James Comey, Lebron James and The Formula For Greatness

It is a great week to be a tall  lawyer in America.  James B. Comey has just been named President Obama’s choice to lead the FBI.  Comey is a moderate Republican, who stands 6’8″ and is best known for his principled refusal to authorize a renewal of President Bush’s wiretap program as Bush’s White House counsel tried to get a disoriented and hospitalized John Ashcroft to re-authorize the program.  It was a great moment for a principled lawyer, and it could not have hurt that Comey is 6’8″ and then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez is as big as you would imagine a man named Alberto Gonzalez would be.  He also demonstrated the most clutch moment, other than possibly getting clemency for a death row inmate at the 11th hour, that a lawyer can have.  Blocking the re-authorization was the legal equivalent of a Pick-6 in football down 5 in the 4th quarter.

Comey is only one star of the 6’8″ variety this week.  The other is a man I have already written about this week – Lebron James.  He is certified as the best basketball player in the world and he stands 6’8″.  He is 6 wins from winning back-to-back NBA championships (though two losses from not doing that) and is playing basketball at an incredible level.  He has also proven clutch and will have to do so again (I hope he does).

But great things always happen in threes, right? Or is that disasters? Anyway, with the success of these two tall men this week I imagined it was finally my time as well.  In fact I am a lawyer (non-practicing – so I guess I am not a religious lawyer, but a cultural one, but  I do enjoy being a dick and arguing so maybe I am a lawyer spiritually) AND I played college basketball (my 4 year career stats look like the line of a dominant college player’s best week of his career), so how could my comedy career not be ready to blow?  I mean, my Mom is white just like Jame Comey’s mom and my Dad is black just like Lebron James’ Dad (presumably – his last known whereabouts are ejaculating into a crazy woman in Akron, Ohio in the early 1980s)! Perhaps I am just too much of a good thing – or two rights make a wrong?  I decided 2013 would be my last year doing comedy if opportunities did not arise and just like a Lebron layup or a James Comey hospital interception I got a gig as a host of a legal-comedy web series affiliated with the Discovery Channel (look for it in July) and made my first truly viral video.  So I have the law, the hoops, the white Mom and the black Dad and the clutch performances, so it has to happen now, right?

And then I realized that I am 6’7″ and those guys are 6’8″.  So there it is people – the formula I thought I had mastered is in fact wrong.  The key to success these days is to be 6’8″.  Good luck working on your height everybody.  I am going to start doing yoga.

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