Why Coffee and a Corndog?

Because...whatever.

Ok. This may not last. So read it while you can. (I’m playing the scarcity angle there, see?)

This Substack is born of ennui. I’m getting old. I’m tired of writing things that feel like “work”. And I already have two other Substacks that are “work”.

And although only one of those two — Probable Cause, a.k.a., Probable Cause Media — is actually really related to my work as a criminal defense lawyer, the other — Reading the Tape — focuses on “reading the tape". The name originated from the idea of old-fashioned ticker tape readers from the stock markets. I’ve expanded the idea slightly to talk about “reading the tape” in various areas of life. Essentially, learning to recognize patterns not just in candlestick stock charts, but in anything else where you might find patterns.

But both of those Substacks are, therefore, somewhat limiting. And writing for them sometimes feels like “work” more than fun. So I want something more “free form” and without limitations on what I can write. Something to break down the ennui. As Bobby McFerrin famously sang in the late 1980s: “Let’s turn that frown upside down!”

I’m also big on cool names, imagery, and what some would call “branding”, though. It appeals to my creative side. So when I started thinking about what to do to create this new writing space, Coffee and a Corndog popped into my head.

Every morning lately, when I arrive at my law office, the first thing I usually do is have a breakfast of coffee and a corndog. My office manager thinks it’s nuts. She also apparently doesn’t like the smell of corndogs (which I just learned yesterday when I told her I was going to start this new Substack).

In any event, the idea of coffee and a corndog just struck me as whimsical, funny, and as having at least a modicum of potential. People frequently get together over coffee and just chat. So I thought about my coffee and a corndog and a Substack where I could just chatter.

Or, as my friend Marcos Dorado would say, “yap.”

That’s what I’ll do here. In that sense, I expect that this Coffee and a Corndog Clatch will possibly end up looking a bit more like a personal journal, or musings. Maybe I’ll pontificate. What I hope not to do is procrastinate. Since there are no limits to what one might discuss over coffee and a corndog, I am not limited on topics the way Probable Cause and Reading the Tape limit me.

I also think that posts here can be shorter since I’m not really planning on building complex arguments or talking about new pattern recognizationators. (Yeah, I did make that word up. You can do that at Coffee and a Corndog!)

Anyway, that’s the plan.

Pontificate; do not procrastinate; populate this place with posts.

Peace out.