1994
● 1-1-1994: If you think you know and understand a certain proposition, you might be wrong. But if you think you do not know or understand it, you’re right.
● It’s now 12:12 a.m., Saturday, 1 January 1994, just past New Year’s Eve. About 14 minutes ago or so, with the approach of midnight at the new year, I shut off all my appliances that make noise, like the television and radios, though not the computer (at which I’m writing now). Just before the midnight minute, I had my head to an open window, in my bedroom, in my apartment, and listened for the soundscape in this mid-Wilshire neighborhood, just a mile or so west of downtown Los Angeles. The event was dramatic: Gunfire, all over the city, it seemed, erupted. From everywhere, all sizes and manner of firearms, obviously too regular to be fireworks: and the bursts are quickly—and precisely—repeated percussions, in quick succession, and series of numbers within the range of the different types of ammunition clips commonly available to, and used with, various sorts of firearms.
I had the impression that everyone with a gun, perhaps all the people in gangs, felt a certain macho need to make noise on New Year’s Eve by discharging their weapons.
It’s now about 12:27 a.m.: the sound of gunfire outside has quieted considerably. It has for the most part gone quiet again. It seems peaceful.
● 1-3-1994:
Q: Why don’t I kill Larry B [someone I hated]?
A: Because it’s illegal.
● 1-12-1994: “Item symmetry,” as opposed to visual-pattern symmetry: for example, “5:45:45” on a digital clock. An example of visual-pattern symmetry (as well as item symmetry) is: “OHO”.
● 1-15-1994: Would it be worthwhile to possess one million dollars’ worth of pennies (that is, 100,000,000 pennies)? How large a space would they occupy? If you had them loose, and had to put them into coin rolls, yourself, by hand, in order to spend them or get credit for them in your bank account, would you have a fortune? Would you be wealthy? If so, why do we think of them as practically worthless, just a bother, when we get them in change?
● 1-17-94: Today, at about 4:30 a.m., was the day of the big earthquake. All the other earthquakes I’ve experienced I’ve actually enjoyed. But this one was different! It was violent and frightening. I came perhaps as close as I’ve come to saying a prayer; I remember saying to myself, several times, “Please, don’t fall.”—referring to the building not falling down. I live on the fifth, top, floor of this apartment building. Well, it didn’t fall, though my apartment was a major mess, which I’m still digging out from. It was a big relief to find that my office, just across the street, was barely affected at all. Nothing was lost; and the computers are still up, which (their falling down) was my worst fear.
By the end of the day, now, having cleaned up the apartment considerably (part of the work resulted from my not having cleaned for years, so that it’s not simply a matter of putting things back; I have to do a lot of cleaning, too); it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.
● 1-19-94: Well, I put everything back pretty much as it was before the quake, though I didn’t quite get around to doing a major cleaning. My main immediate worry is still money, the success of my business.
● 1-21-1994: If my business fails, perhaps I’ll become a standup comic. Here’s a possible comedy routine:
People have always pondered the question: What is comedy? Some have said it’s a matter of poking fun at the human condition: showing the stupid, silly side of human nature, of people. But I don’t agree. I think comedy can have a higher purpose: that it can take the high road.
In fact, just before coming out here on stage tonight, I was discussing this with a friend who came here with me. And I told him: I don’t know if I can be a successful comedian—I’m too ethical. I won’t make jokes at other people’s expense. But he said to me: Hey, don’t worry; if that last guy who came out here can get a laugh, you should have no trouble.
But seriously, folks, I really worry about my performances. I get a bad case of stage fright. A few weeks ago, my friend tried to reassure me. He said, “Hey, really, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Why, I talked with a comic who does great, gets big laughs from the audience. I asked him: ‘Do you get nervous when you go on stage?’ And he told me, ‘The word “nervous” isn’t even in my vocabulary.’”
Actually, I hit upon a way to avoid nervousness on stage: I just didn’t rehearse any lines, didn’t prepare any jokes in advance. I figured, that way I’d have one less thing to worry about—whether I’d remember my material. So, for an appearance last week, I just didn’t prepare. I got up on stage, and I wasn’t nervous. But I bombed. I had nothing to say.
Later, I ran into that great comic that my friend talked to. And I said to him: “That’s amazing that you don’t get nervous on stage.” And he said, “ ‘Nervous’?: What does that word mean?”
● 1-24-1994: How many drops are in a bucket (one that’s full . . . if it’s empty, there are zero drops)?
● 1-28-94: I have a “supernumerary mania,” whereby I feel compelled to have an excessive number of virtually the same item, without a real need for so many. I can’t enjoy a possession if I have just one. To enjoy using one, I have to have several others, and with the better specimens “in reserve.” It’s a little inconvenient when the things in question are expensive, like fancy pens.
A related condition is my extreme reluctance to use a possession of mine hard or roughly. I feel compelled to excessively “baby” various things, like my car. My father used to observe that I have a “sensitivity to mechanical things,” which is the only place I’ve ever heard that phrase or concept. The reference was to this same phenomenon, though. My father used the notion to refer to this trait in me in a favorable way. And I think it is good. I’m the only person I’ve known who has it. Perhaps, of the people who do have it, I’m one of the few who possess it to the excessive extent of a full-blown neurosis.
● 2-2-1994: Cocaine is an “acquired” taste, or addiction; but it doesn’t take long to acquire it!, and, once acquired, is hell. Don’t start. It’s not worth it!
● Some popular-music radio stations boast about playing “back-to-back” songs. It seems to me they take the idea too far when they start playing the beginning of the next song over the fading tones of the last one, overlapping them and not letting the prior song completely finish without interruption. I dislike that.
● 2-5-1994: I recently bought several household items from a neighbor. One of them was a wonderful firm queen-sized bed in excellent condition. It replaces a small bed that I’ve had here since I moved in, about 3 1⁄2 years ago; just before that, I slept on a couch for 8 or 9 years (at the Lido Apartments, in Hollywood, No. 136; later, No. 504).
● The Bobbit incident reminds us that women are just as capable of mutilating men as men are of mutilating women. Men can no longer consider themselves immune to the kind of mutilation atrocities that they perpetrate against women.
● How many combinations of symmetrical digits are in a digital watch’s twelve-hour cycle? (An example would be: “7:23:27”.)
[Later note (9-21-2023): There is an answer (though I don’t know what it is). The question is more interesting than the answer. You could find the answer by going through all the combinations of digits, and counting. The one and only possibly interesting sort of answer would be: a shorter way to find the answer.]
● 2-11-1994: It has occurred to me that what I suffered in my U-Haul loss (of my writing and graphic art, in 1983) is equivalent to what many people suffered in the recent Los Angeles Earthquake, of 1-17-1994, 4:31a.m. I was very fortunate in the quake; I lost very little. (But I must expand my precautions for preserving my writing, including having a greater number of places where I have copies of all the works, especially the more important ones.)
● 2-19-1994: Last Summer, my assistant, Michael Weissman, and I were contacted by a printer who offered to print a large quantity of our advertising flyers at a very favorable price: to wit, one million flyers for $5,000. There was an option as to the grade and weight of the paper stock, the $5,000 price being for the lighter paper; the next better paper making the printing cost for the same number of flyers $15,000 (that is, 3 times as much).
We opted for the lighter paper and gave this person an advance of half of the agreed price (that is, we gave him $2,500).
As it turned out, we never got any of the printing done, and we never knew whether the failure resulted from a deliberate fraud, or instead merely from the printer’s having business difficulties, causing him to be unable to meet his obligation. But that was a significant amount of money for us, and we were quite exercised about it. We spent considerable time trying to find the printer and confront him with our anger and demand that he either do the printing or give us our money back.
In the car together driving back to the office from one of these unsuccessful attempts to locate the man, I said to Michael, “I guess it’s good we didn’t go with the heavier paper.”
● 2-24-1994: Nothing will make you feel like a million bucks . . . like a million bucks!
● Listened to a Public Broadcasting television program on singer Marian Anderson; I found it tremendously moving and inspiring. It was certainly the first time I ever found that I was singing to myself the song “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”!
● 2-25-1994: With the success of my advertising, and its provocativeness, I’m gonna have to start worrying about my personal security. I’m an obvious target for violence; Jesse my secretary told me she got an angry call from someone threatening to come into my office and shoot me.
I’m suddenly a celebrity. A salesman in a nearby pen shop, H.G. Daniels Co., recognized me from my ad photo, and said he loves my phone no. (1-800-S U E – T H E M). He said that he had the impression that I was located very nearby to their store, and I confirmed that he was right.
Fame (and hopefully the fortune thereafter sometime soon) has its risks . . .. And some of them (the risks) are deadly. I need to start taking precautions, so I don’t end up like John Lennon. . . .
● 2-26-1994: Today I went to see a pen at H.G. Daniels Co., a Parker Duofold ballpoint, in black, with gold finish; I didn’t buy it, because it was flawed (in ways in which only I would likely have even noticed, let alone cared about); when I returned to the office, I related my experience to Michael Weissman. I introduced it, humorously, by saying that I had good news and bad news: that the bad news was that the pen had flaws and I didn’t buy it; and that was the good news, too! (That is, so that I wouldn’t be spending badly needed money on an unnecessary, eccentric luxury item) . . ..
● 2-27-1994: It’s perhaps no mere coincidence that the “213” telephone area code, the most widely used one in Los Angeles, perhaps in all of Southern California, occupies the digits in the top row on the telephone keypad . . ..
[Later note (2021): Well, yes and no: It’s a mere coincidence that those numbers are at the top of the keypad. But there’s a similar other reason for that set of digits: they were selected when telephones used, instead of keypads, circular dials, with the numbers, in sequence, arrayed in a circle, and you had to rotate the dial (with one finger) separately for each digit in the phone number. The lower the number (and 2, 1, and 3 are low numbers), the shorter the distance your finger had to travel around the circle to input the number.]
● Injuring your back is Nature’s way of telling you, you need to take more narcotics.
● 3-2-1994: Today was a bad day for me. I haven’t paid my office rent for February, 1994, let alone this month’s (March’s) rent. They gave me a “3 day notice to pay rent or quit”: In other words, pay the rent or move out.
I got very upset with Michael Weissman, my assistant. I told him that, with my severe cash-flow problems, I feel as if my business (the law practice), which is my life now, with all I’ve invested in it thus far, including my time, effort, and money—I feel as if my business is an airplane taxiing down the runway trying to take off, but it keeps running out of gas and it starts sputtering and slowing down. We manage to find the gas to get it running just in the nick of time: there are people running along the runway after the plane and they’re trying to catch up with it, to kill the occupants.
If the plane could only get up enough speed to get into the air, it would be safer from the foes on the ground, just in virtue of it being in the air, above the people on the ground, not immediately reachable; plus, when it’s in the air, it can travel faster than it can on the ground, and it gets better fuel economy.
In addition to trying to get enough fuel to be able to finally get up the speed to get off the ground, there’s a team of engineers and builders in a hangar nearby, and they’re working on producing a jet engine. The engine is in progress, and it’s just a question, again, of whether we can continue to evade the foes running after the plane on the ground, until the time when the jet engine is ready finally to be attached to the plane.
Another cause of my extreme anxiety earlier today was that I thought I’d have to prepare, and to appear, if necessary (if no one were available to do it for me), for another arbitration, set for tomorrow. But the arbitrator canceled it because of a sudden problem with his schedule. So not having to do it just now, when I have so many other demands on my time, was a tremendous relief.
And I have my second State Bar settlement conference on Friday, also very stressful.
And some more arbitrations later next week.
And the money problems . . . All very stressful indeed!
● 3-10-1994: The boomerang: What goes around, comes around.
● 3-11-1994: “We Reserve the Right . . . to Kill You.”
● In the final analysis . . . it’s bish!
● 3-25-1994: I’m a good listener, a very attentive and conscientious one. I feel it my duty in listening to and conversing with another person to try to understand what he says. I feel I can’t go on listening, or conversing, with someone if I don’t understand what he’s saying. Is this unique, or even unusual?
● 3-28-1994: What’s the relationship between fear of heights (which I have); and fear of flying (which I don’t have)? It’s similar and yet contradictory; the fear of flying involves the fear of heights because flying takes you above the ground, from where you could plummet to your death. On the other hand, flying will kill you instantly, because of the much greater speeds involved (faster in a plane, so usually all people on board are killed). But that’s the same mechanism of death as we fear in falling from heights: coming into contact with solid matter (like the ground) while moving at high speed. . . .
[Later note (2021): Probably the difference is psychological.]
[Later note (7-2-2023): All fears are psychological. What I meant is that the difference is personal, arbitrary.]
● 4-2-1994: Dark chocolate is to milk chocolate, somewhat as the minor mode in music is to the major.
● 4-3-1994: Today is the first day of so-called daylight-saving time (meaning that it stays light an hour later each day). I love it, and mourn its end in the Fall. I’ve had it (this date) on my calendar since last Fall, longing for its return.
● When daylight saving time starts, you gain an hour of daylight in the evening, but lose one in the morning; when it ends, you lose an hour in the evening, but gain one in the morning.
[Later note (2021): Of course, the gain or loss of an hour’s daylight in the morning matters little to one who gets up very late in the day, as I did back then.]
● 4-4-1994: Within the last two weeks I smelled the blossoming flowers on the trees on the front lawn, and I remember doing so last year, too, and heard the birds chirping . . . These two events I’ve come to associate with the start of Spring.
● 4-6-1994: Yes, I hear a mockingbird (?) singing all night long, a true sign of Spring.
● Fundamental social or political change is difficult, for at least one important reason: fundamental change usually entails a redistribution of some wealth, meaning that some relatively well-off people will lose money, and some relatively poor people will gain money. Poor people work for the change; well-off people resist it. And, very simply, the change resisters are stronger than the change supporters, because the resistors have greater resources.
A secondary reason is that the rich are also better organized: they always vote, and they vote in their economic interest; whereas, poor and working people often don’t vote, or vote foolishly.
● I think it would be a good thing to produce human bodies without brains for exclusive use as a source of bodily organs for transplantation.
● 4-12-1994: I find that I tend to take beautiful days for granted. I assume somehow that it’s the way days will be indefinitely into the future. So, appreciate every beautiful day. Don’t take it for granted.
● 4-13-1994: A variation on execution by lethal injection: let the condemned know he’s to be put under general anesthesia; then, an hour or so (or some such time) after the condemned becomes unconscious, kill him (while he’s still under the general anesthesia. . . .).
[Later note (10-29-2023): That assumes that the state wants the execution to be as painless as possible. It’s done as it is because the state wants the condemned to suffer.]
● The waiter came to the customer’s table, placed a live lobster on the customer’s plate; when it began to crawl around on the table, the waiter took out a gun and shot it.
● 4-14-1994: The actual elements of a situation are like the outside surface of the body, the skin, as seen from the outside, say, by someone else; the forces and workings of causation (say, of the prospect of monetary gain as motivation for an attempt to affect the situation in one way or another); and the connection between that attempt and a change in the situation—are like the inside of the body, a person’s consciousness and inner workings.
● Deal with everyone honestly and fairly; then you’re entitled to expect the same from him. You have to do good, to expect to receive it from others. The hypocrite tends to get less than he hopes to get, because people come to see through him.
● 4-15-1994: It has been correctly observed of me that I enjoy explaining things to people. And I’m very good at it; anything I understand, I can explain (and struggling to explain, helps you to better understand). Which may largely account for my propensity to be in psychotherapy. It’s not a matter merely of finding a captive audience, to whom I can talk endlessly of myself; there’s also an element of simply enjoying the act of explaining, elucidating in great detail, a subject that I know well and can expound on. That may also be part of the impulse for keeping this diary.
● Avoidance and discontinuation of pain takes precedence over creation or continuation of pleasure. This is how I feel, for myself, and so I would urge it as a general principle.
● As to a digital clock or watch: What are the readings (times) which, when the time changes, that is, when the next second is reached, the two readings will have no digit in common? One would be: “6:59:59.”
● There’s a bird, a mockingbird perhaps, that I hear only from my apartment; I never hear it, or remember noticing hearing it, when I walk back and forth between here and my office almost directly across the street.
● Some tobacco companies have stated that they support strong bans on selling tobacco to minors (people younger than 18). But if tobacco use is not unhealthy (as the tobacco companies insist), why should people under 18 be banned from using it?
● Are the Ten Commandments to the Bible somewhat as the Bill of Rights is to the U.S. Constitution? (. . . other than that both have ten articles).
● In a rifle, the metal is more important than the wood.
● Enjoy every day, every aspect, of Spring (. . . and of every season).
● 4-22-1994: Sometimes I think I watch the news on television, and listen to it on the radio, from the same motivation as compels people to gawk at traffic accidents on the road.
● Note to myself: Learn how to use the camera and bring it home and take some photos, around dusk . . . the light reflected from the building across the street, and the setting sun reflected onto the dish holder, in the kitchen . . ..
● Sunday, 4-24-1994: I happened to be in a pet shop today; someone said, “Look, it’s a horny toad.” I didn’t say anything, but I later thought it would have been funny if I had said, “How do you know it’s horny?”
● 4-25-1994: “You get what you pay for.”: More accurately, You pay for what you get. That is, it’s true that you almost never get more than what you pay for; but often you get less than what you pay for.
● 4-27-1994: It’s all right, and somewhat relaxing and pleasurable, to go to bed when it’s still light out.
● 4-30-1994: There seems to be a pattern of the days that corresponds with one that obtained all of last Spring and Summer: namely, the mornings are overcast, or cloudy; the clouds dissipate somewhat as the day wears on, and it becomes sunny later in the day.
I hate cloudy weather. It occurred to me just today that I’m very much affected by the weather. It makes a very big difference to me.
● Sunday (May Day!) 5-1-1994
It has just occurred to me that I’m bored. I suffer from it often. This is why the weekends are more unpleasant than the weekdays: on the weekends, when I don’t go to the (my) office, I have no activities to do interacting with other people, such as my assistant, Michael Weissman.
I think I may have mistaken the feeling of boredom for depression, or melancholy, sadness. In other words, I’ve felt boredom, but misinterpreted the feeling as depression. Could it be that I’m blinded to this in part simply because I tend to focus introspectively?
. . . Boredom, and loneliness. Perhaps if I can start redefining my psychic discomfort as lacks in outward aspects of my existence, it will help me to have a more balanced perspective on myself and my life, causing me to know specific problems, and specific remedies for them, too, such as having friends, getting involved in certain hobbies, or interests.
● The widening wealth gap between the rich and the poor tends to increase crime. It’s a price the rich pay for being rich.
[Later note (2021): Something just struck me as funny about that entry: Where else would the wealth gap be than between the rich and the poor?! So I’ll rewrite it, thus: The widening wealth gap tends to increase crime. It’s a price the wealthy pay for their wealth.]
[Still later note (2021): When I say crime here, I mean street crime. The larger crime is the gross inequality of wealth itself; as to which crime, the rich are the criminals, and they greatly benefit from it. But even street crime doesn’t adversely affect the wealthy. That, too, is yet another harm suffered by the (relatively) poor . . . and caused, again, by the rich. (That is, the rich, by and large, don’t commit street crime—because they’re rich. Street crime is, for the most part, committed by the poor . . . against the poor . . . and they’re poor because of the rich.)]
● 5-2-1994: Well, Spring/Summer is finally here. Enjoy it, savor it.
● 5-4-1994: I’m fascinated by various awesome natural phenomena, such as tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, great predators, large animals, tyrannosaurus rex, sharks, Komodo dragons, polar bears, elephants, whales—extremes.
● 5-5-1994: Whereas in the past the power of man-made things was described by comparison with natural things, such as describing an engine’s power in “horse-power”; now, for the first time, that situation has been reversed, describing natural events by comparison with man-made forces: specifically, in terms of nuclear bombs.
● 5-6-1994: I hear a lot about people’s need to ask God for forgiveness for their sins. But it seems to me that, if God did exist, He should ask us to forgive Him, for bringing us into this world where misery so far outweighs happiness: a cruel practical joke.
● Enough is enough; too much is too much; and too little is too little.
● 5-21-1994: These two cliches seem to involve a common principle: “The grass is always greener on the other side” and “You don’t appreciate what you have till it’s gone.”
● What do these have in common?: shark, spider, and thumb. (Answer: each is not technically in the category that one would naturally assign them to—fish, insect, and finger.)
[Later note (2021): Apparently, I was wrong about one of those. I looked it up just now, and found that sharks are considered fish.]
● Which contains more sand: All the world’s deserts, or all the world’s beaches?
● 5-29-1994: The next best thing to being consistent is to be aware of your inconsistencies.
● Wednesday, 6-15-1994: I went to bed this evening, and, lying in my bed initially, having just shut out the lights, and it being dark out, my visual image was just the same when I opened my eyes as when I closed them.
● 6-16-1994: I got my first “real” credit card today: a milestone! A red-letter day!
● 6-18-1994: It actually does make good sense to have a much higher burden of proof in criminal cases than in civil cases. Based on my experience in civil cases, I know how easily the wrong conclusion can be reached about which party is at fault, which is telling the truth, and so forth.
● 7-3-1994: I think that, of the many people who hoped that O.J. Simpson would not commit suicide (after he was arrested on suspicion of murder), many of them were concerned, not for Simpson’s well-being, but rather for their own entertainment, in the murder trial and legal battles to follow.
● Having heard the term “sea change” on radio a number of times, but not having seen it in print, I thought the term was “C change,” and I interpreted it to mean a reversal, an about-face, a 180-degree turn. . . . (That is, if you enter at one end of the C going in one direction, you exit at the other end going in the opposite direction.)
● 7-19-1994: Argument: If it’s not here, and it’s not there; then it’s neither here nor there.
● 7-24-1994: I think there might be something to the aphorism: “Early to bed, early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” I’m getting there: I have at least half of that conquered: I’m early to bed, though late to rise.
Seriously, though, I have to force myself out of bed in the morning. I feel no zest or enthusiasm in living. I’m bored, lonely, and having no fun or fulfillment.
These days, I can’t seem to get to bed for the night early enough.
My hold on life seems tenuous. I have a low tolerance for disappointment and loss. Given the losses and disappointments I’ve experienced in my life up till now, my reasons to go on living outweigh those for ending my life by only a very slight margin. It feels to me as if another serious loss would actually reverse that balance. When I hear about people suffering the loss of a hand, or even a finger, I think to myself that, if it happened to me, I would kill myself. Such a loss, on top of all the others I’ve endured thus far, would feel unbearable.
● Why is it so much harder to recite the alphabet backward (that is, Z Y X W V, etc.) than forward (A B C D E, etc.)?
[Later note (2020): Perhaps it’s because we learn and rehearse the alphabet forward, never backward. A more interesting question may be: Why can we recite counting-numbers in any given numerical range backward fairly easily, but we can’t easily recite the alphabet backward? Perhaps it’s because alphabets are arbitrary sets, but numbers are a logical set.]
● 7-26-1994: Regarding the international community’s response to the war in Bosnia; some have urged that the arms embargo on the Muslims be lifted so that that country or group can defend itself against what many see as aggression against them by the Bosnian Serbs. The United Nations has declined, however, to take that suggestion (lifting the embargo), on the grounds that such action would only increase the level of violence.
But if the U.N. is unwilling to lift the arms embargo on the Muslims, it should at least impose one on the Serbs. Either both sides should have access to armaments, or neither side should; to impose that embargo on one side and not on the other (especially when, as seems to be here, the side without the embargo is the aggressor) is totally unjustifiable, because it allows one side to slaughter a defenseless group of people.
It would be as if you came across two people having or about to have a fist fight, and you intervened, not by keeping them apart, but rather by holding one person’s hands behind his back and permitting the other to strike blows.
● 8-6-1994: During the preliminary examination in the O. J. Simpson case, the prosecution presented evidence that some of the blood found at the crime scene matched Simpson’s blood. A serologist testified for the prosecution that only one in two hundred people had the same blood characteristics consistent with the sample.
A prosecutor said that, though this blood evidence was the only evidence presented at the hearing that specifically tied Mr. Simpson to the crime, it was enough to show that there was a 200 to 1 probability that Simpson committed the crime.
It occurred to me, however, that one could turn that statistic around, so to speak, and argue that the correspondence between the sample and Simpson’s blood and only 1 in 200 people’s, does not incriminate Simpson. The counter argument would be that, of the several million people in the Los Angeles area alone (let’s say 2,000,000), ten thousand people (one in 200) would have blood consistent with the sample; therefore, the odds are ten thousand to one that Simpson did not commit the crime. Or, put another way, a mere one in ten thousand chance of the blood sample being Simpson’s leaves plenty of room for reasonable doubt. His lawyer could argue to the jury, “Why not haul into court any one of those other ten thousand people in Los Angeles who have the consistent blood traits and accuse them of the murders?! The match between my client’s blood and that found at the scene proves nothing.”
So, what’s the resolution? It’s that the consistency between the blood at the scene and Simpson’s is not the only relevant evidence tying Simpson to the crime. The coincidence of the blood is not meaningful in itself. Rather, it’s significant when, but only when, taken together with all the other evidence in the case—such evidence as that Simpson had a relationship with Nicole (one of the murder victims)—she was his former wife; that Simpson had assaulted and battered her on numerous occasions (apparently out of jealousy); that he had a significant cut on his hands at the time of his arrest within a week after the crime; that there was much blood on and in Simpson’s car, which at least one witness said she saw Simpson driving about the time of (after) the crime, and he was driving like a madman (blowing his horn, and gesturing wildly, yelling for other motorists to move out of his way); and that a bloody glove, counterpart (the mate) of one found at the murder scene, was found by police shortly thereafter at Simpson’s house.
Accordingly, the prosecutor could argue that all this other evidence points to Mr. Simpson as the murderer; with this in mind, and given that an inconsistency between Simpson’s blood and the sample would rule him out as the killer; given all that other incriminating evidence, for Simpson not to be the killer, and yet his blood match the sample, against 200 to 1 odds, now that would be an extraordinary coincidence.
● 8-24-1994: Sometimes I wonder what music Mozart would have written had he been born in the Baroque age rather than the classical; and Bach, had he been born in the classical period rather than the Baroque.
● 8-28-1994: With their opposition to birth control, the Pope and the Catholic Church are the chief obstacle to limiting the world’s population, which is a, if not the, major cause of overpopulation, a condition central to destroying the quality of life for everyone, and particularly for the poor. In short, the biggest single factor in the world’s misery, the Pope is perhaps the evilest person in the world today, and the Catholic Church the evilest institution. A century ago, the Church was burning women as witches. They got past that; and now they should get past this problem.
● Sunday, 9-4-1994: The Story of the Resurgence of My Sweet Tooth It’s been said that a liking for sweets is an acquired taste, and I think that may be true. I historically had a ferocious sweet tooth, from when I was a child through at least well into my twenties. But for many years, perhaps from around my early thirties through my late thirties, I had largely lost my appetite for sweets. I got it back, though, in the aftermath of a bout with cocaine. On one occasion in the late 1980’s I stumbled into getting high on crack cocaine (I tried to find some stimulant medication, like Dexedrine, on the street to stay up late to complete a project; I met a young man who told me he had no Dexedrine, but he assured me he had something else that would work . . . it did, but it turned out to be a very expensive project, for me). That one occasion was enough to cause in me an addiction crisis, so to speak, of which the immediate aftermath involved an intense craving for more of the drug. But I was determined that I’d recover from this fall and resume my strict abstinence from this highly addictive and life-ruining drug. In an effort to fight the craving for crack cocaine (having ruled out taking more of it), I attempted to substitute another satisfaction for the satisfaction of the drug. And, specifically, I attempted to satisfy myself with sweets, having a sense that there was some similarity between the satisfaction of ingesting the two substances. So I began to eat sweets. At first, I had to force myself to eat them, because it wasn’t satisfying—much less so than eating food. After a certain time, however, a few weeks or months, the substantial appetite for sweets returned. And it’s been with me ever since, even though I don’t consciously attempt to maintain or foster it. These events remind me of the saying, Be careful what you wish for—you might get it.
● 9-10-1994: Discombobulate (that’s actually a word!).
● Sunday, 9-11-1994: I had a terrible hangover almost all day today, the misery of which seemed to far outweigh the pleasure of the intoxication of last night. Or is it merely that the pain came after the pleasure, and we tend to feel as more substantial what’s present, or at least more recent? Or that pain takes precedence psychologically over pleasure?
[Later note (2021): I think we can eliminate the third possibility: it’s not at all clear that the memory of pain influences us more strongly than the memory of pleasure. The most important element is the second (we’re biased in favor of our present experience). The remaining element, recency, is important only for the very recent; the difference quickly fades: tomorrow, today’s event is twice as recent as yesterday’s. But months or years hence, we’ll hardly remember which one came first . . . if we remember them at all.]
● If two people are friends and lovers, is either the friendship or the romantic love the icing on the cake of the other element in the relationship? And, if so, which is which (that is, which is the icing, and which is the cake)?
● In God We Doubt.
● Today’s your Birthday! Happy Birthday! I hate your guts, but I celebrate your Birthday, because it means there’s one day fewer that you’ll be around!
● When I’m working, I feel that I want to stop working and relax. But when I stop working and simply relax, I just feel bored.
● 10-1-1994: Relating a bird to a man, a bird’s claws are like feet/legs, and its wings are like arms.
● 10-11-1994: People have always wondered why the sky “is” (or appears) blue. Recently, photographs of the Earth taken from space show the Earth as looking blue. What’s the connection between the two phenomena (which I presume there is)?
● I’m often aware of the intonation of words. “These” has a higher pitch, for example, than “those.” I associate words of higher pitch with femininity, and words of lower pitch with masculinity.
● Each day is just the same: first the moon, then the sun. All that matters is what you get done.
● What’s the difference between Einstein’s special theory of relativity and his general theory of relativity? It’s simple: the latter is more general. (That’s a joke.)
● Every picture tells a story. Every story tells a picture.
● Why is the sky blue? Is it perhaps because it’s reflecting back the color of the oceans? But if so, do we not then just have the question, “Why is the ocean blue?”?
● 11-28-1994: A variation on flipping a coin and calling heads or tails, is having someone call “even” or “odd,” and rolling a die (that is, one member of a pair of dice), and seeing whether the die lands with an even or an odd facet up . . ..
● About my name, Richard Eisner, just as the first letter of Richard is repeated as the (first) name’s penultimate letter, so, too, the first letter of Eisner is repeated as that name’s penultimate letter!!! . . . And the whole name begins and ends with the same letter (R); and the last two letters are the initials, in reverse order, of Richard and Eisner.
● Sunday, 12-11-1994: I live my life with the ultimate intention to maximize my literary output. My extreme, apparently exclusive, concentration now on my business (my law practice) comes from my belief that I could get very rich in the not-too-distant future, and the idea that wealth will give me two exquisitely important things: time to devote myself to my writing; and the ability to offer substantial rewards for the return of my lost writing.
I spend considerable time and effort creating and polishing, and making copies for my records of, pieces of my legal writing, out of a kind of substitute satisfaction for creating literary (philosophical, poetical) works that will add to my ultimate body of work. It satisfies my need to exercise my craft, nay, my art, even if it’s in such a restricted format. They’re trivial but brilliant; and perhaps so well done, that they nonetheless have lasting literary value. Which is delusional. Because their subject matter is technical and arbitrary (current American law), they can never be literature. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that my motivation is recognition. No one else reads my nonlegal writing. But at least a few lawyers and judges read my legal writing. In terms of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, I might say that, in spending an excessive amount of time perfecting pieces of my legal writing, I allow myself to put my fourth level needs ahead of fifth level needs: I sacrifice self-actualization for esteem—my long-term interest for short-term gratification.
● My foolproof method for getting a tune out of my head is simply to start, inwardly, singing another one. I find that once I do this (the biggest hurdle is to finally implement the decision to remove the current fixated tune, and stop singing it), I’m cured! . . . It’s a little like, when you’re dizzy from having spun around too many times, briefly spinning in the opposite direction. . . .
● Joycelan Elders was an excellent Surgeon General (U.S.A., 1994); you can’t advocate abstinence from sex without also advocating masturbation, in a post-pubescent human being. It’s that simple. It’s one or the other, is it not?
● Drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll is the modern equivalent of wine, women, and song.
● 12-12-1994: I favor the right to “physician-assisted suicide,” at least in the case of a terminally ill patient in great pain, whose pain can be remedied in no other way than by his death.
[Later note (2021): Why should assisted suicide for people with intractable pain, be limited to those who are terminally ill? Perhaps it’s for political feasibility?]
To the argument that to aid suicide is a violation of the physician’s Hippocratic Oath to, first, do no harm; I would reply that, for such a patient, his pain is a greater harm than his death. Broadly viewed, life has two components: experience and accomplishment. If such a patient could generate significant accomplishments, there might be a tradeoff, another value in his life to offset the pain. But not so. If you’re in severe, intractable pain, you’re not going to accomplish anything significant. So, his life is bad: no significant accomplishment, and painful experience, and no real hope of a change. In other words, an irremediably painful life is a disvaluable life, and should be (is better off) ended. So, in refusing to assist the patient in dying, the physician is doing harm, and so violating the Hippocratic Oath. Our failure to grant certain terminally ill and suffering people’s wish to die is downright selfish, requiring someone else to endure torture so that we can be squeamish about subtle philosophical questions.
● 12-21-1994: When something good and important happens to you, when everything else seems to have gone bad; it’s perhaps the working of a sort of reverse “Murphy’s Law”: “You can’t lose ‘em all.”
● 12-24-1994: Brothers and sisters, misses and misters.
● 12-26-1994: Can human language exist in a universe without sound? (More precisely, could it arise there?)