Stepping Into Wonder: New Kid at Princeton

An abridged version of this essay appeared in the Reunions Guide edition of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW), as part of Reunions Weekend. I wrote it as part of my 25th Reunion, which I enjoyed greatly. It does not appear online, hence I am including a longer version here. The PAW version is what I call the "broadcast" version, while here I include "cable" material that would never make it into the prim pages of PAW. The "nice" title is "Stepping Into Wonder," while the "naughty" title is "My Keyceptor is Trying to Seduce Me! And Other Tales of a Princeton Freshman." Enjoy.
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Stepping Into Wonder

On August 30, 1976, I flew from McAllen, Texas to Newark, N.J. to start my freshman year at Princeton. As soon as I stowed my bags and a creaky manual typewriter at the Nassau Inn, my experience began. Map in hand, I wandered the campus and found a lecture in progress. I wrote in my journal, “Finally, I discovered just what I had stumbled upon—a lecture by psychologist Carl Rogers, before a convention of Humanist Psychologists.”

That lecture, on my first day on campus, set the tone for what Princeton was, and continues to be. Coming from an isolated part of the country, where people like Carl Rogers were seen as subversive, I immediately confronted challenging people and ideas. I stepped onto campus and gained a sense of wonder at the sheer immediacy of what Princeton offered.

The experiences and impressions tumbled over one another. My journal from those days recorded the shocks of the new on social, political and sexual topics. Displays at Dillon Gym from the Association for Humanistic Psychology, for example, had “a variety of HP pamphlets and literature, each containing its own pitch toward the reader. Some had odd titles and psychic goals. The gay/lesbian arm of the meeting had a very large display of boards illustrating moderate and severe examples of anti-gay activities and also pro-gay displays.”

A few days later, I attended a “lecture-slide show by Timothy Leary on space colonization . . . I called home from Alexander Hall and told Mom of the day. I also mentioned the coed bathroom-showers here [I soon discovered this applied only to the convention]. I think it is a sane arrangement—we all have our minds potty trained.”

As a hormonally normal teenager freed from the social strictures of South Texas, I just knew Princeton would enfold me in a riotous social scene. Or so I hoped, anyway. One evening in those first weeks I met with my “keyceptor,” an upperclassman assigned to newbies to answer questions and smooth their entry into Princeton. Mine made a big impression on me, albeit not in the way Princeton hoped: “We sat in a living room and talked. She is a classics student, short, intense, buxom. ½-way through our discussion of classes I noticed she was acting rather seductive—she was lying down on the couch diddling a pen between her breasts, one of those BIC-types. I thought, ‘I guess I’m willing if she is,’ but nothing happened, that time, anyway.” We never saw each other again, but I still hear the click-click of that pen snapping through my brain synapses.

That raunchy perspective colored other aspects of my earliest Princeton days. Consider my attendance at a meeting of Undergraduates for a Stable America (USA) in Whig Hall. “We spent most of the meeting dreaming up new names for the group. Nobody likes USA. I said it first struck me as corny. I suggested the Adam Smith Society, A.S.S. I thought of a marvelous promo campaign to bolster a fun loving image: ‘Grab a piece of the A.S.S. . . .!’”

From USA my focus swung to the other end of the political spectrum. One day I was returning from a Psych lab with Jeff Sellers ‘80, “Walking back to the dorm we stopped to listen to a very intense fellow representing the Spartacus Youth League (SYL) at a table cluttered with propaganda on the walk east of East Pyne. He was probably in his early 30s, late 20s, conservatively dressed, short hair, glasses, real lefty. Finally broke away.”

“At dinner my roommates and I, stimulated by the SYL, discussed the physical traits of Communists lurking in Commons with us. Although no properly lurking males could be seen, we did see 2 girls with frizzy hair, somewhat East Europe dress. No self-respecting Red has straight hair.”

A few weeks later, I went with friends “to hear an Isaac Asimov lecture in McCosh 10. We arrived 30 minutes early but all the seats were taken except in the balcony. The lecture’s main thrust centered on the threat of overpopulation and the methods of curing it—persuading women to not have so many children.”

Ever eager to expand my cultural horizons, in late September I joined Film Society, and went to see Federico Fellini’s 1973 film Amarcord at midnight. “Jeff and I situated ourselves near the front-center. Comfortably, too much so, for after about an hour my resistance caved in under repeated assaults of sleep and I dozed a while. I saw the last 40 minutes of this Italian flick. Outside I felt so cold. It was 3 a.m., and Jeff and I walked mostly in silence to the dorm. He enjoyed the symbolism and photography and thought the subtitles detracted from his appreciation of the visual beauty. I chattered my teeth in a semblance of agreement.” The next weekend I switched gears and saw Monty Python’s And Now for Something Completely Different.

The fall of 1976 marked the presidential campaign between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Always a political junkie, I joined the University Democrats on an Oct. 10 bus trip to attend Columbus Day political events in Newark. Along with USA and SYL, the University Democrats spoke to the utter political confusion (or, as I like to see it, my independence) that puzzles my friends to this day. I wrote, “I got my 1st close view of Newark, the epitome of urban Armageddon. For a funny reason I felt at ease there and sensed a town still living an ethnic dream of a long time past.”

“In due time a procession with the usual police and fire attachments and on-the-take politicos came waving past, and finally, yes, WALTER MONDALE, looking a bit heavier than I expected. Totally uninspiring. He jumped from his open-body old car and starting gladhanding the adoring masses. . . . We began trailing Mondale along the crowded street, although my Republican leanings kept me from taking a banner or yelling. Finally he got in the car. We followed him down to a speakers’ stand, and although we could not see him, we heard a very brief nonpolitical blurb on the great contributions of Italian Americans to American culture, from Christopher Columbus to Don Vito Corleone. Retracing our route back down the street we found the GOP VP nominee, Bob Dole. My group trailed him from the sidewalk while waving posters and yelling and acting like perfect representatives of the party’s symbol.”

One encounter stands out as truly mythical. During the summer of 1976, my budding interest in the USSR led me to read Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, by George F. Kennan ’25. Before Freshman Week, I noted a discussion at the Woodrow Wilson School on the theme of “Solzhenitsyn as a Historian of 1917,” as I remember. Having had my fill of humanistic psychology for a while, I wandered over. Among the attendees was an elderly man, who listened attentively and asked some questions. With a jolt I realized George Kennan himself attended the discussion. “So this is Princeton,” I thought to myself. “Wow!” (Kennan died this spring just weeks short of his 80th Princeton Reunion, at the age of 101.)

The other great memory of those early days involves my try-out for The Daily Princetonian. I thought about this story in 2003, when former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox died. As background, Maddox ran for President in 1976 representing the American Independent Party, a candidacy that generated something other than enthusiasm among Princetonians, as I was to discover in October . . .

As I recorded the event: “Candidacy period, Monday afternoon I was flailing away with my Econ story and Ben Engel ’77 asked me if I wanted to do a story. Sure—so I was introduced to Andy Steinberg ’80 and we began working on the now-infamous Lester-Maddox-at-Cottage flap. Monday morning pranksters distributed flyers at all dorm rooms proclaiming the appearance of the good governor at Cottage that night. The 3rd Worlders raised a ruckus and by 5 Andy and I were in WWS for a pre-march meeting with Kathy Kiely ’77 and somebody else. Then, off to a larger meeting in the TW Center. On the way over I interviewed Provost Snowden. So, as for the rest of the happenings, read the Tuesday Oct. 19 edition. I get a mention at the very end. Did not finish until almost midnight. I stayed at the office to finish reading the sheets to make sure that the info I contributed to the story was correct.”

That store plunged me into national politics, an amazing experience for a 19 year old. In a few months, I wrote my first lead article for the Prince, on a lecture by Simon Wiesenthal, renowned hunter of Nazis. As with the Kennan encounter, I felt I had entered a special place where amazing people and events were part of the landscape. I didn’t just learn history, I touched it, and saw and heard the history makers.

A Brazilian Vacation: My Astral Week

[This appeared on English-language site in Sao Paulo, Brazil, all about my big Brazilian adventure. The site, Gringoes.com, is now what is probably a permanent vacation, as of November 2020, so here's what I wrote in 2005.]

My Brazil experience differs from others who write for Gringoes. I‘m not a long-term expat or immigrant, nor am I married to a Brazilian. I don‘t speak Portuguese. Still, my week-long visit to the country in November 2004 made a deep impression on me. Seven months later, my interest continues, so I offer to you a series of impressions, snapshots from a first-time visitor without any deep comments on national character or cultural differentiators.

My growing awareness of Brazil began in early 2003 when a woman I‘ll call Kitty in Rio de Janeiro contacted me through an online dating site. We‘re both Jewish, enjoyed writing, and had increasingly friendly online chats. I called her several times and she talked about me visiting her. Because of the distance and post-divorce emotional hesitance, I didn't take the offer too seriously and never considered a visit‘s pleasures. Kitty and I drifted apart and by early 2004 she met somebody local and that, as the phrase goes, was that. In retrospect, I missed a wonderful opportunity.

In September 2004 I contacted a woman in São Paulo. Let‘s call her Astral. Again, we formed a connection, as best one can online. She also invited me to visit. This time, I felt more confident and eager for an adventure. Instinct said "do it," so I surprised her, myself, and most of my family by agreeing. After considerable checking of calendars and airlines, we settled on the last week in November as the best time.

The complexities of a cross-cultural romance emerged after I ordered my tickets through my employer‘s travel office. Soon, the corporate security service sent a lengthy email wishing me "success and a safe voyage on your upcoming trip to Brazil." After that cheery opening, the email got down to the nitty-gritty. I learned, for example:

"Crime rates have been rising in Brazil, largely the result of drugs, gangs and poverty. The most significant crime problems are in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Petty theft is especially common in the tourist areas, hotel districts and beaches, while more violent crime tends to be reported in the slums surrounding these cities. In several recent incidents, however, violence has spilled over from these slums into popular tourist areas."

"Additionally, Sao Paulo has reported thefts at Guarulhos International Airport, involving carry-on luggage or briefcases that have been set down, sometimes for only a moment. Arriving and departing travelers should be especially vigilant and take the necessary precautions at this and other Brazilian airports. Sao Paulo also suffers from the same problems of street crime, which appears to be on the rise in nearly every part of the city."

"Tap water and ice may not be safe. Drink only bottled or boiled water and carbonated drinks."
The alert also listed every possible health vaccine, including for hepatitis, rabies, malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, with the bold-faced warning, "Areas of Brazil have chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum malaria." Fortunately, I read, Sao Paulo did not have a problem with malaria.

Given that I‘m a paranoid gringo when it comes to international travel, the well-intentioned warnings left me doubting the wisdom of instinct. Kidnappings, airport theft, rabies; what was I getting myself into? I forwarded the alert to Astral, writing, "What do you think? I'd better not send this to my brother-he'll freak out!" (My younger brother in Texas strongly opposed this 5,000 mile jaunt to visit a woman I barely knew in another country).

Astral replied with a light-hearted note, saying, "The only serious advice I have for your safety is that you get the best health insurance you can just in case you collapse after meeting me. And also, just in case I kidnap you to the best places in town just have plenty of valid credit cards! Now if you wish to go to the jungle in the Amazon rainforest than get all those vaccinations darling."

Still, my concerns deeply offended her. My frame of reference for Latin America stopped thousands of miles away from Brazil. I grew up on the Texas-Mexico border, and past visits to Mexico and El Salvador (of all places) merely led me to interpret Brazil in terms of those countries. "Brazil is not El Salvador," she told me, exasperated at my ignorance of the country. Even a week before I left I was asking my doctor about shots I might need. My plan to carry my passport, travelers check and other papers in a Velcro-sealed travel pack around my neck didn't impress her either.

Oh, to hell with it, I finally thought. I didn't take the shots, I didn't buy extra insurance, I just left Astral‘s phone numbers and my flight plans with my ex-wife and my brother. I simply got on the Saturday night American Airlines flight and stumbled out, the next morning, into that hotbed of criminality, Guarulhos airport.

My Brazil experience had a slow but uneventful start. I snaked through passport control and customs, going through the special Yankee line to be fingerprinted and photographed. After a long haul I finally emerged into the terminal and had my first sight of Astral in a delightful white business suit.

The next week very much reflected Astral‘s Brazil, neither a typical tourist experience nor a long-term expat‘s view. Some highlights:

Food. We visited Baby Beef, a crowded, delectable food experience, everything the travel books suggest. What I remember in even more detail is lunch on Saturday, on our way in from the airport, at a Japanese sushi restaurant downtown. Dazed from the long flight, the slog through customs, and the sheer novelty of a new city and a new friend, I think of the place as my real introduction to Brazil. A Japanese man entertained the crowd by singing American pop songs by Neil Diamond, Billy Joel and others, accompanying himself on guitar. Astral said he didn‘t actually speak English. American music by a Japanese man in Sao Paulo: in a word, surreal.

Traffic. The congestion is São Paulo is horrendous. That‘s no surprise. What surprised me was the round-the-clock bicycle traffic in Guaruja, where we spent several days for beach time. The flocks of bikes added a graceful, quiet note to the town and helped keep traffic congestion down. I even saw dozens of bikers after midnight, on the short ferry ride from Santos to Guaruja. The sturdy, practical bikes were a welcome contrast to the fashion-statement mountain bikes so popular in the U.S.

Santos. Friends of mine who had lived in Brazil and visited Santos collapsed in shock when I sang the praises of sophisticated Santos, based on a seven-hour day trip for beach, shopping, and dinner. "Santos? When I was there that was a dump!" exclaimed one. All I can see they saw one Santos, I saw another. The wide swooping beach with rocks rising from the sea proved a perfect backdrop for photos. The endless apartment buildings along the shore drive were majestic in their variety and testified to Brazilians‘ skill at constructing massive numbers of housing units (I‘m talking about the outward quantity and appeal to a U.S. apartment dweller; I have no idea about the interior quality). A few blocks inland, in the buzzing business district, we made our major touristy buys: Astral selected two CDs of MBP for me (Agora é que São Elas and Gilberto Gil Unplugged), while I got two pair of shoes.

Marketing. The weekend street-level marketing teams for upscale dwellings delighted me. Young women in coordinated uniforms tout developments by passing fliers through car windows and unfurling banners in front of stopped traffic at red lights. I‘ve never seen this kind of selling in the U.S. I even saved two fliers as marketing mementos of São Paulo: Loft Ibirapuera and Townhouse Village Morumbi.

Hebraica. The Jewish Community Center in São Paulo amazed me with its size, level of services, and friendly spirit. It stands like an oasis plopped behind (very) secure walls in the center of urban tumult. From the swimming pools to the library to the movie theater to the art gallery to the simple pleasure of strolling and greeting friends, Hebraica offered everything a close-knit community needs in a central location. It may not merit mention in general tour books, but for Jewish travelers, Hebraica is a must-see. If I lived in São Paulo for any length of time, I&#145d join.

Language. The smoky bingo parlor in Guaruja suggested a great way to study numbers in Portuguese. Listening to the bingo callers, I connected what I heard to the numbers posted on the big display board. I got a double reinforcement: hear it and see it. After some time on the beach, Astral gave me a Portuguese nickname: "Peludo," (Fuzzy) which, I will always associate with that memorable week.

Entertainment. Before I left for Brazil I was already addicted to Latin telenovelas, mostly Mexican soap operas. The theme music always rocks, the star actresses are slinkily adorable, and, anyway, I could justify watching anything as a way to improve my Spanish. I had always heard Brazil does novelas better than anybody, so Astral introduced me to one of the favorites, "Senhora do Destino." One of my favorite memories of the trip was nights in Guaruja, sprawled on a beanbag chair after a day on the beach, watching "Senhora do Destino" while Astral translated. The theme music especially struck me, with its haunting, soaring vocal. The music stayed with me long after I returned, as I couldn‘t remember the performer, and Astral and I were no longer in contact. Then one evening I was listening to my Internet radio service, Rhapsody, and the unmistakable riff came on. I immediately checked the performer information, and found it was Maria Rita‘s performance of "Encontros e Despedidas." Within a week I had ordered her CD from Amazon, along with a Bebel Gilberto CD. The word that comes to mind whenever I hear Maria Rita is "magic."

And now . . . six months later, my Brazil trip slips, day by day, back in my store of memories. I have no plans to return, although that could happen someday, somehow. The place got under my skin. I‘m constantly checking out CDs from the New York Public Library, including Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Virginia Rodrigues, Elis Regina, and more by Bebel Gilberto. I‘ve investigated various Portuguese language sets to study the language, which makes the music that much more enjoyable, once I can understand a little more. I pick up free Brazilian newspapers at a money-transfer place on New York‘s West 46th Street, "Little Brazil." A friend loaned me the novel Tieta, by Jorge Amado, so I will be reading that soon. She warned me it‘s "spicy," so I know already I‘ll like it. Of course, I read Gringoes religiously. So, I expect the Brazilian romance will continue.

So, all that‘s left to say is: Obrigado, Astral.

My Favorite Oswald

I read someplace that classical actors are judged according to how well they play Hamlet. After seeing Gary Oldman’s bravura turn in 1991’s JFK, I’ve decided that, modern actors must be judged by how well they play Lee Harvey Oswald.

Think about it: what other characters in recent American history, other than Richard Nixon and Anna Nicole Smith, have been more complex and confounding, bullying their way into our nightmares and turning history? With his bayou-coonass/Bronx accent and shifty-eyed demeanor, Oswald presents physical and psychological dimensions that would challenge the most accomplished actors.

I recently watched JFK for the first time since the movie’s release. I longed to see a lot more of Oldman’s Lee Harvey Oswald and a lot less of Kevin Costner’s New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in smoke-filled rooms. Director Oliver Stone teased the audience with fragmented McNuggets of Oswald, and left me panting for a big juicy steak of the Marine-Commie-defector.

So I started a trek to discover my favorite Oswald. Using Gerald Posner’s epochal investigation Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK as my trusty field guide to Dealey Plaza and beyond (and I’ve read the whole book, including the footnotes), I looked for movies and compared them to the historical record.

Surely, I thought, there must many films about Oswald, beyond the Kennedy biographies and factual records of the assassination. Oldman set a very high thespic bar, but I was determined to find challengers to the throne of Oswald actors.

To my amazement, almost nothing exists. Nada; zip; bupkis. While bookshelves groan and the Internet crackles with information about Oswald and the whole sordid mess, the creative film effort is pathetically small. Exhausting my web research skills, I found the Oswald shelf of your local video store would contain these films:

·JFK (1991), already mentioned. It covers the highlights of Oswald’s assassination-related life, some that really happened and others in dream-like uncertainty. Whatever one thinks about Stone’s politics, he created a hard-charging film brimming with colorful characters. Thrill at the opportunity to hear Oswald say, “I emphatically deny these charges,” “I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir,” and of course “I’m just a patsy.” Plus, Stone made good use of cute-as-a-button Quitman native Sissy Spacek as Liz Garrison. And in one easily missed line, Costner, I think, refers to McAllen as a center for gun-running. Ah-ha, I found a South Texas connection to the intrigue!

·Ruby (1992), starring Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby. Willie Garson plays a colorless throwaway role as Oswald. He doesn’t appear until an hour into this sluggish but sporadically entertaining piece of speculation, in which Oswald isn’t even the shooter. Watch for X-Filer and Princeton graduate David Duchovny in a minimal role as “Officer Tippit,” the Dallas cop killed by Oswald after the assassination. Aiello’s Ruby does get some amusing lines. In one scene, he is attacked by and then beats the tar out of the abusive husband of a stripper played by the delicious Sherilyn Fenn (post-Twin Peaks, pre-anorexia). Tough-guy Ruby bellows, “You make that the last time you take out your disappointments in life on Jack Ruby!”

· Two movies bear the proud title The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. The first appeared in 1964 (I’m sure glad it wasn’t 1962). Director Larry Buchanan explores whether Oswald was mentally ill. The film appears in video with another Buchanan take on Texas terrors, titled The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde. Specialty house Something Weird Video in Seattle markets this twin bill. The other "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" appeared on TV in 1977 and clocks in at an agonizing three hours and 12 minutes in length with John Pleshette as Oswald. This film is impossible to find.

· Love Field (1992) deserves mention not so much for its Oswald presence (just the standard TV scenes to move the plot along) but the way it uses the assassination as a mechanism to propel a Jackie-obsessed Dallas hairdresser played by Michelle Pfeiffer on her odyssey to Washington, D.C., for JFK’s funeral. On her trek she meets Dennis Haysbert (he played Senator and then President David Palmer on the first three seasons of "24") and they eventually engage in some amor prohibido. Nothing explicit gets shown, but Michelle does appear with a lovely post-coital glow on her face.

· The PBS program Frontline did an episode in 1993 called “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” While it’s a documentary, the teacher’s guide on the PBS website suggests that students watch the program and then stage their own trial of Oswald. The guide helpfully notes, “The teacher should allow some latitude in legal tactics. The purpose of this exercise is not to teach courtroom strategies. It is to explore the motivations and life of Lee Harvey Oswald.” The activity conjures up images of high school students hamming it up as Oswald, no doubt defended by Johnny Cochran-wannabees shouting, “If the Mannlicher-Carcano don’t fit, you must acquit!”

By default, Oldman wins the nod as my favorite Oswald, in the acting category. Oldman’s a great actor in a tough role. Challengers will be minimal until, oh, 2060, when some bright-eyed director, now in diapers, decides the 100th anniversary of the assassination will be a swell time to finally film an Oswald biopic.

Beyond the big and little screens, Oswald’s malign presence festers and sloshes. On the printed page and Internet, anything goes. Norman Mailer wrote the non-fiction "Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery," while Don DeLillo wrote the novel "Libra." Hard-boiled crime novelist James Ellroy’s "American Tabloid" explores the down and very dirty side of organized crime and the FBI and much more in the years leading up to November 22, 1963, conspiracies, Oswald and all.

Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman added music to the mix with "Assassins." Oswald joins other killers and contenders, such as John Wilkes Booth, John Hinkley, and Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, the Charles Manson acolyte who tried to kill President Ford, to do a little song and dance. (Interesting note: Squeaky Fromme is now rotting away in the Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth; her projected release date is September 5, 2005. Take note, Secret Service!)

Staying on a musical note, Dallas musician Homer Henderson wrote one of the great transgressive songs of all time, “Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine,” with the lyrics,

I was born in Dallas in 1952,
Lee Harvey moved across the street on Bentley Avenue,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president---I don't think he did.

And Lee Harvey was a friend of mine,
He used to take me fishing all the time,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president but I don't think he did.

Wallow in Oswaldiana for any length of time, the ambiguities and slippery connections start to play games with your head. Shadows and coincidences merge into confounding patterns. For example, Willie Garson of Ruby also played Oswald in episodes of “Quantum Leap” and “Mad TV.” John Pleshette of 1977’s "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" also had roles in the 2004 version of "Helter Skelter" about Charles Manson) and the 1998 TV movie "The Day Lincoln was Shot." Coincidences, you say?

The strangest dot-connecting pulls together "JFK," "Love Field," and the terrorist-battling series "24" on Fox. Hang with me here: "JFK" cast Donald Sutherland in a pivotal role, as the government operative who steers Costner’s Jim Garrison toward the conspiracy. Then, Dennis Haysbert plays a lead role in Love Field. Finally, in "24," Haysbert plays President David Palmer, while Donald’s son Keifer Sutherland plays the anti-terrorism operative Jack Bauer, who works for Palmer. Well! What does all that mean?

And now, a confession: the annals of Oswaldian speculation include my own modest, yet dare I say imaginative, contribution. You’re reading it here first, folks, a world exclusive.

In 1994, America followed the sordid case of O.J. Simpson, from the murder of Nicole through the chase of the White Bronco to the arrest, the trial, the acquittal, and the relentless search over the last decade for the real killers. Throughout the case certain facts troubled me. Echoes of past horror bounced off the walls of the courthouse into my brain, where they forced my attention. Unable to resist the compelling force of these echoes, I followed a twisting path of research that left me breathless in its stunning revelations. In the end, I wrote what is truly “my favorite Oswald” article, which I titled, “OJ and Lee Harvey: Stunning Links Revealed!”

To my bitter disappointment and undying suspicion, not a single newspaper or magazine would publish the fruits of my long and lonely hours spent delving into the arcania of two ill-led lives. Fortunately, through the magic of the Internet, I can now share my findings. My shocking thesis: “O.J. Simpson is possessed by the demon spirit of Lee Harvey Oswald!”

My research, which has yet to be refuted, charts connections between Simpson and Oswald that simply cannot be coincidences. Really! While the research and documentation run for thousands of pages (kept is a secret location to protect them from my rivals and enemies), I can provide some key findings:

· Both Oswald and Simpson trained in the deadly arts. Oswald was a Marine with extensive rifle experience. Simpson learned to wield weapons acting in movies such as "Firepower" and "Killer Force."

· In his statement read during his mad dash, Simpson wrote, “First, everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole’s murder.” Following Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald also denied involvement. Quoting Dallas police captain Will Fritz, Gerald Posner wrote, “He denied it and said he hadn’t killed the President.” Thus, both Simpson and Oswald said they didn’t do it. Now, you tell me: how likely is that to happen in murder cases?

· Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository and fled, finally being captured in the Texas Theater. Simpson flew from L.A. International Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare Plaza Hotel. Oswald went from a storage center to an entertainment place. Simpson went from an airport—a storage center for airplanes—to a hotel—where entertaining movies are shown in rooms. Their movements show uncanny similarities.

I could continue, but these examples nail the case down pretty well, the real demonic conspiracy. Now if I could just get somebody to buy my screen play. . . Gary Oldman, baby, have I got a role for you!