“Hello all you lawyers,
lawmakers, law enthusiasts, and law breakers out there,” is usually how he
starts. He’s one of the hosts of “The Fine Print” and as public as his
personality is to his over 6,000 listeners, he’s still a mystery. As part of
its second season, “The Fine Print: We’re Calling ‘B.S.’” decided to give its
listeners a glimpse into the people behind the “B.S.” I had the pleasure of
meeting Bryan Babcock, the favorite host to hate, over a day of errands and
labors. To introduce his listeners to a new season of zany legal discussions, I
sat down with the host to find out who he really is, and how he has managed to
corner the market on legal discussions just by “keeping it real.”
“Get your ass over here and cut
these onions,” says Babcock, waving a very sharp knife in my direction. It was
4:30pm and we had been running errands all day--from getting a haircut at “The
J Spot,” owned by celebrity stylist Derek J., to clothes shopping where an OCD
Babcock bought 18 of the same shirt or sweater in different colors for
“uniformity,” to grocery shopping for the dinner he was going to prepare for me
before we end our day together--a day that started at 7:00am. Now it was time
for dinner, and I was unaware I was required to help in order to eat. It seems
that Babcock drags everyone into his world, whether they like or not. His
immediate world was cooking dinner, and I didn’t have a choice but to be a part
of it. That had been the case the whole day.
I rang the doorbell of his brand
new home (which he named Beauvoir … French for “beautiful sight”), and
the door immediately opened to Babcock scrolling on his phone, scolding me for
being five minutes late, and rushing me to the garage so we could start his day
of errands. I only had a second to take in the fact that the home was beautiful
… and very much empty. “I am working slowly on putting furniture in this
house,” he tried to explain about the emptiness of the home. “I bought the
house so quickly, I was never able to put any real savings away or plan for a
furniture budget. So I’m living in an empty home for a while. As long as I have
a bed and a working kitchen, my life is just fine. That will teach me not to
save for a house before I buy a house.” There was literally nothing in the
house but two chairs and a bed.
As I tagged along with Babcock on
his errands of the day, I realized I wasn’t there to interview him at all. I
was there to listen and report. Everything I wanted to know about Bryan Babcock
I would learn just from being a sidekick to his day. How? Babcock is a talker,
and a storyteller. I assume it comes from his Deep South roots; I’m told
Southerners are storytellers, and always a pack of colorful characters.
Throughout each conversation he had with the strangers and friends he met that
day, he read from the pages of the open book he calls his life. All I had to do
was listen and write. From the hair salon to the grocery store Babcock was
greeted by a variety of people who wanted to engage him in conversation; he was
happy to oblige as long as it didn’t interrupt his overall schedule (the
obvious sign of a man obsessive about order). “There’s always time to talk; I
budget it into my schedule,” he said. “You must always schedule the spontaneous
moments of your life. Otherwise you just live in chit-chatty chaos. I like
human interaction, but not when it fucks with my hustle. People aren’t worth my
life.” I know what you’re thinking; and yes, he always gives conflicting advice
like this.I think he does it intentionally.
Babcock is a self-identifying
“Bama” born in Selma, Alabama in a year “that’s none of your damn business.”
Born to a blue-collar father (Marine and former law enforcement) from Selma,
Alabama, and a blue-blood mother from an affluent Orlando, Florida family,
Babcock is the most elitist country bumpkin you’ll ever meet. Whether he’s
conversing about the French Revolution or the history of Fabergé eggs and the
Romanov Dynasty, or waxing sentimental about fried bologna sandwiches and
potted meat, or just randomly telling a story from his past, he always does it
with humor. I have never laughed so hard at one person.
Your host’s path to law was not a
straight one. Babcock is an artist; as a youth he was a dancer, an actor, a
singer, a violist, and a pianist. He was also a language enthusiast, and an
excellent cook. “If it was artistic, I did it,” he told me, laughing at how
fascinating he made himself sound. And yet, in a Selma Times-Journal
(his hometown newspaper) article written about his life aspirations, at the
tender age of six, he was quoted as having ambition to one day be a “lawyer.”
This ambition continued on to a second article in the Selma Time-Journal
at the age of ten when, after placing second in a poetry contest, Babcock again
professed his desire to join the legal field. “I was focused as a kid,” he
said. “I thought a lawyer would be the greatest occupation I could ever
achieve, and I really didn’t know why. I only knew that my grandmother thought
it would be a great profession for someone as stubborn as me. So, I was on board
to be a lawyer like she wanted.”
It was in his senior year of high
school that the possibility of becoming a lawyer started to fade. Preparing to
graduate with honors, Babcock was headed to culinary school. “I loved to cook,”
he continued as he relayed this new story. “Culinary school was my chance to be
an artist … the new Wolfgang Puck.” Fortunately, a sharp teacher convinced Babcock
to attend college to become a Spanish teacher or translator, and a law-bound
student was on his way to college, double majoring in Spanish and International
Relations with a Minor in Latin-American Studies. In college, Babcock found an
unbreakable bond with the law after taking a Constitutional Law class. The
discussion of law was so appealing that he decided to continue it at Mercer Law
School for his J.D., Georgetown University for his LL.M., and most recently the
University of Alabama for a second LL.M. Earlier in the day, Babcock mentioned
how much he hates school; again, I couldn't overlook the contradiction in his
words.
Back to the dinner at hand. “Hey,
you don’t get to sit around,” Babcock barked as I tried to take a seat on his
floor. “If you don’t help me cook this meal, you won’t be eating it.” He was
such an ass, but he made a good point, “I expect everyone in my house to get on
top and do some work.” I wasn’t sure what that meant … but I learned that day.
“What I mean is just don’t be a lazy fish. It’s like a woman who just lays
there in bed. That’s not work; get on top and do something. It’s great advice
for the bedroom, the boardroom, and kitchen … everywhere If you don’t take
command of what’s going on around you, you’ll just get dragged along. And if
you don’t like what’s happening, you’re stuck with the result because you
didn’t do anything.” I’ll tuck that little bit of advice away for my girlfriend
to get later .Now was the time for food.
What is it about cooking that
you enjoy so much? “There’s something very relaxing about cooking a great
dinner for your friends … or even a special someone you plan on making dessert
afterwards,” is how he explained it. I’m still not sure if that was a hint that
I could have ended up dessert. I won’t ever try to find out since I made it out
with my clothes on. “There’s something ancient about it: in a world of instant
gratification and McDonald’s, taking the time to plan a meal and make it from
scratch invites conversation, and allows you a trip back in time to an era
where food was the most caring thing you could do for a person. A time when a
hot meal made you sit around a big table in your home and enjoy your company in
love and friendship. What’s better than that?”
The menu for the night was
amazing: roasted shrimp with cocktail sauce (all homemade) and warm roasted
almonds with light Pink Himalayan salt for an appetizer; roasted beef
tenderloin with basil-curry mayonnaise, grilled asparagus with soft-boiled
quail eggs, caramelized onions, and sauteed potatoes for the main course. I had
to help make it all; that was less amazing.
As we sat down to dinner, I had
to ask the cliche question: What kind of lawyer is Bryan Babcock?
Overall Bryan is a champion for the law. Regardless of the topic, it is his
firm belief that the law should rise above petty politics, and the changing
whims of the people. “Law should be not only stable, but ever-evolving with the
idea of creating the most neutral goods in our society. Law should not be the
knife we use to stab each other in the back. And this is why I do the show.”
Ah the show, my reason for being
here with him. Despite having an exciting career in his respective field,
Babcock really enjoyed having legal discussions that did not pertain to his
field. So, he got the idea to do a blog on law. After a phone call with his law
school partner-in-crime, Seterria Brodnex, the two discovered they had the same
idea of opening up a legal forum for more in-depth conversations about interesting
topics of law. And “The Fine Print: We’re Calling ‘B.S.’” was born. “When I do
the show,” he explained, “I want to say the most outrageously offensive,
politically incorrect things that can be said on the air. But, I don’t want to
mean the things I say; I simply want to provoke, catch off guard, shock … and
if my delivery is on point, entertain.” But that is not the only reason Babcock
does the show. “I hope that by doing the show I will open up a dialogue with
the public that informs them of the legal implications of their everyday
activities. At the same time, I am trying to teach other attorneys how to
engage their clients in a “real talk” conversation that the client can
understand. Too often we lawyers talk above our clients. They need to know some
of what we know so that they can take comfort in the work we do for them. I
find entertaining them a little lets down their guard, and opens their mind to
learn.”
And speaking of entertaining,
Babcock is most comfortable being his outrageous self in the “B.S. on Sex”
volumes. These are the episodes that are strictly about raunchy, dirty,
explicit sex. Known in many circles as the sex guru, he is not shy about
delving into any sexual topic of discussion. His willingness to talk openly
about any sexual activity, whether he participates in that activity or not,
expands his circle of friends into the most unpredictable places … like the
pornography industry. Many of the “B.S. on Sex” listeners out there already
know that Babcock has established a pretty secure friendship with porn actor Rod Daily.
“Rod is a lot of fun. If I had met him on the street, and didn’t know about his
job, I’d still be his friend. He’s just a cool guy. He might talk me out of my
drawers one day if I’m not careful, but he’s cool.”
Over the course of the day I
found myself very confused by this loud mouthed lawyer who loves to talk about
sex; a country bumpkin who knew more about aristocracy than the very
aristocrats he knew; a constant student who hates school. It just didn’t fit,
and yet it was perfectly Babcock.
As we proceeded to his special
dessert--Mayan chocolate cupcakes with Nutella ganache--I began to wonder how a
Bama could achieve so much from such a start of so little. How do you explain
your fantastic success in life? How did you get so lucky? “I don’t think
there’s anything special about me, what I’ve done, or what I dream of doing
next,” he answered. “I haven’t had an easy road to get where I am, but I had
enough respect for myself to be certain of my options in life. I doubted every
choice I made. But at the end of the day I told myself, ‘I deserve to know if
I’ll ever amount to anything--instead of singing my shoulda, coulda,
wouldas--so I’m going for it,’ and whether I fail or succeed in my choices I
will always know what I have is what I was meant to have. Anybody can make that
decision; so how am I special?” As I continued eating this extremely rich
dessert that I helped make, I could tell it wasn’t a for-show modesty Babcock
displayed, but genuine desire for a better life at any cost, and an acceptance
of the reality that not everyone can be on top. “Someone has to be on the
bottom, but only after being sure that’s where they belong. It’s not a bad
place in life if that’s what you were meant for. It just turned out that wasn’t
where I would spend my life. A controversial revelation, yes; but not an
incorrect picture of the world, I think.” I had learned so much that day.
By 10:00pm I finished dinner,
dessert, talking, and cleaning, and packed up to leave. As I walked out to my
car, leftovers in tow (Babcock made it clear that he didn’t eat leftovers, and
if I didn’t take them they would be thrown away), I wondered if this article
would provide any insight to my subject. If all the information I gathered was
the same information he freely gave to even the strangers in the hair salon,
what could I possibly add to the public’s knowledge of him? And then I got my
answer from Babcock himself as he opened his door to say goodbye again, “I had
better get an advanced copy of this article. I may seem to be free and easy
about life, but I am a control freak like nobody’s business. Every detail of my
life is carefully examined and scrutinized by me before it’s released to the
public ... including my own stories of my life.” Was his entire demeanor a
planned act? “I tell the truth, but I always reserve enough to keep people
coming back for more … I’m an honesty seductor.” Ah ha … just what I needed to
finish my story. That’s Babcock … a big ol’ tease.
Be sure to tune in to the Season
2 premiere, “The Fine Print of B.S.,” set to air February 2, 2013, at 6:00pm.
If you like Bryan (or hate him … he’s not picky on feelings apparently), be
sure to follow him on Twitter @BryanBabcock1, and like the show’s Facebook page.
In the spirit of “The Fine
Print,” I’ll end this article by saying remember to always read the fine print
… because that’s where you’ll find ‘Bama Bryan!
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