prepare all of the ingredients as listed above: 
• shred the papaya and carrot, 
• juice the lime, 
• halve the cherry tomatoes, 
• cook the shrimp however you like them, but the dish is best if the shrimp are cold as well (optional - grill them in any sort of lime marinade to add to the flavor, or just grill them plain with a bit of salt and pepper to keep it simple),
• Cut the green beans into bite-size bits and lightly crush them so they are just split open,
• Mince the garlic and mince the Thai chili; add both to the fish sauce, lime juice, and whatever sweetener (or lack thereof) you've chosen,
• Put all of it together in a bowl and voila!  You've got yourself an all-natural meal packed full of protein and nutrients.

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 378 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories  299 Calories from Fat  64

% Daily Value*

Total Fat  7.1g 11%

Saturated Fat  1.4g 7%

Trans Fat  0.0g

Cholesterol  278mg 93%

Sodium  352mg 15%

Total Carbohydrates  25.7g 9%

Dietary Fiber  5.9g 24%

Sugars  12.4g

Protein  34.4g

Vitamin A 152% • Vitamin C 188% Calcium 19% • Iron 8%

Nutrition Grade A

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Nutritional Analysis

Good points

• High in phosphorus
• Very high in vitamin A
• High in vitamin B12
• Very high in vitamin C

*Note: the shrimp is responsible for the cholesterol level in this recipe.  If this is an issue for you, sub in some lightly grilled tofu to turn this into a vegetarian/low cholesterol version.  Also consider subbing in a lower-cholesterol fish like Halibut, Mackerel, or even sardines.