Item 550 17-JUN-94 22:31 Jonathan Hayes That's Life in the Inferno of Postmodernity! 1156 Discussion responses 550:1) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:32 This is incredible. - - - - - 550:2) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:33 it's very sad. - - - - - 550:3) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:33 They are reading his letter, psychoanalyzing him, and following him in a copter on 1010 WINS. - - - - - 550:4) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:34 don't you think they'll run out of gas soon? - - - - - 550:5) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:34 This is SO fucked-up! I'm watching an almost invisible image obscured by snow, while listening to some psychiatrist on 1010 WINS doing a live evaluation as to whether or not OJ will go ahead and off himself. - - - - - 550:6) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:36 i diddn't even know who he was before yesterday. - - - - - 550:7) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:36 I think it fasinating that this banal image, a white car moving down an empty road, should be so rivetting. - - - - - 550:8) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:36 You're right Jaze -- this is the I of PM at its most bizzare and fascinating...This hero is self-destructing live on CNN... I keep thinking of Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot on Sunday morning tv. - - - - - 550:9) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:36 It's like foreplay. - - - - - 550:10) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:37 Great shot right now on CNN -- you can almost see into the car... Just heard they have a hostage negotiator standing by - - - - - 550:11) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:38 i don't think he's self destructing. it's very upsetting. - - - - - 550:12) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:38 The radio is now nothing but a series of highway numbers and offramps and intersections. - - - - - 550:13) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:38 Interesting tidbit: they traced him via a call he made on the car phone - - - - - 550:14) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:39 No, I think TWang means OJ as Hero. The Hero IS self-destructing. - - - - - 550:15) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:40 i don't think that. i think he's sort of heroic now, in a sad way. i mean most people watching will be so pleased if he gets to his mothers house and it will seem a heroic act. i haven't expressed myself right. this is so bizarre. i wish he had email in the car. - - - - - 550:16) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:40 Now THAT's the Inferno at its hottest. Traced cellular phone-calls. Fox is running a newsmagazine style recap of the story as it broke over the week, but keeping the highway shots in a bottom corner window. - - - - - 550:17) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:41 No, Ann, most people are wanting him to A) Shoot himself B) Die in a fiery crash like in a movie C) Be shot by the Police. If he's shot by the Police, THEN he'll be a hero. - - - - - 550:18) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:42 do you know the guy on CNN now Jaze? the forensic guy? - - - - - 550:19) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:42 Email in the Van--*that* is the next step. This is just so fuckin crazy! The TV movie is happening NOW! - - - - - 550:20) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:42 I think that Michael Baden was called in, the Medical Examiner. But I don't know who they have now. - - - - - 550:21) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:42 This a Made For TV Movie in the making! Danny Glover as OJ Brigett Neilsen as Nicole Bronson Pinchot as Goldman. - - - - - 550:22) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:42 well i want him to get to see his mother before they take him in. - - - - - 550:23) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:43 Damn, we almost lost the helicopter footage for a minute there while OJ drove past LAX -- they had to get around the flight patterns - - - - - 550:24) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:43 I do too, i guess. - - - - - 550:25) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:43 yup....michael baden....he's a forensic pathologist it says. - - - - - 550:26) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:43 This needs music- something dramatic and tragic. - - - - - 550:27) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:43 I'm waiting for a helicopter crash. The sky must be packed with them. Ah. Brentwood. Mom's place. THE DENOUEMENT. - - - - - 550:28) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:43 If it goes to trial he could get the death penalty. What is it in CA? Chair? Lethal injection? Gas chamber? - - - - - 550:29) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:44 Guacamole. - - - - - 550:30) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:44 they used gas last year in SF for the first time in years. - - - - - 550:31) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:44 They usually use acid in SF. - - - - - 550:32) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:45 i hope his mother is expecting him. his poor mother. - - - - - 550:33) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:45 I love the people who are running along the freeway and waving. - - - - - 550:34) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:45 They're interviewing the pathologist on FOX now. - - - - - 550:35) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:46 You think he would call first? Hello Ma? - - - - - 550:36) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:46 he's not even been found guilty yet. he may not have done it. - - - - - 550:37) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:46 Cool image on Fox - footage of OJ in his Football prime, running through a field of defenders, with the picture-in-picture showing the Suicide Bronc o. - - - - - 550:38) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:46 This chase ain't gonna help him come sentencing. but then again, i don't think this is going on much longer. - - - - - 550:39) viadyer 17-JUN-94 22:46 I believe that OJ Simpson should commit suicide. I believe this is a case of justifiable suicide. I will miss OJ in the Naked Gun movies. I feel horrible for the children. - - - - - 550:40) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:46 what number is Fox? - - - - - 550:41) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:47 Oh, DO get a grip, Ann! It isn't that he's guilty or innocent, it's that he's RUNNING! - - - - - 550:42) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:47 5, I think. - - - - - 550:43) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:47 FOX is channel 5. - - - - - 550:44) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:47 i want him to meet his mother before he commits suicide if he does so. - - - - - 550:45) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:47 I hope that OJ makes a detour from Brentwoood and nails this horrid radio psychiatrist. I wonder what they're listening to in the Suicide Bronco. - - - - - 550:46) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:48 What if he tries to off Mom? - - - - - 550:47) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:48 I hope they're not listening to the Radio Shrink. - - - - - 550:48) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:48 You know, this item is an historical document. - - - - - 550:49) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:48 what if it's someone else in the car? - - - - - 550:50) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:49 Thank God he did this while it was still light. - - - - - 550:51) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:49 Thay'll shoot 'em anyway - - - - - 550:52) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:49 i hope it is someone else in there and this is just to detract attention from his private reunion with his family. - - - - - 550:53) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:50 I think he'll cop a move from the Naked Gun Movies and fall out the back of the van. - - - - - 550:54) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:50 that made me laugh Jonathan.....damn....now i feel guilty. this is so very tragic. they're probably watching this all over the world live now. - - - - - 550:55) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:50 I hope that OJ has brought a cake and party favours for the family celebration. Ann, your optimism is charming. He's running because he stabbed his wife and her boyfriend. Took a knife and stuck it into them over and over again until they bled to death. - - - - - 550:56) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:50 I wonder if the white Bronco's a Hertz rent-a-car - - - - - 550:57) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:50 I thought that was last week. - - - - - 550:58) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:51 It probably hurts to die that way. - - - - - 550:59) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:51 Yeah -- I saw pictures of the crime scene -- it was pretty bloody - - - - - 550:60) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:51 he may not have done it, and it was an act of passion, something that has been excluded from the death penalty in many countries that do use it. - - - - - 550:61) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:52 Do you realize how BIG this is? It's so big that it's PRE-EMPTING COMMERCIALS. - - - - - 550:62) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:52 i don't want him to die. - - - - - 550:63) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:52 his friend in the car will be in big trouble too. - - - - - 550:64) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:52 I'm not saying his act isn't understandable, just that it's kind of cute that you are so anxious that he gets to participate in a group hug before they kill him. - - - - - 550:65) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:53 Maybe he could stab YOU out of it Ann. - - - - - 550:66) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:53 They found a bloody glove at his house afterwards -- suggesting it may have been planned. Also, he flew off to Chicago right afterwards, tried to establish an alibi there -- really sounds premeditated. OOH OOH! They're exiting the freeway now! - - - - - 550:68) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:53 well i did spend a year and a half in San Francisco. - - - - - 550:69) viadyer 17-JUN-94 22:53 He should take his own life, or spend the rest of his life in jail. He should pay the government's cost of this spectacle. , - - - - - 550:70) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:53 Good point GreenPig -- the fact that the footage is from a chopper is very significant. - - - - - 550:71) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:54 Great! More directions! I feel like I could drive from Orange County to Brentwood in my sleep. - - - - - 550:72) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:54 i don't think he should pay for it. this is what we pay taxes for. - - - - - 550:73) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:54 Also, the car is white -- very photogenic in the twilight hours. - - - - - 550:74) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:55 this is so painful - - - - - 550:75) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:55 AH! SO *THIS* IS WHY WE PAY TAXES! - - - - - 550:76) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:55 THEY BROUGHT IN A SWAT TEAM! - - - - - 550:77) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:55 How far do you think he would have got if he was some ordinary Joe? - - - - - 550:78) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:55 A SWAT Team? Now THAT's what we pay our taxes for! - - - - - 550:79) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:56 The radio guy started blabbing the SWAT tactics on air--mentioning the camoflagued snipers and right after saying he didn't wanna compromise security. The announcer interrupted him to go to the exit ramp. - - - - - 550:80) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:56 i don't understand why he hasn't run out of gas yet. that car looks like a gas guzzler. - - - - - 550:81) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:56 This is my new favorite item on Echo. - - - - - 550:82) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:56 It's running on OJ. - - - - - 550:83) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:56 are they anywhere near Sycamore St? does anyone know this? - - - - - 550:84) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:57 Well, that's where you're wrong, Ann! The Bronco gets a very reasonable 23mpg city and 30 mpg highway. - - - - - 550:85) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:57 MOM! I'm Hoooome! - - - - - 550:86) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 22:57 Ok, he's home now. - - - - - 550:87) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:57 Some other guy did this a year or two ago and offed himself. HE's THERE!!!! HE'S THERE!!!!!! - - - - - 550:88) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:57 This is it! The car has arrived at the house. - - - - - 550:89) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:57 I wonder what the camouflaged snipers wear in Brentwood. - - - - - 550:90) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:57 oh no.....where is his mother? i want them to meet NOW. it's not right. he needs to see her. i need to see my mother too. - - - - - 550:91) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 22:58 His son is dragged away.... - - - - - 550:92) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 22:58 The car is just sitting in front of his home. There are tons of sat trucks. - - - - - 550:93) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:58 Some dude tried to get an autograph. - - - - - 550:94) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:58 Nice shot of the Bronco. - - - - - 550:95) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:58 Ford's getting some great publicity here. - - - - - 550:96) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:58 if they don't let him see his mother i'm going to cry. - - - - - 550:97) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 22:59 Nah, that was his son i belive. - - - - - 550:98) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:59 Ann, you are CNN's ideal audience member - - - - - 550:99) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 22:59 Will you cry if they let him see his mother and then waste him? - - - - - 550:100) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 22:59 don't worry--did you see his mom jumop over the couch on that commercial for MCI? - - - - - 550:101) Ann 17-JUN-94 22:59 but i'm watching fox now. - - - - - 550:102) Twang 17-JUN-94 22:59 Wait -- this is OJ's house, not his mother's - - - - - 550:103) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:00 "Ford Bronco--good enough for a suicidal maniac, good enough for you!" - - - - - 550:104) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:00 She hangs at his place. - - - - - 550:105) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:00 Excuse me, but this is OJ's *ESTATE*. - - - - - 550:106) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:00 i've never seen him before. i didn't know who he was til yesterday. i will be upset if they kill him, but i won't cry. but if they don't let him see his mother i will have to get hysterical. - - - - - 550:107) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:00 THE FUGITIVE is on pay-per-view tonight, by coincidence - - - - - 550:108) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:00 Ch 2 has a ground shot. - - - - - 550:109) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:00 I fear that we are in for a boring wait now. He could be there forever before anything happens. - - - - - 550:110) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:00 Hah! Classic! - - - - - 550:111) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:01 Less than half an hour and over 100 responses! - - - - - 550:112) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:01 Yes -- great shot on channel 2 - - - - - 550:113) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:01 we all have to pray now. - - - - - 550:114) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:01 New Echo record, Dorje? - - - - - 550:115) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:01 You think he's got a bomb in his car? - - - - - 550:116) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:01 Some fucking Fourth Network THIS is! No fucking groundshot... - - - - - 550:117) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:02 Give him a mic and let HIM do the play by play. - - - - - 550:118) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:02 it's probably all just a side effect from his medication. - - - - - 550:119) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:02 OJ's on heavy medication, self-administered, they're saying - - - - - 550:120) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:02 A "lookie-loo"? - - - - - 550:121) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:03 Trout: HA!!!!!! - - - - - 550:122) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:03 i think his letter is rather charming. - - - - - 550:123) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:03 THAT "lookie-loo", my friend, is why we live in New York City, rather than in fucking California. - - - - - 550:124) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:03 Does he still have the gun to his head in the car. ? - - - - - 550:125) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:03 What does his letter say that charms, Ann? - - - - - 550:126) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:03 Boy, was Kurt Cobain a boring suicide. - - - - - 550:127) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:04 Twang: hah! - - - - - 550:128) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:04 Yeah, I can't really see him driving the A-Train to Far Rockaway. - - - - - 550:129) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:04 Kurt wasn't addicted to the TV coverage. A semiautomatic in his right hand, a "picture" in his left! - - - - - 550:130) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:04 He's outta the car! - - - - - 550:131) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:04 Maybe this is the suicide of this generation? If he does off himself, before cops do it for him. - - - - - 550:132) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:04 He got that picture from the new Elle. - - - - - 550:133) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:05 It's definitely the most colorful suicide lately - - - - - 550:134) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:05 Relax! It's OK! Negotiators have established Voice-to-Voice communication! - - - - - 550:135) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:05 it was very unpretentious, and it said to stay away from his kids, and that he was innocent. i think that is lovely. - - - - - 550:136) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:05 is his mother in the house? do we know? - - - - - 550:137) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:05 Yes, and if he off's himself people will be more inclines to think he's innocent. - - - - - 550:138) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:05 Hmmm, somewhat disingenous newscaster saying "They're trying to get him to relax, which is what we all want..." Bullshit! You can just hear that fucker salivating for the cumshot. - - - - - 550:139) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:06 Parked in front of a mansion now; someone came up to him, gesticulating; OJ pointed a gun at him; cops pulled the arm-waver away. The chopper's gonna SQUASH that car; it can't have a zoom lens THAT good. I couldn't care less about O. J. Simpson or any celebrity. He could be anyone, admittedly a fucked-up anyone. But right now he's just an object. EVERY BROADCAST CHANNEL BUT 13 IS CARRYING THIS LIVE. I've never see anything like this. I used to advocate broadcasting executions to educate people about the horror of capital punishment but not any more; this is gratiutious entertainment for the giggling, squirming masses. The choppers are being ordered to pull away from the car now -- the sheer number of aircraft over the car are fucking up c-phone communication with the negotiators. I'm waiting for a newshound to stick a microphone in the driver's window: "What are your feelings now, Mr. O.J.?" - - - - - 550:140) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:06 he could well be innocent. - - - - - 550:141) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:06 Look! His dog has come out into the driveway. To greet his master, I suppose. - - - - - 550:142) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:06 It's not a suicide yet. oh--he's not out yet. Just "Voice-to-Voice". Jaze, I feel like you're our informed guide, our Virgil, if you will. - - - - - 550:143) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:06 i wish someone else would quickly confess to the crime. - - - - - 550:144) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:06 What's on Channel 13? - - - - - 550:145) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:07 his friend in on the phone. - - - - - 550:146) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:07 it might not be suicide or murder, it might just be a hug. - - - - - 550:147) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:07 I think that in the TV movie, Ann's part should be played by Bronson Pinchot. - - - - - 550:148) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:07 Still no groundshot on Fox. - - - - - 550:149) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:07 go ch 2 - - - - - 550:150) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:07 damn..... i don't know who Bronson Pinchot is. - - - - - 550:151) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:08 Actually, now you can see more on FOX's ground shot - - - - - 550:152) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:08 "Seeaarrgge" - - - - - 550:153) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:08 Bronson Pinchot plays the "zany European cousin" on a charming sitcom entitled PERFECT STRANGERS. - - - - - 550:154) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:09 oh....i know who you mean.....i am him? he is me? - - - - - 550:155) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:09 Jaze, it's on channels 11 and 9 too, if you get better reception on those. - - - - - 550:156) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:09 Ann: He was a possessive wife beater and killed his ex-wife and her *25* year old lover. There was blood on the driveway. Blood on a glove (possibly) in his house and he flew immediately to Chicago to set up an alibi. And he's done this. And he changed his will. - - - - - 550:157) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:09 His friend is back... - - - - - 550:158) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:09 ch 11 (wpix) has access to ac couple of skycam shots... cutting between like a music video. But great shots. - - - - - 550:159) The Strange Apparatus 17-JUN-94 23:09 Johnathan, as an occasional instrument of the court, you should know that one is innocent until proven guilty. - - - - - 550:160) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:10 well he still may not have done it. this is so stressful. i feel like i may have a heart attack from all this stress. has he met his mother yet or not? - - - - - 550:161) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:11 Not any more... hasn't been that way for a while. Now guilty till proven not too guilty. - - - - - 550:162) The Strange Apparatus 17-JUN-94 23:11 and dorjam, those elements of supposed evidence have yet to be confirmed by the cops. - - - - - 550:163) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:11 The Culture Conference coverage beats the Sports Conference Coverage. - - - - - 550:164) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:12 StrApp! You're so CUUUUUUUUUTE! - - - - - 550:165) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:12 Yes, you are right Strapp. But it all has Verisimmilitude, which is all the public wants. - - - - - 550:166) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:12 do you think it will be over soon? i can't take this. - - - - - 550:167) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:13 His friend is in a great position! No one will prosecute him, and he'll make a fortune on the story rights. - - - - - 550:168) David Yamada 17-JUN-94 23:13 Wow. Stunning and bizarre. Not unusual when someone is dying, he calls for his mother. This seems to have that tragic sense to it. I hope he doesn't die here. - - - - - 550:169) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:13 he does seem to have a lot of friends which is good. - - - - - 550:170) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:13 They sure can prosicute... obstructin of justice. Hah! - - - - - 550:171) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:13 Ann, if you can't take it, turn off the TV and radio, and read a good book. Poetry, perhaps. - - - - - 550:172) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:13 They wouldn't prosecute him. - - - - - 550:173) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:13 OJ's dog is back. - - - - - 550:174) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:14 Or Phillip K. Dick. He's great! - - - - - 550:175) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:14 i hope he doesn't die at all. i hope he didn't even do it. i hope something miraculous happens soon. - - - - - 550:176) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:14 "The scene is calm, if you will. A car sitting in a driveway, like any suburban scene." - - - - - 550:177) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:14 He hasn't seen his mom unless she's small enough to fit in the glove compartment. - - - - - 550:178) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:14 I think someone made mention to howard stern! - - - - - 550:179) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:14 Deus ex machina, Ann? Worked for Medea! - - - - - 550:180) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:14 i want to confess to the crime instead. i don't want him to have done it. he is so distraught. - - - - - 550:181) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:14 Is this a great country or what>? - - - - - 550:182) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:15 Yeah, with cop cars surrounding it, with a man witha gun... just like any suburban scene. - - - - - 550:183) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:15 We the jury with no evidence - is OJ guilty repond: Guilty! - - - - - 550:184) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:15 OJ "felt that *HE* was the battered spouse in the relationship". - - - - - 550:185) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:15 He said in the note that He felt like the battered spouse! - - - - - 550:186) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:15 Japan's getting quite a kick over THIS American crime event, I'm sure... - - - - - 550:187) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:15 He's coming out... - - - - - 550:188) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:15 you can never trust a blond! - - - - - 550:189) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:15 viadyer, I think guilt is almost besides the point now. This is drama enough. - - - - - 550:190) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:16 JINX! Buy me a coke, Jaze! - - - - - 550:191) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:16 If he blows himself away, do you think he will get out of the car and do it for the cameras? - - - - - 550:192) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:16 He's out... When he's arragned, he'll be in the cell next to eric menendez (barbara walters) - - - - - 550:193) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:16 it's just stressful....i will start popping valiums or mogodons soon. - - - - - 550:194) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:16 OJ's still in the car...What is he waiting for? - - - - - 550:195) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:16 Blow me, Dorje! I am oblivious to your bizarre American superstitions. Like Cousin Balki. Or Ann. - - - - - 550:196) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:17 In Hawaii, they have a place that you can run to to be absolved. But I don't think you can get there in a Bronco. - - - - - 550:197) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:17 They're cheering! - - - - - 550:198) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:17 Actually, OJ has the same lawyer, that Schapiro guy, as Eric Menendez. - - - - - 550:199) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:17 i kind of like cousin balki. - - - - - 550:200) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:17 Peter Jennings is pontificating now, representing sad America's conscience. I'll let him do it only because he shut up Baba Wawa. - - - - - 550:201) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:18 at ground sho ton ch 2 - - - - - 550:203) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:18 Has this pre-empted the Knicks game? - - - - - 550:204) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:18 i wish he could see our email....it would calm me down if we could talk to him. - - - - - 550:205) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:18 Nope. - - - - - 550:206) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:18 Jaze, I'd blow you but I still wouldn't get a coke, would I you skinflint! - - - - - 550:207) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:18 I'm sure OJ would feel calmer if he could talk to you, Ann. - - - - - 550:208) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:18 Ann, you are a lovely person. - - - - - 550:209) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:19 This'll appear in the New Yorker; buy him a subscription. - - - - - 550:210) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:19 I'm that if OJ knew how upset YOU were, that he'd reconsider. - - - - - 550:211) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:19 Bad news, Ann. SOunds like OJ's mother may have been evacuated from the compound. - - - - - 550:212) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:19 No, the Knicks game is on, or rather was a while ago. Ch 4's gone to a commercial now. - - - - - 550:213) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:20 me on guys, yer slowing down here! - - - - - 550:214) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:20 he said he didn't do it. he's confused and stressed. where is his mother? we should try and find her somehow. - - - - - 550:215) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:21 Cops are trying to patch a phone call to mom. Place your bets as to whether it goes on the air. - - - - - 550:216) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:21 Do you think they'll drop a reporter from a helicoptor to get the interview - - - - - 550:217) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:21 If he wern't so famous, would we be looking at dead bodies now? - - - - - 550:218) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:21 She jumped over the couch, through the French doors, Off the Deck and over the fence. - - - - - 550:219) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:21 i want them to meet in person. it's not the same on the phone. he needs his mother immediately. mothers are never there when you need them. i hope she's trying to get to him. - - - - - 550:220) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:21 If it's a celluar phone call they could capture it and broadcast it. - - - - - 550:221) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:22 Do you think they are holding back because he's black and are afraid the y'd be called racist? - - - - - 550:222) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:22 my God. - - - - - 550:223) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:23 He is being treated quite normally. Did anyone see the movie Cadillac Man? - - - - - 550:224) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:23 why would they kill him? they know where he is and they have him surrounded. they won't kill him. - - - - - 550:225) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:23 Will he now be charged with murder *and* with evading arrest, being a fugitive, etc.? - - - - - 550:226) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:23 Yes, why haven't they tazered and bludgeoned him yet? I mean isn't that the minimum for this sort of thing in LA? I wish Garbled were here. - - - - - 550:227) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:24 Yeah! Where IS Garbled? - - - - - 550:228) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:24 Yeah, where *is* gu? And Tom L? - - - - - 550:229) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:24 this is unbelievable. why doesn't someone go and get his mother? - - - - - 550:230) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:24 Garbled was driving the car. - - - - - 550:231) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:24 jinx! jaze, you own me a beer. Heh. - - - - - 550:232) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:24 I bet Garbled's in the back seat of that Bronco! - - - - - 550:233) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:24 Usually not. You usually wind up being charged with the top offense only- the convictions on the other charges are dependent on the conviction og the murder charge. - - - - - 550:234) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:25 THERE IT IS AGAIN! A "lookie-loo"! That expression makes me want to off an Angeleno. - - - - - 550:235) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:25 Garbled went somewhere for the weekend. I can't imagine that OJs mother doesn't want to be there w/him. - - - - - 550:236) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:25 how old are the children? - - - - - 550:237) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:25 with garbled, sarah? - - - - - 550:238) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:25 kids are under 10 - - - - - 550:239) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:25 OK. What IS a lookie-loo? - - - - - 550:240) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:26 They won't charge anyone for helping OJ. - - - - - 550:242) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:26 Yeah, right. Come on, it's a crisis! The kids are young. - - - - - 550:243) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:26 Ah well, the lights are going.... - - - - - 550:244) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:26 if they find his mother will they let them see each other before arresting him? - - - - - 550:245) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:26 LA term for a glimpse of a thing like this I guess. - - - - - 550:246) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:26 Damn sun refuses to cooperate with the media. - - - - - 550:247) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:26 It's some asshole radio guy who keeps on saying "as we say in Los Angeles, a "lookie-loo"". - - - - - 550:248) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:27 Like I said, good thing the car's white.. - - - - - 550:249) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:27 do you think they're trying to spirit him out the back or something? - - - - - 550:251) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:28 are they regular cops? or a specially trained crew? - - - - - 550:252) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:28 Wait- it's the owner of the Art Bar... - - - - - 550:253) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:28 OJ's still in the car, jAe - - - - - 550:254) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:28 eard they're not sure of that... - - - - - 550:255) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:28 OJ's surrounded in Mr. rodger's Neighborhood. - - - - - 550:256) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:28 I've been following this since the LAPD's press conference announcing that OJ hadn't shown up for the surrender -- I am EXHAUSTED - - - - - 550:257) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:28 someone's changed my channel to the Knicks game! how dull. - - - - - 550:258) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:29 Specially trained, Ann. Including snipers. Men trained to kill at a great distance, using high-powered rifles with high-powered hunting scopes. - - - - - 550:259) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:29 it's really good that his friends are sticking by him. i don't think mine would do that. i think mine would drive me to the police station. - - - - - 550:260) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:29 I've got an answer to "would you be my neighbor" Those folks are going to make a mint with their home video cams. - - - - - 550:261) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:29 What's the score in the Knicks game? - - - - - 550:262) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:29 It's Cowling who's been leaving & returning to the car; if Simpson weren't there, the attention would be elsewhere - - - - - 550:263) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:29 Jaze,,, play nice. - - - - - 550:264) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:29 Ann: Special Weapons Assault (??) Team very special part of the police force. and can you gun officianados confirm that OJ's got a real dandy of a gun there? - - - - - 550:265) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:29 His friends are in it for the money. - - - - - 550:266) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:30 Special Weapons and Tactics, you pinko! - - - - - 550:267) ur-Josh Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:30 Binky Urban is surely flying to the scene with a $500,000 advance. - - - - - 550:268) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:30 I thought it was the great smell of Brut. - - - - - 550:269) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:31 maybe he has good friends? do you think his friends might think he's innocent? - - - - - 550:270) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:31 They just refered to him as "mr simpson" Who's he? - - - - - 550:271) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:31 they'reshowing replays of the highway "chase" - - - - - 550:272) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:31 mr. simpson owns the Simpson Estate. - - - - - 550:273) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:31 OJ's trying to phone the house, but the battery on his cellular phone is dying! - - - - - 550:274) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:32 really? - - - - - 550:275) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:32 (that's what they're saying on the police scanner) - - - - - 550:276) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:32 Now he's writing a message on the window with a Twinkie. - - - - - 550:277) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:32 is he related to marge et. al.? - - - - - 550:278) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:32 Ah ha! the Twinki defense! - - - - - 550:279) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:32 Wait! His mother's DEAF! She won't be able to talk with him on the phone! - - - - - 550:280) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:32 Josh that was SO funny - - - - - 550:281) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:32 A phone is to be given to Al Cowling, to be given to Simpson. - - - - - 550:282) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:32 ohmyGod. - - - - - 550:283) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:33 Are they tapping the phone? I wanna hear! - - - - - 550:284) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:33 god, this item is going so fast I can't figure out how to read it. Houston up by 1 point , 3 minutes remaining. like I said, boring. - - - - - 550:285) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:33 Well, I tell you one thing: when I take it on the lam after my murder spree, I shall be taking two dixie cups and a length of twine. - - - - - 550:286) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:34 Which game in the series is this? - - - - - 550:287) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:34 I'll bet an unscrambled phone could be scanned by the media after a few hours of conversation, but not this quickly. - - - - - 550:288) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:34 knicks up by 1 1.5 mins left - - - - - 550:289) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:34 i hope they let him talk to his mother and kids in private. i don't want to hear that....but i want to know that he is talking to them. why does he want his mother and not his kids? - - - - - 550:290) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:34 Hey, everyone remember to post the OJ Simpson jokes as they start to accrue. - - - - - 550:291) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:34 Boring! - - - - - 550:292) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:34 game 5 jaze. - - - - - 550:293) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:35 dorje's just pised 'cuz he lost his bet - - - - - 550:294) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:35 5th game, they're tied at 2 apiece. - - - - - 550:295) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:35 And what's the count, games-wise? - - - - - 550:296) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:35 Fifth game of series, Knicks up by 3 83-80 - - - - - 550:297) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:35 He's on the phone! - - - - - 550:298) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:35 OJ is on the phone now - - - - - 550:299) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:35 Another arguement against Clipper! - - - - - 550:300) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:35 JINX!! Buy me a beer - - - - - 550:301) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:36 Thanks Gail. Yes, I was amazed at the sang froid of a certain individual who wanted to bet that OJ would be dead within a certain time period. - - - - - 550:302) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:36 al michaels is commenting on oj. - - - - - 550:303) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:36 I want a beer, someone tell me how to get one free from you guyZ - - - - - 550:304) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:36 who is he on the phone to? - - - - - 550:305) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:36 One beer for Twang. - - - - - 550:306) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:37 I think he's ordering a pizza. - - - - - 550:307) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:37 "I'm sorry but your call cannot be connected at this time...." - - - - - 550:308) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:37 hearing this? - - - - - 550:309) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:37 you should talk, jaze...I hear you've won $5 on this - - - - - 550:310) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:37 Does Pizza Hut still guarantee delivery before you're incarcerated? - - - - - 550:311) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:37 sorry... where are you hearing this? (the phone conv?) - - - - - 550:312) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:37 oh my God...they are implying that he has AIDS i think. - - - - - 550:313) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:38 remember how MCI or ATT or SPRINT have that commercial where he uses their service to call his Mom? I wonder if he's getting his discount. - - - - - 550:314) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:38 Ann! Cut down on your meds! - - - - - 550:315) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:38 knicks game is back on 1:50 to go - - - - - 550:316) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:38 Ann-- what?! - - - - - 550:317) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:38 this is indeed Hollywood Babylon - - - - - 550:318) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:38 Maybe a bad engram did this to him. - - - - - 550:319) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:38 knicks up by 5, 1:25 left, 4th quat. - - - - - 550:320) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:38 they said he had a swollen lymph gland. - - - - - 550:321) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:38 CNN announcer is commenting on the "party-like atmosphere" of the crowd - - - - - 550:322) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:39 knicks have 5 point lead. Mason got a basket. - - - - - 550:323) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:39 Please continue the Knicks Ticker. It adds some kind of poetry to this all... - - - - - 550:324) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:39 LAPD wants all copters up to a klick. - - - - - 550:325) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:39 No, I think he said "I miss England". - - - - - 550:326) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:39 this is stressful for everyone isn't it? - - - - - 550:327) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:39 knicks up by five, 1 minute to go. - - - - - 550:328) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:39 Ann, I've smoked a half a pack of cigs already - - - - - 550:329) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:39 Only for his lawyer. - - - - - 550:330) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:39 knicks at commercial, rockets only have one timeout left. - - - - - 550:331) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:39 i miss England. - - - - - 550:332) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:39 I have to wash some dead clams outta my sink. - - - - - 550:333) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:40 Christ, first Magic, then Ann. - - - - - 550:334) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:40 his lawyer and me. - - - - - 550:335) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:40 OJ says he'll consider coming out after talking to his mother This is gonna be a long night - - - - - 550:336) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:40 Ann, he can't like his friends too much - he talked about "leaving them" in his letter. - - - - - 550:337) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:41 well they'll just agree hopefully. - - - - - 550:338) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:41 Interesting points: It's a football buddie helping him. Second only yo fellow Vets in the movies for helping a pal in this sorta thing. I think he's got a tec-5 semi-automatic. He's a collector. - - - - - 550:339) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:41 what's a klick? anyone notice how damn long that "please enter the text of your reponse" message is? - - - - - 550:340) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:41 If this were yesterday, Simpson could dial the Yorb. - - - - - 550:341) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:41 i think it's a reasonable request. - - - - - 550:342) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:41 What if he has to pee? - - - - - 550:343) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:41 Dorje, I don't think there's such a thing as a Tec-5. - - - - - 550:344) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:41 1:08 left Rockets on the line. - - - - - 550:345) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:41 "The police have control of the situation" hahahahahahahaha (klick = 1 thousand feet) - - - - - 550:346) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:42 i left my friends....and i love them lots. - - - - - 550:347) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:42 is there any way I can keep reading this without typing sh it 550, and then going back 10 or 20 responses to read new ones? it is taking so fucking long!! - - - - - 550:348) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:42 I thought a klick was a kilometer. - - - - - 550:349) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:42 He should have went before, Twang. - - - - - 550:350) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:42 Knicks lead 85-81 - - - - - 550:351) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:42 Him?!? What if *I* have to pee? - - - - - 550:352) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:42 just type "n" gail. - - - - - 550:353) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:43 Knick at the line less then a minute to go. - - - - - 550:354) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:43 ck is 1000 meters - 1 kilometer. gail--type N or new - - - - - 550:355) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:43 it looks like a nice house. i'm pleased he's got a nice house. - - - - - 550:356) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:43 klick = 1000 anything Two media people tried to jump the fence; SWATters removed them - - - - - 550:357) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:43 A Klick is a Kilometer I wanna know aht kinda gun it is. Are you *sure* there's never been a tec-5 Jaze? I mean, I know you would know but... - - - - - 550:358) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:43 ann, you are too surreal - - - - - 550:359) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:44 Starks got first foul shot 86-81 Starks got both of them 87-81 - - - - - 550:360) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:44 I hope they removed them with 7 cents of lead. - - - - - 550:361) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:44 This *is* weird... I wouldn't have even known if it weren't for ECHO. When I think OJ, I think the Naked Gun movies. But--wouldn't this be done better in *chat*? Why are people on ECHO seemingly afraid of chat? (I'm new here and curious) - - - - - 550:362) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:44 Jump Ball! 35 seconds to go. - - - - - 550:363) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:44 we're not in chat so we will always have this item to document this amazing event - - - - - 550:364) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:45 Which team is he on? - - - - - 550:365) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:45 this very tragic event. - - - - - 550:366) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:45 Commercial. 38 seconds left - - - - - 550:367) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:45 rockets choking. - - - - - 550:368) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:45 Exactly, and Chat is too hard to follow with more than a threesome. - - - - - 550:369) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:45 Naah. This is a historical document. Oh, sorry *Twang* AN historical document. Tec-9 (9mm) or Tec-10 (10mm) as I recall. - - - - - 550:370) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:45 almost totally dark now - - - - - 550:371) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:45 the police look really scary....i bet he's really scared. i am scared. - - - - - 550:372) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:46 Starks is on the knicks. Knicks at the line. - - - - - 550:373) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:46 Like Baghdad during the gulf war, without the sparklers - - - - - 550:374) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:46 knicks up by six 28 secs left - - - - - 550:375) Kathleen Creighton 17-JUN-94 23:46 Peter, there are people who like chat, like you, and people who don't. People who inhabit conferencing systems typically aren't big fans of chat. IMO, as the BBS/online service reviewer for MicroTimes, it's not real likely you'll consider ECHO an analog to SFNet. - - - - - 550:376) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:46 Lawyer Schapiro has arrived - - - - - 550:377) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:46 Ann! Increase your medication immediately! - - - - - 550:378) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:46 And welcome, Peter! - - - - - 550:379) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:46 this is somewhat surreal... everyone's always liked The Juice... - - - - - 550:380) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:47 someone actually posted in another item here! - - - - - 550:381) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:47 That's just what makes this so compelling, Peter - - - - - 550:382) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:47 And Kathleen! 86 the topic drift! And what's a "lookie-loo", you SF types? - - - - - 550:383) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:47 Yes, i thought it was weird when I heard them say "tec-5" on the radio. Well, they don't seem to want to talk about any of the hardware involved. i mean does the Bronco have bucket seats? A gun rack? Was it a morotola phone? What's a geek to do? - - - - - 550:384) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:47 am i going crazy? i am the sane one here. i am distressed. you're supposed to be distressed. i like the SFnet by the way/ - - - - - 550:385) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:48 knicks by 8, 89-81, time out. - - - - - 550:386) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:48 That's just what makes this so compelling, jAe. - - - - - 550:387) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:48 but how dare they! - - - - - 550:388) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:48 Dorje, they'll go into techie details when things quiet down IF they quiet down - - - - - 550:389) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:48 Thanks for taking a break from your distress long enough to praise the SFnet, Ann. - - - - - 550:390) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:48 thanks for the 'n' tip. for some reason I kept getting some stupid item about emack & bolio's. - - - - - 550:391) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:49 The "n" command gives you all the new responses. - - - - - 550:392) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:49 they had no idea simpson would run like he did" he's a goddamn running back, what'd they expect? - - - - - 550:393) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:49 What's the betting Shapiro's still charging his hourly rate? - - - - - 550:394) molerat 17-JUN-94 23:50 is anyone else struck by how much the tv commentary sounds like golf coverage? - - - - - 550:395) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:50 they are saying his letter had no point. i liked his letter. i would be so mad if they read my letter out on TV. i wish they'd get in trouble for doing that. - - - - - 550:396) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:50 Rockets score 3 88-83 knicks up! - - - - - 550:397) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:50 jAe -- LOL - - - - - 550:398) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:50 I'm rather sure he wanted it read. - - - - - 550:399) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:51 Yes. When there's nothing to say, because there's nothing going on, you say nothing over and over again. In England, they have the same thing for cricket. - - - - - 550:400) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:51 OJs friend says his golf game was up, so he must havea been happy. - - - - - 550:401) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:51 My college published your admission essay in its newspaper if you died during a break. - - - - - 550:402) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:51 sarah--lol - - - - - 550:403) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:51 I am *SO* glad I stayed in tonight. - - - - - 550:404) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:51 How much time left (in the Knicks game?) - - - - - 550:405) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:51 but cricket can go on for weeks and weeks. - - - - - 550:406) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:51 Should his wife had broken all ties with OJ? - - - - - 550:407) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:51 CNN is replaying the audio of the suisice note being read - - - - - 550:408) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:52 oh. I have to say, this is my most exciting experience yet on Echo. I feel so *connected*. I'm not in the same room as the tv, so I have to keep running back and forth. unfortunately, the building I'm in closes at 12:30 so I have to go soon. can't wait to check out this item in a day or two, when it's all over. - - - - - 550:409) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:52 i may be sick soon. - - - - - 550:410) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:52 22 seconds, - - - - - 550:411) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:52 too bad he can't really fly - - - - - 550:412) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:52 They have kids. Impossible. / - - - - - 550:413) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:52 OJ had broken all her bones, she should have broken all her ties. - - - - - 550:414) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:52 letter also on channel 11 - - - - - 550:415) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:52 they say he's in custody. - - - - - 550:416) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:52 damn what about his mother? - - - - - 550:417) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:52 This is much better than going out and getting laid And I might even feel degraded after THIS, too. - - - - - 550:418) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:52 They say they're arresting him now. - - - - - 550:419) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:52 That's just what makes it so compelling, ann - - - - - 550:420) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:53 oh, that's horrible, josh. how many people died during breaks? - - - - - 550:421) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:53 Radio is behind. They don't have the arrest news yet. - - - - - 550:422) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:53 why has he got picture frames? - - - - - 550:423) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:53 19.2 secs in knicsk - - - - - 550:424) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:53 knicks wasted ball. knicks get it back and are fouled. Mason at the line 19 seconds left. - - - - - 550:425) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:54 A surprising amount rear-ended by drunk truckers He's arrested now, with two framed photos in his hands. - - - - - 550:426) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:54 OJ is in custody. - - - - - 550:427) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:54 they said it's great news....i dont' think it's great news. this is not right. there is something wrong here. - - - - - 550:428) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:54 Just head lookie-loos on tv.-- must be the rubberneckers. ./ - - - - - 550:429) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:54 "Code Four" - - - - - 550:430) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:54 he was framed. - - - - - 550:431) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:54 Hands up who's happy it ended peacefully? - - - - - 550:432) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:54 Yes, he's in custody KABC guy just compared this to DOG DAY AFTERNOON - - - - - 550:433) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:54 Mason gets first foul shot Miss the second. Knicks by 6 4 seconds left. - - - - - 550:434) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:55 OJ left the car with 2 picture frames in his hand - - - - - 550:435) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:55 the longest hour in sports is the last 2 minutes of a basketball game - - - - - 550:436) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:55 No stun or flash grenades were needed. No more hurt people. Just the formalities in further destroying a shattering life. - - - - - 550:437) mariposa heat~wave@echo.com 17-JUN-94 23:55 The only one who won't feel degraded in the morning is Ann... IMO - - - - - 550:438) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:55 Ann--he is safe and unharmed. His mom can come visit him in jail. (and hopefully give him a good smack) - - - - - 550:439) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:55 Dog Day Afternoon?! HARDLY. - - - - - 550:440) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:55 Knicks miss a foul shot- they do that too much! 91-84 - - - - - 550:441) skooob was here 17-JUN-94 23:56 Peter Jennings is a stupid dickhead. Yay or nay? - - - - - 550:442) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:56 knicks winn game 5 - - - - - 550:443) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:56 Oh yea. - - - - - 550:444) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:56 Knicks Win! - - - - - 550:445) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:56 Knicks Win! - - - - - 550:446) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:56 just as the oj situatin is ending... hmmmmmmmm - - - - - 550:447) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:57 does he have to stay in a prison tonight? will he get help now? will they leave him on his own overnight? they can't do that. that's insane. - - - - - 550:448) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:57 KNICKS WIN!!!!!!! - - - - - 550:449) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:57 Simpson's still inside the compound. No one's left. - - - - - 550:450) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:57 HI DRIFTER! - - - - - 550:451) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:57 No. OJ gets to go home now, Ann. - - - - - 550:452) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:57 they wanted him held without bail earlier.... don't think this will help his case not to flee.... - - - - - 550:453) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:57 no really...they can't just lock him up.....can they? they will give him help immediately? - - - - - 550:454) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:58 But it would really help an insanity defense{ - - - - - 550:455) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:58 Drifter? - - - - - 550:456) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:58 Right now, 4 cops are probably pounding the tar out of him. - - - - - 550:457) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:58 uite tur, josh - - - - - 550:458) viadyer 17-JUN-94 23:58 They will make him sit in jail all night. He will definitely be on suicide watch. - - - - - 550:459) Ann 17-JUN-94 23:58 we should be able to help him. i wish we could do something. - - - - - 550:460) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:58 And so, the greatest running back of all time has completed his last tragic run from the LA police authorities.. - - - - - 550:461) doktor dorje 17-JUN-94 23:58 They will give him chicken soup, a glass of warm milk, a teddy bear and tuck his hall-of-fame ass in bed, Ann. - - - - - 550:462) Twang 17-JUN-94 23:58 Ann, he's the prime -- ONLY -- suspect in a brutal murder who has fled arrest. He's going to jail and NOT passing Go. - - - - - 550:463) sarah m 17-JUN-94 23:58 They're taking him to get a medical exam to see if he overdoesd. - - - - - 550:464) Vantage, jAe 17-JUN-94 23:58 that was quite tru. damn. true - - - - - 550:465) Peter Merholz 17-JUN-94 23:58 First, I'm sure, they'll draw him a bath, Ann. - - - - - 550:466) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:58 What you call me?! - - - - - 550:467) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:59 I think it may help if we all beam him warm vibes of love. - - - - - 550:468) gail j 17-JUN-94 23:59 this is so sad. Now the Knicks are going to go to their locker room and hear about it. - - - - - 550:469) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 17-JUN-94 23:59 Blue beams for the orange black man! - - - - - 550:470) Snoop Trouty Trout 17-JUN-94 23:59 Yes. - - - - - 550:471) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:59 gail, you are kind of weird. - - - - - 550:472) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:00 I don't think it'll break the mood oin the locker room. - - - - - 550:473) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:00 Oddly, I feel no empathy for the Knicks. But, this is *very very* weird... OJ's always been a known role model 'n stuf. - - - - - 550:474) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:00 but he's lost control....he's so stressed out. he needs to be with people who love him now. damn this is so awful to see. i feel sick. - - - - - 550:475) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:00 Please do not love murders. Be fair, but save your love for murder's parents, children, victim's and victim's family. - - - - - 550:476) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:00 Let's see it again! - - - - - 550:477) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:00 Is this a record for most posts in shortest time? Do we get cookies? - - - - - 550:478) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:01 Let's face it, it was a pretty banal story, considering the intensity of the media scrutiny it produced. The coverage was more about the medium than the event. - - - - - 550:479) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:01 I believe he did it, Ann. He deprived his children of their mother -- horribly -- AND their father. - - - - - 550:480) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:01 Gawd... did he really kill her and the lover? I mean... and be stupid enough to leave evidence like bloody ski masks around the house? What the fuck has happened to him? - - - - - 550:481) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:01 But I loved those highway shots! - - - - - 550:482) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:01 It is not atypical of how crazy people are treated or behave. - - - - - 550:483) mariposa heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 0:02 No cookies, you'll just feel cheap & media manipulated in the morning. - - - - - 550:484) gail j 18-JUN-94 0:02 thanks, jhayes, i didn't feel welcomed till you said that. - - - - - 550:485) Josh Save the Juice Karpf 18-JUN-94 0:02 Stacy gets to buy a new hair bow thanks to all this! Night, all. The dishes are calling. Thanks for sharing this. - - - - - 550:486) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:03 mariposa, we're experienced cynics here! Don't worry about us. - - - - - 550:487) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:03 Oh stop being so sanctimonious, viadyer! why not love murderers? He isn't a murderer for all 48 years or so of his life - he murdered for a period of maybe 15 minutes. He is still the same human as before, he has just behaved in an extreme manner. Do you think he's EVIL because he has killed? SOme might argue that he is mentally ill - should we not love him because of that? - - - - - 550:488) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:03 oh yeah, jaze. banal. Famous man kills ex-weife and younger lover, then flees from arrest, overdosed and with a gun to his head. - - - - - 550:489) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:03 " Let's go down to the compound to talk with the Juice... Juice--Why'd you run?" - - - - - 550:490) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:03 my God my phone rang and my computer answered and i couldn't speak to whoever called me..... he may not have done it. even if he did do it, it's still so sad. - - - - - 550:491) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:03 As a human being I am happy it's over and no one was hurt by *this* incident. As a consumer and tube suckler, the ending was a let-down. ., - - - - - 550:492) gail j 18-JUN-94 0:03 really, shouldn't we wait for the judge and the jury? we are letting the media convict him without any acknowledged evidence. - - - - - 550:493) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:04 I agree with Ann... whatever the outcome of this, it *is* sad... And that should not be overlooked by the cynics in any of us... - - - - - 550:494) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:04 That's it, dorje! Why wait till tomorrow to feel degraded! - - - - - 550:495) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:04 "How you feeling right now, big guy?" - - - - - 550:496) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:04 He is both EVIL and mentally ill. Murder is the only unforgivable act. - - - - - 550:497) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:04 It IS sad. - - - - - 550:498) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:04 i feel exhausted now. - - - - - 550:499) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:04 Oh snap out of it you moralizing dweebs! - - - - - 550:500) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:05 yes gail, pure circumstantial evidence.... that's quite damning. - - - - - 550:501) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:05 Barney is pretty unforgivable. - - - - - 550:502) gail j 18-JUN-94 0:05 I agree with Ann, just a very sad story. I didn't know he overdosed, too. - - - - - 550:503) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:05 This circus is disgusting. Why am I so engrossed? - - - - - 550:504) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:05 "So, Juice- you've just been on the Lam- whatcha gonna do now?" - - - - - 550:505) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:05 i forgive him. i can't help it. it's terrible to get obsessive about someone. it does feel like one has no control when that happens. i guess he needs a lot of help. it's really so terribly tragic. - - - - - 550:506) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:06 I think part of this point here is how TeeVee is wholly inadequate for dealing with this story in any true sense... - - - - - 550:507) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:06 Dunno, skoob -- but some sociologist's gonna get a dissertation out of this item! - - - - - 550:508) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:06 Where were you when Berkowitz needed you , Ann? - - - - - 550:509) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:06 What degredation? - - - - - 550:510) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:06 this is surreal now....noone ever agrees with me on ECHO. - - - - - 550:511) gail j 18-JUN-94 0:06 i'm sure this will soon be an episode of NYPDBlue, or Law & Order. we can watch it in reruns forever. .\ - - - - - 550:512) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:07 This will dovetail nicely with the Evil item. They've announced a press conference for about an hour from now - - - - - 550:513) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:07 500+ resps in 1 .5 hrs. - - - - - 550:514) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:07 OJ was hardly a *serial* killer... A crime of passion should *not* be equated with cold, calculated, repeated murder. - - - - - 550:515) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:07 This is a _low_ point for American culture. - - - - - 550:516) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:07 If you can't moralize about slaughtering people what can you moralize about? Bad service in a restaurant? - - - - - 550:517) gail j 18-JUN-94 0:07 "I think I'll go to Disneyland!!!" good night, all. this has been an experience. - - - - - 550:518) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:08 They're charging him with murder one -- not a crime of passion, but premeditated - - - - - 550:519) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:08 Was Berkowitz any less obsessive? - - - - - 550:520) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:08 Great, now they're doing "man on the street" coverage. How enriching. NOT. Blah. I moralize about coffee. - - - - - 550:521) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:08 can they charge someone with a crime of passion? is there a legal term for that? - - - - - 550:522) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:08 Don't moralize. Peter--"crime of passion" is the oldest copout in the book. And if he did it, the plane to chicago is a sign of premeditation. - - - - - 550:523) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:08 But, Peter, if he did do it, it's part of a series of brutalities against his wife. A pattern. He's been convicted before, ya know. - - - - - 550:524) Snoop Trouty Trout 18-JUN-94 0:09 Only in romance novels. - - - - - 550:525) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:09 it's not a copout. - - - - - 550:526) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:09 I don't think this was a crime of passion... if he did it, he planned it. He knew how much tim ehe had between engagements... the limo driver said he had to wait 1/2 hr beyond the scheduled pickup time. - - - - - 550:527) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:09 Ann, I often agree with you, after I find out everything you say. For instance you approve of stealing sometimes, yet you have never stolen anything of great value. - - - - - 550:528) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:09 He pleaded no contest to beating the woman who was killed - - - - - 550:529) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:09 Hmm... I must admit to no knowledge of OJ's marital history... - - - - - 550:530) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:10 Though... premeditation suggests having a better plan than leaving bloody ski masks lying about the house... "That, oh, I, um, ran into a tree in Tahoe." - - - - - 550:531) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:10 i don't approve of murder viadyer ever....but i do feel terrible sympathy for him. - - - - - 550:532) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:10 no he has *not* been convicted before.. he pleaded nol conteste (no contest), neither guilty or not guilty. - - - - - 550:533) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:11 I'd argue that "crime of passion" was invented for men who killed their wives/mistresses/lovers of their wives/mistresses etc. cos they were so pissed about the state of their "monkey" and their "property". - - - - - 550:534) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:11 No contest. He was convicted. Where's the lawyer dude? - - - - - 550:535) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:12 i want to know how the hell he got away without his lawyer "knowing" - - - - - 550:536) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:12 How real is this? How "real" is OJ? His persona has come full circle, and it seems only appropriate that it should have been lived out on TV. OJ as invented on TV, disseminated on TV, his existence in the mind of the public sustained on TV commercials after his sports career finished, and that in itself was lampooned in his film roles. It's a question of paying dues. He was built up on TV, it is only right that he should be sacrificed on TV. The thing IS banal. A man kills his wife and her lover. Happens every day. But this was different because of his fame, but far more importantly because we could *watch*. Seriously, how did you react when he surrendered without violence? Did your hearts soar with relief? - - - - - 550:537) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:12 Right on dorje. 4,000 women die like Nicole every year. that's alot of people. - - - - - 550:538) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:12 sheesh... a guy says crime of passion and doesn't hear the end of it... still... I think a comparison to a Berkowitz, Gacy, Dahmer, or Bundy is wholly unfounded.. - - - - - 550:539) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:13 Naaa, i was kinda disappointed. - - - - - 550:540) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:13 Seriously? Somehow disappointed. Because, as you said Jaze, it's *not* entirely real. - - - - - 550:541) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:13 He got to see his mom. - - - - - 550:542) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:14 Jayes, what does this sadistic obsession say about us? I mean, come on, how many of us were really hoping to see him blow his head off? - - - - - 550:543) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:14 jaze does that happen all the time? people killing two innocent people not using a gun? my friends brother was killed by Dahmer. yuck. i feel sad now. - - - - - 550:544) gail j 18-JUN-94 0:14 you know, this item is particularly weird because there are so many people responding to it at the same time, there is the inevitable delay, so as readers it's hard to tell which post we're responding to. you know? - - - - - 550:545) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:14 All murders take human life. Some take more than others. I find them all equally abhorent. OJ may not be guilty, but I find that unlikely. - - - - - 550:546) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:14 No one REALLY wants to see someone die. But here, we weren't watching a human being in agony, we were watching a TV character enact a TV-type scenario. - - - - - 550:547) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:15 i definitely did not want to see his head blown off. i wanted him to see his mother and for someone else to confess to the crime. that's very definitely what i wanted. - - - - - 550:548) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:15 Yes, Jaze. And I think it's also because his wife was so beautiful and well-liked and that she was seeing another guy 10 years her junior. And someone else did the car-chase with a gun thing last year and got just about as much coverage even tho he was a nobody. His fame was entirely created by the TV and not any of his efforts in life (such as being such a damn great athlete) and he WAS sacrificed on the boob tube altar. - - - - - 550:549) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:15 Another TV-type scenario, Ann. The happy ending. Juice ex Machina. - - - - - 550:550) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:16 Jon--I find your cynicism unfounded, at least for me... *I* can distinguish between TeeVee and reality. And labelling him no more than a TeeVee character is spiteful. - - - - - 550:551) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:16 Another question: How insane do you have to be to simultaneously stab two people to death?? Even amazingly strong, I think it would take real mental craze. - - - - - 550:552) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:16 i don't entirely agree Jaze. i did feel that i was watching a man in agony. - - - - - 550:553) sarah m 18-JUN-94 0:16 Yeah, those shots of the freeway, the cops following slowly behind OJ, waiting for him to decide what would happen next.... - - - - - 550:554) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:16 The victims were stabbed separately - - - - - 550:555) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:17 skooob, good question.... how'd he work that? - - - - - 550:556) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:18 Twang, tell me more. They weren't together? - - - - - 550:557) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:18 Some murders do commit suicide after murder- especially after crimes that involve emotionally related people. - - - - - 550:558) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:19 Probably stabbed one to death and then waited for the other. - - - - - 550:559) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:19 How could they find blood on the driveway at his home? Wouldn't the blood have dried by then? - - - - - 550:560) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:19 Lots of people commit suicide after murder. - - - - - 550:561) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:19 In fact--most murder sprees end in the killer's death... often, um, disappointing (to be clinical), because it would be beneficial to try to find what makes the person tick. - - - - - 550:562) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:19 You can still type it and do DNA on it when it's dry. - - - - - 550:563) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:19 Jaze, for me you're right. He is a TV character. Unfortunately. - - - - - 550:564) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:20 I*'ll raise my hand and say I wanted to hear that he'd either blown off his head or taken down a few SWAT team members. Sure. But that's because I don't really feel like any of it was actually *real*. In substance it was *exactly* like a weird TV show, or radio show in my case. Course that's the gut. the head knows it was real and the heart feels bad for all that happened and is glad it's over, but they are drowned out by this really intense sense of hearing a story. And being disappointed in the ending. Which reminds me it was real life cos not even the worst schlocks would have ended it that way. that leads me back to a little sympathy. - - - - - 550:565) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:20 gosh....i am so pathetic....i can't believe that i wanted a happy ending. - - - - - 550:566) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:20 Yeah, but if it's dried, how can it appear on his driveway? - - - - - 550:567) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:20 Yeah, well, in the end we all want the same banal pathetic happy ending. - - - - - 550:568) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:21 dorje bravely posts for me. it didn't at all seem real for a while. COPS! Rescue 911. Unsolved mysteries..... - - - - - 550:569) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:22 Dorje -- precisely. Beautifully put. The blood on OJ's driveway was *his own*. - - - - - 550:570) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:22 If thishappened here, yould you be on the streets? - - - - - 550:571) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:22 No! The blood on our hands is OJ's! - - - - - 550:572) viadyer 18-JUN-94 0:22 Los Angeles is very dry, and blood stains are hard to get out. See the laundry item and garbled's lip. - - - - - 550:573) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:22 Why would his blood mean anything? - - - - - 550:574) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:22 No. That's where I draww the line. - - - - - 550:575) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:23 why didn't i feel like that....i wish i felt like that. - - - - - 550:576) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:23 Jaze. You MUST explain that. - - - - - 550:577) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:23 His blood would be important because it would suggest he was injured in a struggle. - - - - - 550:578) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:24 Or shaving. - - - - - 550:579) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 0:24 Anybody remember the ranger parade today? - - - - - 550:580) Peter Merholz 18-JUN-94 0:24 Out Out Damned Spot! - - - - - 550:581) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:27 No, I wouldn't head into a fire zone, but I'd look out the window as the cops passed and I'd listen to the radio. - - - - - 550:582) Jackie Blue 18-JUN-94 0:32 What has me stunned beyond belief, is not only did I miss all this while it was happening, but I come home to find *580* responses in this item in 2 hours!?! - - - - - 550:583) sarah m 18-JUN-94 0:32 I was there and I can't believe it. - - - - - 550:584) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:34 Jaze, where are you? Tell me why I'm Lady McBeth. I'm really interested in your analysis. - - - - - 550:585) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:35 For gods sake. A sportscaster was discussing the impact of the Simpson story on Rangers players tonight. He guesses they didn't know about OJ. Oh, thank god! - - - - - 550:586) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:36 Wait, what was the question, skooob? - - - - - 550:587) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:37 OJ's blood is on OUR hands. I think I know what you mean, but I want to hear MORE. - - - - - 550:588) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:38 i thought it was what Oppenheimer said after the bomb was dropped. - - - - - 550:589) Ann 18-JUN-94 0:38 i have a high temperature now. - - - - - 550:590) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:39 Oh, I didn't say it sincerely, skooob, I'm afraid. I'm guilty of the cynicism with which the delicate mariposa charged me. - - - - - 550:591) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:41 No I think in a broader sense OJ's been tried by dia consumers like me who encourage media frenzy that pushes OJ to the edge. - - - - - 550:592) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:41 A pal just yo'ed me and asked when we got so cynical. Is this cynical? - - - - - 550:593) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:45 Our reaction to it as a drama, as a media event, rather than a human tragedy of some kind -- yes, that's cynical. But honest, since that was what we were given. - - - - - 550:594) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:47 What is _our_ moral responsibility here? Are we encouraging this media frenzy? - - - - - 550:595) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:47 Yes. We have accpeted that OJ is only symbolically real, and, as such, as a man with no flesh or blood, as a cartoon, we can be entertained abstactly by the vaarious horrible things which happen to him. I refuse to allow myself to consider even for a second how he must be feeling right *this* second. I am comfortable imagining him in a car chase, sitting holding a gun to his head, like some CBS Monday Night Movie. It is this type of detachment of human qualities from the image of a man which is behind the argument that kids today are more ready to kill because killing, which they have seen a million times on TV, has no meaning at all, no repercussion, no impact. Shooting someone is, as I have said before, like using the remote control to change the channel. - - - - - 550:596) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 0:48 It's symbiotic. We feed the media as they feed us. - - - - - 550:597) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:50 Our distance partly comes from our distrust and cynicism toward the media. We dismiss it because it is the same media that gave us Joey and Amy, Woody and Mia, the Reagan Administration... etc. Can anyone here prove it was not a well-done hoax? - - - - - 550:598) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:50 The line between reality and TV getting blurrier and blurrier. What's the difference between A Current Affair and a "fact-based" TV movie? In fact, I was imagining the movie of tonight's events while I was watching them. - - - - - 550:599) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:52 Hmm, I don't know if the line is blurring. I think the line between the media *presentation* of fact and fiction is blurring, but not our ability to distinguish it. We weren't as upset (excepting ann and a few others, god bless them) because we weren't *there*. - - - - - 550:600) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:53 What made this event exciting, for me anyway, was the fact that there were so many of us experiencing it at the same time, and feeding on each other's excitement. Isn't that the definition of media -- group experiences, more or less simultaneous? - - - - - 550:601) skooob was here 18-JUN-94 0:54 Being from the Midwest working class, I don't share this idea about distance. I think the majority of Americans buy all this stuff as FACT. That's what scares me. I've seen it. - - - - - 550:602) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:55 Hmm you're right skoob. okay, we flippant new yorkers were betting beers over the outcome. - - - - - 550:603) panik, make me panic 18-JUN-94 0:56 the whole coverage of this kinda gives me a sick feeling in my stomach...at around 10:30 wins (or wcbs) had on this random woman from chicago who was just babbling about hwo she loved oj and how he was her hero...it make me sad in a way, frustrated because i realized that people just put these media creations, figures they don't even know, up on these pedestals. other than the reaction the coverage was entirely speculation. i felt like i was staring inside a window or something... and then i realized that this is just an extension of the whole oprah mentality our culture has...voyeurism is the prevailing winds. we look at others' problems to soften the impact of our own? maybe. just look at soap operas... i'm babbling. i know. but this evening has just been _so_ strange, the case has been strange, the way the media has played it out has just been fucking bizarre. it's almost like this was the big payoff for the rest of the week's coverage. - - - - - 550:604) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 0:57 Keep babbling panik. - - - - - 550:605) jneil 18-JUN-94 0:57 I'm sure the movie-of-the-week will be considerably more exciting than tonight's show. All I saw was one long aerial shot of a vehicle driving around and eventually parking. - - - - - 550:606) Twang 18-JUN-94 0:58 Any kind of drama like this is going to be inherently interesting -- we really don't see it every day, the kinds of twists this case took. But this one involved a celebrity, a symbol already full of meaning for us. That's what pushed it over the edge. - - - - - 550:607) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 1:05 i was much more excited by the fact that we were in this multimedia experience than i'd ever be unless i was actually on his front porch with some sampsonite filled with sammiches and ammo for his prolonged showdown. *that* was exciting. that it was out of the blue was exciting. that it was this *icon* was exciting. had all the makings of a great tv movie til the end. Whoever OJ is, he has my sympathies and my suspicions, but only so much as any stranger does. The drama was much bigger for me cos I don't know him. Garbled (who shoulda been here) getting punched had a bigger effect on me than this did. Proximity, i guess. Cos both events were presented to me via echo mainly, and were very dramatic in their unfolding. - - - - - 550:608) OpPhantom 18-JUN-94 1:06 I don't have a TV anywhere near the computer, so had to choose between it and Echo. Just captured this item to read offline later. The tube had my full attention for 3 hours. I watch TV pretty infrequently, so that is significant. Thank Jesus for cable! For a while, every station except PBS was carrying this. I don't think I've been that riveted since the big L.A. earthquake. And since the smaller one before that. And prior to that, the L.A. riots, and hmm, I think I detect a pattern here... - - - - - 550:609) panik, make me panic 18-JUN-94 1:08 it's weird because right now i am majoring in journalsim...and it's evenings like this that make me agonize over whether i should stay in the major. the coverage was inane at best...i think someone earlier mentioned that it looked like a ready-made-for-tv movie? i completely agree. so i wonder if i _can_ make things better, if a can decrease the amount of sensationalism going on...or if i will just become another cog in the machine? or should i just junk it all and become a lit major. (maybe i should, considering i typoed "journalism" in the first line...:) ) the "tabloiding" (for lack of a better word) of tv journalism is a very disturbing trend to me...people are becoming more and more apssive, letting other people's lives happen to them. pretty soon, tv "news" will look more like inside edition (see wbbm in chicago for a glaring example). i think i'm getting off tack here. but _why_ was oj, as a symbol, full of meaning? i guess i'm being all high and idealistic, which i shouldn't be because _i_ was riveted as well. but would this all have occurred if he hadn't won the heisman? would they have given him a 30-mph leeway on one of la's busiest freeways at rush hour? - - - - - 550:610) Cloud in Levis 18-JUN-94 1:09 I was watching the Knicks game when they broke away to show the white van driving through LA. Channel surfing showed that *every* commercial channel was showing it. After watching for 15 minutes or so, I got bored and came to Echo. I don't find the story compelling, and I found the media feeding frenzy disgusting. So I was doing my Echo thing when I came to this item, and found it much more interesting than the television coverage. I understand the fascination, revulsion, compassion, and, with all of that going on, people still wanting to know the score of the Knicks game. But I am slightly disgusted with the blood lust, both here and on television. The actual murders were horrible, but the fascination with them, and the aftermath, is revolting. - - - - - 550:611) OpPhantom 18-JUN-94 1:09 You never would have known it was rush hour. I've never seen the freeways so wide open, except in the middle of the night. - - - - - 550:612) ur-Josh Karpf 18-JUN-94 1:11 Part of my fantasy brilliant-friends commune includes a media room, not unlike the background of a TV news set but REAL, with lots of couches and videos and remotes and online services on tap for everyone to share. "Virtually," this item came as close as I'll ever get to that. - - - - - 550:613) Twang 18-JUN-94 1:15 Any of you who watched the Oscars with me this year know how important sharing huge media experiences is to me. - - - - - 550:614) mariposa heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 1:23 cynical JH, I prefer home cookin' to media feeding. not so delicate mariposa - - - - - 550:615) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 1:37 Just some thoughts. Probably should be filed under "The Bleeding Obvious" So OJ is like Oedipus for us all. Many of us think he's guilty, just as we know Oedipus is. We watched and communed in catharsis and excitement as we watch his fate unfold. Look at how this was covered. From Day One they have very sexy pictures of his wife. Sort of a morbid "Wouldn't you like to fuck her" sort of thing. Every day there's another article on it, every day another sexy picture, not much said about her 25 year old co-victim. We are to assume they were lovers, I suppose. Adds a little raciness to it, adds to the sex appeal.. Fortunately there's also a history of turmoil and abuse to add to our suspicions and our identification with her. Then OJ goes crazy, they follow with helecopters, interview fans, psychologists, and do everything possible to make this into a drama. Did he do it? Why did he? Did the suicide note (also for us CLUE fans) mean he was guilty? Where's his Mom? How much pain is he in? (They really played up his depression, his "loser OJ" feelings from his suicide note, and his "feeling like HE was the battered spouse". They play down the fact that he might have killed two people partly for legal reasons but because suddenly he is the good guy. A combination of actual events and coverage that makes it a perfect movie. I think there's this agreement going on and I think it's unspoken: They give us our Dyonesian escape, our sacrifice, concentrate on catharsis and pathos and we'll swallow down the advertising, buy the papers, and the People magazines, etc. As long as it resembles fiction as much as possible. As long as it's *interesting*. Hell, we'll even swallow the other shit they spoonfeed us the rest of the time. So anyone who was excited by it, by the multimedia of this experience, is reacting quite naturally considering what this agreement is. Anyone who was more concerned for the reality behind the tragedy has a great capacity for compassion, but isn't playing by the rules. Your People subscruption will be cancelled. - - - - - 550:616) mariposa heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 1:57 I don't play by "the rules" . Nicest thing said to me this week. - - - - - 550:617) doktor dorje 18-JUN-94 1:58 And just let me say that I would have called the cops or shot the guy were I a neighbor of Kitty Genovese. - - - - - 550:618) Eric A. Hochman 18-JUN-94 3:20 The fact that this items exists and got 617 responses in less than a day gives me: T H E F E A R - - - - - 550:619) DataBass 18-JUN-94 7:32 So that explains why the backup took so long today. - - - - - 550:620) Aurora Borealis 18-JUN-94 9:02 I've just checked out ALL the responses in this item in one fell swoop. I agree that the entire debacle is pathetic. Following the van in its fifty mile trip on I-405 with helicopters looming overhead, and dozens of police cars following, seemed perfectly natural for us to do. It was an action movie played out right before our eyes. Ann, while every post of yours was so concerned that OJ be treated fairly, that OJ not kill himself, that OJ see his mother, AND you were concerned why OJ was more interested in seeing his mother than his children, did you stop and think even ONCE about the two young, innocent people he MURDERED? Jesus. Anyone who can even entertain the possibility of OJ's innocence in this heinous crime after what's transpired must be the singularly most optimistic person on the face of the earth. - - - - - 550:621) Tally ho, Telos! 18-JUN-94 9:57 The only thing that would have made this more complete is if it had happended while Stacy was at Bloomies...... Moralizing is pointless. Panik, stay in J-school. Dorje, your observations are elequent as always, but rely on tropes that IMHO, are no lnger valid. There is no "agreement," no premeditation. That's the amazing thing. The neutral force of technology pushes us on. Why does a dog lick its dick? Cuz it can. Why does the media send up choppers, show allthis stuff live, etc. Cuz it can. We've been on this path since the Renaisance, anyway. There would have been chooppers doing a play-by-play of Christ carrying the cross had they existed. The "spectacle" was a point of debate and discussiion even in Roman times. Indeed, as GreenPig will tell you, Turtullian wrote a tractate on the moral effects of the specacle. The real loser in all this is Don DeLillo. He has been rendered superfluous. - - - - - 550:622) ur-Josh Karpf 18-JUN-94 9:59 Can't wait to read the dry little article that'll be in the Times. - - - - - 550:623) viadyer 18-JUN-94 10:00 Or if you weren't worried about his guilt or innocence I think you have a serious case of misplaced compassion. . . First feel for the dead people, then feel compassion for the dead people's families and friends, than feel compassion for the falsely accused, then feel compasssion for everyone else, then feel compassion for the guilty party. If you think the highway in LA was crazy, think about the Branch Davidian compund that our compassionate attorney general allowed to be reinvaded after 50 days. Twenty kids wound up being torched. People should separate crazy people from society. I'm glad they didn't shoot guns to do it. - - - - - 550:624) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 10:09 So I was in LA last night, partying it up with some of my devil-worshipping buddies, got pretty zonked, started walking back to my hotel room, I like to walk, especially when I'm real zooed. It turned out to be a much longer walk than I thought, though, and I started feeling pretty drowsy. I saw this white Bronco, it was unlocked, so I got in and curled up in the back for a coupla Z's. Talk about yer rude awakenings. - - - - - 550:625) MRPetit - aka Marianne 18-JUN-94 10:26 Viadyer, I disagree. I don't see the need to prioritize compassion or sympathy. It's all just pathetic. I honestly felt sorry for him in the spectacle that was last night. Despite evidence, the man should be presumed innocent till proven guilty, but because of his celebrity status, because of his role as an icon, an idol and the mythical powers and persona anyone in that position automatically assumes, that right was taken away. The totally surreal part about last night was I had just finished watching A PERFECT WORLD, and tuned into OJ. The lines between reality and fantasy, fiction and non-fiction completely crossed and meshed. When my father was killed, we (the kids) were accompanied out of our apartment building by some family friends. To our surprise there were not only police cars and ambulances, but crowds and bright lights. The little personal tragedy of an anonymous family was transformed into something else ... to this day, I don't know what, for other people. There's morbid fascination, and as Telos said ... why does the media do it? Because it can. There's also the fascination in seeing the mighty fall. The issue of status, myth v. hidden realities, etc. etc. etc. The whole thing is just sad. - - - - - 550:626) Ann 18-JUN-94 10:56 >i feel terrible for OJ. i can't imagine not feeling so. there is no >way he has been in control of his emotions and behaviour over the >last few days. i do feel compassion for him. i feel more compassion for >him because he has lost so much, and even more so because it appears that >so many people don't feel compassion for him, and then he has it broadcast >over the media throughout the world. it's awful. i think most people >loose control over the lives for short periods of time occasionallly, but >fortunately and i believe it is just luck, we don't all do things with >such disastrous consequences. i feel compassion for the victims families >too. i don't see that compassion for them should stop compassion for OJ - - - - - 550:627) Aurora Borealis 18-JUN-94 10:56 It's terrible that your father was killed, Marianne. I tend to doubt that you had the same sense of 'fairness' for whoever was responsible for your father's death as you do for OJ. I'm not hard-hearted, but I didn't have one shred of sympathy for OJ last night. I couldn't help but feel terrible sadness for the two lives he destroyed, to say nothing of the mothers and fathers, and all the remaining relatives and friends who'll never see them again. - - - - - 550:628) mariposa ~heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 11:29 i am amazed at how many people have already judged this man as guilty without knowing all the facts. i feel sorry for everyone involved. guess its a good thing i didn't go berserk this week & stab my boss w/my letter opener. specially if you all were going to be on the jury. - - - - - 550:629) coyote in sheep's clothing 18-JUN-94 12:13 telos - well put. really - you saved me from typing half of what i was going to say. - - - - - 550:630) Tom Lipscomb 18-JUN-94 12:40 I'm with Aurora and Viadyer. The question I'm concerned with is why Nicole Simpson could receive no protection after having had to call the police many times to stop OJ's violent and abusive behavior? Do celebritites get soft treatment that lets them think that THEY are the victims as he obviously did in writing that 'sick" whining letter of innocence? I am assuming he is guilty. In criminal cases, that's the wrong thing to aver and the right way to vote.. - - - - - 550:631) Fruity Squirrel 18-JUN-94 13:06 Tom, re: Nicole Simpson & the police -- Someone (I think it was Al Michaels) was saying that during one of the police excursions to their house b/c of a fight, (translated: he was beating up on her) the cops asked OJ for autographs. Does THAT answer your question? - - - - - 550:632) Fruity Squirrel 18-JUN-94 13:10 By the way, I found it quite cheesy that Rather and Jennings, et al were saying that "remember: he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" -- somewhat akin to their broadcasting of the presidential election: "well, Clinton has almost all of the electoral votes needed to become president, but remember: you can still make a difference by going out and voting now" Uh huh. I wonder where they'll get jurors who haven't been influenced by the media coverage. Some hermits in Death Valley w/o TVs? - - - - - 550:633) Fruity Squirrel 18-JUN-94 13:12 And oh yes, you could also type snr 550 to see just the new posts in this item (for future reference during next live telecast) - - - - - 550:634) Hungry Ghost 18-JUN-94 13:15 Barbara Walters must retire, already. She adds nothing and her voice is so irritating at this point that she triggers the immediate channel flip. - - - - - 550:635) Skyvue 18-JUN-94 13:16 or just "n 550" saves you two keystrokes. - - - - - 550:636) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 13:45 Nobody seemed to worry too much about finding an impartial jury to send Charles Manson to the gas chamber without ever having placed him at the scene of the crime. - - - - - 550:637) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 13:46 David Koresh didn't even get a trial. - - - - - 550:638) Tom Lipscomb 18-JUN-94 13:49 To see a half dozen Branch Davidians get 40 year sentences in the NYT this morning and no sentences or firings for the Justice Dept Gestapo that murdered these folks "because they were tired" according to our AG, is a real travesty of justice. - - - - - 550:639) jneil 18-JUN-94 14:11 I don't remember the Justice Department going in with flamethrowers. Stupid and lazy they may be, but "we didn't start the fire" - - - - - 550:640) Rob Tannenbaum 18-JUN-94 14:19 If this was indeed plotted, it was as a promotional event for Oliver Stone's meta-media gore-fest NATURAL BORN KILLERS. - - - - - 550:642) Neandergal 18-JUN-94 14:27 Excuse my interruption of this thread, but 640 responses in this item in less than a day! Yes, it IS powerful, isn't it Jonathan (author of this item)? - - - - - 550:643) Twang 18-JUN-94 14:32 More impressive, the first 600 or so were posted with 3 hours. This *must* be some kind of record. - - - - - 550:644) Perpetual Dawn 18-JUN-94 14:36 THis item (and the number of responses!) amazes me, because it shows how totally cut off it's possible still to be. If, like me, you only read the Times and listen to NPR, it's possible to miss most of this. I'm just finding out about it now, from reading this. - - - - - 550:645) Twang 18-JUN-94 14:44 I'm interested to know, for those of you who didn't watch the live coverage -- if you read this item and our as-it-happens commentary, to what extent to you feel like you "experienced" the event? What was it like to read what we were typing in the midst of the frenzy? How well does this medium (Echo) communicate experience? Obviously (to those of us posting last night) the medium does well with immediacy -- though I'd like to hear some more comments on that, too. - - - - - 550:646) TomF 18-JUN-94 15:30 PD, #644 would be perfect if it were sarcastic. I flipped through the channels last night, seeing nothing but LIVE FROM LA under the aerial shots, thinking "ecch, another media feeding frenzy". The first 250 responses in this item are like Mystery Science Theatre 3000, where the commentary is much more entertaining than the media material. Maybe that's what Echo does well. - - - - - 550:647) Twang 18-JUN-94 15:33 Good point about MST3K -- it's true. Jaze was Tom Servo. - - - - - 550:649) Aurora Borealis 18-JUN-94 16:40 Charles Manson be damned. If, in fact, OJ *did* murder Nicole and her young friend, he's no better than Manson, and, far as I'm concerned, could share a cell with him. What is all this sympathy for someone just because he's an American icon? Once you commit murder, it matters not if you're the POPE, some derelict who sleeps in a corrugated box, or a celebrated ex-football player on an estate in Brentwood. Bottom line is two people are dead who shouldn't oughta be dead. If you really wanna hear mean-spiritedness, IF OJ murdered them, and I'm 99 44/100% sure he did, he could've blown himself to smithereens in that van last night for all I care... rather than to waste the taxpayer's money on 8 dozen squad cars, detectives, and too much time and attention from the entire LAPD. - - - - - 550:650) Erin a.k.a. EB 18-JUN-94 16:56 Sheesh, I wish I'd logged on last night for this - although it would have broken my intense concentration on every nuance of coverage on 5 channels. I think DA Gil Garcetti's days are numbered. His handling of this case - in which the media kept more a watch on OJ all week than the police did - was totally inept, the work of a star-struck fool. His comments on battered women were admirable, but his actions in the past 5 days do not at all reflect the stated ideas. He treated a guy who he had good reason to suspect was a lying, wife-beating murderer as if he were a responsible individual. - - - - - 550:651) MRPetit - aka Marianne 18-JUN-94 17:04 My god this item is fascinating. First of all, Aurora going back to your post #627, your assumption is completely wrong. I did have the same sense of compassion for the person who killed my father as I do for OJ. And the situation is not indifferent in the sense that it was another family member. But, Ann in her post #626 says it all. He's obviously a tortured human being at this moment, and showing compassion for him does not all negate the compassion and sympathy one feels for the survivng family members. How could you not feel sorry for the children yesterday? All I could think was "gee ... I hope somebody convinces them to go make a puzzle or watch a video, and NOT turn on the TV or radio" . ... because it was on every station. To think, that for a few hours every station (as documented in this item) showed that white bronco going at the speed limit, while speculating as to what was happening inside, is unbelievable. It's somewhat disgusting. And the fact that everyone watched it and was riveted by it says something significant. What, I'm not sure. It is, however, probably related to the same things that let him get off the hook so easily, which is detestable, for spousal abuse and battery. - - - - - 550:652) MRPetit - aka Marianne 18-JUN-94 17:09 BTW, Hungry Ghost you are so right about Barbara Walters! - - - - - 550:653) David A. Ross 18-JUN-94 17:12 I think we've all found the event for the 90's...not exactly a media event, but obviously fueled by live chopper cams and instant psychoanalysts doing the play by play...Dog Day Afternoon meets the Rose Bowl Parade...did the waving crowds lining the 405 FWY make you feel that ours is a great nation, or that we are long gone down the crapper? Best conspiracy theory...the entire eventg was staged by his lawyer to generate a movie of the week AND to ensure that no one in the entire nation could be called for an impartial jury...prediction... OJ will walk...trial impossible Only those in Madison Square garden didn't see the event and here the entire case presented by the DA and the defense... - - - - - 550:654) Aurora Borealis 18-JUN-94 17:19 Interesting. I was completely baffled by the people waiting for his arrival in Brentwood. Not the media, the public. I don't say he wasn't a tortured man last night - AND the day/night he killed Nicole and friend - but any tendency I might've had toward sympathy for him was instantly overruled by sympathy for the truly innocent victims of this debacle. Yes, I felt sorry for his children. I can't imagine seeing my parent in such a predicament. I'd be so humiliated. Amazing how so many years went into this boy from the ghetto gaining the respect and admiration of a nation, and only moments to wipe that all out. What fools we mortals be. - - - - - 550:655) Singer 18-JUN-94 18:06 First, a disclaimer. I did not read this entire Item. Having said that, I am no less fascinated than Jaze said he was near the top of it. Not just because of the amazing Post-Modern Inferno of "man, traced by cellular phone call, racing down highway, me watching it 3000 miles away." But because of the additional layer added by all your furious postings as the event was taking place. I suppose an additional layer would have been if one of the posters had a second puter and line, and was logged onto CIS CB or another real-time service. Although those early posts seem quite real-time to me. THey seem more like an open channel on CIS CB than your typicla ECHO Item. Amazing. - - - - - 550:656) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 18:19 The thing is, the way he was presented last night, it was hard to see him as anything BUT a character in a crummy TV movie. Cutting from SkyCam shot to SkyCam shot, the station ID logo fading in periodically, it lacked nothing but a cheesey soundtrack. It was impossible to see The Man inside the car. He was just some character who had, in a rather unusual move, taken *himself* hostage. How sorry did you feel for Nicole and Goldman when you read about their deaths? They were just another two murder victims, people who you didn't know. A small frisson of intrigue because of who they were? How much time have you spent feeling sorry for the estimated 250,00 Rwandans killed during the last few months? We experience pity and sympathy and compassion in direct relation, I think, to the way in which we are fed it by the media. People experience misery and anguish, *horrendous* misery and anguish, every fucking day. Where should our compassion lie? OJ wasn't fed to us like that so we could feel compassion for his plight. This was EXCITING TV, TV delivering on its potential, ushering us into the panopticon, where we can see everything in the world exactly as it happens. Why did you watch it last night, I mean why keep on watching a tracking shot of a white car on a highway, kept pretty well in the center of the frame, moving at the speed limit? I think that it is part of the conditioning nature of television that we are trained to expect a climax, a crisis in the action, at approximately 13 minute intervals before we hit the commercial break. We were lead along expecting a thrilling resolution, and the whimper that was the invisible surrender was pretty disappointing. For me, the most disgusting thing I have seen recently was this morning's New York Newsday headline: THE OJ SIMPSON TRADGEDY. Those filthy, disingenuous fucking dogs - may they all die roaring in Hell's eternal flames for want of a devil to piss on them, hypocritical sanctimonious bastards that they are. - - - - - 550:657) Tally ho, Telos! 18-JUN-94 18:32 Twang: I have no TV or radio (My motto: No television No Mircowave No Therapist). I headed out to the gym last night around 6:30. When before I left, the sucide note reading was on one of the TVs you can watch while cycling. Then I went to a party--people were watching the game, but also the OJ chase. which is an overlong way opf saying I caught it but only in background. It didn't register with me that something sulturally significant was going on till I read this item. I fould it wonderfully evokative and it made me feel like I was "there." I do feel this was a special event in our cyber history, and frankly I'm a little jealous that I missed it real-time. And last week I missed Garbled getting punched. Sheesh. - - - - - 550:658) jneil 18-JUN-94 18:45 Jeez, you guys must be kicking yourselves for missing the glory days of the WAR conference during the Iraq/Kuwait media blitz, when this type of Pomo Inferno was played out here on a much larger scale. - - - - - 550:659) Tom Lipscomb 18-JUN-94 18:58 Oh for the good old days when we were young and so unhappy... - - - - - 550:660) Ann 18-JUN-94 19:06 i'm surprised that you used the word humiliating to describe OJ' experience last night Aurora. i don't think he humiliated himself at all. he lost control. . it was a very unfortunate and sad event. the whole thing has been tragic. nothing he has done has wiped out the respect and admiration that he had. respect and admiration are now part of his past life experience. he now has a terrible future ahead of him. he knows his future now will be awful, and he knows he can't turn the clock back which makes it all the worse. i do feel compassion for him. i guess in some ways i feel more compassion for him than i do for people dying in wars around the world. probably because his behaviour is behaviour that i can see anyone of us exhibitting. i can't imagine myself being stuck in a war zone, or going hungry from starvation, or being expelled from my country, though those are far worse events than OJ experienced. i can however see myself losing control one day and not being responsible for my actions and not acting rationally. i hope when that happens, that others won't consider that i have humiliated myself. - - - - - 550:661) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 19:19 I don't know, Ann - while it may not be exile, or starvation, or war, brutally murdering two people and then threatening to commit suicide while on the lam in a low speed car chase witnessed by 100 million people *could* be deemed somewhat trying. - - - - - 550:662) Vantage, jAe 18-JUN-94 19:56 I still believe OJ is not guilty of murder... if that makes me overly optimistic, so be it... until i hear all the evidence the police supposedly gathered, he shall remain innocent. (there are rumors that a glove wasn't found at oj's house, and rumblings about all those police leaks that occurred). - - - - - 550:663) Ann 18-JUN-94 19:59 yes i too have heard that the glove story is nonsence. - - - - - 550:664) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 20:06 I imagine that he probably is guilty, but, of course, have no way of knowing that. - - - - - 550:665) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 20:14 I smell cocaine in this story. - - - - - 550:666) David Yamada 18-JUN-94 20:20 This could be very simple or very complicated. I think I'll just wait to see what unfolds. Heh, the LAPD acquitting themselves like champs once more. - - - - - 550:667) Neandergal 18-JUN-94 20:37 This is more compelling or at least differently from Kuwait because there's a Guy we can focus on. Kuwait/Iraq was a video game. - - - - - 550:668) Driftwood 18-JUN-94 21:03 It has yet to be mentioned, so I will... Another level of postmodernity is added in all the posts talking about the posts talking about witnessing the tragedy... And we spiral ever upward... - - - - - 550:669) xue 18-JUN-94 21:52 I don't believe Al Cowlings will be prosecuted. If it weren't for Al Cowlings, OJ would be dead. Police are *pissed" at him because one does not defy the LAPD here in LA. Disrespect of the police is most provocative crime here, not murder. No jury would convict Al. he told the police where they were going; he slowed down so they could clear the onramps and traffic would be safer. He negotiated between OJ and them so that OJ wouldn't use the gun. I suspect that he wouldn't talk to them without an attorney, so they arrested him. Well, they *had* to arrest him. There was a warrant. But they *didn't* have to go on and on about how he interfered with the negotiations when we could all see what he was trying to do. He was trying to remain the sane, underreacting person in the mess. The DA will be foolish if he doesn't dismiss charges soon. He can put him on probation as a plea bargain, but he shouldn't put him through a trial. He's been through his trial. - - - - - 550:670) xue 18-JUN-94 21:55 The derivation of "lookie loo" is from the California real estate industry. It refers to an ad run by some realtor many years ago. "Lookie loos" are people who come to see open houses on the weekends without any intention of buying, but just seeing the inside of someone else's house for decorator ideas or voyeurisms or whatever. - - - - - 550:671) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 21:58 Thanks for the definition, xue. I agree, no way the DA will take Cowlings to court. DAs are political animals, and boy would that make him look BAD. - - - - - 550:672) xue 18-JUN-94 22:03 It was bizarre for me to read this entire item. I didn't come on last night because I was riveted to the drama, the near-Othello drama. The ultimate Crime of Passion. Medea. The Japanese woman who tried to drown her two small children and herself because her husband dumped her -- a couple of years ago here in L.A. The grand passion. The grand rage. None of us has ever been there. Or, rather, few of us. Not that OJ should get off. But no one can punish him worse than he will punish himself for the rest of his life. He'll never have another good night's sleep. He'll never again laugh with ease. He may never laugh at all (and doesn't deserve to), but his hell is one I do not relish for him. I was really surprised at how cynical New Yorkers seemed to be. Some New Yorkers, that is. And maybe it isn't just New Yorkers, but it seemed so cold. Was it cold? Or is my impression wrong? Is it wrong because I don't know you? Or is it wrong because the cold things you said were a way of letting of natural human tension in the face of tragedy. *Are* you that cynical when you read Othello or Medea? Do you say, essentially, that you're glad to see Othello die in the end? Isn't his tragedy (Othello's) as profoundly sad as the death of his love? - - - - - 550:673) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 22:07 Cowlings is the hero here, the only hero. What brass, what a thing to do for a pal. - - - - - 550:674) Aurora Borealis 18-JUN-94 22:08 Ann, believe me, if it ever comes to pass that you do 'anything' in a similar vein to what OJ did, I shan't be 'humiliated.' Honest injun! - - - - - 550:675) Aurora Borealis 18-JUN-94 22:09 Oh, and, Ann, my reference to "humiliation" was concerning the feelings OJ's children must've been feeling, and not the feelings OJ was feeling. - - - - - 550:676) mariposa ~heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 22:11 xue, please note that ann & i are NOT normal New Yorkers. well we aren't normal but that's a plus around here.... but i for one can not generalize about NYers, cuz i am a coward. - - - - - 550:677) xue 18-JUN-94 22:11 Whatever I end up thinking about this, he left his children (and I do assume he did it at this point) asleep inside while their mother was bloody and dead on their front step. That's the part that freaks me the most. That plus his hand permanently in his carryon throughout the flight to chicago -- was he clinging compulsively to his weapon, afraid to let go for some psychiatric reason? Just like Shelby Coffey, editor of L.A. Times, who stood off a crowd of rioters on the first floor of the Times, stood off people who had broken through the ground floor windows. He held them off with a pair of scissors. Former publisher Dave Laventhol says he still had them gripped tightly in his hand hours later. Didn't even know he did until Dave pointed it out to him. I credit that moment with the L.A. Times' bizarre, obsessive tenacity about political correctness since the riots. It is so strong, it's a joke. It is like it's a Prime Directive (the politcal correctness) not the news itself. This may be getting into topic drift, so I'll stop. - - - - - 550:678) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 22:23 I was wondering the same thing too, xue - how my indifference to the media spectacle last night related to my real feelings for a fellow human being in pain, and how they related to Shakespearean tragedy (ROMEO AND JULIET was what I was thinking), or even ET. I don't know what hte answer is. I cry in OTHELLO (well, at the opera, not the play so much, because it is too familiar and lacks the bombast). I also cry in ET. But there it's different - the piece has predisposed me to view the actions of Othello with sympathy. I do believe it IS the television which lifts and separates here. Some years ago I watched (in a professional capacity) the videotape of the death of Larry "Bud" Dwyer, a Pennsylvania politician who had been accused of financial improprieties. Dwyer held a press conference, and, clearly suffering, spoke a few words against the charges and apologized to everyone for all of the trouble. He then pulled out a gun, and, amidst screams and shouts of "Larry, NO!", stuck it in his mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing a hole in the back of his head. He collapsed back against a wall, and slid to the floor, the blood gushing from his nose and mouth, the cameraman zooming tight, the screaming in the background. I found this emotionally devastating. I had watched the entire tape, maybe 7 minutes of him coming into the press room, speaking, handing out envelopes to his staff. I had some sense of the man, of what he was feeling, of what he was thinking. And then, when he finally killed himself, it was really really horrifying. This was the death of another person, a real person, a person like me. But with OJ, it was different. There was no preamble, we just cut away from whatever program was on to some bizarre shot of a white car driving al ong the highway, pumped by the bloodlust of the reporters and the choppers and the psychoanalysts. NO ONE SET UP THE CLIP. There was nothing human there to which I could attach myself, no narrative space in which to install pity, or compassion. This was an anhistoric event, a sequence from a movie where I had missed the first hour. I was also thinking that it was interesting that you chose OTHELLO. What significance is it, if any, that his ex-wife was white? Believe me, xue, I am not a cold person. But what I was doing last night was taking a cynical dip in the electronic aether, refusing to embrace what was tragic about that ride. - - - - - 550:679) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 22:26 I don't mean to abjure any responsibility for my words, either. - - - - - 550:680) David Green 18-JUN-94 22:37 OJ SIMPSON is not a wife-beating murderer; he is a TV STAR ! ! - - - - - 550:681) David Yamada 18-JUN-94 22:41 He's only playing a wife-beating murderer on TV. This is all a big pilot. - - - - - 550:682) Ann 18-JUN-94 22:53 well i don't know why, and i can't explain this rationally, but i found the whole episode far more distressing than i ever find othello or any other Shakespeare i've seen...more distressing than Medea, and more distressing than ET. i didn't feel it was 'just tv'. i felt constantly aware that it was a personal tragedy that i was watching. i didn't feel any confusion between what was happening and with reality. - - - - - 550:683) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 23:02 But Ann, you are also consistently purely oppositional. Don't you see how that undermines your take on things? - - - - - 550:684) Ann 18-JUN-94 23:04 i am not purely oppositional....i just don't feel any need to post when i agree with what everyone else has said already. - - - - - 550:685) mariposa ~heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 23:06 my feeling about the media feeding frenzy & refusal to pass judgement have nothing to do w/OJ status as a star. i would feel the same about all of you if the same kind of stuff was going on in your life. i think it is sad that people can make such terrible messes out of their lifes. - - - - - 550:686) mariposa ~heat~wave@echo.com 18-JUN-94 23:09 GU i could say the same thing about many of your posts. but i don't attack your right to see things differently - - - - - 550:687) Garbled Uplink 18-JUN-94 23:40 The key word in your response, mariposa, is "many". As opposed to ALL. I think Ann is a kick, don't take this as an "attack". - - - - - 550:688) Jonathan Hayes 18-JUN-94 23:54 If you go back and read the thread, Ann frequently manages to overcome her concern with OJ and OJ's mom, and drifts good-naturedly into other topics. Her fondness for Cousin Balki amongst them. - - - - - 550:689) Garbled Uplink 19-JUN-94 0:37 You forget, Jaze, I was in that car. Ann was driving, her posts are a goof emanating from somewhere in Pennsylvania. - - - - - 550:690) xue 19-JUN-94 1:03 Johnathan, I do see the difference. Here in L.A. we did have the setup the preamble. We had blow-by-blows for days. I actually left work early on Friday to see every word. So for me, it was like when you saw the press conference . I was totally involved in what was happening. As for your Othello question, I assume it makes no difference at all that she was white and he is black. The other examples were Medea and the Japanese woman. There just seems a place where some people's minds go where most of ours don't, where most of us are lucky enough not to go. Will there ever be peace in the mind of the mother who drowned her two very small children. Not in hers or in OJ's. There's no point to this other than whatever else happens to OJ is almost irrelevant to him. Society will perform its' function. Form over substance. On the other hand, there is no recovery here. It's a living hell I hope none of us ever has to endure. - - - - - 550:691) Jonathan Hayes 19-JUN-94 1:04 Agreed. - - - - - 550:692) doktor dorje 19-JUN-94 1:13 Sorry--the thought of OJ fuckin Simpson with a gun to his head in a high-speed chase in a Bronco is far too absurd for me to take seriously. Like Brecht directing THE LAST BOY SCOUT. Shakespeare gets to me much more. - - - - - 550:693) jneil 19-JUN-94 1:25 It's even more absurd in a *low*-speed chase. - - - - - 550:694) xue 19-JUN-94 2:16 In a very unclassy move the University of Southern California, which has always said, OJ was their best recruiter and complimented him for how would just drop in unannounced to USC football practices, has removed his Heisman Trophy display from Heritage Hall. They say it is not because of any embarrassment, but rather they think someone might steal the display. Yeah, right. Use 'em & case 'em aside. They should draw a huge distinction between who OJ was and who he became. That was *cast* 'em aside, above. . He was a marvelous human being then. They don't have to go to court as character witnesses, but they should not take down the display. - - - - - 550:695) xue 19-JUN-94 2:19 Maybe they don't care that he offed his wife and her lover. Maybe they only care that he ran and now he is crying all day. Not exactly the macho football image, is it. That was a cheap shot, but I'm pissed. Anyone who adds unnecessary pain to all the unavoidable pain that looms deserves the ration of shit I just gave USC. - - - - - 550:696) jneil 19-JUN-94 2:20 One odd angle to all this for me is that I met him once, a long time ago. Even then I wasn't big on sports, but he may well have been the first famous person I ever met. I even had his autograph, for a while. I have a hard time linking that memory to those long slow helicopter tracking shots and double murders. - - - - - 550:697) Driftwood 19-JUN-94 2:21 In all of the discussion, one thing hasn't been raised that I would have thot would have been brought up. Race. Does OJ transcend race? - - - - - 550:698) xue 19-JUN-94 2:46 Yes. He transcends race. Lots of irony here. First L.A. has a black man they beat into oblivion (or great wealth, or both). Then they (we) have a black man whom they treat in a special way By the way, Ithink he deserved the special treatment. He has one of the most recognizable faces in the world. It's not fair to question the judgment of the LAPD after the fact on this one. There was no reason to expect him to run. Not only is he uniquely recognizable, he had come back from Chicago voluntarily. - - - - - 550:699) viadyer 19-JUN-94 7:09 OJ's circumstances clearly are considered new rich. His socio economic status clearly has had a great impact on this case. The specifics of what happened really transcend racial issues. This was a crime of passion, not a crime as a result of living in an impoverished war zone. - - - - - 550:700) Erin a.k.a. EB 19-JUN-94 9:36 Yes, xue, he transcends race - that is, until it comes to choosing the jury. You can be sure that race, and doubtless tales of childhood abuse, will be part of the defense and the probable insanity plea. In the classical definition of tragedy, the central figure must be a hero of some sort, but I doubt that was what Newsday meant in the headline that Jonathan mentioned. Yes, disgusting to call it a tragedy, because OJ has been a craven coward not a hero for a long, long time. That's what wife beaters are, craven cowards. The only decent thing OJ Simpson could have done is to have blown his brains out right after he committed this heinous crime. That would have been classical tragedy. - - - - - 550:701) Neandergal 19-JUN-94 9:36 xue, you forgot one part of the irony circle. LA had a man who beat his wife into oblivion several years ago and got off with community service. - - - - - 550:702) Tom Lipscomb 19-JUN-94 10:12 What Erin said. OJ is grist for the pop media mill. He certainly isn't a hero by Aristotelian or any other standards. He had a marvelous ability to run a leather covered rubber bladder around, and that's nice, but it's not heroic. - - - - - 550:703) Nick Rosato 19-JUN-94 10:38 He was a great football player, a joy to watch. That doesn't make him anything else. If he did the drime, he should pay. The LAPD was not wrong... The TV spectacle Friday night says a lot more about us, the viewers, and the TV-industry-powers-that-be than does about OJ... Nice formation driving by the LAPD... - - - - - 550:704) Aurora Borealis 19-JUN-94 11:04 Erin, your post was brilliant! I couldn't agree with you more. - - - - - 550:705) dalliance 19-JUN-94 11:57 Most definitely what Erin said. And unfortunately, too. - - - - - 550:706) Garbled Uplink 19-JUN-94 12:10 I find it nearly impossible to find any sympathy for men who hit women. - - - - - 550:707) Telos in full effect 19-JUN-94 13:41 Nick--There *are* no powers that be. Erin and Tom's classical refs remind me how sloppily we use the word "Hero" to equal "neat guy." (Though my personal pet peeve for label misapplication is "Charismatic," which has a very technical meaning [in short, someone whose authority is derived solely from his his claim to it]. JFK was *not* charismatic. Perot [no endorement implied] comes much closer.) Anyway..... - - - - - 550:708) mariposa ~heat~wave@echo.com 19-JUN-94 13:51 Telos, where is your "charismatic" definition from? - - - - - 550:709) terry 19-JUN-94 13:57 Really JFK seemed charismatic. OJ no way. - - - - - 550:710) xue 19-JUN-94 15:35 OJ was a hero, a roll model to most black people in los angeles. Most people of any color. But local black people are especially devastated because, they emphasize, what a roll model he was to them: overcoming poverty, overcoming rickets, overcoming life in the projects. Maybe he wasn't a hero to well-educated, sophisticated, urbane people (although he was a hero to some of them, too), but it is a heartbreak for those who dreamed of, "If OJ can do, so can I." Of course it is unforgivable that he hit her. It's worse that he probably left her dead on the steps of the house where his children were asleep. But that is simply not the only tragedy here. People who aspired to be like him have had their hearts broken. They want so badly to believe in him, and they can't. It's a very sad time for black people , especially, in L.A.???c - - - - - 550:711) The Lonesome Drifter 19-JUN-94 15:56 Still, without minimizing the pain they may feel, there is some question whether athletes should be held up as role models for the poor. Almost none of them will be able even to approximate the abilities and luck that put them in the spotlight, and most of them would be better off cultivating other skills in the long run. - - - - - 550:712) Tom Lipscomb 19-JUN-94 18:46 Particularly given the cynical way colleges bring athletes unqualified for college work in by the hundreds, keep them as long as the rules allow and then let them flunk out. More than 2/3 of the black athletes taken into college sports never graduate. - - - - - 550:713) dalliance 19-JUN-94 18:56 I really doubt that many black youngsters have been holding OJ as a role model for quite a few years now. I always thought he was a big, dumb, dorky joke. Give me Denzel Washington. - - - - - 550:714) Ann 19-JUN-94 19:05 no.....give me Denzel. - - - - - 550:715) Telos in full effect 19-JUN-94 19:39 Mariposa: It's from Max Weber, one of the most important sociologists of the 20th Cent. See his masterwork, _The Theory of Socal and Economic Organization_, esp. book III (The types of authority and imperative co-ordination). There is also a collection of his essays called _On Charisma and Institution Building_. - - - - - 550:716) xue 19-JUN-94 20:36 Of the black people I know who hold him up as a roll model, one is an attorney with O'Melveney & Myers with kids in Harvard and job offers from the current administration (he can't afford to take them); a woman who graduated from college with her BA on Saturday; a man and a woman working on their BAs while working full time. These are not poor young blacks, they are profesionals or well on their way to being so. And they are in pain. (I mean Professionals) (I mean professionals. My machine is garbling with line nois - - - - - 550:717) Shellacked Stella 19-JUN-94 21:15 I think OJ was a hero from what people knew of him - what his publicist created. The reality is is that he isn't a hero. So once again, corporate America "created" a hero for financial reasons, the hero falls, and everyone who looked up to the so-called hero is gravely disappointed. It's a shame and a sham. - - - - - 550:718) molerat 19-JUN-94 21:28 the only reassuring thing about this whole freak show is that i didn't hear any reference or read any in the papers about the interracial aspect... of course, that could be the frequently referred to perspective of less intelligent bigots thinking that celebrities are "not really [name ethnic group]" still and all, very scary. i feel so dreadful for his children. - - - - - 550:719) David Yamada 19-JUN-94 21:30 Actually, I think O.J. reflects what we should be cognizant of generally: that people are rarely all good or all bad. A lot of people within the sports world have been coming to the defense of his character; not denying what may have happened, but just stepping up to say that they think he's a friendly, unpretentious, decent guy. He can be that and a spouse abuser too. It's not consistent -- it's human. - - - - - 550:720) xue 19-JUN-94 21:41 Good post, David. Actually *no one* is all good or bad. - - - - - 550:721) terry 20-JUN-94 0:36 A lot of people are blissfully happy in the black and white/no shades of grey mode. But I tend to agree with David that the potential for either exists in most of us to be inconsistent. - - - - - 550:722) Bwana 20-JUN-94 1:06 Agreed. OJ was not really a hero of mine, but I had great respect for his abilities as an athlete, and that respect was enhanced by the way he segued nicely into another set of careers afterwards, and continued to entertain me. A man of many facets, who I had respect for. It's just sad, so very sad, to see his other side come out in such dramatic fashion. Sure, I recognize that many of the athletes that I respect have bad character traits, as do many of the actors, etc. But it's rare that one of them gets accused of brutal, premeditated murder, with much publically aired evidence that makes it seem like he did it. I've never had someone I had respect for knocked from their pedestel in such a dramatic way. - - - - - 550:723) Tom Lipscomb 20-JUN-94 14:42 Thank xue. Nice point and seldom heard. - - - - - 550:724) old el posso 20-JUN-94 15:08 I feel so out of it. I missed the low speed chase at the time, & I'm just now catching up on this item. My feeling upon hearing about that bizarre chase scene was that it was very much like a Greek tragedy: the hero, suffering from a fatal flaw, commits a horrible crime, and is pursued (down the freeway in this case) by the avenging furies, while the chorus (or our version of it, the media) keeps up a running commentary. And I guess Twang and Ann and everyone else online that night were part of the chorus. Of course, it's kind of a cheesy, TV- reality show version of a Greek tragedy, but it's exactly the same story people were riveted by 2500 years ago in Athens. And we're still riveted by it. - - - - - 550:725) Hungry Ghost 20-JUN-94 16:07 OJ pleads not guilty, live on Fox TV, while lawyer gives him a back massage. OJ seemed dazed. Film at 11. - - - - - 550:726) Jonathan Hayes 20-JUN-94 16:20 What did Mike Tyson have for breakfast this morning? OJ. - - - - - 550:727) Tom Lipscomb 20-JUN-94 18:59 OJ may or may not be guilty. But he never has been and never will be a hero. - - - - - 550:728) Garbled Uplink 20-JUN-94 20:54 Fuck him, stick a fork in his ass, turn him over, he's done. - - - - - 550:729) Rice Krispies 20-JUN-94 21:54 Like Garbled said, innocent until proven guilty. - - - - - 550:730) Vantage, jae (with an A) 20-JUN-94 22:49 Like i've said before, the new laws state guilty until proven not as guilty. There is no such thing as innocent. Just varying degrees of guilty., You're either guilty enough to go to jail, no not gulty enough to go to jail. (that's *or* not guilty enough...) - - - - - 550:731) Fruity Squirrel 21-JUN-94 0:24 I was pleased to notice that at least the Post (haven't seen the other papers today) was starting to write about the perverse spin that most journalists have put on this story: "Aaaaw...poor OJ...Isn't it tragic?" Never mind the fact that he may have killed 2 people, and effectively orphaned his children. And the murder victims (remember them? the dead people? the ones who can no longer drive white Ford Broncos aimlessly on CA highways?) have barely been mentioned in the midst of "OJ's agony". As some people have posted already, tragedy implies the fall of a great hero. This man was just able to run fast while holding a piece of pigskin. Does that make him a hero in the classical sense? I think not. And the incredible selfishness of some parts of his suicide note (eg, "sometimes I've felt like the battered spouse") just leaves me speechless. - - - - - 550:733) Jonathan Hayes 21-JUN-94 1:09 I deplore your characterization of OJ's highway run as "aimless". - - - - - 550:734) Fruity Squirrel 21-JUN-94 1:09 How about "leisurely" ? - - - - - 550:735) Telos in full effect 21-JUN-94 1:18 a "gambol," perhaps? - - - - - 550:736) mrs. hippie queen 21-JUN-94 2:54 A: Tang won't kill you. (OJ Jeopardy) - - - - - 550:737) Squid Diablo 21-JUN-94 2:57 From usenet: -------------------------------------------------------- Did you hear about the new drink called "The Simpson"? OJ, a couple of slices, and a chaser -------------------------------------------------------------------- Order a Bloody Screwdriver the next time you're at a sports bar. It's O.J. mixed with bitters, and a sliced tomato. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Simpson killed his wife because she refused to have OJ for breakfast. -------------------------------------------------------------------- What does OJ stand for? Open Jugular -------------------------------------------------------------------- I like the first one best . - - - - - 550:738) Miss Outer Boro 1991 21-JUN-94 9:36 It's common for abusers to feel like victims themselves. They usually were victims of abuse as children, for starters. And they are generally paranoid and desperately insecure. You can call them "craven cowards" and in a sense you'd be right, but a more compassionate way to see them is as people riddled with insane fears. They brutalize others, whom they imagine are the source of the terror they feel. I think even joyful sadism comes from this. One imagines one is alleviating one's own feelings of weakness and pain and fear, by causing these feelings in others. People usually feel justified in abusing other people. They feel like they are being punished emotionally, so they strike back. Of course the fact that they feel so bad is due to their own mixed-up ideas about themselves and others (to put what should be described in stark expressionistic language into the most bland and basic terms imaginable). Whether or not the OJ Simpson story falls under the category of classical tragedy or not may be interesting to speculate about as a parlor game. But the whole thing is just really sad and horrible, however you want to analyze it aesthetically. As if we needed more examples that what looks good on the outside may be quite different on the inside. As if we needed more examples of what revolting vultures most members of the media are. As if we needed more examples of how we all love to be entertained by the grotesque sufferings of others (whether we're gleefully gorging on it, as in this case, or oh-how-sad-wringing-our-PC-hands over it when it's the multiculti sufferings of "Third World"ers, etc). But who knows. Maybe I'm just wack. Maybe it's all much simpler than I think. - - - - - 550:739) Garbled Uplink 21-JUN-94 9:53 'Twas brillig, and the football star Did gyre and gimbel up highway 5 - - - - - 550:740) Grace 21-JUN-94 11:39 I think the whole concept of "heroes" based on what we know in the media is stupid. I imagine, once upon a time, there were people who did heroic things and the press got a hold of them and they were sometimes charismatic and sometimes not. Now, there is are media formulas for heroism. How can you believe any of it? I'm with Tom and Erin and y'all who agreed that being an excellent athlete doesn't make you a hero. People who work two jobs so they kids can go to college are far more heroic to me. - - - - - 550:741) Rob Tannenbaum 21-JUN-94 12:56 Q: How do we know O.J. didn't stab Nicole Brown Simpson? A: A Buffalo Bill always chokes. - - - - - 550:743) Berg Man of Alcatraz 21-JUN-94 14:56 Q: What did Michael Jackson say to O.J.? A: Don't worry; I'll take care of your kids. - - - - - 550:744) Lisa J. Cooley 21-JUN-94 17:50 D-O-O-O-H! - - - - - 550:745) Fruity Squirrel 21-JUN-94 18:00 The billboard at Kim's Video on Avenue A: Kim's Stores is announcing that they are dropping OJ Simpson as their official spokesman. We are replacing him with Mr. Klaus von Bulow. - - - - - 550:746) Jonathan Hayes 21-JUN-94 18:50 I think that the photo of OJ Simpson on the front pages of the Post, Newday and the News today is one of the most beautiful and poignantly expressive images I have ever encountered. It's a wire photograph, from Reuters, I think, but is blurred and has the feel of a shot of a video monitor. The head tilted back slightly, utter exhaustion to the point of trance-like sensuousness. The eyes half-closed, shutting out the circus, shutting in the man. The spirit collapsed, the denial finished, the nightmare now visible, immediate, palpable, enveloping. Visually, the process of photography, wire transmission and reprint onto newspaper has softened the edges of the man, making him more ethereal, more dreamlike. It reminds me of Andres Serrano's PISS CHRIST, for some reason. I think there's a certain similarity between the mediation of the technology involved in delivering the image to the front page and the significance of that front page image, and the way the urine in the Serrano photo diffuses the light and at the same time profanes and mystifies the original crucifix. This photograph, I think, achieves what Matt Mahurin was after in his Time magazine cover, where he manipulates the LAPD mugshot of OJ, throwing him into some dismally penumbral and oppressive realm of the Eternally Damned. - - - - - 550:747) Miss Outer Boro 1991 21-JUN-94 19:06 The contrast between the beautiful stone mask of his face and the ravaged diseased man inside is what gets me. - - - - - 550:748) Perpetual Dawn 21-JUN-94 20:57 Yeah. There's a kind of cognitive dissonance with the idea that Beautiful equates with Good. - - - - - 550:749) mariposa wild~apple!magic 21-JUN-94 23:11 JH, god spoke again. you have earned a keyboard reprieve. ^to me - - - - - 550:750) xue 21-JUN-94 23:23 He looked as if he'd aged ten years in a week. - - - - - 550:751) MP 21-JUN-94 23:25 Who, God? - - - - - 550:752) mariposa wild~apple!magic 21-JUN-94 23:25 no, JH... - - - - - 550:753) xue 21-JUN-94 23:32 ......oooo. Icey in here. Bye. - - - - - 550:754) old el posso 22-JUN-94 1:11 Saw an interview with OJ on TV tonight which was taped after his '89 arrest for beating up on his then wife. God, he seemed so smarmy. Talking about how the media had blown it all out of proportion, how the incident had occurred after a New Years Eve party that (smirk) got pretty crazy, how he & his wife really loved each other & how they were trying to put this trying incident behind them. So creepy to see now. About the idea of OJ as hero--I agree, a football player turned spokesperson isn't my idea of hero either. I was trying to figure out why everyone is so fascinated with this story, & I think it's because a lot of people do see it as a story of a fallen hero. We certainly wouldn't be giving it all this attention if it had been some ordinary asshole killing his ex-wife. Incidentally, the heroes of classical tragedy were no great shakes either. They weren't heroes for their humanitarian deeds--they just happened to be born into a royal family. (Of course, Hard Copy does lack some of the poetry of Aeschylus...) - - - - - 550:755) Nick Scheer 22-JUN-94 1:14 Actually, that photo was taken from video, hence the distorted look of it. Nowadays, so-called "wire" photos are generally indistinguishable from non-wire photos after publication. What I find bizarre and reprehensible is what Time magazine did to their cover photo; compare the covers of the current issues of Time and Newsweek. They both used the handout mugshot of OJ, courtesy of the LAPD. Newsweek ran the photo as-is. Time manipulated the photo to make OJ's skin tone appear darker (their photo credit referred to it as a "photo illustration" to cover their asses). - - - - - 550:756) Miss Outer Boro 1991 22-JUN-94 9:37 Who among us has not minimized or denied some wicky icky deed we've done? - - - - - 550:757) mariposa wild~apple!magic 22-JUN-94 9:45 agree w/Missy as posted before i've come very close to losing it haven't killed anyone yet but done wicked/evil stuff - - - - - 550:758) xue 22-JUN-94 22:06 El posso, good point about the heroes of classical tragedies. Hadn't focused on that yet. I believe this would be fascinating if almost anyone did it. If he did it, and I know I keep saying this, but he LEFT HIS CHILDREN ASLEEP IN THE HOUSE! They could have found her. If he did it, that is almost more uncaring and monstrous than a crime of passion. It is, however, as cold as cold-blooded murder. People are interested because the plot of this "movie" is as intricate and confusing as, for instnace, Presumed Innocent. Scot Turow wishes he'd thought of it, no doubt. - - - - - 550:759) Grace 24-JUN-94 0:12 The "heroes of classical tragedy" is an interesting juxtaposition of words. I think in the discussions of OJ, "hero" means admirable role model. In Greek tragedy, the main characters are protagonists, not heros. The heros heroes were in The Iliad and so forth, no? , Anyway, the protoganists in the tragedies are not individual personalities so much as they are embodiments of essential human characterists...correct me if I'm wrong. And in that sense, OJ is compared to them, as having both "noble" characteristics and fatal flaws - - - - - 550:760) Driftwood 24-JUN-94 0:23 Postmodernity! Get yer postmodernity here! Tonight on channel 4 news, they aired the 911 tapes of a call Nicole made to 911 when OJ came over and was ranting. With the help of sound-tweaking software on a Mac, they were able to pick-up and enhance OJ's yelling in the background... He was ranting about her and how she's been ignoring the children, swearing every other word. Fascinating. - - - - - 550:761) xue 24-JUN-94 0:25 Very nice distinction. - - - - - 550:762) xue 24-JUN-94 0:37 I should have said, Very nice distinction, Grace. I keep forgetting that while I'm posting someone else is too, and there won't necessarily be a logical sequence if I don't say the applicable person's name. - - - - - 550:763) Miss Outer Boro 1991 24-JUN-94 1:14 Yeah I was arguing with someone about that today too and I'm glad to see Grace confirm what I said. Protagonists, not Heroes. I'm so tired of postmodernity. It's ovah. - - - - - 550:764) flying fish 24-JUN-94 1:24 Actually, isn't "tragic Hero" part of the nomenclature? Isn't Coriolanus a tragic hero? While watching television with a friend the other night, she remarked, as yet another video image of OJ rolled by: "God, but he's beautiful" Strange. - - - - - 550:765) Miss Outer Boro 1991 24-JUN-94 1:27 I became interested in OJ when I was in 5th grade, on account of his beauty. - - - - - 550:766) Driftwood 24-JUN-94 9:17 I would say that it's that beauty that helps OJ transcend race... Nicole was a honey, too... - - - - - 550:767) Aurora Borealis 24-JUN-94 17:50 "Was" being the operative word. Beauty and the beast. - - - - - 550:768) Nicolas Kojey-Strauss 26-JUN-94 3:50 So strange how beauty (and its postmodern substitute celebrity) hold us in sway: If he's killed 2 people and then wrote creepy little notes to his supermodel babe of the moment before going for a leisurely drive, who cares that he's beautiful! And what does the fact that his wife was a honey have to do with getting her throat slashed? (Did his first wife survive because she wasn't as cute? But more importantly, who's going to play them in the made for TV based on actual events movie? (Denzel Washington -on a special diet and exercise program- and Sharon Stone?). - - - - - 550:769) Aurora Borealis 26-JUN-94 6:32 That's not so far-fetched as you might believe. I'm sure the book and screenplay are in the works as we type. There's always someone ready, willing and able to cash in on someone else's misfortune. Frankly, I wish all this OJ stuff would go away already. - - - - - 550:770) Miss Outer Boro 1991 26-JUN-94 7:19 Like it or not, the beautiful have special status. - - - - - 550:771) Garbled Uplink 26-JUN-94 10:46 I have special status when I surface in some harbor in my True Form, red eyes burning in my mutant reptile skull like twin lasers. You don't have to be pretty, you just have to be BIG. - - - - - 550:772) Grace 27-JUN-94 0:53 I am Big. - - - - - 550:774) Erin a.k.a. EB 27-JUN-94 14:18 The beautiful Nicole's inevitable slander has begun. Post headline today - OJ caught her giving a blowjob. Hey, they were divorced, remember? But count on it, more to come. I experienced acute anxiety on Friday hearing that the grand jury had been disbanded. Now OJ has hired F. Lee Bailey and godhelpus Alan Dershowitz. At this point, the legal team is probably leaking stories to contribute to the nonstop media coverage, perhaps their ace in the hole while they scurry to find experts to debunk DNA accuracy. - - - - - 550:775) Garbled Uplink 27-JUN-94 14:39 I wonder when we'll get the HIV ploy? - - - - - 550:776) David Green 27-JUN-94 15:03 I wonder when we'll get the made-for-TV movie? - - - - - 550:777) Miss Outer Boro 1991 27-JUN-94 16:24 Well, she's dead, she can't suffer any more anyway. - - - - - 550:778) Jonathan Hayes 27-JUN-94 16:50 No, but her family can. - - - - - 550:779) Miss Outer Boro 1991 27-JUN-94 16:56 Yeah. It's gross. They will be writhing in hell for quite some time. Funny how a guy can be as successful, rich and goodlooking as OJ and so insanely insecure that he freaks out and kills her for basically, wanting to have a life. As if that threatened his masculinity so much he just couldn't bear it--better she should die, than that. - - - - - 550:780) MP 27-JUN-94 17:41 One of my many nightmares involves dying in a way that inspires financial district jokes along the lines of Nicole dressing as a Pez dispenser, etc. I'm worthy of laughter in life; at least make my passing dignified. Dying while saving the last of 40 orphans from a fire would be nice. - - - - - 550:781) Rob Tannenbaum 27-JUN-94 18:38 The POST story disappointed me; they referred clearly to Nicole having oral sex with this guy, but didn't say who was zooming whom. Shouldn't tabs have some way to getting more specific about such important issues? - - - - - 550:782) xue 27-JUN-94 19:10 Garbled, I believe we will have AIDS or cancer or something to deal with. Remember Shapiro dropped oh so deftly the reference to the swollen lymph gland at the press conference while he was explaining,with a straight face, why OJ fled. He's laying groundwork for something health-related. You may have been "doin the garbled" but I believe it will emerge sooner or later. Did I just make up a new dance? "Doin' the Garbled"? - - - - - 550:783) mrs. hippie queen 27-JUN-94 19:45 If it turned out he'd been on Halcion, he'd have a wonderful defense. That caught-in-the-act-BJ musta been what he was ravin' about on the tape, too. The two cheap paperbacks are already in production. Load 'em up! - - - - - 550:784) David Green 27-JUN-94 20:36 Only problem, I think, is that a "heat of passion" type of defense merely reduces the crime from murder to manslaughter... Since they were divorced, it wouldn't even come under the "adultery" category...sounds like this will be hard for the jury to accept.. According to the Model Penal Code (s. 210.3(1)(b)), the crime is "manslaughter" if it is ``committed under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is a reasonable explanation or cause''. ^ |--- the jury would have to believe that a "reasonable" person did what he did... Still, manslaughter is no bargain... - - - - - 550:785) molerat 27-JUN-94 23:23 Jack Kemp said on NPR over the weekend that although he supported the death penalty, he didn't think it applied to "crimes of passion" and that in this case, he didn't think it would have a deterrent(sp?) effect--as it was a "crime of passion". Also, he felt the death penalty should be reserved for heinous crimes. Unlike this one, I guess... Assuming, of course, the man is guilty. - - - - - 550:786) RogDog 28-JUN-94 1:15 An odious lack of principle. Kemp's a weasel. - - - - - 550:787) Rob Tannenbaum 28-JUN-94 10:57 Twinkies. - - - - - 550:788) dalliance @work fucking off 28-JUN-94 14:02 Outer Boro, O.J. didn't freak out because Nicole wanted to have a life. He freaked out because she wanted to have a life without *him.* Similar to, if I can't be your lover I can't be your friend. But worse. - - - - - 550:789) Miss Outer Boro 1991 28-JUN-94 15:02 That's what I meant. Though he was freaking out when they were still together, too. Men are scared of chicks, man. There's no getting around it. - - - - - 550:790) Grace 28-JUN-94 16:02 I saw the new film, Wolf, which I enjoyed, and the friend I saw it with said (bending-over-backwards-to-be-unnecessarily PC, I thought) "the rape scene was sort of upsetting" I said, "what rape scene". Since we are watching a movie where the potential is being rippped to death, wolflike, the socalled rape part seemed like a wholesome diversion. Besides, I said, I knew she was going to be rescued. Then a second friend pointed out, "yeah, it's ok for her to be beaten up and tossed around like a bean bag, but NOT OK for her to be sexually possessed by another." Good point, and perhaps the whole point with the OJ case. Women as exclusive sexual property. I believe *civilizations* use this as reason to make war, and so forth. - - - - - 550:791) Miss Outer Boro 1991 28-JUN-94 17:10 It's cause men's self-esteem is so freakin' fragile and often based on female conquests, sexual "expertise" (since when can you be an "expert" on Passion? It's not a technical thing), etc. So when the babe ditches, the guy's left with his psychological pants down. And then we chicks get punished. Moms are partly to blame for this, I think. That's why I wish we were hearing about OJ's childhood. You don't turn out like he did if everything was A-O-K when you were a kid. - - - - - 550:792) Smick 28-JUN-94 17:24 We have been hearing about it. Unfortunately, it's such a standard-issue ghetto childhood that, as a story, it has no adhesive properties. Hard-working, courageous mom. Absentee scumbag dad. Sickly child turns street tough. Impromptu armchair analysis: major abandonment issue, cum mom fetish, cum repitition of dad's abusive behavior = grisly double homicide. - - - - - 550:793) Kevin 28-JUN-94 17:32 The sad thing is that this story IS standard-issue. - - - - - 550:794) Erin a.k.a. EB 28-JUN-94 19:57 His father would beat OJ, for as long as he stuck around - left when OJ was 7. I'm editing a book by the wife of Robert Maxwell, the publishing tycoon. She says that throughout his life, she could never love him enough; he needed constant reassurances. He fantasized betrayals (not with other men, but with humdrum everyday life things), used them as an excuse to belittle her, ignore her. He too came from an abusive past - the Holocaust and WW2 in his case - and was riven with fears of abandonment. It was impossible to gain his trust. They were separated for the last 10 years of his life. He finally gave it up, however, in suicide. - - - - - 550:795) Miss Outer Boro 1991 28-JUN-94 20:27 This stuff is so sad. Not to mention familiar. Interesting about Maxwell. One of the many jobs I've had in my life is running telepromper for corporate fatcat speeches and videotapings. First time I ever did it, before I even knew what the hell I was doing, was on like the top floor of the WTC, and guess who was giving the speech? Maxwell. He didn't even use the prompter (thank god). He spoke entirely extemporaneously and was the most charismatic, charming speaker I've ever worked with, by far. He was amazing, magnetic, with a mesmerizing manipulative reach. That alone will take you very far. But I think people develop that ability often in an attempt to force people to give them the kind of attention etc. they never got as kids. I think of Marilyn Monroe as being that way. Like I keep saying, the inside of people is often so incredibly different from the outside. In Maxwell's case of course, everything was an illusion. The whole empire was a house of cards. - - - - - 550:798) dalliance 29-JUN-94 1:20 MOB, you hit the nail on the head. Too many men think passion/good sex is about technique. They don't get the full picture because they've been eclipsed in some way, which I guess is my circuitous way of restating the mom/self-esteem issue. Hmm. - - - - - 550:799) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 8:01 I'm so glad those posts of mine led to some new and interesting threads in this discussion. I was afraid I was going to get clobbered. But they do represent some of my deepest thinking on this subject. And now we can think together. I'm only going to address a bit at a time. First, GreenPig. I agree with what you said, including your last point about the fear being overcome (tell us how!). However, not being a behavioralist, I don't believe it is only socialization that makes the male-female thing what it is. It's not just the dynamics of the interactions, it's what causes those dynamics. For, what is a Mom? The fact is that women are the half of the species who have the power to bring forth life. Now don't jump on me and say they couldn't do it without men, because I am fully appreciative of that. Nevertheless, women have always had special magical status because of their closer and more dramatic connection with the mysterious and awesome and frightening forces of life itself. And all of one's intense, complex feelings about existence are tied in with how one feels about women in general and Mom in particular, as Mom is the bitch that brought you here to earth without even asking you if you wanted to live. In our society this mostly manifests itself at an unconscious level, but for example I think pornography is a debased form of goddess-worship. What, do men only worship the cunt because it feels good? I think not. And if they do, they should follow Portnoy and buy some liver to wank off in, because it's far more convenient. - - - - - 550:801) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 8:15 Oh. Well I guess we're saying the same thing then. So, on to the next point--passion vs. technical expertise. To me, this is all about attempting to control anarchic, frightening emotional energy. - - - - - 550:803) Fourway Flytrap 29-JUN-94 11:40 There are already three movies of the week in production about the OJ Simpson Story. One from OJ's point of view. One from His ex's point of view and one from choey buttafucco's point of view. - - - - - 550:804) David Yamada 29-JUN-94 11:42 Just realized that I have no idea what "postmodernity" means. And wondering once more what this will mean to the Sgt. Nordberg role in the Naked Gun series. - - - - - 550:805) Tangerine Telos 29-JUN-94 11:46 What I wanna know is, what comes after Postmodernity. "post-postmodernity" obviously just dosen't cut it from a marketing POV. I'm opening a new item on this. - - - - - 550:806) David Yamada 29-JUN-94 11:52 Hold on. Let's back up one step. A precondition of not knowing what postmodernity means is not knowing what modernity means. My confession of cultural impairment reminds me of a memo my boss sent to me concerning whether we should distribute a certain article to our students. He offhandedly referred to the "-emic and -etic debates in anthropology." I told him that I understood things best when they were conveyed as sports metaphors. - - - - - 550:807) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 12:32 Haha. Now this would be a worthwhile project. What is "modernity" in sports? What is "postmodernity" in sports? I have some ideas but don't know quite enough about sports to be the first to venture on this. Noam Chomsky had some interesting things to say about sports, so I think we can, too. - - - - - 550:808) Rob Tannenbaum 29-JUN-94 15:16 Willie Mays was modernity. Deion Sanders is postmodernity. - - - - - 550:809) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 18:06 Rob, would you please explain this to the class? - - - - - 550:810) Jaime Wolf 29-JUN-94 18:16 If he did, it would be wrong. Jim Thorpe was modernity. Babe Ruth was modernity. Take it from there. - - - - - 550:811) Rob Tannenbaum 29-JUN-94 18:39 Sure. But first, HI DRIFTER! Mays, after a fashion, scrambled the predictability of athletic representation. Singly, he unified the speed/power split prevalent among baseball players, recreating possibilities; he could bat 1st or 4th with equal force. He was also a symbol of alienation, being self-conscious in a manner that manifested as cranky petulance, as opposed to the always-agreeable Babe. Deion, simply, can't imagine himself in a world without cameras. Although given his current self-mocking spots for a sports drink, he may qualify as post-ironic. - - - - - 550:812) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 18:40 Jaime, would you please explain this to the class? Or at least ME, I want to know very very very much. - - - - - 550:813) Rob Tannenbaum 29-JUN-94 18:40 Oh, and Jaime? There's a simple way to settle this. You and me, Downtown Athletic Club, game to 21, make-it-take-it. - - - - - 550:814) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 18:43 I still don't really get Rob's thing, especially the part about Mays. - - - - - 550:815) Rob Tannenbaum 29-JUN-94 18:48 Really? I thought I was bluffing pretty well. Gotta spend more time in the Whitney conference, I guess. - - - - - 550:816) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 18:59 Come ON, I really want to know. 'Cause you're so smart and all... - - - - - 550:818) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 19:02 Shut UP, I'm trying to get the man to TALK. - - - - - 550:819) Rob Tannenbaum 29-JUN-94 19:06 Men Are From 1st Base, Women Are From 3rd Base. - - - - - 550:820) Miss Outer Boro 1991 29-JUN-94 19:09 And these endless zingers are stricly from hunger. - - - - - 550:821) binki 29-JUN-94 21:51 Woop! Woop! I know something about OJ that's so secret I can't tell you... until the book comes out, anyway ... - - - - - 550:822) Tangerine Telos 29-JUN-94 22:26 The 1951 Dodgers/Giants = Modernity The Anaheim Mighty Ducks = Post-modernity Having each play in a football game determined by instantaiously polling all the fans watching = Post-post-modernity. - - - - - 550:823) The Lonesome Drifter 29-JUN-94 23:06 I was talking to someone earlier tonight who works in television production. She told me that a friend of hers who works for TODAY was calling around to all the most eminent experts on DNA, to try to get one of them to come on the show and explain how DNA testing works. She couldn't find anyone who was willing to go on, because they were all already retained by OJ's legal team. Urban legend? Maybe. Oh, and BTW: Shut up, Rob. - - - - - 550:824) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 0:32 Based on the sports postings above, I am stuck somewhere between modernity and post-modernity. But it fits. I am a member of the generation that really isn't a generation, right? (Post-boom, pre-X) I therefore resign myself once again to cutting my own path. - - - - - 550:825) Jaime Wolf 30-JUN-94 7:15 Rob, b4 you step on court w/me know three things: 1st, I was the 6th grade one-on-one champ of the Lime Kiln School. 2nd, I paid for my summers in Jr. High School hustling older kids at 5-3-1 and Horse. 3rd, I'm undergoing shoulder surgery this fall, and won't be able to play you until next April. - - - - - 550:826) Jaime Wolf 30-JUN-94 7:16 Now, to answer MOB in precis: along the lines of what Paul Fussell and others have pretty much said, what we consider "the modern" across a diverse bunch of fields happened 1st by way of a bunch of formal innovations pretty much occurring over the first decade of the century, and 2nd by way of WWI, which crystallized a sensibility that could codify and theorize acc to these innovations in sports therefore, modern era can be marked partly by the late 19th C rise of professional team sports, Baron de Cupertin's neoclassical revival of the Olympics in 1896, the introduction of the jackrabbit ball in baseball, and the 1st appearance of the individual superstar athelete against the bkgrnd of a team sport Jim Thorpe a poignant figure: multisport superstar embodying the tension between neoclassicism and professionalism, stripped of his 1912 Olympic medals in Track and Field for involvement in semipro baseball league, goes on to subsequent football fame, voted Greatest Athlete of the 1st half of 20th C by sportswriters in 1950; also 1st American minority (native American) sports hero. Postwar disillusion, onerous effects of unequal distribution of wealth between team owners and team players, seen in 1919 Black Sox scandal. Babe Ruth, modern superstar who most nearly approaches the conditions of postmodernity as a hypermediated presence (Muhammed Ali a close 2nd) in public consciousness: in advertisements of the time, newsreels, popular legend, the Harold Lloyd movie "Speedy," etc: 20 game-winning pitcher turned homerun king and linchpin of murderer's row. Tannenbaum inaccurately characterizes him as a 1-dimensional swatter, omitting to account for .342 lifetime BA and presence in the top 20 of career Yankee base-stealers. Integration, incl. Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, marks period of late modernism in sports, potently symbolizing players' status as chattel of team owners. Again Tannenbaum errs, in projecting Mays' current alienated persona backward to a time when properly he was seen as affable and media- friendly as Ruth (cf 1st national b'cast of The Tonight Show, 1954, where he is visited in Harlem by Steve and Edie). This dichotomy is not w/o irony or significance, but at the time, it was more properly Robinson who assumed the burden of an aloof alienated black pride. Material and formal conditions do not change significantly between integration and the elimination of the reserve clause. True postmodernism in sports should date from beginning of free agency and the superstar athelete's consequent ability to place primary loyalty to him or herself above any given team, thus allowing for Sanders-type phenomenon depicted by Tannenbaum. - - - - - 550:827) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 7:32 This is so fascinating, I didn't understand that much of it but I'd love to read a long essay on this subject. It'd have to give me a lot of background knowledge of sports, maybe a video'd be better. David Yamada, I wanna know what you think of this--HOW are you between modernity and postmodernity? We must be around the same age, I too am that generation that wasn't a generation. However we're in good company--Prince, Madonna, and Sharon Stone are in our cohort. - - - - - 550:828) Lazee Girl Topper 30-JUN-94 8:58 our post-modern Miss needs a video. hee. "good" company. that was cool. , - - - - - 550:829) Rob Tannenbaum 30-JUN-94 9:24 Since I have a policy against reading long posts, let me address your short one, Jaime. Being one-on-one champ of the Lime Kiln School strikes me as about as significant an athletic achievement as, say, anchoring the 4 x 110 relay team at Handicapped High. However, just to stay on the safe side, let's play before you have that shoulder surgery. - - - - - 550:830) Jaime Wolf 30-JUN-94 9:29 Can't play *before* the surgery-- recurrently dislocating left shoulder. Tennis, nok-hockey, pinochle, yes; basketball, no. - - - - - 550:831) Rob Tannenbaum 30-JUN-94 9:34 Jacks? Pick-up-sticks? Hopscotch? To me, pinochle _is_ a contact sport. - - - - - 550:832) Das Bootomer 30-JUN-94 10:20 Take it to Ms. you guys. - - - - - 550:833) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 10:52 This is so *cute* - - - - - 550:834) Rob Tannenbaum 30-JUN-94 14:14 Did I mention, Mr. Dominated the Playgrounds of Connecticut, that I'm an honors graduate of the Bill Laimbeer Basketball Camp? - - - - - 550:835) Rob Tannenbaum 30-JUN-94 14:21 Returning futilely to the original topic...I was on the treadmill today, looking at a pudgy smiling guy on a StairMaster who looked like Oliver Platt, when I noticed O.J.'s court hearing on the two televisions above me. Now, I couldn't look at them too long, because they're almost directly overhead, and gazing too long might have sent me flying off the back of the treadmill. Every now and then, I'd peak up at the screens. One was CNN; the other was NY1. The picture on NY1 was lighter, somehow. All that wood paneling in the courtroom looked pine, instead of walnut. Then, when the two shots continued to be exact, I realized that NY1 was just using CNN's feed, which didn't explain why the two shots differed in color. CNN was also close-captioned, and the scroll kept screwing up the chyron explanations at the bottom of the screen. NY1 had some 'satellite problems,' and their picture went fuzzy, on the horitzontal axis. When it resumed, I noticed that the NY1 shot was now darker. I looked back over at the guy on the treadmill, and realized it was Oliver Platt, because his hands were turned in towards the handles, just as they were when he did the StairMaster scene in INDECENT PROPOSAL. - - - - - 550:836) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 15:20 Now THIS ^, David Yamada, is an example of postmodernism. Class, can you say why? - - - - - 550:838) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 15:25 (Actually I don't either but assume he's an actor) - - - - - 550:839) coyote is a ramblin' imp 30-JUN-94 15:26 he's an actor. let's see. flatliners, three musketeers.. - - - - - 550:840) Nick Rosato 30-JUN-94 17:19 CNN, NY1, Stairmasters, threadmills- a heady mix for young Rob. I'm sure there's some significance in that scene, but I'll be fucked if I can figure it out... Maybe the fact that I don't give a damn (very pre-millenium of me) has something to do with it... - - - - - 550:841) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 18:12 Empty signifiers without real referents which listlessly make indifferent pointing gestures toward events which themselves are media-constructed and thus blanketed in numbing unreality and lack of meaning save the jaded frisson of voyeurism... the media-worker's narcissistic construction of his body via unconscious mimicry of Industrial Revolution-era factory worker movements which were long ago stripped of their use value--this while mesmerized by global media conglomerate both in its "original" and once-removed presences... omnipresent celebrity... identity affixed via tiny accidental genuine idiosyncrasy captured in canned mass performance... and these foregrounded over the horror of the bloody screaming murder which becomes but a footnote never alluded to... Did I forget anything? - - - - - 550:842) Rob Tannenbaum 30-JUN-94 18:13 It gets better. Thirty minutes ago, I was in Reminiscence, where I found a vintage black-and-white striped jacket at a very reasonable price. Oliver Platt was there, too. I think he's stalking me. - - - - - 550:843) Rock Bottomer 30-JUN-94 18:14 Rob should refuse to give his words away when he can be paid for them. - - - - - 550:846) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 18:48 Vintage what era, Rob? - - - - - 550:847) Rob Tannenbaum 30-JUN-94 18:51 Late Fifties, I guess, but I'm bad with that stuff. American history, and all. - - - - - 550:848) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 18:52 Eddie Cochran, NYC Puerto Rican JD, James Dean, Marlon Brando--? c'mon, give us a referent! - - - - - 550:849) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 19:14 PS I only posted that fancy post up there so y'all'd know I gots my pomo credentials and thus am someone to listen to about The Next Big Thing. It's like how abstract artists used to have to prove, somewhere along the line, that they could draw. - - - - - 550:850) flying fish 30-JUN-94 19:15 It was very shiny. - - - - - 550:851) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 19:15 SHINY!?!? I thought it was... "text"-y. - - - - - 550:852) jneil 30-JUN-94 19:23 I thought pomo was an amalgamation of the Last Big Things. - - - - - 550:853) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 19:38 Wouldja quitcher thinkin'?!?! This hyar's thuh POMO ah-tem. - - - - - 550:854) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 22:09 MOB, I'm certainly not a post-modernist, if there was any doubt yesterday. I'm almost (yikers) 35. Maybe I could call Sharon Stone and talk about our common life perspective. I'm stuck in the middle; I find my politics are closer to those of my 60s gen elders, but my disposition often is closer to my X gen students. - - - - - 550:855) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 22:31 Disposition how? You mean your emotional reactions to things, your sense of humor, your temper, whaaaat? - - - - - 550:856) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 22:38 Hard to pin down. Just in terms of relating generally. Certainly not in cultural tastes. Perhaps in terms of identifying with people who were too late for the gravy train of affordable tuition, affordable homes and apartments, etc. And in terms of feeling a certain resentment towards people who have "made it" yet find it so hard to help others who want to follow them. It's like when I'm around 60s gen National Lawyers Guild types. (The Guild is a lefty bar assn.) Stop complaining about the lack of political correctness in the younger folks as you're perched in your Soho lofts. - - - - - 550:857) jneil 30-JUN-94 22:40 First there was a double murder event, then there was the saturation coverage by the media, then there was a flurry of media 'analyses' of the role the media were playing (tabloidism once removed), and now tonight there's a news report suggesting that a 'media poll' might have uncovered the fact that The Public is starting to get sick of the whole affair. And screws of self-reflecting meta-ism turn a little tighter . . . - - - - - 550:858) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 22:42 Yeah we 35 year olds get neither the material and groovy 60s memories perks of the boomers, nor the clannish glued-together-cohort MTV guilt-free irony worship of the Xers. But we still gots Prince, Madonna and Sharon Stone (to whom I just gave your email address, David). - - - - - 550:859) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 22:44 Wow, jneil. But I'm still glad The Public is now aware that The Public is getting sick of it all. - - - - - 550:860) Road Kill 30-JUN-94 22:47 We don't have our own conference, either. (do we??) - - - - - 550:861) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 22:49 Yeah, where the heck is the 30something Conf? So we too, can wallow in generational isolationist behavior. And MOB, thanks for the Sharon Stone entree. (Uh, is that the right word?) And mention to her that I wouldn't be chasing her for the money. - - - - - 550:862) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 22:53 Well, she is a DISH... (I can allow myself one of those ONCE A YEAR) I wonder if anybody could define modernism and postmodernism in the LAW. You, David, being a lawyer and all...? - - - - - 550:863) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 22:55 I'll leave that question to the more scholarly legal types here. I'm sure that someone has written a law review article on post-modernity and all that, but it won't be crossing my desk soon. - - - - - 550:864) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 22:59 Awwww.... YER no fun... - - - - - 550:865) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 23:03 No, if you've read some of those articles, you would know that they are the anti-fun. - - - - - 550:866) Nick Rosato 30-JUN-94 23:22 ..............................................this item is an oxymoron... I was just using my television to watch a piece of Ken Burns "Civil War" I am an anachronism... Oh, I guess I'm 60s gen... can't quite remember... something I smoked... - - - - - 550:867) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 23:24 Just tell us how old you are and get it over with. - - - - - 550:868) David Yamada 30-JUN-94 23:27 Nick, it looks like something you're smok*ing*. - - - - - 550:869) Smick 30-JUN-94 23:35 As a fellow mid-30ser, lemme just say that Sharon Stone does not meow for our entire generation. Thank you. - - - - - 550:870) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-JUN-94 23:40 Who ARE our spokespeople? Or maybe we don't need 'em. - - - - - 550:872) dalliance 01-JUL-94 1:55 And Michael Jackson and Michele Pffeifer too (just to add to the list) - - - - - 550:874) slacker 01-JUL-94 4:50 just gotta sneak this in - G.P. - S. Sarandon is ), but the entertainment biz, too. I know, I know, it's been there (roy Black/ Wm. Kennedy smith) before, but now it's so visceral. I think that's ironic. It goes back, I think, to when we let them advertise. Q factor, recognition.... defense attorney vs. prosecutor= cops & robbers= cowboys & indians= knights & knaves.. One day, prominent defendants will undoubtedly be represented by actors, who will give higher-quality performances for Court TV. We elected an actor president once... - - - - - 550:900) David Yamada 01-JUL-94 23:39 Actually Nick, I'm kinda tired of seeing these lawyers parade around too. - - - - - 550:902) Nick Rosato 01-JUL-94 23:50 What's fascinating me is that F.Lee Bailey is Frank Sinatra... - - - - - 550:904) Miss Outer Boro 1991 02-JUL-94 8:04 Interesting GreenPig... and of course private detectives have been described as one contemporary version of priests. Our priests now are doctors, lawyers, and celebrities. No wonder we're all in such sorry shape. Yuk. - - - - - 550:906) Miss Outer Boro 1991 02-JUL-94 8:49 Oops, forgot them. Well they are priests for the Jews at least. Since Freud is God. - - - - - 550:907) Tangerine Telos 02-JUL-94 10:42 Bravo, GP, for the priest/therapist connection. Therapists also play the role that teachers (in the Socratic sense) once did. But I better stop before I get ported to Psych.... - - - - - 550:908) Hungry Ghost 02-JUL-94 11:40 Will OJ change his name to a muslim name while in jail? - - - - - 550:909) Nick Rosato 02-JUL-94 12:35 muslims are way cool... - - - - - 550:910) Tangerine Telos 02-JUL-94 13:23 No, no, no--Buddhists are way cool. Muslims aren't slated to be way cool till Fall '95. - - - - - 550:912) RogDog 02-JUL-94 18:19 i love that riddle... - - - - - 550:913) Erin a.k.a. EB 02-JUL-94 19:59 Smick, what I meant was that the usual (in the pomo inferno) semiotic appeal of Dick VD and MTM was suspended in the interest of their new roles as markers of time. Which, uh, actually might be a course idea for Marshall Blonsky, come to think of it. MOB, interesting observation, paralleling minutiae with Fate. It's quite existential, if you pardon the expression, to assign weight to every detail of your life, except in that ism it has to be action-oriented. Here, on trial, the sound of a dog barking, and whether you remember it, and can describe every detail of your life at the moment you heard it in a convincing manner, could convince others to sentence a man to death. Yeah, details influence Fate, fer sure. - - - - - 550:915) Miss Outer Boro 1991 03-JUL-94 8:01 Ah! GreenPig, I have no choice but to repeat my ardent declaration of love. I'll do it silently this time. My friend Tim said a funny thing yesterday: "Freud is Dead" he said. - - - - - 550:916) Miss Outer Boro 1991 03-JUL-94 8:05 Oh, and a propos what you said, GreenPig-- Why'dya think I do the I Ching and call up this great tarot readerx in Naples Florida? Also, mindfulness meditation--these things help one read the tea leaves as they are being scattered. - - - - - 550:919) Raflifu in Excelsis Deo 03-JUL-94 8:18 Lets make sure the MTA designates some seats for the astrologically challenged. - - - - - 550:920) Miss Outer Boro 1991 03-JUL-94 8:38 What's "Tantalusian"? GreenPig I recommend that you give up caffeine. - - - - - 550:922) Rock Bottomer 03-JUL-94 9:28 You can still learn to meditate if you want to. Don't fight your mind, just watch it. - - - - - 550:923) Pro Forma 03-JUL-94 10:08 leaping monkeys are fun to watch...they eventually settle down...then you can notice what they're sitting on...that's meditation... You worry too much... - - - - - 550:924) Road Kill 03-JUL-94 10:09 I like the way you said that. - - - - - 550:925) Pro Forma 03-JUL-94 10:15 Thank you. I like your handle... - - - - - 550:926) Road Kill 03-JUL-94 10:22 thank *you*! - - - - - 550:927) Tangerine Telos 03-JUL-94 11:02 GP, I can relate. I really admire the whole Buddhist mindfulnes thing, (it led me to take Thurman's Open Center coure last winter) but I can't escape the fact that in temperment and philospohy I am simply the anti-Buddhist. "Hey, it's OK, there's always the *next* lifetime!" Sorry--I'll take my chances in this one. - - - - - 550:929) Rob Tannenbaum 03-JUL-94 15:43 I don't think she's a Buddhist, but Ellen Willis is blessedly reasonableon the subject of O.J. in her media column this week in the VOICE. Of course, by addressing the 'spate of moralizing by journalists about journalists,' she only adds another rubber band to this bouncing po-mo avalanche of autocritique and contracontroversy. Mostly, she's sensible on the race issue, and consoles those of us freakishly interested in celebrity by explaining that tabloid scandals 'fascinate because they dig at conflicts central to our present cultural dilemmas.' So you see, we in this item are not gossips or yentas or desensitized ultra-pomo shitbags, we're cultural dilemmists. - - - - - 550:930) Smick 03-JUL-94 15:46 Thanks. I feel much better now. - - - - - 550:931) Miss Outer Boro 1991 03-JUL-94 16:19 Ha. Yeah I think of tabloid version as our version of Greek Drama. With the Marilyn/Kennedy Bros. mystery our central one. I totally don't care about other lives, I just want to be fully conscious in this one. I've got a long way to go, though. What Bottomer and Pro Forma said about the monkey thoughts. - - - - - 550:932) Cloud in Levis 03-JUL-94 17:04 I've come back to this item after letting it go for a while, and want to connect a few threads. One of my favorite laws of physics is the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that the entropy of the world is increasing, and accordingly, the energy of the world is decreasing. Without outer interference, systems tend to randomness. Energy is required to put them in order. Pro Forma's observation that the monkeys always settle down is an example of the law at work. There are always difficulties in applying the laws of physics to social constructs. People can change their interactions, unlike atoms and molecules. But entropy as a concept in society has a disquieting connotation. Randomness and disorder, if we call them serendipity, make life interesting. If we use the terms literally, they make life chaotic. Is the concept of Society counter to the 2nd Law? Society, by definition, is organization. Does the 2nd Law mean that `Society' is ultimately impossible? - - - - - 550:934) Smick 03-JUL-94 19:37 Actually, we're entropic, aren't we? Like the 2nd Law says, we lose energy, then kick the bucket. - - - - - 550:935) Rock Bottomer 03-JUL-94 19:55 Life's a bitch and then you lose energy. - - - - - 550:936) Cloud in Levis 03-JUL-94 20:02 GP, your statement about the 2nd Law is right, and ALL systems have a tendency to gain entropy, unless energy is added. Now there's an apt social analogy. Without adding energy from physical and psychic sources, people, both individually and collectively, would die, and the molecules of which they are composed would dissociate into simpler forms. And that happens eventually, anyway. I guess I've argued myself into the position of saying that it is necessary to expend energy to make Society work. So the passive observation and discussion of events contributes to the entropy of the system. - - - - - 550:937) Gabriel 03-JUL-94 20:55 Um, passing on the use of physical theories as cultural metaphors, which I've said elsewhere makes me uncomfortable, I just wanted to point out that energy doesn't decrease as a result of entropy. Energy is converted to heat, which is "unusable energy" but still energy, and the system tends to get hotter. - - - - - 550:938) Miss Outer Boro 1991 03-JUL-94 21:04 Boom! - - - - - 550:939) Road Kill 03-JUL-94 22:14 Entropy in a closed system merely distributes energy more evenly. Hot things cool and cold things warm. The amount of energy present in this closed system neither increases nor decreases. - - - - - 550:940) Nicolas Kojey-Strauss (ElectroNick) 03-JUL-94 22:52 I'm also not a physicist (but I play one on TV), and this whole debate on entropy is starting to confuse me. I just think that this obsessive scrutiny of the tiniest details (eg. was the blood on the Akita's paw wet or dry, which episode of Mary Tyler Moore was playing when the neighbor heard suspicious noises, etc) is just a desperate attempt by the media to create a sense of "story", of causality, of meaning in order to get people to keep paying attention (so that the advertisers can feel that they are not wasting their time placing ads on news/tabloid programs). I love the idea above that people will hire actors to represent them on court TV. In a way, isn't that already happening? OJ has an army of P/R people "managing the news". And who knows how many people wouln't want to be represented in court by Matlock or Perry Mason? - - - - - 550:941) jneil 04-JUL-94 1:30 Roadkill has it right. When energy is distributed equally everywhere and nothing is hotter or colder than anything else, that is the end result of entropy. - - - - - 550:942) Gabriel 04-JUL-94 1:32 True, but there isn't any no closed entropic system in way similiar to there being no unobserved quantum system, and the formulas which describe the second law of thermodynamics are neither very useful nor particularly predictive or observable in any black box case. - - - - - 550:943) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 7:20 Hmmm... Well I was reading the POST on Saturday where they talked about how OJ almost broke down in tears when they were passing around the gory photos of his dead ex. I was fascinated by the mystery of WHY, exactly why, he was crying. For himself? For her? Or was he just then finally starting to wake up from the nightmare, only to find out it was real and there was no escape? - - - - - 550:944) Cloud in Levis 04-JUL-94 10:24 Or was he acting? - - - - - 550:945) Smick 04-JUL-94 11:07 It wasn't quite as poignant as his performance in The Towering Inferno, but almost. Guy can EMOTE. - - - - - 550:946) dalliance 04-JUL-94 11:42 Many people are shocked by the physical evidence of their tantrums after they have calmed down and returned to earth... - - - - - 550:947) xue 04-JUL-94 12:04 It would be interesting to examine the economy in terms of entropy, even if it's only a metaphor. When our average income is balanced with those in Tibet, will there be chaos or order? I suppose their will be some chaos and some order whether or not that happens. - - - - - 550:948) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 12:50 What dalliance said. People who have emotional problems have all kinds of different ways of freaking out from unacknowledged rage. They "snap." Some freeze, some make a sudden geographical escape, some erupt with hot volcanic lava, some strike out with words or blows, some "perform" and become very very funny, some break things, some drive recklessly, some get drunk or do drugs or go on eating binges or sex binges or spending sprees, some find vulnerable people to abuse, some find innocent bystanders to whom they can whine and tell their exaggerated side of the story and get cheap sympathy... ...some maliciously mock others' misfortune, which particularly easy to do if they're celebs and on TV with their shame and misery a tableau for all...this is the way in which these dramas become "cathartic" for the public. - - - - - 550:949) Smick 04-JUL-94 12:54 Most likely, the guy murdered his wife and her friend. Exactly whose misfortune is it? - - - - - 550:950) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 12:56 Like I said before, the two dead ones are not suffering any more. As Jaze pointed out, their families most certainly are. But in answer to your question, I'd say all of theirs. I mean do you think he's HAPPY to have done what he did and now to have to face the probable consequences? - - - - - 550:951) Smick 04-JUL-94 12:59 No, but I have a hard time mustering much sympathy for him. Particularly since it seems as if this wasn't an isolated event. He'd been beating her up for a while. And if he wasn't a celebrity, and if it wasn't on TV, 99.9% of the American public would want him hanged. As it is, he's become the victim here, which is preposterous. - - - - - 550:952) MRPetit - aka Marianne 04-JUL-94 13:12 Interesting, Smick. And, its true... if he weren't on tv 99% of the American population would want him dead. But, I tend to agree with MOB. I would imagine they're keeping him heavily sedated so he can't possibly gain a moment of lucidity and really look at what [if he's guilty] in fact he's done. - - - - - 550:953) Smick 04-JUL-94 13:17 Was he sedated after all those times he beat her up, then went back for more? - - - - - 550:954) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:22 I'm not saying OJ is THE victim, I think they're ALL victims. People who are wifebeaters are generally compulsives who have big emotional problems. I think it's really coldhearted to just dismiss them like that. It's such a tiny tiny percentage of People Who Do Bad Things who are actually what I'd think of as evil, in that they know exactly what they're doing and get pleasure out of their victims' suffering. - - - - - 550:955) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:22 Oh, and what MRP said about sedation. - - - - - 550:956) Mr. Make Believe 04-JUL-94 13:24 So, uh, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini? All victims? , - - - - - 550:957) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:25 It's kind of a long stretch to say OJ is the same as they, isn't it? - - - - - 550:958) Smick 04-JUL-94 13:32 He left his first wife when she was pregnant. He spent ten years beating the shit out of his second wife, then, when she finally managed to break free of her, he murdered her, with pre-meditation. He was rich, successful, handsome, every other advantage a person could have. My heart usually bleeds more than most people's, but it doesn't bleed for him. I know a lot of people who had childhoods, etc., that were as fucked up as his. At some point, personal responsibility has to come into play. In my opinion, he crossed the line, big time. - - - - - 550:959) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:36 OK. You win. You've convinced me. An Echo first!!!!! (not just with me, but anyone) - - - - - 550:960) MRPetit - aka Marianne 04-JUL-94 13:38 Yeah, Me too. Wow Smick! You're good! - - - - - 550:961) Smick 04-JUL-94 13:40 My God, is this really happening? Do I get a prize or something? You guys are The Best! - - - - - 550:962) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:41 Your prize is Inflated Self-Esteem for one 24-hour period. - - - - - 550:963) Raflifu in Excelsis Deo 04-JUL-94 13:47 I'm not really up for a big time explanation here. People have these scars caused from somewhere, childhood usually, they cover them up the best way they can, OJ had some good fortune and resources. He probably has a conscience, but out of alignment emotional state is going to overide a conscience. The lies, the irrational behaviour, the masquerading goes on and on, it's part of the destructive process. Then one day it gets to where he probably wanted it to get along time ago, being caught and accused. So here's the point I won't explain now, while I believe in having mercy for a murderer, not necessarily sympathy but acknowledgement of how they became monsters from babies, I still believe that in many cases the death penalty is the only real cure for a infection whose roots and branches (in the psyche) are already fully grown. - - - - - 550:964) xue 04-JUL-94 13:50 Except....that he didn't spend ten years beating the shit out of his wife. He beat her, yes, and that's not acceptable. But he did it a handful of times. Maybe this won't make a difference to anyone, but to me (and I have been hit) it makes a big difference that when the police came after her 911 call, there was still his *hand* print on her neck. He didn't punch her out; he slapped her. More than he should have done, but not as evil as the media would have us believe. - - - - - 550:965) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:52 Now actually, Raflifu has articulated my real and deepest feelings on the subject, which I have been too mentally disorganized to do. It was Jaze, way up there, who first pointed out that that first big front page photo in the tabloids showed clearly OJ's recognition that the denial was over. I have seen people (well, one, but it was someone very close to me) in exactly that position - a drug addict who was being confronted by everyone all at once, as part of a scheme to throw him into treatment, and it was as Raflifu described: he looked, actually, relieved. But for OJ, there is no escape now, no mercy, no nothing, and for that I do have compassion. He didn't ask to turn out the way he did. - - - - - 550:967) xue 04-JUL-94 13:53 Let's remember some of the scenes she threw herself -- screeching her car to a halt on Rodeo Drive as he is going into a business lunch with an associate. Throwing a fit and screaming at him there. giving head in her living room while her children slept upstairs and could have come down taunting OJ with the picture of the guy she gave head to He still shouldn't have hit her, but they had bizarre ties to each other at a level most of us will never understand. And yes, he did cross the line big time. And he ought to be punished. but everything is in shades of gray, not black and white. - - - - - 550:968) David Green 04-JUL-94 13:55 Okay...now the assignment is to write a response in 10 lines or less, convincing us of OJ's innocence. Include references to the Sports-Media conspiracy and be sure to mention the key phrase "he's being framed" !! - - - - - 550:969) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 13:56 People get into revenge cycles like this all the time when they don't know how to resolve their problems with each other. And often it turns into Revenge Tragedy. - - - - - 550:970) Smick 04-JUL-94 13:57 I agree. I still can't find much compassion. Compassion, to me, is a finite resource. I'd rather direct it elsewhere. - - - - - 550:971) Smick 04-JUL-94 13:58 I was agreeing with xue, though I don't disagree with MOB. - - - - - 550:972) Road Kill 04-JUL-94 13:59 You're doing very well today, Smick! I have very little to say on this subject right now except that "I agree with Smick." Did someone suggest OJ was being sedated? What makes you think that? - - - - - 550:973) xue 04-JUL-94 13:59 what MOB said ....about the revenge cycle - - - - - 550:975) xue 04-JUL-94 14:03 Here's something startling. the la times reports today that there were 67,000 spousal abuse calls on 911 last year in l.a. county. Something is profoundly wrong here, not just a few aberrations from the norm who ought to be strung up. We have to conclude that the instince is ....the INSTINCT is to hit, and the trouble is restraining oneself. Women hit, too, but with less effect. How do we approach this differently? Say, Here's your Let Off Steam store. Come in and hit a punching bag before you go home. Required by law. - - - - - 550:976) Gabriel 04-JUL-94 14:17 I don't have much compassion for Simpson either. Also, I don;t think the federal penal system of revenge is the best way of dealing with this type of situation. However, I don't see any particular need to revise it for the sake of Simpson. - - - - - 550:977) xue 04-JUL-94 19:26 Under the only in L.A. category, today there was an article in the LATimes talking about the trading cards of OJ, Nicole, Goldman, the attorneys. They say they'll get more money if he's guilty. Sick, but hey, this i America. They get to do it; I get to say they're sick. - - - - - 550:978) viadyer 04-JUL-94 23:00 I'm going to get shot for saying this, but until people leave relationships when they are hit, they are going to get hit for life. Heard on the subway (3 teenagers talking amongst themselves): OJ is going to get off cause the police did not have a warrant when they first searched his house. - - - - - 550:979) Miss Outer Boro 1991 04-JUL-94 23:31 People who stay in relationships even though they're being hit don't know they deserve better. Nothing about this is easy or simple. - - - - - 550:980) Rock Bottomer 04-JUL-94 23:37 Or they love the person who is hitting them and think that that means they have to put up with it. - - - - - 550:981) Miss Outer Boro 1991 05-JUL-94 0:04 Or they fantasize the person is about to change thanks to a sudden realization of their, the hittees', goodness. - - - - - 550:982) Gabriel 05-JUL-94 1:20 And anyhow, she did leave. - - - - - 550:984) Miss Outer Boro 1991 05-JUL-94 7:17 Seems like she left but their sick "relationship" continued in important ways. - - - - - 550:986) Miss Outer Boro 1991 05-JUL-94 7:33 But according to what some people posted above, she was doing pretty icky vindictive things to him, too. Specifically to hurt and enrage him, and I suppose to give herself the illusion that she was finally independent of him. - - - - - 550:987) Raflifu in Excelsis Deo 05-JUL-94 8:28 Something I heard last week on a TV program - it is after the battered woman leaves, that murder and more violent acts occurs. Also there seem to be quite a few stories of stalking occuring after just a few casual dates. Also in a NY Post article last week, surprisingly enough, (and who can believe everything you read), abused men are not a low statistic as one would guess. The difference is that men tend to suffer less physical damage. - - - - - 550:988) viadyer 05-JUL-94 8:39 I guess my point is that the cure rate for most kinds of violent crime is very low. The people who have accepted violence more than once are probably for the most part incapable of getting rid of violence within the context of their current intimate relationship. Having been accused of being dangerous and a stalker more than once, which is something I've never done, I wonder what y'all mean when you say someone is a stalker. - - - - - 550:989) Raflifu in Excelsis Deo 05-JUL-94 8:48 SInce I used the word guess I can try to define. When someone becomes obssesed with another and then follows, calls, makes threats, say if you can't be mine you can't be anyone else's either. The methods are many, but the basic concept is stalkers just do not relent or believe when it's over, it's over. Though for some stalkings it never really began, except in the obssesed one's mind. - - - - - 550:990) viadyer 05-JUL-94 9:23 That sounds more like harassment. - - - - - 550:991) Miss Outer Boro 1991 05-JUL-94 11:05 A friend of mine had a stalker. He wasn't exactly violent, he was more of a psychological terrorist. He befriended all her friends and cunningly figured out where they had doubts about her. These he worked until he'd turned practically all of them against her. This was only ONE of the things he did. And all because she wouldn't fuck him, basically. - - - - - 550:992) Tom Lipscomb 05-JUL-94 13:09 Some people actually prefer mindfucking, as she learned. - - - - - 550:993) Raflifu in Excelsis Deo 05-JUL-94 13:34 ** Raflifu Update **: Just talked briefly about OJ with a therapist. His comment was OJ is a control freak. Control freaks rarely enter or seek therapy. Even if they do, they take control of their therapy. - - - - - 550:994) Miss Outer Boro 1991 05-JUL-94 15:26 That's so interesting, Raflifu. I guess I've known a few of those... They're terrified of EVERYTHING, control freaks are. Everything is a threat to them. - - - - - 550:995) camel 06-JUL-94 22:14 My mother just returned from Cyprus where she had spent the last week attending a conference. She griped a little about having been cut off from access to CNN, when I mentioned that she at least go to miss all of the OJ coverage she responded that the evidence hearings were being covered live. This is out of control worldwide. - - - - - 550:996) Miss Outer Boro 1991 06-JUL-94 22:21 It's kind of a weird world we live in. - - - - - 550:997) aeonflux 06-JUL-94 22:30 I love, really *love*, that tonight on some news show they had a survey about how people were sick of the OJ coverage. 87% of those surveryed said that they were sick of the coverage. After that report, they went back AGAIN to covering OJ some more. Don't they get it? - - - - - 550:999) Road Kill 07-JUL-94 0:27 Absolutely right - - - - - 550:1000) Twang 07-JUL-94 2:04 Indeed -- I read the the hearings on Friday were watched by 1 in 4 households, and that didn't even include people who watched in bars and restaurants, since it was during the day. - - - - - 550:1001) Tangerine Telos 07-JUL-94 2:09 Well, so much for the hyper-fractionalized information marketplace. To me, the real question is What will we do to top this? You can never lose money betting on the short attentionspan of Americans. Already the Mendezes are fading into the depths of history...... - - - - - 550:1002) pilgrim 07-JUL-94 12:51 I'm sick of it AND I'm not watching it...or reading about it...or talking about it... - - - - - 550:1003) GeeDavey 07-JUL-94 13:10 I concur with pilgrim. The guy was a Buffalo Bill. That says it all. Former or otherwise, any member of the four-time defending champion Superbowl loozers, the buffalo bills, is doomed. Let it rest already. - - - - - 550:1004) Miss Outer Boro 1991 07-JUL-94 16:14 I've become re-fascinated. Today I worked at two different places and was about the only woman in both. I asked all the guys, OJ: Evil or Sick? Most said sick but the one that said evil sorta convinced me, but not all the way. - - - - - 550:1005) jneil 07-JUL-94 17:28 Ah, but pilgrim, you *are* talking about it! - - - - - 550:1007) Peter Driftwood 07-JUL-94 20:03 What J sed. I'm happy I'm not the only person noting the irony in the statement: "I hate talking about what I'm currently talking about right now to you." I find the whole thing fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. - - - - - 550:1008) Miss Outer Boro 1991 07-JUL-94 21:24 Why oh why why why o why o Y O Y ? - - - - - 550:1009) MRPetit - aka Marianne 07-JUL-94 21:24 I'm sick of it. I switch the channel when its on. I've stopped reading it. I just can't take it anymore. - - - - - 550:1010) doktor dorje 07-JUL-94 21:47 I think that was unfair to the Bills. They've been #2 for four years. HI DRIFTER! - - - - - 550:1011) pilgrim 07-JUL-94 22:23 jneil...yeah...I thought about that *after* I wrote it...but that was the last time! - - - - - 550:1012) dalliance 08-JUL-94 3:07 Oh that's it! I've had it! They interrupted Oprah (a good show about angels) to show....what?....more OJ! #$%@*&!!! - - - - - 550:1013) doktor dorje 08-JUL-94 14:26 Even trade. - - - - - 550:1014) ElectroNick 08-JUL-94 14:31 Imagine the nerve! Interrupting Oprah? This is war! I read that the ratings on the OJ coverage are still higher than the soap operas that are being preempted. As long as that is going on, network execs will have an incentive to keep at it. Let's all turn to another channel, and OJ will disappear as soon as the ratings fall.... - - - - - 550:1015) Nick Rosato 08-JUL-94 14:47 Home Shopping Network? - - - - - 550:1016) Mad Dog 08-JUL-94 21:26 ...And now we have an authentic O.J. Simpson football jersey for sale - - - - - 550:1017) xue 09-JUL-94 1:01 And endless autographed pictures hanging in sports fans' offices.... And pretty soon the house to pay for the defense.... - - - - - 550:1019) Margaret 09-JUL-94 19:32 Okay, I admit it, I was glued to the Court TV. Why? It's more fascinating than fiction. Sheer voyeurism. I'm still not convinced that OJ did it. What makes me think that he probably did is not the evidence from the hearing, but the "suicide" note that was read while he was "at large." It was so self-centered and self-pitying. If he is not guilty, I would have expected something to the effect of "You're after me, but meanwhile there's a maniac on the loose who killed Nicole and I'm mad as hell about it so go find this maniac." There are some good pieces in the New Yorker about the case, one about how the press is falling all over itself trying to inject the story with social relevance when it's basically a classic tabloid item, and one about "checkbook journalism" that I haven't finished reading. - - - - - 550:1020) Miss Outer Boro 1991 10-JUL-94 0:12 What's checkbook journalism? I forgot. - - - - - 550:1021) Smick 10-JUL-94 0:20 You tell your story and Hard Copy hands you a check. - - - - - 550:1022) Miss Outer Boro 1991 10-JUL-94 0:34 Oh, thanks. - - - - - 550:1023) Jonathan Hayes 10-JUL-94 0:36 I was walking through Times Square this evening. You will all be thrilled and smug to hear that He Said/She Said Comics have already released their OJ SIMPSON'S STORY/NICOLE BROWN SIMPSON'S STORY his'n'hers accounts. - - - - - 550:1024) Fabio Trout 10-JUL-94 12:10 Considering that she was slashed to death, the entertainment possiblities must be endless. I guess the next He said/she said will be Katie Beers vs. her molesters. Yeech. - - - - - 550:1025) so wh@ 11-JUL-94 10:17 I just want to know, what ELSE is happening in the world besides *the case against OJ*? all electronic so-called journalism has become a tabloid-y smarm-fest. - - - - - 550:1026) Jonathan Hayes 11-JUL-94 10:19 Katie. - - - - - 550:1027) DataBass 11-JUL-94 11:13 Bill Clinton had sorbet in Milan...Germany's out of the world cup... people are fighting over water in Yemen... - - - - - 550:1028) Xue 11-JUL-94 18:56 Crazy guy will have power over North Korea, whatever its nuclear capcity. - - - - - 550:1029) Xue 11-JUL-94 18:58 Today was the first day since Nicole Simpson/Ronald Goldman murder that the L.A. Times hasn't had a story on its front page, usually, multiple stories. It's a relief, I'm surprised to discover, having been one of the ones who followed it closely. - - - - - 550:1030) Stony 11-JUL-94 22:59 The San Jose Mercury News yesterday reprinted an article that OJ's defense attourney wrote for a magazine for defense lawyers, back in February. It was called "Tricks of the Trade: How to use the Media to Your Advantage". It was fascinating. This guy is really fucking media-savvy, and a hell of a lawyer. Among the things he said: "Pick and choose the questions you want to answer. You do not have to be concerned with whether the answer precisely addresses the question, since only the answer will be aired" [on TV] "Come up with phrases that you believe in and are comfortable saying. Repeat them continuously, and they will be repeated by the media. After a while, the repetition almost becomes a fact. That is your goal." - - - - - 550:1031) possum 12-JUL-94 0:34 Of course... that makes total sense, Stony. That's why PR guys on shows like 60 Minutes NEVER answer the question--they figure the question will be edited out, so they can answer their own question. I'd always figured they thought we were all such blithering idiots we wouldn't notice they weren't answering the question, but, of course, they're just looking to generate a stand alone sound bite. - - - - - 550:1032) Jonathan Hayes 12-JUL-94 0:38 Which is all the media is looking for to feed *us*. - - - - - 550:1033) The Last Temptation of king B 12-JUL-94 0:46 So, I guess we are back to various practical jokes at the media's expense. - - - - - 550:1034) Aurora Borealis 12-JUL-94 12:14 I dunno, brilliant lawyer or not, Shapiro didn't impress me long enough to get my eyes and ears off Marcia Clark. She was truly brilliant. - - - - - 550:1035) Xue 12-JUL-94 14:24 Prosecution did a good job of creating a Marcia-against-the-world image. She held it up well. I bought every bit of it. - - - - - 550:1036) jae or vantage? 29-JUL-94 22:18 Well, the defense has found a burgler who says he saw 2 white guys leaving the brown estate. Might clear oj. Funny, tho. As i watched this on tv, and his defense lawyer announced this to the court, OJ seemed to jerk his head up in surprise. What is just me? - - - - - 550:1037) Xue -- 'Maelstrom in the Sky' 30-JUL-94 22:46 Still LOTS to be explained. On both sides. - - - - - 550:1038) Rob Tannenbaum 24-AUG-94 13:04 I want to put this here: SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 AUG 23 (NB) -- Pizza Hut, a division of PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) and Santa Cruz Operation (NASDAQ: SCOC) have announced the debut of PizzaNet, a World Wide Web (WWW) site available to Internet users with Mosaic. Using the service, users can order a pizza over the Internet and get it delivered to their door a short time later. Starting August 22, "Net surfers" in Santa Cruz, California may click through the Pizza Hut menu and order a long distance pizza from Santa Cruz to Wichita, Kansas, and back again to Santa Cruz without ever leaving the Net. That is the modem route for the data. As a user orders the pizza, data transmits via modem to Pizza Hut's server, which in turn relays the data to the computer of the Pizza Hut outlet nearest the customer. No money changes hands until the delivery person knocks at the door. Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) developed the software for PizzaNet through its Professional Services organization. The 486-based network runs SCO Open Server and SCO Global Access software. Since more than 1,000 Pizza Hut restaurants are already using home delivery applications on the SCO Open Server system, the implementation of PizzaNet was relatively simple, claims the firm. Speaking to Newsbytes, Rob Doughty, vice president of public relations for Pizza Hut, said, "At first thought, one might wonder why anyone would order a pizza online when he or she could just pick-up the phone and call a local Pizza Hut restaurant. We designed this for the person who is living on the Net, so that it is unnecessary to sign-off and terminate the connection just to order a pizza. We want to offer users the opportunity to order while they working or browsing without having to disrupt the work they are doing." Doughty continued, "Pizza Hut has always been very committed to applying computer technology to our business throughout many levels of the company and we are always looking for ways to get our products out to the public in new and exciting ways." According to the company, Santa Cruz was chosen because it has a very active Internet community. Pizza Hut also points out the demographics of the Internet mirrors the same young people who are representative of the demographics of people ordering pizza. This pilot program will provide data for Pizza Hut to determine the feasibility of expanding the program. Just pizza? No, beverages are also available and first time users will have to allow for a return call from the local Pizza Hut to verify orders. - - - - - 550:1039) Jonathan Hayes 24-AUG-94 14:04 I love this shit. I was in Santa Cruz last week, and I tell you that if I LIVED there, I would be living on the Internet too. - - - - - 550:1040) Skyvue 24-AUG-94 14:55 So? Ron? What's the URL? - - - - - 550:1041) Trash 24-AUG-94 16:44 CNN ran a clip on this today. - - - - - 550:1042) spooner 24-AUG-94 16:49 Okay, I want to know when HIGH TIMES is going to get their WWW for home delivery of 'the goods'...... - - - - - 550:1043) Rob Tannenbaum 24-AUG-94 16:57 I'm waiting for DopeNet. - - - - - 550:1044) Rob Tannenbaum 24-AUG-94 16:57 SpoogeNet? - - - - - 550:1045) Tank Grrrl Lite 24-AUG-94 20:36 gismworld.com? - - - - - 550:1046) Ruby T 25-AUG-94 0:09 Obvious response: wouldn't healthcare for their employees be a better way to spend their energy and money? And if you have to get a callback from your local pizhut, you have to get offline anyway so doesn't that defeat the purpose? oh, you have two phone lines? Also did anybody read SNOWCRASH a really great cyberpunk type book, in which the hero starts out as a pizza deliverer and is also a net-head. - - - - - 550:1047) Jonathan Hayes 25-AUG-94 0:24 Ruby, I don't think they're doing it for their employees. They're doing ti for pizza-selling purposes. - - - - - 550:1048) possum 25-AUG-94 0:38 Actually, I think they're doing it because some idiot in Pizza Hut management has read too many articles about the information superhighway. I can't think of any reason why ordering a pizza through a WWW server is more efficient than just picking up the phone. - - - - - 550:1049) jneil 25-AUG-94 0:46 If you have the phone tied up in the the middle of some internet surfing and to call for pizza would mean logging off, making a phone call, and then logging back in and finding you way back to where you were, then doing it online is much more efficient. - - - - - 550:1050) Skyvue 25-AUG-94 0:48 Anyone have the PizzaHut URL? - - - - - 550:1051) Pooh the Perpetually Itinerant 25-AUG-94 1:01 The really funny part of this is that here at Pepsico, Inc. international hq, most of the mid-level management types are so ignorant about the Internet and computers in general that when I used a modem on a non-networked PC to dial into ECHO, one of them freaked for fear that hackers would be able to crawl back along the telephone line from ECHO to Rye Brook, NY and break into The Secret Computer Files on the Mainframe. (For those of you no privy to the world of high-finance fast-food, Pepsico owns Pizza Hut.) - - - - - 550:1052) GreenPig: Hog of Death 25-AUG-94 1:14 Ruby T: Though I thought the book didn't exactly go anywhere, that opening section with the Deliverator and YT was fine stuff indeed. - - - - - 550:1053) Ray Gallon 25-AUG-94 2:50 Ruby T posts for me - - - - - 550:1054) Late Night with Nick Rosato 25-AUG-94 2:57 that's a neal stephenson book, right?.... - - - - - 550:1055) GreenPig: Hog of Death 25-AUG-94 2:58 Yeppers, and a highly entertaining one. - - - - - 550:1056) Kilgore Trout 25-AUG-94 9:51 Pooh, just give us an opening, and a the "high sign" and we'll crawl right into thier phone lines.... Noone is safe from us now!! - - - - - 550:1057) and Nemo, 25-AUG-94 19:54 Y'know, thanks to my handy rolodex, I have the number for that Pepsico mainframe. In fact I used to dial in there a lot to fix stuff. I bet the id is gone, though. Still, why not poke around for likely adresses? - - - - - 550:1058) Ruby T 26-AUG-94 1:09 Jonathan, I'm happy to see you contemplating the purposes of others, too. Pooh, as long as you're doing shit work, that pepsico "campus" is a nice place to stroll around, don't you think? That big statue of a bear looking out over the pond? I agree the first 100 pages or so of Snowcrash was the good part. Did Stephenson write anything else and should I read it? - - - - - 550:1059) Late Night with Nick Rosato 26-AUG-94 10:29 I read "Zodiac" last month, about an "environmental detective". It moved, though the story began to stretch credibility about 2/3's thru... - - - - - 550:1060) Marxist MoNo 26-AUG-94 16:35 Well, RUby, I believe Stephenson also wrote INTERFACE under the name Stephen Bury. QUite good. - - - - - 550:1061) GreenPig: Hog Without Qualities 26-AUG-94 20:42 You'll notice that RUBY and BURY are anagrams... the clot thickens. - - - - - 550:1062) and Nemo, 26-AUG-94 23:22 HECKLE HIS TNT POT HENPECK HOT STILT THICKEN PET SLOTH KITCHEN SLEPT HOT CHEN TEST HIT POLK - - - - - 550:1063) Hugh 28-AUG-94 21:54 Alas, John Perry Barlow tried to get HIGH TIMES set up with its own BBS, over two years ago. Our lawyers freaked because if anyone ever got busted and admitted to scoring through the BBS, the magazine would get shut down. They're very nervous about our conference in Echo (open now -- j high) and on Peacenet. We just have to hope that everyone engaging in these illegal activities on the 'Net prudently uses anonymous remailers, encryption programs like PGP, and good sens. heh. - - - - - 550:1064) Pooh, Pissed Off Itinerant Wage Slave 30-AUG-94 18:23 No question about it - Pepsico's entire set up in Rye Brook - inside and out - is truly beautiful. I wish I was cogent enough right now to describe it for the majority of folks who haven't seen it; suffice it to say that it may be the only corporate headquarters that needs tour guides. The artwork on pedestals and hanging on the walls inside the buildings - in virtually every hallway - is just as impressive as the sculptures and landscaping outside. I'm feeling aphasic now. - - - - - 550:1065) alkyew very much 31-AUG-94 1:28 Too bad it's in Purchase, a.k.a. Stepford. - - - - - 550:1066) Stony 04-SEP-94 1:51 Thanks Rob for posting the PizzaNet information. This is so incredibly funny and so fits with the theme of this topic, that it makes me glad to be in America. God Bless PizzaNet! Why, America IS PizzaNet. Any fool who refuses to leave his/her terminal to order food is severely impaired with a nerdish disorder. I mean, you gotta get up to answer the door anyway, right? And you can't eat a big messy Pizza Hut pizza and type. You just can't. Nevertheless, I love the idea of PizzaNet, and I will sleep well tonite knowing it exists. - - - - - 550:1067) jae cen, formerly vantage, etc. 04-SEP-94 2:36 "can't eat a big messy Pizza Hut pizza and type"? Stony, stony, stony. You need to spend some more time becoming a full-fledged geek. Nothing's "can't" be done by a coputer geek in front of their terminal. Trust me on this. - - - - - 550:1068) Saltpeter Driftwood 04-SEP-94 2:42 Reminds me of a story I read about folks tracing/surveill-ing a hacker... He seemed to be at his terminal for a straight 48 (or so) hours. They couldn't figure it out. "Surely, he must have to go to the bathroom, right?" When they busted him, they found he relieved himself in a pot at his desk. - - - - - 550:1069) Josh Karpf's Ladies Drink Free 04-SEP-94 8:36 I told a friend about PizzaNet and she was horrified -- how could the compugeeks ever get a proper diet, now, if they'd never leave their terminal? I reminded her that pizza can come with broccoli now. The Romans probably died out when pizza appeared on their broccoli. - - - - - 550:1070) Pooh, Pissed Off Itinerant Wage Slave 04-SEP-94 10:02 Saltpeter - that story you read was in "The Cuckoo's Egg," right? That WAS funny . . . especially their grudging admiration of any computer geek/hacker so wigged out as to stay at the terminal typing for 48 hours straight. - - - - - 550:1071) Unscrambled Bottomer 04-SEP-94 10:15 "Egg" - - - - - 550:1072) Saltpeter Driftwood 04-SEP-94 11:58 'Twas either "The Cuckoo's Egg," or "Cyberpunk." Both quite good. - - - - - 550:1073) Pooh, Pissed Off Itinerant Wage Slave 04-SEP-94 16:23 Yup. Dumb erro, on my part. "Egg," not "Nest." - - - - - 550:1074) Garbled Uplink 04-SEP-94 19:00 Pizza Hut pizza eats shit. - - - - - 550:1075) and Nemo, 04-SEP-94 21:17 You know, there are e- mail/fax links all over the place - just fax a Burke & Burke for a nice Black Forest ham w/ Swiss and a Dr. Brown Cream OR Celery Soda. Pizza indeed! - - - - - 550:1076) Mick Hurbis-Cherrier 06-SEP-94 1:20 If you must have Pizza, let's get Two Boots Pizza on Echo. Now THAT would be progress. - - - - - 550:1077) Garbled Uplink 06-SEP-94 10:20 Indeed. - - - - - 550:1078) Singer 06-SEP-94 16:17 I, Singer, hereby solemnly pledge to bring a 2 Boots pie to next f2f I show up at (currently scheduled to be the Poker one on 9/30). - - - - - 550:1079) All your lupines and Nemo 06-SEP-94 18:25 Singer lives writhing distance from 2Boots in the E. Village. uhhh Andouille, crawfish, roasted peppers, garlic and what??? - - - - - 550:1080) Jonathan Hayes 06-SEP-94 18:41 So, from the ridiculous to the sublime. This wednesday's (ie tomorrow night) ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT offers none other than Rob "Heurtebise" Tannenbaum giving Mary Hart a leg wax. Or something. I mean, Ron *says* he's on it. We shall see. - - - - - 550:1081) Garbled Uplink 06-SEP-94 20:27 Hmmm... sounds twisted, can't miss it. - - - - - 550:1083) thatgirl 07-SEP-94 0:34 Listening to Amy Grant on Letterman singing a version of "They Paved Paradise And Put Up A Parking Lot". Didn't the line about putting all the trees in a tree museum originally go "They made all the people pay 25 cents just to see 'em" ? She changed it to 25 bucks....Hmmm, inflation. - - - - - 550:1084) Garbled Uplink 07-SEP-94 0:57 "They charged all the people A buck and a half just to see 'em." - - - - - 550:1085) thatgirl 07-SEP-94 1:04 Well, it's still $23.50 more than it was back then. - - - - - 550:1086) MRPetit - aka Marianne 07-SEP-94 10:17 Ha ha. - - - - - 550:1087) Mick Hurbis-Cherrier 07-SEP-94 11:00 How much would you pay to see Amy Grant? Uh...I'll take the two $25 tickets for the "Tree" show at 10:15, please, .25 is a bit steep for Ms. Grant. - - - - - 550:1088) Singer 07-SEP-94 14:35 sundrieds, Nemo. btw, I just ran into Phil (who, together with Doris, own Two Boots) and told him about 550:1076. He seemed pleased. - - - - - 550:1089) Stony 08-SEP-94 0:01 Someone please inform: Where is Two Boots? I must try this. - - - - - 550:1090) Singer 08-SEP-94 0:09 For full menu: Ave A between 2nd & 3rd St, West side For Pizza only: Ave A between 2nd & 3rd St, East side (yeah, across the street) Also, pizza only: Bleeker St, just east of B'way There's one in Brooklyn, too. I don't know where, or the menu. - - - - - 550:1091) Stony 08-SEP-94 0:13 2000 thanks! - - - - - 550:1092) Marxist MoNo 08-SEP-94 2:22 The one in Brooklyn is on 2nd STreet, between 7th AVenue and 8th. Full menu. - - - - - 550:1093) All your lupines and Nemo 09-SEP-94 23:59 I just came from the aforementioned Mahattan site, (my kid toting pal parked right in fromt of Chez Singer). We overdid the calamari though. I must weigh all of 127 lbs! - - - - - 550:1094) possum 10-SEP-94 0:33 Wow, Nemo. And I thought I was the only adult male in the 125 pound & under class. - - - - - 550:1095) All your lupines and Nemo 11-SEP-94 0:02 Call me an adult and I'll have to ask you to step outside... - - - - - 550:1096) All your lupines and Nemo 11-SEP-94 0:03 Mention Tex Avery and you said the secret pomo word! - - - - - 550:1097) Rob Tannenbaum 12-SEP-94 12:09 This is not the fucking PIZZA item, you sausagebrains. It's the POSTMODERN item. Where I'm allowed to ask Jo-Jo to define 'Heurtebise.' And, to mention that my appearance on 'Entertainment Tonight' was delayed by some FAR less insignificant news, and will now be screened this evening. To be followed, shortly, by my debut on 'Hard Copy,' which is Wednesday. Ah, the life of a media slut! - - - - - 550:1098) Garbled Uplink 12-SEP-94 13:44 You have a lot of Teen Appeal, Rob. - - - - - 550:1099) All your lupines and Nemo 12-SEP-94 19:57 confidential to RT: rent ORPHEE by Jean Cocteau. - - - - - 550:1100) Rob Tannenbaum 25-SEP-94 15:46 Fresh Fruit for Rotting Items: 8-18-94 MADONNA EDITS MAILER AT ESQUIRE That budding freelance writer Madonna was her dubiously regal self during the cover shoot and Norman Mailer ``interview'' for the August issue of Esquire. But that was nothing in relation to the negotiations it took to get her there. In order to get the material girl to agree to the high concept piece with Mailer, in which she conducts an interview with the highly acclaimed writer, Esquire signed a contract giving Madonna veto power over photographs and the option to make edits and deletions to the text of the piece. Or, as one outraged competitive editor put it, ``They're letting Madonna edit Norman Mailer!'' Esquire editor Ed Kosner confirms all this and says it doesn bother him. ``Nothing I did in this case was any different than things I've done in the past [at Newsweek and New York],'' says Kosner. According to Kosner, Madonna wanted one photo substitution, which was granted, but after reviewing the text she made no changes. What if Madonna had wanted to change or delete something from the manuscript the all-powerful Mailer had submitted? ``We would have listened to her suggestions,'' says Kosner. Madonna had two manicurists in attendance, or more accurately, in waiting, keeping them waiting for so long that her young female companion was prompted to bring it to her attention. ``Madonna, your manicurists are still waiting for you.'' Madonna turned to an Esquire staffer and replied, ``Isn't that fabulous? I love hearing that.'' Copyright 1994, Cowles Business Media, Inc. - - - - - 550:1101) Jonathan Hayes 25-SEP-94 16:58 It IS pretty fabulous, though, isn't it? - - - - - 550:1102) Garbled Uplink 25-SEP-94 19:23 As long as the manicurists are getting paid for their time. - - - - - 550:1103) Jonathan Genkin 30-SEP-94 17:41 what has happened to OJ lately, I haven't been watching TV. - - - - - 550:1104) mrs. hippie queen 30-SEP-94 21:35 well, since you asked...according to cindy adams today on NBC, he's been advised to wear lighter colors for a more heroic presentation onscreen; meanwhile the media encampment is a movie set in itself, and "rejected juror" buttons are doing brisk sales outside the courtroom as the jury selection process goes on, with people filling out questionnaires... oh and Marcia Clark got a chic new poodle 'do, tres drip dry an' all... - - - - - 550:1105) Jonathan Hayes 30-SEP-94 23:37 Cindy Adams on NBC. Yeech. - - - - - 550:1106) Jonathan Genkin 03-OCT-94 10:03 I think that OJ will portray himself in his own TV movie in order to pay his legal fees. In addition he is now negotiating with the networks to become the first man excecuted on TV. To be excecuted during halftime at the Super Bowl. It will be America's greatest TV show. T The proceeds will benefit the estate of the victim, in this case his own children. - - - - - 550:1107) John Henry Nemo 06-OCT-94 23:12 Unless of course pro football goes on strike, whereupon OJ will be called upon to portray a football player playing a game in a Movie Of The Week World Premiere Sports Special. Maybe "A CHRISTMAS CAROL" as enacted by a football game. - - - - - 550:1108) Jonathan Genkin 07-OCT-94 10:15 Or perhaps his story is the story of football like "Jim Thorp- All American" the story of a minority member who goes on to athletic fame only to lose it all in the end because of a weakness in character. America just loves failed minority members. The only truly racially advanced sport is American Gladiators. - - - - - 550:1109) Singer 10-NOV-94 15:48 New developments in the case have made what follows a bit stale. No one bought it (much to my surprise), so ECHO gets it for free. THE NEVER-ENDING POST-MODERN SAGA (sung to the tune of "Hot Hot Hot") OJ OJ OJ OJ OJ OJ OJ OJ Look in the paper Read of the caper See the plot plot plot Turn on the TV And watch the lawyers Take a shot shot shot He was scared, and terrified Thought he might try suicide There was no place he could hide So he said, "Al, let's take a ride" And they go vroom vroom vroom vroom Yeah, they vroom vroom vroom vroom In a prime-time slot slot slot Good ratings slot slot slot Nicole is dead now Blood from her head now Couldn't clot clot clot Car near the mansion Get cop's attention With red spot spot spot Defense lawyers start to howl "Cop is racist, this is foul Should not have searched the house because Those red spots were taco sauce" And it was yum yum yum yum Very yum yum yum yum Spicy hot hot hot Jalapeno hot hot hot Very many lawyers Got got got Scientific experts A lot lot lot People on the jury What what what? They gonna sell their stories and they'll buy a yacht They sell their stories, get a yacht yacht yacht Why not Boycott This pot Of rot? Why not Boycott This pot Of rot? He buy new flex knife It kill his ex-wife He forgot, got, got I heard them say Take DNA Out of his snot snot snot Ran to Chicago with a sack Then he came a-running back Now he thinks his dough can buy Him an air-tight alibi That's pretty dumb dumb dumb dumb Pretty dumb dumb dumb dumb What an idiot, ot, ot. Lyrics {C} 1994 Sansonia Music Not to be used without permission - - - - - 550:1110) Jonathan Genkin 10-NOV-94 16:32 rectified! - - - - - 550:1111) Jackie Blue 10-NOV-94 18:51 you are hilarious Singer. - - - - - 550:1112) alcue 10-NOV-94 19:13 May I have permission to play this at the next bar mitzvah I play? - - - - - 550:1113) Margaret 10-NOV-94 19:14 Anyone who would even attempt to write parody lyrics to Hot Hot Hot is to be commended...let alone someone who succeeded. Very funny, Singer, esp. the "yacht yacht yacht." - - - - - 550:1114) Hepcat: The hardest working kitty in show biz 10-NOV-94 20:23 Particularly loved rhymes with snot and clot. But I am crude. VERy funny! .] - - - - - 550:1115) Rob Tannenbaum 11-NOV-94 1:38 Wonderful. - - - - - 550:1116) Miss Outer Boro 1991 11-NOV-94 9:54 Singer for Echo Poet Laureate! - - - - - 550:1117) Garbled Uplink 11-NOV-94 14:01 I'll second that. - - - - - 550:1118) Singer 11-NOV-94 16:39 My humble thanks. You are all too kind. - - - - - 550:1119) Singer 26-NOV-94 16:19 Cab Calloway's dead. Tabloid news lives on. (sung to the tune of "MINNIE THE MOOCHER") This is the story 'bout Fleissie the Floozie It was a tale that was a doozy Her business brought pleasure to many a male But the government wanted Heidi in jail Heidi, Heidi was a ho' (Heidi, Heidi was a ho') Heidi, Heidi was a ho' (Heidi, Heidi was a ho') She had some gals named Alice an' Gina She kept good records and she got a subpeona When they heard about it, lots of rich men shook 'Cause they knew their names were in Heidi's book Heidi was a woman of questionable moral character (Heidi was a woman of questionable moral character) Heidi was a concubine (Heidi was a concubine) The law said that she laundered money Her lawyer said, "That isn't funny" She went on trial down in West L.A. Right across the hall from the trial of O.J. Heidi's trial wasn't the biggest media circus in Los Angeles that season (Heidi's trial wasn't the biggest media circus in Los Angeles that season) Heidi's wasn't even close (Heidi's wasn't even close) She went on trial for prostitution And other things, said the prosecution They said she gave some parties with the best champagne And, according to the law, an awful lot of cocaine Heidi Heidi was a ho' (Heidi Heidi was a ho') Ho', de ho', de ho' was high (Ho', de ho', de ho' was high) Poor Fleiss, poor Fleiss, poor Fleiss - - - - - 550:1120) Shot a man in Perpetual just to watch him die 26-NOV-94 23:47 Bravo, Singer! - - - - - 550:1121) The artist formerly known as Hepcat 27-NOV-94 15:16 Hahahahaha! - - - - - 550:1122) Cloud in Levi's 27-NOV-94 21:59 I'm still laughing, Singer! - - - - - 550:1123) Jonathan Hayes 28-NOV-94 21:56 Anyone heard any new Jeffrey Dahmer jokes? Keep your ears open. - - - - - 550:1124) Singer 28-NOV-94 22:02 Off the top of my head, and to the tune of "Po' Jud Is Daid:" Po' Jeff is daid Po' Jeff Dahmer's daid The M.E. said he's lookin' sorta grim It may not seem polite But's it's somehow kinda right That someone made hamburger outta him - - - - - 550:1125) All-Talk Nemo 29-NOV-94 15:07 And the moral is: remove your name tag, Short Eyes... MAybe it's time to open a Moritat Item (where we can make up tunes based on the news of the day in earnest) - - - - - 550:1126) Eric A. Hochman 29-NOV-94 16:03 I was thinking there should be an Evita-like tune starting with the line "Don't cry for me, Jeffrey Dahmer" but: 1. I'm weird. 2. I have absolutely no musical talent. So the song remains unwritten and probably should stay that way. - - - - - 550:1127) mrs. hippie queen 29-NOV-94 16:04 o/~ 'The truth is, it's only protein...' - - - - - 550:1128) Rob Tannenbaum 30-NOV-94 11:50 o/~ 'Goddamn that Kate Moss! Not much to snack on!...' - - - - - 550:1129) Aaron Barnhart 30-NOV-94 13:58 This item's title has been running through my head all day. Jaze is a master wordsmithy. - - - - - 550:1130) Rob Tannenbaum 30-NOV-94 17:01 Attribution, please. - - - - - 550:1132) Miss Outer Boro 1991 30-NOV-94 19:01 I believe that's a Blonsky Ole Blonsky... I miss 'im - - - - - 550:1133) Aaron Barnhart 30-NOV-94 21:10 I stand corrected. Too bad I can't type that way. - - - - - 550:1134) Aaron Barnhart 30-NOV-94 21:19 So I looked back to figure out the origins of this item and came across the following: - - - - - 550:167) Jonathan Hayes 17-JUN-94 23:13 His friend is in a great position! No one will prosecute him, and he'll make a fortune on the story rights. - - - - - So far Jaze is one for two. - - - - - 550:1135) Aaron Barnhart 30-NOV-94 21:19 I should point out I've been sucking up to Jonathan a lot lately, for no particular reason. - - - - - 550:1136) Aaron Barnhart 30-NOV-94 21:20 My apologies to the honestly annoyed. - - - - - 550:1137) Jonathan Hayes 30-NOV-94 23:37 Aaron, your uncanny intuitive behaviour will doubtless be richly rewarded at some later date. I can't remember where "That's Life" comes from - TV Game Show? Reader's Digest? It was an attempt to invoke banal middle-American media-shored values, to pose them in aching contrast to "The Inferno of Postmodernity". THAT term originated (I think) in a conversation between Marshall Blonsky, Lu Ming and myself at about 2AM in the Temple Bar, after a night which had seen MB, in white linen suit and sunglasses, singing back up on Barry Manilow's "Copacabana" in a karaoke bar. I added the exclamation mark to make the contrast ache more. - - - - - 550:1138) Garbled Uplink 01-DEC-94 1:15 THE TRUE LYRICS TO BARRY MANILOW'S "COPACABANA": His name was Gumby He was a clay man He was the Hero Of the entire Aryan Nation When trouble come to call He rolled into a ball So he could roll away To fight on another day - - - - - 550:1139) Aaron Barnhart 01-DEC-94 17:34 I live such a humdrum existence. - - - - - 550:1140) Miss Outer Boro 1991 01-DEC-94 17:49 As if on cue, Aaron delivers the desired payoff. - - - - - 550:1141) Miss Outer Boro 1991 01-DEC-94 17:52 So I got this new book, CROSSING THE POSTMODERN DIVIDE, by Albert Borgmann. "the first remotely realistic map out of the postmodern labyrinth," says somebody on the back. Christopher Lasch, author of THE CULTURE OF NARCISSISM etc., liked it too. So I had to buy it. I promised myself I would never read this kind of shit again. But I can't stop. - - - - - 550:1142) Jaime Wolf 01-DEC-94 18:25 Mistah Lasch, he dead. - - - - - 550:1143) Miss Outer Boro 1991 01-DEC-94 18:29 But he managed to blurb this book in time. - - - - - 550:1144) mrs. hippie queen 01-DEC-94 18:31 Do yourself a favor and pick up the first three issues of ANSWER ME!, just issued in one big fun-filled trade paperback collection. Thrill to the badass voice of PO'd america as purveyed by the well named Jim & Debbie Goad, bask in the heat of that thar inferno as ya peruse their special all- murderers and all-suicide issues. Siddown, relax, the labyrinth ain't goin' anywhere and somebody stole that hunk of cheese down the hall anyway. ANSWER ME! should be required bathroom reading. No fallout shelter is complete without it. - - - - - 550:1145) Miss Outer Boro 1991 01-DEC-94 18:33 That stuff doesn't make me happy, so I don't read much of it any more. - - - - - 550:1146) Jonathan Hayes 01-DEC-94 21:21 I was really upset by the current ANSWER ME! Oh, go rot somewhere else, please. - - - - - 550:1147) GreenPig on Ice 02-DEC-94 0:45 MOB, will you post that map for the rest of us? - - - - - 550:1148) Miss Outer Boro 1991 02-DEC-94 9:34 If you are asking sincerely, yes. From what I can gather so far, it has something to do with Missoula, Montana. - - - - - 550:1149) Aaron B. a/k/a Tupac Smoker 02-DEC-94 15:22 I'm interested, too. Missoula, of course, is on *the other side* of the Continental Divide (to us eastern Montanans), but is the home of David Lynch and so maybe that explains something. It's also where that private detective from Twin Peaks supposedly originated from (a Lynch-ing). Lasch managed to put out a book and at least two pieces of criticism several months after he cacked. Things move slower in the Midwest, including, I guess, rigor mortis. - - - - - 550:1150) Miss Outer Boro 1991 02-DEC-94 22:53 Hmm! I think we are getting somewhere...Lynch being an instinctive beacon of Our Culture and all... I'll post more when I read the book. But what I've seen as I've flipped thru it looks good. - - - - - 550:1151) Driftwood95 02-JAN-95 0:12 I just read the first 600+ responses in this item. I was actually a participant in the posting frenzy, and haven't read them since that fateful summer day. It was utterly fascinating, and should be REQUIRED reading for all new ECHOids. - - - - - 550:1152) Miss Outer Boro 1991 02-JAN-95 2:23 Twang said that once too -- maybe it should go in the gopher? Hell, maybe it should go in the Library of Congress. - - - - - 550:1153) jingo jingu 02-JAN-95 9:39 Hell, take it to the Superbowl. - - - - - 550:1154) Garbled Uplink 02-JAN-95 12:29 Publish it. - - - - - 550:1155) Twang 02-JAN-95 14:32 I once asked Nemo about putting it in the gopher but he said it would be too much of a pain to get permission from all the posters. - - - - - 550:1156) Mr. Mxyzptlk aka Nemo 02-JAN-95 16:04 Well - only if you want to be nice and ask them.... We can be nasty and not ask them - merely placeing notice to email me if they wish to have their screed mollified or omitted. I will be fixing speling misteakes etc, should this go up. I can get this up in a few days... (40 deleted responses)