(Hey there, y'all. More of the same shit as before. Just the crap that was zipping across my head tonight. You CopyFighters out there should like this one. Dunno if the rest of you'll get it. Dunno. I've got booze in me, so it's all going up tonight. Enjoy!)

Okay, straight point of order, I admit, completely, that I didn’t have my licenses current to be wearing my blue FUBU spacesuit-inspired jumpsuit on the streets. Now, I could make the point right now that my PA was supposed to have been on top of filing the paperwork and that my yearly membership should have been renewed, but I’m not going to go that route. Renaldo does a fantastic job of making my daily life possible, and I’m not about to go casting blame on him for this screw up. Besides, my lawyers have informed me that since Renaldo is in my employ, anything he does, or fails to do, is my responsibility, legally speaking. So, yes, I was wearing an illegal outfit at the time of my arrest. That’s unequivocal, and I’m not going to argue it. So I hereby authorize the court to Court to debit my account for the Illegal Occupancy charge.

However, and my lawyers are backing me up on this one and say they’ve got citeable precedent if it comes to that, there is no way I can be held accountable for trespassing on the grounds of Club Boomba because of my FUBU outfit. Yes, I was perfectly aware that the club is sponsored by Tommy Hilfiger, but it was only that morning that Congress passed the Manufacturer’s Safety Zone Act, and I must have missed the newscast. Excuse me? No, actually, I didn’t receive email. My spam filters automatically block legislative status notices from Congress. I was getting fifteen or twenty messages a day, and, honestly, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have those guys on their Block list. What? No, I didn’t know that it was illegal to not read government notices. When was that passed? Really? Wow. Well, okay, yes, two weeks is, arguably, enough to time to have become aware of that, but my therapist suggested a media fast about a month ago and I’ve been trying to follow her advice. Although, really, Renaldo should have filled me in, or at least emailed me a synopsis or something. I’ll have a talk with him about that. Hang on…okay, my lawyers are telling me to plead the fifth on the Ignoring A Government Issuance thing, retroactively. Can I do that?

Damn.

Okay, well…oh, okay the summons for that one just showed up in my In box, so maybe we can deal with it after this FUBU/Hilfiger thing. Okay? Great, thanks.

Okay, so, like I was saying, the trespassing charge really should be dropped because I wasn’t aware that Congress had passed the Manufacturer’s Safety Zone Act legislation, and even if I had been, I don’t think I could expect that the President would have signed it into law so quickly. Isn’t there a grace period on this stuff?

No, I guess I can’t think of reason there would be.

Right, okay. So, in addition to my complete ignorance of legislation that had been passed less that ten hours earlier, the doorstaff at Club Boomba were more than happy to accept my payment of the temporary-user fee and let me through the front door, despite the fact that I was wearing a FUBU jumpsuit when I went in. Have you seen these, your Honor? Okay, well, first of all, it’s FUBUBlue, which, I understand, is a distinct shade licensed from Pantone to FUBU, and is quite unique, designed not to be confused with any other shade of blue you might happen to find on the street. Additionally, there is a ring of light-emitting bacteria circling the chest, back and shoulders that spells out FUBU™ in no fewer than three dozen eye-catching, dayglo colors. Seriously, you can see this thing coming ten blocks away. You can use it as a reading lamp. I’m not kidding; I’ve done it. So even if the doorstaff didn’t happen to notice that distinct FUBUBlue, there’s really no way they could have failed to notice the retina-scorching trademarks emblazoned front, back and side. So that’s point one.

Wait…sorry, my lawyers are telling me to lay off that one. Apparently the doorstaff…hang on…oh, okay, the doorstaff are actually off-duty NYPD officers and are therefore immune from being implicated in wrongdoing in trademark-infringement charges. Something to do with allowing CBS logos on screen during a filming of COPS, they’re telling me. Okay, so, yeah, okay, scratch the whole doorstaff thing. They’ve got nothing to do with any of this. Can I get that stricken from the record?

Damn…and there’s the Slander summons. Great.

Okay, then moving on. Well, once inside Club Boomba I feel that the staff should have informed me that I wasn’t in compliance with the new legislation and asked me to leave the premises, post haste. Which I would have been more than happy to do, your Honor. Or to have gone home and put on a Hilfiger outfit. I’ve got a closet full of them and I know that I’m paid up on that one. I’m as law-abiding as possible. Just apparently stuck with a paralegal assistant that isn’t quite up to snuff. Renaldo told me that he was pre-law at Columbia. I should have checked into that.

Anyway, so instead of telling me that I wasn’t in compliance, the floorstaff actually gave me a table and accepted my drink order. I’m sorry? Oh, a public-domain Gin & Tonic. I used to have a Bombay Sapphire subscription, but it got yanked during my New Year’s party last year. Apparently some of the guests were hitting my bar without keying in their PIN numbers and the ATF ran a random check on my dispenser and figured that I couldn’t put away a couple dozen bottles of proprietary booze all by myself. So, yeah, I’m trying to get all that straightened out, but getting license copies and affidavits license copies out of my friends has been a bit of an uphill battle.

So, yeah, Club Boomba’s management is claiming that I was circling the floor, chatting up everybody I could and telling them how great my FUBU gear was, which is a complete lie. I did talk to one woman who complimented my jumpsuit and I thanked her and did, perhaps, go on for a moment or two about how much I liked it, but that’s it. I certainly wasn’t shilling for FUBU. If I was, do you think they’d be charging me with Illegal Occupancy over something as simple as a lapsed subscription? Anyway, I was not, absolutely, unequivocally not dodging floorstaff and screaming “FUBU!” at the top of my lungs, as I’ve been accused of doing. Like I said, I was given a table and I bought a drink.

No, actually, I can’t prove that I bought a drink, your Honor. That’s part of the problem. As I stated earlier, all my Trademark Distilleries privileges were pulled in this flap with the ATF, so I had to order generic alcohol, which means no PIN number, no background check and no paper trail. And no credit card number, because Club Boomba has a strict cash-only policy that they put into place last year, after one of their bartenders allowed someone’s plastic to sit on the bar, unattended, while they were in the bathroom. The club is fighting the Potential For ID Theft lawsuit right now, actually. I think they’re in the next cubicle. I know I saw the club manager going in there after he testified in here. Or maybe they got some other guy on the same thing they’ve got me on.

So, yeah, I can’t prove that I ordered and received my drink, because Club Boomba claims to be in compliance with CDC Directive 10897, which demands that they sterilize all glassware to remove any residual genetic material left by a customer, so any fingerprints or epithelials I might have been left behind were boiled away in an autoclave in the kitchen. My lawyers are telling me that the glass should have been bagged as evidence for this trial, and that I’ve got a lawsuit on my hands if I could prove that I had a drink, but since I can’t, I don’t. I talked to them about doing a DNA test on the change I received, but since that would cost roughly double the trespassing fine, I figured it wasn’t worth it.

So it seems to me that what was really going on was that the Club Boomba staff was allowing me to be on the premises for the fifteen minutes necessary to prove I was trespassing, as clocked by my thumbprint on the Management Held Unaccountable For Damage Or Death screen at the front door, so they could then have me arrested and fined. I had Renaldo check around the web a bit and it seems like a lot of clubs are doing this now, to keep their corporate sponsors happy. The “See, we’re loyal and we’ll protect your brand,” kind of thing. And while I certainly understand that, I can’t help but feel that there’s something akin to Entrapment going on here, and I’d like to request the charges be dropped in exchange for a written, notarized and entirely sincere apology on my part, and a promise to make sure that I’m aware of any and all current legislation regarding trademark & copyright legislation before I step one foot out of my apartment. Heck, I’ll go one better and fire Renaldo and sign up with a Federally Regulated Automatic Update service. If nothing else, this whole experience has taught me that it’s not worth being a cheapskate when it comes to keeping abreast of the latest legalities.

So, what do you say, your Honor? How about giving a law-abiding consumer a second chance?

Damn. Yeah, okay, go ahead and debit my account. How much? Jeez. Looks like I’m not getting my FUBU subscription back any time soon.

Okay, about that cop Slander thing. Is that a felony or just a fine?