Powerlifters and Prosecutors in Palm Springs
I spent last Wednesday thru Saturday in Palm Springs, California at the annual Health Care Fraud conference hosted by the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association. Palm Springs is one of the few places in California I had not yet visited, so I took to the trip with gusto. It was not at all what I expected.
For starters, the place is unbelievably hot. The first day we were there it was 110, the second day 111, etc. By the time I left on Saturday the high was expected to be 116. I drove out of town at 10 in the morning and it was already 98 degrees. When people say "oh, but it's a dry heat," they are out of their minds. 116 degrees of dry heat is only bearable if you sit under a tree without moving in a rubber suit filled with ice cubes.
The Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce deals with the heat by permitting businesspeople to install misters on the sidewalks in front of their shops and restaurants. The misters sit above doors and windows and spray out a constant, fine mist. When you walk through one (they are everywhere) you are temporarily cool. Outdoor cafes have misters, too, so you can drink your soy chai latte and work on your tan, all while sitting in a plume of water.Not only was it beastly hot, but the resort we were staying in was probably the dumpiest hotel I've stayed in on any business trip ever. The Riviere's claim to fame is that it is Palm Spring's "oldest and most famous" resort. It was where the Rat Pack would play when it would come to town. Raquel Welch played there. So did Bob Hope, when he was young. Which is great except that the hotel now is almost exactly like it was then -- same decor, same fixtures, same plumbing, same carpet. There was a wall display in the lobby that showed pictures of the Riviera's heydey. The most recent picture on the wall was dated 1971. We suggested to them that they might try to find at least one picture from the 1990s for the wall -- even the 1980s would do. The architecture was predominatly stucco, chrome and glass. The floorplan was mysterious. The registration desk resembled the TWA terminal at JFK airport, and then you had to go up a huge, wide flight of stairs to get to the real lobby. The only way to get anywhere else in the hotel from there was to walk through the back of the lobby and down another huge, wide flight of stairs (chrome railing), and follow a series of long, dark, stale, windowless corridors that lead variously to the pool, the various wings of rooms, the conference center, etc.
The rooms themselves were straight out of the 1965 Sears catalogue. I wrapped each of my pillows in a T-shirt before sleeping on them. I wore shoes at all times in my room. The air conditioning blew air that smelled like it had been in the vents since the Rat Pack's last appearance. It was essentially a very large motor lodge.
The only saving grace was the pool, which was surrounded by palm trees and jacarandas and bougainvillea. From the pool, you can see the San Jacinto mountains, which tower over Palm Springs. The mountains still had snow on them. There can't be too many places in the world where you can sit in 100 degree weather and look up at snow.
Joining the Covington representatives to the conference was a convention of powerlifting officials -- very beefy men in tight synthetic clothing who were having their own conference somewhere on the premises -- and almost every senior government lawyer who practices in the health care fraud area. The place was crawling with prosecutors. Every now and then our team would have an impromptu meeting under a palm tree outside the conference center. We would huddle around the tree and speak in hushed tones so that no-one could hear us. We were nevertheless quite conspicious, because most of the prosecutors knew exactly who we were and who we represent, and in fact, most of the prosecutors are actively investigating our client as we speak. The prosecutors entertained themselves by coming up to our group and hollering, "Alert! Alert! Government lawyer approaching!"
Every now and then a powerlifter would accidentally run into a prosecutor and the two would feel compelled to make small talk. It was very funny to watch. The powerlifters were very large but not particularly athletic looking, and they wore nothing but Under Armor as far as we could tell. The powerlifters all seemed to be traveling with female body builders. The powerlifters and their bodybuilding companions all seemed very happy to be in Palm Springs and they seemed to just love the Riviera.
Between the heat, the prosecutors and the powerlifters, the three days we spent in Palm Springs passed very slowly. It seemed that we had been there an eternity. We lost track of the calendar. We stopped returning office calls. We even turned off our blackberries for long stretches at a time. It was as if were had been teleported back to 1971 and nothing was as urgent or as pressing anymore.
After the conference adjourned, we lined up on chaise longues by the pool and ordered up drinks from the pool bar lady. We applied layer after layer of sun screen and gazed up at the snow-covered San Jacinto's. We looked at all the pale, East Coast lawyers coming out in to the sun, easily identifiably by the sock lines on their legs and the blackberry's on their waistbands. We relaxed. We sat by the pool for about 3 hours. We started giggling at the silliness of it all. We saw a man in Organized Crime & Corruption Bureau T-shirt and a bathing suit walk by with two pina coladas. It was like something out of a thug movie. We got warmer and tanner and sleepier and sillier as the afternoon wore on. Eventually, we no longer looked like the Covington white collar practice group at all -- we looked like a bunch of sun-burned Easterners on vacation together. Some people began to mobilize as the sun set to catch red-eyes back home, or drive to LA, or something. As people started to peel off, we got a little maudlin.
We realized that we didn't really want to leave the wacky Riviera after all. We had started to get used to it.
posted by Anonymous @ 7:27 PM
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