Monday, November 29, 2004

The Historiographer: A Grant of Immunity

November 29, 2004

Brian--

Hey, buddy. How was your holiday weekend? Are you still lying (as in resting, lying down, stretching out, reclining, or reposing), or are you just lying low?

This letter, like all my letters, does not begin as the statement of a fully grasped idea. How could it? I don't invest sufficient energy (intellectual or physical) in any one object to achieve anything fully, completely -- or to the fullest extent of nature's laws, as one might put it.

I've been doing nothing at all. I've simply been lying low -- as I have been for years -- safe and undetected within the heart of my apartment building, forswearing the world around me. There's nothing to prompt me to become active and do anything of a useful sort. What will cause me to become active, if I ever do so, isn't entirely clear at the moment. There are many mysteries about me that cry out for unraveling.

I trust you got your flu shot. You need a flu shot, you can't live without a flu shot. Immunity is always important. It's a good thing. Without immunity your whole life -- as you know it -- could unravel; you could be laid up for weeks. Once the viruses find you, once they make their inevitable discovery, you're finished. Don't believe the old wives' tale about informal immunity: there is no such thing. Last year's flu shot won't help you one darn bit. Of course, no one can force you to get a shot: it's purely voluntary. Watch out for corrupt doctors at public clinics, though. Deception and false promises of immunity are a common scam by public officials. They trick you into coming down to the clinic, and once you get there -- they tell you they've run out of flu shots. Likely story. Anyway, invoke your privilege. Get immunity. You look like a healthy guy, buddy. I think your constitution can stand it.

I confess. I didn't get a flu shot this year. I have no immunity. But then, I'm insane. One flu over the cuckoo's nest, and all that. If the virus got me, I wouldn't know what was going on anyhow. I'm oblivious. Isn't it obvious?

I thought I'd continue with the presentation of my diaries. This week I present the concluding portion that covers the period January 27, 2003 to August 19, 2003. That period of the diaries charts the development of my obsession with you, Brian. It's a sordid tale of false hopes and roads that should never have been taken. In any event, I plan to take you to the end of the line, so to speak -- a veritable "journey to Karlsbad."

Indeed, I have been taking you on a journey for the past several weeks. A journey includes at least a going from place A to place B, or to put it in terms of one of Freud's favorite Jewish jokes, from here to Karlsbad. The relevant story (Freud called it "the constitution story") is worth recounting. It concerns a Schnorrer: "An impecunious Jew had stowed himself away without a ticket in the fast train to Karlsbad. He was caught, and each time tickets were inspected he was taken out of the train and treated more and more severely. At one of the stations on his via dolorosa he met an acquaintance, who asked him where he was traveling to. 'To Karlsbad,' was his reply, 'if my constitution can stand it.'"

I have recorded in these pages my pain, my grief, and my sorrow. No outsider can follow the winding, internal path that leads a man like myself from despair to discovery, but the sensation of hitting bottom can sometimes stimulate an artist to abandon old commitments, embrace new ideas, and finally, confront what must be said or acknowledged. By early 2003 I had hit rock bottom, as the following entries attest. The loneliness I experienced during the dark days memorialized in these pages was acute, my binges catastrophic, my relationships with the several librarians in my life reflections of my instability, rage and confusion. But it was also at this time (as you will witness in the pages below) that I discovered the power of friendship -- albeit of the imaginary kind.

The imagery of the following diary entries interconnect with that of the journey and include views and prospects, locomotion, ascents and descents to heights and depths, explorations, demonstrations, light and fire, darkness. They are all involved with the map of the world within and the world outside the mind -- with how the world outside is registered within. The metaphors are aspects of the journey that lead to insight and outlook.

The unit of my communications, as I experience it, is not the Collected Writings, which I may some day attempt to publish (Good Luck with that endeavor!); nor is it the individual volume, or the sequence or group within the volume; it is the single message. Every written communication of mine is autonomous, or feels so to me in the writing, and consists of an effort to exhaust my present sense of the subject. It is for this reason that a letter sometimes takes a bit of time to finish. No message of mine is ever undertaken as a technical experiment; the form, which it takes, whether conventional or innovating, develops naturally as the message develops, as part of the utterance. Nor do my letters ever begin as the statement of a fully grasped idea; I think inside my lines and the thought must get where it can -- along the journey to Karlsbad, as it were -- amongst the moods and sounds and gravitating particulars which are appearing there.

My letters develop like the psychoanalytic narrative of the patient resting, lying down, stretching out, reclining, or reposing on the analyst's couch. Utterance follows utterance, immune from the censorship of the analyst, who listens to the patient's confession with evenly-hovering attention. Patterns of thought and feeling emerge over time. The inevitable outcome is a delineation of the individual human comedy. With the termination of the analysis, one might say: "Comoedia finita est."

Freud's great work "The Interpretation of Dreams" has been described as a journey through a landscape. Leonard Shengold writes: "In my paper on Freud's use of metaphor I examined some implications of a few of the images that Freud intertwined with his central metaphoric plan in the dream book -- that plan being a journey through a landscape. I indicated what I feel is a crucial place in the journey of that book: a turning point at the beginning of chapter 7 ["a fresh start," one might say], where Freud changes direction to plunge into the depths of the wishes of the unconscious (a 'veritable hell' -- like Dante, Freud undertakes a cosmic exploration involving the mind and the universe). That turning point is marked by the dream of the burning child. The speech in that dream is, "Father, don't you see I'm burning?" The dream and therefore the dream question are not Freud's own, but they can be linked with the exhibitionistic urination of the child Freud in his parents' bedroom (which brought on his father's unforgettable comment 'That boy will come to nothing'), and with his own dream after the death of his father: 'You are requested to close the eyes'. Both dreams refer to sight, to the metaphor of sight as understanding: and both dreams are to be connected with the mature and measured assessment of Freud's achievement, addressed to the fathers of this world, to heed or ignore at their peril: 'Insight such as this comes to one's lot but once in a lifetime.' By 1931 the child's burning had been tempered to a cool glance backward at the white heat of inspiration that marked the years following the death of his father."

Check you out next week, buddy. Remember, when you glance backward, keep your eyes on oncoming traffic. As an ancient Greek king was destined to discover -- with tragic consequences -- the road can be a real killer. Always think ahead.

_________________________________________________________________________

The Diaries

[During the period June 2001 to August 2003 I believed that the resident manager of my apartment building, David Castleberry (2000 - 2003), used to enter my apartment surreptitiously each day. I used to leave him a handwritten message taped to the inside of the front door. I had begun that practice in mid-June 2001 and continued writing notes and taping them to the door until the summer of 2003, when David Castleberry quit. The messages were addressed to "Friend." I pretended that I didn't know it was David Castleberry who was reading the notes. It was my (paranoid) belief that David Castleberry reported back to attorney managers at Akin Gump the content of the message I left on the door each day. I further believed that Akin Gump's attorney managers then informed Brian Brown at the library of the content of the daily message.]

1-27-03 Did you see the Sunday NY Times Magazine article about George W. Bush? They say he makes Pres. Reagan look like a moderate. What they meant, but didn't say, was that George Bush makes Ronald Reagan look like a fag! You heard it here first! -- Like I said 12 years ago: New Key Rock!

[In the early 1970s, while running for Mayor of Philadelphia, then Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo said that he would make Attila the Hun look like a fag.]

1-28-03 Message for Mr. Castleberry [please transmit]. This is the right and prudent time to institute on-line direct payment of rent. With a war coming -- and all that entails, including homeland involvement such as terrorist attacks, germ/chem/radiological warfare -- people may not be able to transact business at their bank. With on-line rent payment, tenants won't even have to leave the building. Think about it. It's the patriotic thing to do. Talk it over with the WRIT home office. -- [hand drawn picture of the American flag, then the message:] God Bless Rent. In just a few months Washington could be a far different place from what it is at this moment. Different from anything we can now imagine -- Only the prepared will survive!

1-29-03 Ignacio, from the library is gone for good, I think. And he didn't even kiss me good-bye. What kind of person is he?

[Ignacio (last name?) worked at the circulation desk at the Cleveland Park Library.]

1-30-03 Last afternoon, at my psychologist's, we talked about Steve Routh, an attorney (partner) at Hogan & Hartson. Routh's wife (Linda Stein) had a baby boy Robert Martin Routh in January 1987. Routh had a degree from the London School of Economics. I wonder if Routh knew Glenn Fine, an economics major from Harvard (Routh was a Harvard grad). Routh and Fine worked in nearby offices, when Fine was a law clerk at H&H. I wonder if Routh knew that Fine was VERY SPECIAL. I knew that.

[Steve Routh clerked for DC Appeals Court Judge John M. Ferren, who heard my appeal, Freedman v. DC Department of Human Rights in the year 1994, which was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. (I believe that Judge Ferren himself had once practiced at Hogan). Routh worked in the education practice group at Hogan; Routh was a member of a large team of attorneys, under Elliott Mincberg (now with "People for the American Way" -- a constitutional rights advocacy organization) and David Tatel, Esq. (now an associate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit) who represented the Milwaukee, WI public school district in desegregation litigation. I worked with Routh on a document production task in late December 1986 to early January 1987. Routh was an idealist who named his first child, Robert Martin, for Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. I always wondered what a psychoanalyst would say about the Oedipal (or other) implications of naming one's son, a first child, for two persons who were murdered. Glenn Fine is now Inspector General of the United States. He was a Rhodes Scholar and a star basketball player as a Harvard undergrad; his law degree is from Harvard. Esquire magazine's December 2003 issue featured a one-page article on Fine (page 200): "Glenn Fine: The Conscience of the D.O.J."]

1-30-03 Richard Reid gives a whole new meaning to the phrase-- "He has his foot in the door."

[Richard Reid, the so-called "show bomber," was a terrorist who concealed explosives in his shoe.]

1-31-03 Here's another Hogan partner who may remember Glenn Fine from the time in 1985 that Fine worked as a law clerk at the firm -- George H. Mernick, III 637-5726. Mernick worked on the 2nd floor at 815 Conn Ave in fall 1985 -- near Nancy Kent (in accounting).

2-3-03 I'll tell you my one recollection of George Mernick. It was the final days at 815 Connecticut Avenue in early April 1987. The building management at 815 Conn Ave was already starting up its renovation for the new major tenant. There was drilling of the terrace outside the building. The drilling was very noisy. Somebody (apparently not with the firm) asked Mernick what was going on. Mernick said we were moving to a new building, the other party said: "A new building?" Mernick said "A brand-new building!" -- Thus spoke George Mernick in April 1987.

[Hogan & Hartson moved to Columbia Square (555 13th Street, NW) in April 1987. One of the tenants at 815 Connecticut Avenue was Clark Clifford, Esq., former Secretary of Defense and a friend of Robert Strauss. Clifford's law partner was Robert Altman, Esq.]

2-4-03 Today's Birthdays: Stanley R. Palombo, MD (69) / Daniel D. Cutler (40). -- The above is the most persuasive evidence against the validity of astrology!

[Stanley R. Palombo, MD, was my treating psychiatrist in the year 1990. I worked with Cutler at Hogan & Hartson; he later went to law school (Seton Hall in New Jersey).]

2-5-03 Yesterday David Grady gave me a testy look when he saw me. Is it just coincidence that Grady is a Hogan attorney & I've been communicating with you recently about Hogan attorneys -- such as Steve Routh and George Mernick? That's a case in point about why I can't practice law. The jealousy is so EXTREME.

[David Grady, Esq. has been a tenant at 3801 Connecticut Avenue since at least 1990.

A preoccupation with envy or jealousy is a diagnostic criterion of a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). My current treating psychologist, Israella Bash, Ph.D., denies that I suffer from NPD.]

2-6-03 Like I told my psychologist yesterday-- I felt that Brian at the library was reacting to something that made him jealous. He was having a quiet "tantrum" -- Brian that is. What was Brian reacting to? I think Brian is just a jealous M-F'er. -- Then Dr. Shaffer [my psychologist] said she's getting cut from the system. That the city's no longer going to provide psychological services. What am I going to do? I'm just a helpless psychotic. I'll have to go elsewhere.

[The term "M-F'er" might be an Oedipal allusion.]

2-7-03 / 2-10-03 I've been so depressed since I heard that I'm losing my psychologist. I stayed in bed (more or less) all weekend (Fri-Sun) just sleeping and staring into space in a stupor. This is bad. The District has been systematically dismantling the mental health system. All that's left is psychiatrists to prescribe meds. It's inhuman. It's going to take me some time to get past this.

2-11-03 I'm still depressed about the mental health situation here in the District. What I'm thinking about is contacting some high-ranking official, and ask if I can become his pen-pal. That should get some attention.

2-12-03 Here's the name of Sid Dorfman's predecessor at The Franklin Institute: Castle Freeman. Freeman left in about 1972. He and I had no contact. Freeman can give insight into the culture of the Institute at that time. -- You know, I could die in a terror attack at any time. I want you to know it's been good knowing you.

[I worked with coworker and friend Sid Dorfman at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Dorfman obtained a B.S. in biology at Temple University in 1970. We attended the same high school.]

2-13-03 I've mentioned this before-- But you need a civil defense plan. Duck tape, duck tape, duck tape. As far as I see there's no plan at all. It's each tenant for himself. What is wrong with you people?

2-14-03 Later, dude.

2-17-03 / 2-18-03 / 2-19-03 I'm starting with a new psychologist -- Meghana Tembe at GW's Center for Professional Psychology -- a new beginning. -- Did you survive the storm? --

FREEDMAN: I'm coming back to GW!

DR. WIENER: Over my dead body!!

[Jerry M. Wiener, MD, was the chairman of the psychiatry department at GW, where I was in treatment from September 1992 to June 1996. Dr. Wiener died in early September 2001.]

2-20-03 I think that Mr. Pius and Mr. Doug did an outstanding job with the snow. They selflessly battled the elements during and after the storm of the century, all for the greater good of the residents. I recommend that those fine men be given a bonus of $50 each. Remember, a storm like this is a once-in-a-century occurrence.

[Doug and Pius were the building engineers at 3801 Connecticut Avenue, my residence.]

2-21-03 Message for Brian-- Please get the "A-Drive" fixed on the computer. Sure, it was cute in the beginning -- humorous, even -- but now it's just plain annoying. And I'm getting really p.o.'d. Get the damn thing fixed, Brian.

2-24-02 I had my first session with my new psychologist at GW on Friday (2-21-03) -- Meghana Tembe. She's good, if you can get through her accent -- She's from India. You can call her at the clinic (202) 887-0775. -- By the way, if I run into financial problems, I'm thinking I could move in with Brian -- I could be his butler -- Put his clothes out for him, run his bath, get him his coffee, arrange secret trysts with babes!

[Note that the very first reference to a friendship with Brian Brown (in the guise of a professional relationship) seems to be a negation of my relationship with my new psychologist, Meghana Tembe. Arguably, from the outset, my fantasies of closeness to Brian were a reaction to a relationship with a psychologist who I did not like at first sight.]

2-25-03 I have my second assessment session this morning with my new psychologist at GW. Meghana Tembe. I can't tell you how many evaluations and assessments I've gotten in my life. -- Brian hasn't voiced any interest in my becoming his butler. I'd be willing to do his wife. In fact. I could sleep with his wife, and Brian could sleep in the servants quarters. It's Oedipal.

2-26-03 Message for Brian -- Listen, Brian -- I was over at the West End Branch of the library system yesterday. That place was like a real library -- no chatting librarians, no noise, no librarians talking about their wive's first homosexual husband. I'm sorry to say it, but, you can't run a library. Cleveland Park is run like a social club. Moreover-- they have four computers over there, and you don't have to be hunched over to use them. They have privacy screens right on the computers. What's up with that?

[William Dacosta's wife, Debra (also a DC librarian), was previously married to a homosexual. Dacosta himself is a medicated bi-polar psychotic who takes lithium and Risperdal to control delusions and hallucinations. Isn't it odd that a patron should know all that by simply sitting in the library? On one occasion Dacosta permitted a patron to talk to him (in a loud, disruptive voice) about masturbation and fellatio. William Dacosta is Brian Brown's only male colleague.]

2-27-03 Did you catch Doug Feith last night on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather? He's the Under Secretary of Defense. Douglas Feith -- Central High School, 230th class, 1971. Do you think Dan knew that?

2-28-03 / 3-3-03 Message for Brian. Brian-- would you sleep with me? It's not sexual. It's a Michael Jackson thing. Sure it might generate a lot of gossip. But, you know, let people talk!

3-4-03 It's almost 24 years to the day in March 1979 when Malcolm Lassman and Larry Hoffman snagged that giant fish and had it mounted in the lunch room at Akin Gump. An amazing catch.

[The lunch room at Akin Gump features a gag "fish" made of metal, with a plaque that indicates the date in March 1979 that Malcolm Lassman and Lawrence Hoffman caught it.]

3-5-03 Message for Brian-- What do you do on Mondays, Brian, now that the libraries are closed? You know, I was thinking we could make Monday "our day" Brian. We could hang out, go places, do things. We could be buddies Brian -- and Mondays could be "our day." I'm thinking, in the summer, we could head up to Baltimore and take in a ball game and have a hot dog or two. What do you say? Sounds good, huh? You need a friend, Brian. You spend too much time at the library. You need a buddy who'll show you how to live a little. That's me, buddy! Call me (202) 362-7064. I'll be waiting.

3-6-03 / 3-7-03 I had my last session with my psychologist, Dr. Shaffer, on Wed 3-5-02. Onward and upward to GW I go!

3-10-03 / 3-11-03 I think the DC Gov't is screwed-up. My mental health clinic pharmacy ran out of my sleep medication early last week (a common med) and still hasn't received its order. I was given the old standby this morning (3-10) on the telephone: "Could you call back tomorrow?" -- You know, it's the Jews who are behind this!

[The reference to anti-Semitism alludes to Congressman Jim Moran's allegation that it was primarily the Jews who were in favor of going to war with Iraq.]

3-12-03 I just got a letter from Social Security saying they're reviewing my case. I got a big case of the "war jitters" -- What will the outcome be? I could lose this thing -- or win it in a matter of weeks. -- Message for Jim Moran-- I didn't know Tony Blair was Jewish.

3-13-03 Things are quiet at the library. Brian is on vacation to the 19th of March. I still have war countdown jitters.

[Note the connection between the subject matter of the message on 3-12 (war) and the reference to the "quiet" at the library: a possible association to the war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front." I read the novel in ninth-grade English class in high school. (See message dated 3/14).

3-14-03 Slow news day. Beware the Ides of March, which is coming up.

[The Ides of March is an apparent association to "Julius Caesar," a Shakespeare play I read in ninth-grade English class.]

3-17-03 I've got the war jitters really bad. I can't tell you how nervous I am about this. What is that expression Americans use? "The shit is being frightened from my anus?"

3-18-03 / 3-19-03 BUY BONDS TODAY! WAR! As you can see I'm stocking up on supplies. This is only the beginning of a massive stockpile to insure my ability to last out a major siege of Washington. I plan to survive this thing. Now, what about direct payment of rent online. Remember -- only the prepared will survive.

3-20 / 3-21-03 / 3-24-03 The Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations -- Mohammed Al-Doury -- is in violation of the No-Comb Zone. Did you see that guy? He's bald, but he has one of those "comb-over jobs."

3-25-03 SHOCK AND AWE.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: I have seen it all. You can't shock me, you can't even annoy me. --

I'm lovin' the new exercise room-- Thank you, WRIT!

["WRIT" is the Washington Real Estate Investment Trust.]

3-26-03 Tell you what I really like in the new exercise room is the "natural runner" machine. You get a good aerobic workout-- and it's very low impact. Good choice of machinery! [Cut out from magazine article referring to Bob Strauss and his wife:] "All Bob would have to say was 'It would be nice if I had a newspaper.' It would be midnight [and] Helen would run out to get a newspaper."

[If I could have found a wife like that, I'd have gotten married years ago.]

3-27-03 / 3-28-03 David Bloom-- You put the "B" in NBC.

[David Bloom was an NBC reporter who was killed several weeks later, covering the war in Iraq.]

3-31-03 IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN

IGNACIO (Hot Latino)
DEBRA (Ghetto Fabulous)
TERRI (Ebony Hottie)
BREW SNYDER (Wittiest)
LYNNE BOZE (Best Southern Accent)
RONNIE (Least Vulnerable)
MR. PEOPLES (Biggest)

R. I. P.
e n e
a a
d c
e


[Refers to former library staff persons. I believed that all of the named persons knew about Brian Brown's communications with Akin Gump managers. Bruce Snyder replaced Lynne Boze as one of the librarians in about 1992. Ronnie was the children's librarian. Mr. Peoples was the custodian who preceded Alex Chandler. Terri and Debra worked at the circulation desk.]

4-1-03 I have a feeling your contacts have already contacted Richard & Bonnie Moses, so I won't bother giving you background facts on those people.

[Richard Moses, D.O., a gastroenterologist with a law degree from Temple University Law School, was in my graduating class in high school, Central High School, 230th class, 1971. His wife, Bonnie, is a lawyer who worked for Leonard Sagot Associates, and may have known Jeffrey Orchinik, Esq., who used to practice at Sagot & Jennings.

Inserted at this point is a solicitation from The Central High School Capital and Endowment Campaign: an invitation by Judge Lawrence S. Margolis (Central High School, 199th class) for Cocktails and Conversation on April 8, 2003 at The United States Court of Federal Claims, Washington. Judge Margolis' chambers is (202) 219 9581.]

4-2-03 Brian -- Psy-Ops. I hope you understand I've just been fucking with your head -- nothing more. It's all good, clean fun.

4-3-03 Anyway, like I was saying -- on Tuesday, 4-1-03, I was walking along 23rd Street, and I saw Jim Stewart of CBS-NEWS. He saw me, gazed at me, I looked away -- turned to him -- and he was still looking at me. I was sure he recognized me. But how? He was carrying a "carryout" lunch -- a few steps away from the CBS studio on 23rd Street. I'm Famous!

[The phrase "Anyway, like I was saying" suggests to me that I had already begun to leave messages to Brian Brown on the library's public access computer hard drive by this date, and that I was continuing a message that I had begun at the library.]

4-4-03 Here's a flash from the past: MARCIA CHASE. She worked at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in the early 70s. I and some other folks had lunch over at her apartment in (I think) the summer of 1972. Marcia Chase made gazpacho. She worked with Barbara Van Horne. They worked for Joe Pitts. Those were the days! I was 18 years old and moving up in the world (briefly).

4-4-03 BONUS Elizabeth Joyce is always going on about the British -- the defenders of liberty! I notice she never talks about the Queen's uncle -- he was a Nazi sympathizer. Actually, I'm a lot like the Duke of Windsor, myself, except for the money, the sex, and the Nazi connections.

[Elizabeth Joyce used to work at the front desk at 3801 Connecticut Avenue. She retired in the summer of 2003, after about 17 years at the building. I thought that she knew all about the invasions of my privacy by Elaine Wranik and David Castleberry. I also think she knew all about my difficulties at Akin Gump.]

4-07-03 / 4-8-03 So much for Bob Simon's advice on surviving in Iraq!

[Refers to the death of NBC-News reporter David Bloom in Iraq. Simon, a CBS-News reporter -- who was captured by Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 -- had written that there was one sure way to survive in Iraq: "Just keep your eyes and your balls covered." In 1991 Simon and his news crew had been captured along a desert road in war-torn Iraq, and held captive by Saddam loyalists for forty days.

Excursus: It was in a trifurcation of the road, where Oedipus "had killed the old man who had tried to thrust him out of the path -- the old man who has turned out to be his father, Laius: 'For now I am found evil and of evil birth. O ye three roads, and thou secret glen -- thou coppice and narrow way where three paths met -- Ye who drank from my hands that father's blood which was my own, -- remember ye, perchance, what deeds I wrought for you to see, -- and then, when I came hither, what fresh deeds I went on to do?' Karl Abraham held the trifurcation of the road as the symbol of the maternal genitals, the place of traffic with the father and the son. (This interpretation is certainly reinforced by the words 'secret glen' and 'coppice and narrow way.') In the speech, the mother's genitals become charged with oral-sadistic libido and drink blood. The 'place where three paths meet' is called on to witness the past, 'the deeds I wrought for you to see.' This is after Oedipus has destroyed his own sight, has symbolically castrated himself. (Eyes are related to testicles symbolically and etymologically -- note the German Eier (egg) [compare message at 5-15-03, below, that refers to eggs] and Auge (eye) -- and testicles literally means 'little witnesses.') I have stated that part of soul murder is the consequences of seduced children taking on the guilt of the seducing parent. By assuming the adult's lies and denial, the children renounce their own ability to see what is and has been. They cease being reliable witnesses to the past and to present repetitions of the past." Shengold, L. "Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation" at 48 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1989).]

4-9-03 Brian-- Pick a day -- and order the tickets. How about June 30 -- Orioles/Yankees. Just you & me, buddy! [Attached is the Baltimore Orioles Camden Yards Home Game Schedule (2003).]

4-11-03

GEORGE BUSH: Hello, Madame.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: Madame? What are you calling me Madame for?

GEORGE BUSH: Those are ladies glasses.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: Ladies glasses?

GEORGE BUSH: Sure, says right here, "Gloria Vanderbilt Collection."

SADDAM HUSSEIN: That son of a bitch sold me ladies glasses!

[Parody of a Seinfeld episode. Saddam Hussein had appeared on television with large-framed glasses, a rare sight. Note the connection between this note and the preceding one dated 4/7 ("Just keep your eyes and your balls covered") as well as the note on 4-9 ("Take me out to the 'ball game'")]

4-11-03 THE BAGHDAD CAFE

SADDAM HUSSEIN: I gotta get out of this city!

GEORGE BUSH: So, you're tunneling to the center of the earth?

[Parody of a Seinfeld episode.]

4-14-03 Could you tell Mr. Castleberry that it's about time to start thinking about putting the summer furniture up on the roof. We're heading for some warm, summer-like days. -- Also, speaking of the roof -- on Saturday (4-12) at about 5:30 PM, somebody was barbecuing on a grill on the roof. Can you do that? Isn't that a fire hazard? Hot coals and all that.

4-15-03 MESSAGE FOR SYRIA

GEORGE BUSH: We demilitarize countries the old-fashioned way -- One regime at a time.

4-16-03 As you know, 3883 Connecticut Avenue, across the way. is now renting to tenants. The apartment directly across from my apartment -- the first terrace above the tool shed -- has been rented to a good-looking young guy. He comes out onto the terrace from time to time, to smoke a cigarette. Maybe you could induct him into providing covert information about me to you. He frequently looks across to my apartment and sees me. (I've been behaving -- no nudity and no masturbating in front of my neighbor across the way).

[Note that the message on 4/14 refers to a smoking barbecue; the message on 4/16 refers to a smoking tenant.]

4-17-03 Tell you who I think about from time to time -- "Ari" -- (not Ari Fleischer) -- He used to be a tenant in the building. Elizabeth Joyce will remember him. He looked like a fine young man -- A young man with character. I had identified him as someone who was probably going places in life. Now, several years later, I wonder what he's doing -- whether he has fulfilled his "early promise." Tell him to give me a call if you talk to him.

[Note that the messages on 4/16 and 4/17 both concern the issue of tenancy. In the message on 4/16 I refer to the issue of "being peered at" and in the message on 4/17 I refer to the act of "peering at" a tenant.]

4-17-03 Message for Malcolm Lassman: This is the 12th Passover you've ruined for me! When will the insanity end?

4-18-03 Happy Easter to my Christian friends. -- Did you talk to Ari? Is he on a safari?

4-21-03 TO TELL THE TRUTH

KITTY CARLISLE: I think Saddam No. 3 is the real Saddam. He's the only contestant who knew about the 60% discount at J&T Optical.

SADDAM NO. 3: Retail is for suckers!

[The message is a parody of a Seinfeld episode.]

4-22-03 Message for Condaleeza Rice -- In a novel titled "The Cobra Event" published in 1997 (6 years ago) (a book about germ warfare), Richard Preston writes that the French Unscom inspectors weren't interested in finding any WMD in Iraq -- that the inspectors were ordered by the French Gov't not to find anything in Iraq -- That was six years ago! See p. 115.

[The French were supposedly opposed to war with Iraq because of their commercial interests in Iraq. The previous message (4/21) refers to concealing the truth and commercial interests at a retail level.]

4-23-03 If you're wondering where all this paper comes from, a tenant, Mike Epstein, threw it away. It's all "Star Wars" crap. I thought that kid Epstein was a nut-job. -- By the way, today is Shakespeare's birthday (and the anniversary of his death -- He died on his birthday).

[Epstein was a tenant in apartment 108. He was a graduate of Utica College, I believe.]

4-24-03 Jonathan Belmont, MD, -- graduated first in his class at my high school -- Central High School, 230th class, 1971. Smart guy. He's signed up for classmates.com -- so he's obviously willing to talk. He can give you the inside dope on another class star, Doug Feith -- Now Undersecretary of Defense. By the way, in the class yearbook, Feith was elected "Honorary Faculty Member" -- He hasn't changed.

[Belmont is an ophthalmologist. Once again, a reference to the eyes. Incidentally, Belmont was sports editor on the school newspaper. (Eyes = balls = baseball? See messages for 4/7, 4/9, and 4/11).]

4-25-03 Sheldon Kanfer graduated third in my high school class (230th class, 1971). Smart guy. He was in the school orchestra; I think he played the flute. He can give you the inside dope on Douglas Feith, Undersect'y of Defense in the Bush Administration. The Internet lists Kanfer as a donor to the Columbus (Ohio?) Symphony Orchestra.

4-28-03 4-29-03 I've got something big planned for you for next week. It's going to be stupendous -- but you'll have to wait.

4-30-03 Stephen I. Kasloff, Esq. Central High School, 228th Class (1969). He was two years ahead of me in high school. He didn't know me, but we attended the same elementary school (Rowan Elem Sch). When he was in the 6th grade, I was in the 4th grade. I remember him because we were both library volunteers in elementary school -- under Mrs. Mary Stevens, a teacher. Kasloff was on the Bd of Managers of the CHS Alumni Association.

4-30-03 BONUS Did you check into Santo Diano, my 10th grade geometry teacher? (and homeroom teacher). He was a graduate of Central High School and was an alumnus, served as the school archivist.

5-1-03 Yesterday, Mrs. Joyce said to me, "Hello Gary, how are you?" -- Well, I didn't want to cause a row, but it's not appropriate. The downstairs staff should not be addressing me directly. After all, how does Mrs. Joyce know that I am not a peer, in which case I would be addressed as "Lord Freedman." I'm not a peer, but Mrs. Joyce doesn't know that. The bottom line is you need to remind staff of protocol. Long live the empire!

[Elizabeth Joyce was the front desk person at 3801 Connecticut Avenue. She was from London, England.

Note that the word "Peer" (an English lord) has a double meaning; it also means "to look at," or peer at.

Note that the Upstairs/Downstairs dichotomy in the message on 5/1 parallels the respective messages at 4/11 ("tunneling to the center of the Earth) and 4/14 ("going up to the roof"). The reference to "Lords" (persons of elevated status) and "downstairs staff" (persons of debased status) might allude to a family romance fantasy. (See message below, dated 5-5-03).]

5-2-03 Have a good weekend. I might get together with Brian, if he gives me a call.

5-5-03 / 5-6-03 [Message appended to a picture of a farmer holding a hoe. Background depicts a farm house, windmill, and silos.] I'm a sheep-fucker, and my grandson is a librarian. We've moved up over the generations!

[Refers to Brian Brown, whose grandfather lived in Montana. The term "sheep-fucker" might be an allusion to Sophocles' Oedipus. Oedipus, the son of a king, was banished from Thebes in infancy and raised by a lowly shepherd.

According to Dorothy Burlingham the fantasy of having a twin sibling is a latency fantasy, Oedipal in origin, in which the child imagines that he has a twin sibling who will provide narcissistic mirroring and thereby propitiate the loneliness engendered by the child's Oedipal rage and associated annihilation anxiety. Burlingham, D. "The Fantasy of Having a Twin." The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, volume I. (See message below, dated 5-7-03).]

5-7-03 Brian, buddy, I like you. Why won't you be my friend? I feel so sad and alone.

[My first meeting with Israella Bash, Ph.D. occurred on about May 2, 2003. At this time the only human contacts I had were with three female mental health professionals whom I disliked: Dr. Bash, Dr. Cooper (my psychiatrist), and Meghana Tembe (my psychotherapist at GW).]

5-8-03 Somebody to look into: Leonard Goldstein, MD. Classmates.com. Central High School 1971 (230th class). I have a funny anecdote about Goldstein. In 10th grade, the hygiene teacher was talking about the evils of masturbation, cautioning students not to engage in such activity. I was sitting next to Goldstein. Apparently, Goldstein didn't know what the word meant -- he started leafing through his dictionary trying to find out what masturbation was. Jerry Seinfeld said he didn't find out till he was in college. Maybe I was precocious.

[Goldstein was in my graduating class at Penn State, May 1975. He was a pre-med major.]

5-9-03 Happy Birthday, Bonnie Jensen! I didn't get you a gift, Bonnie, but remember, Life is a gift!

[Jensen is the assistant manager at 3801 Connecticut Avenue, my residence.]

5-12-03 / 5-13-03 Somebody to look into: Scott Nunamaker. Central High School, 230th Class, 1971. Supersmart. Was in Ming the Merciless's English Class in the ninth grade -- 67-68 sch year. I don't know anything else about him.

[My ninth-grade English teacher, Elliott Cades, known by students as "Ming the Merciless," was a very demanding teacher. He was a graduate of Central High School himself, and had taught there at least since the 1930s. He had a law degree. Perhaps he vented his frustrations in life on his students. He was unmarried, and died at age 83 in the year 1986.]

5-14-03 Here's the inside dope on Bill Einhorn, Esq. -- The great and glorious Bill Einhorn. (Central High School, 230th class, 1971.) He was not one of the super smart kids in high school. He made Barnwell, but he wasn't scholastic (and he wasn't involved in any athletics). In the immortal words of Lloyd Bentsen -- "You're no Jeff Orchinik" (Orchinik was brilliant).

[Einhorn, a graduate of Temple Law School, practiced at the Philadelphia firm of Sagot & Jennings at the time I clerked there (1981-1982). The Barnwell Award is an academic honor at Central High School. Einhorn's father owned a fruit/produce/fish market on Stenton Avenue, in Philadelphia.]

5-15-03 Mrs. Joyce needs to lose some weight. Those extra pounds are not good for her health. I've been following the following diet -- and I've lost about 10 pounds. It's high protein -- low carbohydrate. -- Spinach (10 oz.) -- a little bit of cheese for a snack -- omelet (main evening meal) [compare message at 4-7-03, above, that refers to eggs] -- skim milk (for snack in evening). No bread! No potatoes! No rice!

5-16-03 The crazies were out last night! I must have gotten about 5 to 6 bizarre telephone calls last night.

5-19-03 / 5-20-03 Michael Morrison, MD. Central High School, 230th Class, 1971. According to the most recent alumni newsletter Morrison made a financial contribution to the Central High School "General Fund" -- Super bright kid -- Didn't know him.

5-21-03 Mr. Pius or Mr. Douglas -- Thank you for changing my air filter.

5-23-03 Have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend -- and I'll see you Tuesday!

5-27-03 If you're looking for the "story behind the story" on Ming the Merciless, contact Dr. Norman S. Knee, Central High School, 186th class. [Attached is blurb on Dr. Knee, DO, FACOFP, who sent the alumni bulletin "a fascinating story of a series of memorable contacts with teacher Elliot Cades (who he referred to as 'Ming the Merciless'), during Knee's stay at Central, during his service in the United States Army of Occupation in Japan, and the aftermath of those experiences."]

5-27-03 THE ROAD MAP

BIBI NETANYAHU: What about the terrorism, the violence, the settlements, the refugee problem?

THE PRIME MINISTER: I propose that for the moment we place all these questions aside, and pursue our way further along one particular path.

[Refers to the Middle-East conflict. Note Dr. Shengold's observation that the metaphors that interconnect with that of the journey are all involved with the "map of the world" within and the world outside the mind. The line attributed to "The Prime Minister" (above) is, in fact, a quote from Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams."]

5-28-03 I'll tell you who I think is a weirdo-- Stanley Schmulewitz. He works out in the exercise room in his street clothes. Isn't that against the rules. Gives you an idea of the mentality of the tenants association as a whole!

[Schmulewitz, who has lived at 3801 Connecticut Avenue for the last 35 years, used to be president of the tenants' association.]

5-29-03 Did you see Mr. Pius' new car? Beautiful. I keep checking it out -- The design, the color -- tres cool!

5-30-03 Here's another item I picked up from my high school alumni bulletin-- The current rabbi and immediate past president of Jewish Congregation Beth El in Bethesda are graduates of my high school (Central High School in Philadelphia).6-2-03 / 6-3-03 After all these years we find out that Richard Chamberlain is homosexual. Right. Big surprise! Do you remember, back in 1992 when Aaron Ezekiel told Malcolm about how he tore up my "Dr. Kildare" collectible cards [in the fourth grade]? I know all & see all!

[Ezekiel and I were friends in elementary school. I mentioned Ezekiel in a letter I sent to my sister in 1992. I believe Akin Gump managers contacted Ezekiel.]

6-4-03 WMD

BABU BAAT: You said there were weapons of mass destruction. But there ARE no weapons of mass destruction. Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

PRESIDENT BUSH: The wheels are in motion, Babu. The wheels are in motion even as we speak.

[Parody of a Seinfeld episode.]

6-4-03 BONUS Could you tell Mr. Castleberry-- What I heard -- I heard Msairi talking about his undergoing diagnostic tests for cancer. It could be serious.

[Msairi used to be a front-desk employee at 3801 Connecticut Avenue.]

6-5-03 Check this out. The front inner courtyard of 3801 -- you know, where the entrance is -- if you look at the south side of the building, a tenant on the sixth floor has a lot of crap in the window -- multicolored junk. It reminds me of when I was a kid. I would put things in the window of our house. My father would say: "Get that crap out of the window. It looks like a shit-house from outside!"

6-6-03 Bonny Jensen's life is like a country-western song. When she filed for divorce her husband said: "I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden."

[I had overheard Bonnie Jensen talking about her marital difficulties that led to her divorce. Her husband objected to her hobby of gardening.]

6-9-03 / 6-10-03 Yesterday (6-8) I saw Ben Wattenberg in the Giant Supermarket. What happened to his TV show "Think Tank?" Did it get tanked? -- 6-10 / Strauss' birthday. 139 years old today.

[Refers to the composer Richard Strauss, who was born June 10, 1864.

Wattenberg -- who lives off Connecticut Avenue in DC's Van Ness area -- is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.]

6-11-03 Did you know that Bill Cosby and I are good friends? That's right. I call him Bill, and he calls me Gary. We've been on a first name basis or years. [Cosby (204th class) and I attended the same high school in Philadelphia. Attached is form letter from Cosby addressed "Dear Gary," soliciting financial contributions to Central High School's capital improvements campaign.]

6-12-03 I'm in a deep funk. I'm just going through the motions of being alive. Things don't interest me anymore. I don't listen to music much anymore. Is this what they call depression? My friends don't call anymore. I guess I'm no fun to be around.

6-13-03 / 6-16-03 / 6-17-03 Happy Friday the 13th. You should wear garlic around your head for good luck. Enjoy the long day light while you can. Have a good weekend! Library is closed today. How will Brian get on w/o me?

6-18-03 Sorry. Got a hot date with Ms. Amos at the welfare office [concerning food stamp recertification].

[Note that the letters have become brief and uninformative, unlike the earlier messages. By April 2003 I had begun writing daily letters to Brian Brown at the library (and saving them to the computer hard drive), a medium of communication that had replaced, in large part, my letter writing to David Castleberry.]

6-19-03 Idea of reference on 6-17-03. Tues afternoon I added material to my autobiography on the computer at the West End Branch of the library. The material concerned the [recently-decided] Charles Sell Supreme Court case, which concerned anti-psychotic meds. Later in the afternoon Velvel [at the Cleveland Park Library] started talking about "Zorba the Greek," which I saw as a reference to Dr. Georgopoulos [my former treating psychiatrist at GW], who used to recommend I take meds.

[The U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the Sell case quotes expert testimony to the effect that anti-psychotic medication is very rarely effective in treating delusional disorder. My diagnosis is delusional disorder.]

6-20-03 / 6-23-03 / 6-24-03 Has David Castleberry ever thought of using my services at the front desk? -- Maybe the pressure would be too much for me. I don't know.

6-25-03 3801 was featured briefly on a TV news story last night on WRC-TV (Ch. 4) about emergency preparedness re: terrorist attacks. One of our tenants was asked if we have evacuation plans. The tenant basically said, "Da?" I talked to you about this before. We need civil defense preparedness. That's more important than a new lobby, don't you think? -- Dead tenants don't pay rent -- do they? We need to encase 3801 in lead to ward off radiation!

[Management remodeled the lobby beginning in the fall of 2003.]

6-26-03 How do you like my "new" Chinese chochkas? I picked them up in the trash room. You can pick up a lot of good stuff in people's trash - computers, picture frames, scrap paper -- an endless variety, really.

6-27-03 FYI -- HUNKY TONY

STEPHEN BREYER: I must confess that I was born heterosexual, but I sign on to the homosexual agenda now and then.

[Refers to a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion in which Justice Antonin Scalia referred disparagingly to "the homosexual agenda."]

6-30-03 / 7-1-03 A few days ago I heard David Castleberry talking to Elizabeth Joyce about capital improvements. What about a pool? Yes! A big Olympic-sized pool for tenants. 3883 Connecticut has a pool and the tenants are loving it!

7-2-03 I was going to go to the party, but I decided against it. I'm basically a monarchist. This whole American independence thing was a bad idea. -- God Save the Queen!

[Refers to a July 4th party at 3801.]

7-3-03 Did you talk to Judy Glassie about installing a swimming pool, here at 3801 (using the capital improvements budget)? I think tenants would enjoy that more than sliding doors [at the front entrance]. -- I was thinking -- Isn't there any job I could do around the building? What about emptying the trash rooms every day at, say $5/day ($35/week). I think I could handle that. Plus I'd get first dibs on the "good" trash. -- Happy Fourth of July. See you Monday 7.7.03.

[undated] 3801 Masturbation Policy. It may not be done in common areas. This may only be done in your apartments.

[Parody of the new "smoking policy" which was posted in the building.]

7-6-03 BONUS -- LATEST THINKING AT THE WHITE HOUSE

PRESIDENT: What do we do about the growing numbers of unemployed?

SECRETARY OF STATE: We could ship 'em off to Iraq--

NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We could put them in the space shuttle program.

ATTORNEY GENERAL: I say we execute 'em all.

PRESIDENT: (aside to Treasury Secretary): How many billions more do we have to give away in tax cuts? This fiscal policy is hard work!

7-7-03 BONUS This is the 3-month anniversary of the death of my friend David Bloom.

7-7-03 / 7-8-03 Saturday afternoon (7-5-03) I learned about a dark, ugly side to Dr. Sack. He forgot about his 4:00 PM appointment. The poor patient had to wait in his waiting room -- You know how hot that was? She had to sit there with the door open, with her husband. They were helpless pawns of the powerful Dr. Sack. At one point the lady stood up and said-- "I think he stood us up." It was tragic heart-rending - and it exhibited a streak of callousness and indifference in Dr. Lawrence C. Sack that heretofore I did not know existed! ! Shame, shame, shame, Dr. Sack!

7-9-03 I got a notice from Social Security that they're not even going to bother doing their regular 3-year review, based on the preliminary information I gave them. Apparently, they can see I'm very, very sick!

[Attached is SSA Notice dated July 8, 2003.]

7-10-03 My psychologist has been on vacation the last two weeks. My mental state is deteriorating. Maybe I should get together with my friends.

[The psychologist took several vacations during my therapy with her, which spanned the period 2/03 to 5/04. She took off the entire month of December 2003 plus the first two weeks of January 2004. When I complained to my psychiatrist, Dr. Cooper replied: "Your therapist is not allowed to take vacations?"]

7-11-03 Nothing to report. Not much chance of going to the All-Star game with my buddy Brian. It's HIS loss! I PITY Brian!

7-14-03 / 7-15-03 Ten years ago today, my girlfriend dumped me! How can I ever enjoy Bastille Day? How can I ever be with another fraulein?

[Refers to my friend Craig W. Dye. We spoke for the last time, by telephone, on July 13, 1993.]

7-16-03 ELLEN DOES THE SHANGHAI MAFIA

FREEDMAN: Well, Jeffrey, did you talk to Ellen about resigning from the Court? Tell you what, there's an extra $50 bucks in it for you if she does.

ELLEN: Don't tell me later that there was something extra I was supposed to do like renounce my citizenship and disown my first born child.

FREEDMAN: No, no. Just resign from the Court and sign a contingency-fee agreement.

ELLEN: I'm doin' it!

[Parody of a Seinfeld episode, "The Chinese Restaurant." Note the phrase: "disown my first born child," a possible allusion to Sophocles' play, "Oedipus Rex." Oedipus' father, Laius, disowned the infant Oedipus. Compare the message on 1-30-03 that referred to the first born child of Steve Routh, a Hogan & Hartson attorney. The phrase "renounce my citizenship" might be an allusion to the punishment imposed on Oedipus; he was forced into exile from Thebes.]

7-17-03 For my friends at the Gump. -- Think of this as a terrorist attack in very, very slow motion: Only nobody dies, they just end up getting disbarred!

7-18-03 Happy 97th birthday to Clifford Odets -- By the way, how are Walt and Nora. -- Good to see Luise Rainer on the Oscars this year.

[Odets was a playwright, whose children were named Walt and Nora. Odets was married to the Oscar-winning actress, Luise Rainer. Odets was born in the same year as my father: 1906. My father had been a close friend of Odets' cousin, Benny Rossman.]

7-21-03 / 7-22-03 I heard that 20-year tenants get a $500 bonus. -- August 2003 will be my 20th anniversary here at the beautiful 3801 -- Please make my bonus check payable to "Gary Freedman."

[Message is a joke.]

7-23-03 Last night I was thinking about the sorry end for those two partners in crime -- I thought: "It's like a Greek tragedy, only they're not Greek and it's not particularly tragic." I don't know what nationality Race and Hoffman are!

[Refers to two management partners (Dennis M. Race and Lawrence J. Hoffman) at Akin Gump. Note the implied allusion to Sophocles' play "Oedipus Rex," a Greek tragedy. Also, note that the reference to Race's nationality seems to allude to the record on appeal in Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights: "At this point Malcolm Lassman turned to Dennis Race and said, 'Dennis, you're not Jewish. Jews don't eat pork'" (see message below, 7-24).

7-24-03 I signed up for food-stamp recertification last week. I'm hoping they will increase my benefit. I gotta talk to Glickman -- Hey, Glickman! -- There needs to be a kosher premium for food stamp recipients who eat kosher. That kosher crap costs like 20% more they treyf. I think the current program violates my 1st Amendment rights!

[Refers to Dan Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture in the Clinton Administration, and, as of 2003, a lawyer at Akin Gump. The word "treyf" means "non-kosher."]

7-25-03 I'm getting inappropriate pressure to return to work from Dr. Bash. I'm beginning to identify more and more with John Hinckley!

[Refers to the fact that the government has consistently fought to preserve Hinckley's status as a ward of the state; while I, an innocent person who never committed a violent act, was being pressured by a state employee, Dr. Bash, to give up his government benefits.]

7-28-03 Somebody in the apt bldg threw away a perfectly good DVD player! My gain.

[I learned later that the DVD player didn't work.]

7-29-03 I started on a new anti-depressant medication this morning -- Effexor. Let's see what this does!

7-30-03 They didn't increase my food stamps! What's up with that, Glickman?

7-31-03 I hear there's a big meeting with the WRIT folks. Why don't you raise the issue of the $500 bonus for 20-year residents? I know you have a lot of influence in the organization.

8-1-03 On a couple of occasions in the library -- the following picture was displayed prominently in the magazine exchange. It looks like an age-enhanced picture of Rubenstein. How would they know what Rubenstein looks like? [Attached is AT&T ad featuring a photo of the actor Cliff Robertson holding a telephone with the following advertising copy: "The better we sound. Touch Someone.]

8-4-03 I'm hoping to tighten the noose this week. They shoot horses don't they?

[Refers to a letter that I contemplated sending to GW President Stephen J. Trachtenberg about my psychotherapy at GW; the letter described my job termination by Dennis Race at Akin Gump. My therapist at GW (Meghana Tembe) later persuaded me not to send the letter.]

8-5-03 This morning when I looked at Mr. Cookson, he turned his eyes away, and would not look me in the eye. That tells me things are heating up (Ouch! that's hot! Something's cooking on the hot stove ! ! !)

[Pius Cookson is the building engineer at 3801 Connecticut.]

8-6-03 I just wish this thing were over. Then I could sue the bastards -- and rent a penthouse at 3883 Conn. I'd keep this apt for storage.

8-8-03 OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, I will NOT run for Governor of California. I'm sorry to disappoint all of the California out-of-state voters here at 3801.

[Refers to Arnold Schwarzenegger's announcement that he will run for Governor of California.]

8-8-03 I'm submitting these notes -- ("The Archives") to my psychologist.

DENNIS RACE: I got Bashed!

[Refers to my simmering anger about Dr. Bash's statements that she thought I was employable. Dr. Bash's statements about my employability were especially troubling because SSA had just renewed my benefits without even doing a review, which suggested to me that SSA believed my disability was serious.]

8-11-03 / 8-12-03 I was thinking about ending this line of communication, but I decided against it. My instincts tell me it's not time. Still got some lawyers to screw! As they say: A lawyer who fucks a lawyer is twice a lawyer!

8-13-03 People ask: "Does Israel have the bomb?" The way I see it, it misses the point. In terms of destructive potential, they have Dr. Bash! Does it matter whether they have the bomb?

8-14-03 Tomorrow (8-15-03) is a big day. No, not Vernon Jordan's birthday. No, not Napoleon's birthday -- 32 years ago tomorrow Richard Nixon got on TV in the evening (a Sunday evening in 1971) to announce wage & price controls. I don't know why I remember that -- I wonder if Ben Stein remembers -- you know his old man was a Nixon econ. adviser.

8-14-03 BONUS #135 (John Walsh) keeps his TV on all day-- Is he nuts? Aren't there better ways to scare off demons?

8-15-03 My illness is so devastating at times that I wonder how I can get through the day. "It's so sad"-- That's what Pat Nixon said on the plane back to San Clemente after Pres. Nixon resigned.

8-18-03 MESSAGE FOR DAVID GREGORY: Caught you on the Today Show. Good to hear you speaking English. Sincerely, George W. Bush.

[Gregory was the NBC-TV White House reporter in 2003. His fluency in French at a press conference with French President Chirac once irked President Bush.]

8-19-03 I guess it's the end of an era. I just found out that [resident manager] David Castleberry left-- All of a sudden. Then I learned that [my former treating psychiatrist] Lawrence C. Sack, MD, died. There was a note on his [office] door on Sat 8-16 advising patients to call his son, Dr. Robert Sack -- La comedia est finita!

["La comedia est finita" refers to Beethoven. A few days before Beethoven's death, a friend wrote: "He feels the end coming, for yesterday he said to me . . . 'Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est.'" (Applaud, friends, the comedy is ended.).]

END OF DIARIES.

Monday, November 22, 2004

The Historiographer: The Pharmacology Diaries -- Part II

[THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REDACTED PER THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND A SUPERVISORY OFFICER OF THE METRO DC POLICE, SECOND DISTRICT.]

Brian--

November 22, 2004

Hey, buddy. Looking forward to another week at the library? It'll be a short week. Thanksgiving is Thursday.

Unlike the upcoming workweek, this is a long -- ever so long -- letter. Be thankful that you pursued a career in library science, rather than history. I can tell you firsthand that history, or the writing of history -- historiography, as it's called -- is exhausting labor. Poring over ancient documents is taxing work, but it has its rewards. Yes, someday (one hopes) people will pay for my pain. Through legal processes, of course.

I've spent the weekend preparing volume II of my pharmacology diaries. Typing, editing, annotating, analyzing. The work of a historian is never done. But mind you, I don't do defenestrations. (That's an inside joke for historians -- The Thirty Years War, and all that).

People want to know, they need to understand: "Why, Freedman, why? Why do you spend so much time writing letters, notes, and messages. Mail, e-mail, and notes posted to doors that nobody ever reads. Why do you waste so much of your life on such fruitless efforts?"

I'm a compulsion machine. I'm an impulse-driven robot (to use a good Czech-derived word). People try to find a motive for my behavior. Something realistic, perhaps, such as a hoped-for financial reward. Well, of course, for me (as for most people), that thought is always there. There's always hope for a multi-million dollar lawsuit. But that's such a distant goal. It can barely be conceived in the present moment.

Besides, I'm not a keen believer in financial motives as an explanation for behavior. The historian Charles Beard (1874-1948) made a name for himself early in his career with his famous book "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States." Yet, later in life, even Charles Beard came to eschew an emphasis on economic causes as a rationale for human behavior. In 1932 Beard would write that "the world is largely ruled by ideas, true and false." In 1945 he wrote that "man hasn't sense enough to pursue economic interests consistently." Or, to paraphrase, "sometimes a law firm's attorney managers don't act like they're running a business."

My view of human behavior is Shakespearean. Again, like Shakespeare's protagonists, I am simply a compulsion machine, driven by motives that I don't consciously see, let alone understand. That, of course, was Freud's view also. Freud wasn't too keen on financial concerns, either, as offering much insight into behavior. (As they say in the old country: When a psychoanalyst starts talking like a lawyer, you know the ideas he states didn't originate with the analyst -- "A law firm is a business, isn't it?" Get it, Brian?)

In Harold Bloom's felicitously-economic reformulation of Freud's fundamental theory, "We are lived by drives we cannot command (or understand) and yet we search incessantly, do experience satisfactions, however marginal, and win our real if limited triumph over the vital order." Perhaps that is my motive: like all renegades, I seek to win a real if limited triumph over the vital order, even if that struggle takes thirty years--or more. I see my writings as a means to that ultimate triumph, however limited the outcome.

Let us turn now to The Diaries. Volume II of my Diaries covers the period October 11, 2002 to January 24, 2003, a period during which I took two antipsychotic medications, Risperdal and Abilify, seriatim, prescribed by my then treating psychiatrist, Betsy Jane Cooper, MD. Several months later, in midyear 2003, I closed my diaries forever. My professed aim in writing them had been to provide the attorney managers of Akin Gump a full account of my life and character, via David Castleberry, who was the resident manager of my apartment building at that time. In midyear 2003 David Castleberry resigned his position, and, thus, my means of communicating with the attorney managers of Akin Gump was undone.

In April 2003 I started to write letters to you. Maybe it would be useful to look at the period January 25, 2003 to the conclusion of my diary entries, several months later. That period of my history would shed light on the development of my obsession with you, buddy. Yes, let's do that someday. But for now the subject is chemistry. Better living through chemistry.

Check you out next week, buddy. By the way, will you be clothed on Friday? I was thinking of returning to the library on Friday. But, if you're going to be clothed, what's the point?

________________________________________________________________

The Diaries

[During the period June 2001 to August 2003 I believed that the resident manager of my apartment building, David Castleberry (2000 - 2003), used to enter my apartment surreptitiously each day. I used to leave him a handwritten message taped to the inside of the front door. I had begun that practice in mid-June 2001 and continued writing notes and taping them to the door until the summer of 2003, when David Castleberry quit. The messages were addressed to "Friend." I pretended that I didn't know it was David Castleberry who was reading the notes. It was my (paranoid) belief that David Castleberry reported back to attorney managers at Akin Gump the content of the message I left on the door each day. I further believed that Akin Gump's attorney managers then informed Brian Brown at the library of the content of the daily message.]


10-11-02 I'm going to pick up my meds today. I'm starting on a new anti-psychotic medication (Risperdal). I'll be taking my first dose tonight. Just wait till Monday morning when you'll be seeing significant changes in me. I may even stop writing to you altogether. I can see the prospect for a whole new life opening up for me. Maybe I'll find a job and get myself a girlfriend -- or to put it more vividly -- my aim is to get paid and [get] laid.

10-14-02 / 10-15-02 Did you hear President Bush say that war with Iraq is not a certainty -- only the build-up to war is a certainty? I'm thinking that's a lot like sex when you're on Zoloft: Only the build-up to the shooting is a certainty -- even though the final shot may never be fired. Personally, I'm a pro-war hawk! Let's get rubbers for the standing army!!

10-16-02 Message for Brian -- You were really nice to me yesterday Brian -- and I appreciate that -- I know that, for you, being a nice person can be difficult -- But you went the extra step. One other thing. -- Why did you let Lori use the remainder of somebody else's time on the computer yesterday? You know that's what she did. She makes arrangements with people to use their time. -- "Are you planning to use all your time?" -- "Could I use the rest of your time if you're planning to leave before your time is up?" That's what she does.

[Lori was a troublesome library patron who used to get into disputes, and an occasional serious argument, with librarian William Dacosta about the use of the libraries' public computers. It was my belief that Brian Brown had substantial cause to ban Lori from access to the public computers. Brian Brown did not take any action against Lori.]

10-17-02 Message for Aida Epstein -- Today is the anniversary of Frederic Chopin's death -- like you care! On another front-- Tuesday (10-15-02), in the magazine exchange, at the library, they left in the magazine exchange the attached "Be Careful what you wish For" -- I see this as a taunt -- "You might lose your Social Security if you get a criminal investigation." [Attached is the front cover of "AAA World" (September/October 2002 issue) featuring a photograph of the face of a bear with the caption: "Be Careful What You Wish For: Most of the 10 million people who visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park each year are hoping to see bears in the natural environment."]

10-18-02 Somebody's birthday falls around this time. But I can never remember. I know it's somebody's birthday Oct 18 or Oct 19. Who could that be?

[Message refers to Robert S. Strauss.]

10-21-02 So what's the story with Jeffrey Lieberson ([apartment] 138); he has a mezuzah on his door. He's into baseball in a big way. Maybe he's one of Malcolm's relatives. Wouldn't surprise me. [Attached is an address label from a magazine mailed to Lieberson.] Bob Strauss on the "Briefs vs. Boxers" controversy. -- "My boys are independent. Always have been. They don't need any support from Big Daddy." So here's what happened in the library on Friday afternoon (10/18). Sally was on the computer. Brian was fixing something in the Xerox machine. He was bending down, with his hand in the machine. Sally said to him-- "Do you want me to try [to help]? I have smaller hands." Then Brian said he fixed it. (He was talking in what I considered an affected tone of voice -- friendly, sexy). Then Sally started to clap (once again -- the hands). She glanced at me (I was on the other computer), as if she wanted to gauge my reaction to her clapping. I noticed on the "Return to Stacks" cart. They were placed prominently. One -- a book on "palm-held" computers (palm = hand + a tropical tree) (Rubenstein?). Two -- another on Winston S. Churchill (The Prime Minister) (Rubenstein?)

[Sally was a library volunteer, who used to water the plants in the library. She was a retiree who had worked in the computer field. I believe she had access to Brian Brown's office. Obviously, from the above entry, I also believed Sally received confidential information about me from library staff.

Perry Rubenstein was in my graduating class at Central High School (230th class, 1971). In the yearbook he stated as his career ambition, "Prime Minister of Kenya." He went to Florida on spring break in 1970 (in the 11th grade); and was forced to stay an extra week because he couldn't get transportation home. On about Thursday, the week following spring break, my chemistry teacher said (suddenly) -- in the middle of a lecture -- "Where is Rubenstein? I haven't seen him all week?" On one occasion Rubenstein called me a "fag." I used to talk a lot about Rubenstein with my then treating psychologist, Dr. Nancy Shaffer. Rubenstein assumed importance for me while I was writing my autobiography in adulthood. I noticed that references to the pianist Arthur Rubinstein were consistently associated with the theme of "lateness to arrive." I do not know what Rubenstein does. The Internet has numerous entries for a "Perry Rubenstein Gallery" in New York City. (There are many homosexuals in the art field. I had a feeling that Rubenstein secretly liked me -- in a manly way, of course.)

Jeffrey Lieberson, my neighbor, works as press secretary for Congressman Steven Rothman (D-NJ). He graduated from New York University in about the year 2000.]

10-22-02 THE BARBECUE

JIANG ZEMIN: I no wear cowboy hat. Make me look ridicurous.

PRESIDENT BUSH: But you have to wear it. There's a factory in Shanghai manufacturing these as we speak.

JIANG ZEMIN: There's factory making THESE?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes! It makes you look like a cowboy.

JIANG ZEMIN: But I don't want to look like cowboy!

[Jiang Zemin was the Chinese head of state. President Bush had presented Jiang Zemin with a cowboy hat during a state visit. The message is a parody of a Seinfeld episode, "The Puffy Shirt," which features the line: "You ruined me, you ruined my career."]

On another front-- Overheard at Akin Gump Management Committee meeting: [Following is cut out from a "Vanity Fair" magazine article about baseball player Pete Rose:] "How did it all go so fucking bad?" (Pete Rose quote)

[Pete Rose was a client of an Akin Gump partner, the criminal defense attorney John Dowd, Esq. Several years ago I saw Dowd chatting with Steptoe & Johnson attorney, Reid Weingarten, Esq. about a block from Akin Gump's office. Weingarten is a close personal friend of former U.S. Attorney and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., Esq. (Covington & Burling). I have seen Weingarten several times in downtown Washington. Each time he stared intently at me as if he recognized me; on occasion he had a look of pity or concern. (The thought is a paranoid idea of reference).

10-22-02 BONUS Message for Rubenstein: --I notice "Art & Antiques" (6-2002) left you out of its feature on New York Art dealers. Maybe you're not an art dealer after all. By the way, what do you think of that TV show -- "Antiques Roadshow" -- I think it's a scam. There aren't that many antiques in the world! It's like all those baseballs "autographed" by Pete Rose. Rubenstein, do you know Brad Shar? He's better looking than you.

[Attached is front cover of June 2002 issue of "Art & Antiques" captioned: "Young Ambition: NYC's Next Generation of Dealers, Part II." Cover features photo of eight New York art dealers, including Brad Shar. I do not know who Brad Shar is.]

10-22-02 DOUBLE BONUS I've formed a tentative theory-- That Mahler's 8th Symphony may be a giant set of variations on Mahler's song "Liebst Du Um Schonheit." There is at least one prominent direct quote from the song (at the words "Erleuchtet mein bedurftige Hertz"). Both the 8th Symphony and the song are dedicated to Mahler's wife.

10-23-02 Message for "The Management Committee"-- A lawyer who gets another lawyer disbarred is twice a lawyer. [Paraphrase of the homosexual French writer Jean Genet's famous observation: "A man who fucks a man is twice a man."] Anyway, here are some paranoid impressions I've been picking up: They have clinical significance, and are offered for assessment purposes. Monday at the library, I had the notion that the staff were trying to elicit a paranoid response from me. But I don't feel very confident about that impression. Also, Monday -- Charles Davis (a brother) smiled at me broadly when he saw me -- It seemed like he couldn't wipe the smile off his face. Then, yesterday, Tuesday (10-22) Brian was back. (By the way, Brian -- thanks for all this blank paper) (He wasn't there on Monday). He seemed "chastened" -- He wasn't in a receptive mood. I don't know what that was in connection with (maybe he hasn't gotten any lately). Picking up signals about rock bands -- I wonder if David Bowie still works for the Bureau. (Also, what about Jimmie Carter?) Seems like a lot of famous people work at the DC Field Office.

10-24-02 I think I actually have my psychologist, Dr. Shaffer, thinking I'm really psychotic. I guess I've got HER fooled. She doesn't seem to appreciate the fact that I REALLY am sensitive to what's going on -- that, for example, Malcolm broke into my apartment. I have her believing that my beliefs are actually "psychotic" symptoms. She's so naive. By the way, Ignacio, I had sexy feelings about you yesterday. Sorry, amigo, I don't like guys with facial hair. Look elsewhere for tongue action.

[Ignacio [last name?] used to work at the circulation desk at the library.]

10-25-02 I just received my high school alumni journal (Fall 2002). Check out Richard Rappaport, M.D. (202 graduating class). The notice says he's a forensic psychiatrist and associate clinical professor at UCSD, who has testified in high profile serial murder cases. Maybe he can provide insight into my potential for serial disbarment of management partners at large law firms. [Attached is blurb on Rappaport.] I still have fantasies relating to the assassination of a foreign head of state. Did Elliott Feldman give you any useful background info about that?

[Elliott Feldman, now a lawyer in Philadelphia, sat next to me in ninth-grade English class in high school; the class read Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in January 1968. The ancient Roman emperor Julius Caesar is the referenced assassinated "foreign head of state." The statement was made to show how easy it is to play with the heads of law enforcement, by clever use of language. The statement is an example of protected speech that, to a naive eye, can appear to be a threat.]

10-28-02 An Epic Adventure, Eleven Years in the Making: Siskel and Ebert Give it a "Thumbs-Up." Featuring Dennis Race, Larry (The "Hoff") Hoffman, Malcolm Lassman -- Plus a Panel of Experts! And Vernon Jordan in the Greatest Role of His Career IN

THE LACK OF FORESIGHT SAGA

--coming to a District Court near you. Here are some scenes from "Foresight"

DENNIS RACE: Well, I guess I didn't think ahead.

[The line "Well, I guess I didn't think ahead" is from a Seinfeld episode. The episode is about a corrupt dry-cleaner whose wife wears his customers' clothes. The episode features the line, "What, do you think the dry-cleaners is your own personal closet?"]

10-29-02 A There was a babe yakking away on her cell phone last night, for about 40 minutes, outside my window, from about 6:20 to 7:00 PM. I have to warn you about her (tell David Castleberry). She was talking about a leak in her closet that ruined a jacket of hers - and she wants to be compensated for dry-cleaning costs. She claims she's been ignored by maintenance. Something about the closet being sealed, her not having apartment insurance. Involvement of somebody named "Ron." Her mother is a lawyer. Watch out: She's a FUCKING pain in the ass. She seemed to be talking in an exaggerated loud voice, so that the whole world could hear her. Tell her she's a nuisance to other tenants.

10-29-02 B Here's what I'm picking up at the library -- through my sources. What the Feds are focusing on is the fact "Felix" (I call him Felix because of his legal brilliance) -- Felix didn't tell me he had learned that I suffered from a psychiatric "disorder" -- which prevented me from filing a claim with the firm's private insurer. Can you say FRAUD boys and girls?

[The name "Felix" (derived from Felix Frankfurter) refers to Dennis Race. It was in the fall of 2002 that I forwarded a letter to Eric H. Holder, Jr., Esq., at Covington & Burling requesting his pro bono representation. I had formed the paranoid impression, subsequently, that the letter to Holder triggered some inquiries of some kind.]

10-29-02 C Hey Rubenstein-- I'm putting you in my Hall of Frame! --Did I mention that Brad Shar is better looking than you?

10-29-02 D Could you tell David Castleberry -- a propos of the Halloween Party (I won't be there). Mr. Reuss used to have breakfasts -- I really liked them. I can still remember -- There was one on a Saturday in May 1996 and one on a Sunday in Nov 1999. How is Mr. Reuss?

[John Reuss was the resident manager at 3801 Connecticut Avenue from about 1993 to 2000; he was transferred to the Roosevelt Apartment Complex in Falls Church. The four messages posted on 10-29 (designated A, B, C, and D) appear to be a form of acting out, as if to say, "Do you think this medication is helping me?" I never had the impression that John Reuss entered my apartment surreptitiously.]

10-30-02 THE BRIS [The Circumcision]

RUBENSTEIN: I think he's in love with me. He never stops talking about me. I don't know why he's so obsessed with me. We were never close friends. We were never even friends, never even acquaintances.

MALCOLM: I thought you two played softball together.

RUBENSTEIN: We never played softball. Besides, he throws like a girl.

MALCOLM: He said you played softball together, that he was the pitcher and you were the catcher.

RUBENSTEIN: He told you we had a special relationship? Doesn't he have any closer friends? He's level-jumping on our chance association.

MALCOLM: Yes, he's level-jumping.

[The message is a parody of a Seinfeld episode, "The Bris."]

10-31-02 Quote of the Day: "The Hell with the Nobel Prize, -- I'm back, baby, I'm back!" [Refers to Walter Mondale's announcement that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat from Minnesota left vacant by the sudden, accidental death of Paul Wellstone (D-Mn.).] I told Dr. Shaffer yesterday about my fascination with Bruce Jay Stein -- and how he had a lot going on downtown.

[Stein was in my graduating class in college. I used to see him naked in the athletics department locker room.]

11-02-02 THE FANTASY CAMP

FRITZ MONDALE: I don't even NEED to campaign.

BOB STRAUSS: I don't NEED to bill clients.

DOUG GANSLER: I don't NEED to establish jurisdiction!

BOB STRAUSS: We were MADE for each other!!

[Refers to fact that Strauss is famous for not billing clients, unlike most lawyers; Mondale's last-minute run for the Senate; and Montgomery County State's Attorney Gansler's decision to prosecute the sniper shooter in Montgomery County despite the competing (and apparently superior) claims of prosecutors in other jurisdictions.]

11-04-02 I'm still taking my anti-psychotic meds. See the difference? Here's what I'm thinking. It's about Felix. Felix said (11 years ago -- I'm still caught up with the distant past) that my complaint of job harassment was consistent with a psychiatric disorder that can be associated with a risk of violent behavior. Here's a quote from "Narcissism: Denial of the True Self" by Alexander Lowen, M.D.: "There are successful psychopaths . . . brilliant, remorseless people with icy intelligence, incapable of love or guilt, with aggressive designs on the rest of the world." . . . "Instead of murdering others" . . . this person "might become a corporate raider and murder companies, firing people instead of killing them, chopping up their functions, rather than their bodies.'" (page 23) When you combine "The Felix Model" of violent potential with the above description of a type of psychopath you end up with the following assertion -- Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's action in ordering the break-up of Microsoft is an action CONSISTENT WITH his being a psychopath, which can be associated with a risk of violence -- maybe as a public service I should warn Judge Jackson's colleagues.

11-05-02 This is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Here's someone who I remember being in my seventh-grade class (as you know Lillian Camaioni was the homeroom teacher and social studies teacher). The person's name was Andrew Applebaum. I don't remember anything specific about him. I think he had attended Elwood Elementary school. David Ellis [Central High School, 230th class, 1971] would have known him. I am simply making a report. To you, honored members of the board, I am simply making a report.

11-05-02 [Full page ad from magazine for the cologne "Lauder Pleasures for Men," depicting a male model who has a striking resemblance to my old friend Craig W. Dye; a female model is kissing his forehead; the caption reads -- "Capture the moment." I have written in a caption that I attribute to the female: "Sweetheart, Gramps wants you to smile for the camera." Capture the moment "and sell it to the Gov't."

[Refers to the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. Dye was romantically involved with the granddaughter of Abraham Zapruder who filmed the assassination, and whose heirs sold the film to the federal government for $15 million.]

11-06-02 I write this not knowing whether Fritz won or lost -- I'm in a somber mood! I don't know whether I mentioned this before -- maybe I did. Susan Marks (Phila High School for Girls, 1970 -- 211th class) -- a classmate of mine in elementary school had a female cousin of the same age. I forget the cousin's name, but she was in my 7th grade class in junior high school with -- among others Andy Applebaum and David Ellis (who I mentioned yesterday). What I remember from elementary school is that Susan Marks' cousin's mother had died of cancer. (The cousin didn't go to the same elementary school as Miss Marks and I).

[Susan Marks had a genius-level IQ, having achieved a perfect score on an IQ test administered in sixth grade. I told a former treating psychiatrist, Dr. Stanley R. Palombo, about Marks in the year 1990. I believe Akin Gump managers promptly contacted Marks.]

11-06-02 Additional Thoughts. I have some additional thoughts about yesterday's election. What if Fritz Mondale lost? I'm devastated! His political career will be in shambles. He may never win political office again. -- And that campaign! The hours of backbreaking speeches. Handshaking -- baby-holding. -- A long, hard, campaign. To put that much energy into something and to see it go up in flames! My heart goes out to Fritz. He'll have to go back to his million-dollar law practice.

[Message is a humorous reference to the fact that Mondale spent, at most, all of two days campaigning for the Senate seat left vacant by the sudden death of incumbent Wellstone.]

11-07-02 Here's something for the chapter: "The Brilliance of Felix" Legal Argument: "We determined that his behavior was like that of a person with ideas of reference, and as a general proposition, ideas of reference can be associated with a risk of violence" -- Q.E.D. Freedman may be violent. Equivalent: Bob Strauss's old age is like a brilliant sunset. As a general principle, if you stare at the sun, you can go blind (proof -- Galileo). Q.E.D. -- If you stare at Bob Strauss long enough, you could go blind. Felix turned me into a metaphor ! ! !

11-07-02 I'm posting yesterday's notes. Unfortunately, Mr. Doug was doing his filter gig yesterday, so I thought it was prudent to not post the notes. I don't think Mr. Doug would understand. Would you believe I still don't know who won the Minnesota Senate race? In any event, I'm devastated by the election results. Republicans are taking over the whole country ! ! ! At least my old friend [former Philadelphia mayor and district attorney] Ed Rendell won [the gubernatorial seat] in Pennsylvania.

[I believe that Rendell knows who I am through Bob Strauss. Rendell was chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the year 2000; Strauss was a convention delegate that year. Several years ago (about 1997) I sent an attention-grabbing application letter to Rendell's wife, Marjorie Rendell, for a position as law clerk. Marjorie Rendell is a U.S. District Court Judge in Philadelphia (E.D. Pa.).]

11-08-02 I found out yesterday that Walter Mondale didn't win the senate race in Minnesota. To all you Minnesotans who didn't vote for Fritz, I have just one thing to say: GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! By the way, 42 years ago today, a majority of Americans (barely) voted the right way. [Refers to the Nixon-Kennedy Presidential election of 1960.]

11-08-02 For the chapter: "Don't Try This At Home Boys and Girls -- Leave It To The Professionals"

FRITZ MONDALE: Maybe I should have had more time to campaign.

DOUG GANSLER: Maybe I should have had better facts and better law.

BOB STRAUSS: I still don't bill clients. I have no plans to.

11-11-2 / 11-12-02 Here's an interesting thing. Frank Gannon, Deputy to President Nixon's Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, has a Ph.D. and is something of an expert on James Joyce. Reportedly, he said that listening to the Nixon tapes was like following James Joyce's novel, "Ulysses." Hey, Fleischer, who's your James Joyce expert?

[Ari Fleischer was press secretary to President George W. Bush.]

11-13-02 I heard President Bush say yesterday that the actions of the Iraqi Parliament are meaningless because it's just a rubber stamp organization-- An instance of presidential projection? Did you check out last week's election returns here in the States? I think the Republicans control both houses of Congress -- or was I dreaming?

11-14-02 Doctor Shaffer is really starting to "P Street " me off. I'm thinking of writing a new type of letter to a random attorney at the Justice Department.

Dear Sir:

Please help me. My situation is desperate. The Government of the District of Columbia together with various professional persons licensed by the DC Government have taken actions that would evince, to a reasonable person, that something terrible, egregious, outrageous, and execrable has been going on--

1. In August 1998, an employee of the District Government told the U.S. Capitol Police that I had [redacted]. Following an investigation the Capitol Police determined that the accusation was a simple mistake.

2. In February 1996, a psychiatrist licensed by the DC Gov't determined that I suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. It now appears that was a simple mistake.

3. In February 1999, a psychiatrist employed by the DC Gov't determined that I suffered from paranoid schizophrenia-- a simple mistake.

4. In September 1992 a psychiatrist licensed by the DC Gov't determined that I suffered from bi-polar disorder -- a simple mistake.

5. In October 1991, a psychiatrist licensed by the D.C. Government determined that someone with my behaviors could be [redacted]--a simple mistake.

6. In December 1997 (on Beethoven's birthday) an attorney employed by the DC Corporation Counsel advised the DC Court of Appeals that I admitted that my coworkers were afraid that I might "[redacted]" -- (that would include as a possible [redacted], Vernon Jordan -- a close friend of the President of the USA). A simple mistake.

7. During the summer of 2002, a Metro cop stopped and interrogated me at the Georgia Avenue Metro Station based on his probable cause determination that I [redacted]. A simple mistake.

8. In January 1998, my psychiatrist-- an individual licensed by the DC Gov't determined that I do not suffer from a mental illness for which medication was indicated - a simple mistake.

9. In September 1998, the D.C. Court of Appeals made a decision affirming a prior finding of the DC Dept of Human Right that I might reasonably be said to be [redacted]. The Court's decision was premised in part on the assumption that the month of October is a month that falls in the early part of the year -- a simple mistake.

For your additional information I submit a copy of my autobiography. Dennis Race, Esq. (887-4028) has consented to serve as a contact person regarding this matter.

OH, YES -- AND NO. 10

10. The DC Gov't has maintained that my belief that senior attorneys at the law firm of AGSH&F (possibly including Vernon Jordan) burglarized my apartment, in January 1990, was material to Dennis Race's decision to terminate my employment. -- A simple mistake. You can ask Mr. Race about this at 887-4028 -- That's 887-4028.

11-15-02 Of course, the big topic of conversation at the library yesterday (11-14) was my session with my psychologist, Dr. Shaffer. They were "talking" about how Dr. Shaffer was told not to invest energy into trying to re-assure me that I'm not under surveillance. She does that, you know -- as if it has any effect on me! Maybe she's got the message.

11-18-02 Like I said, we're coming up on Jeffrey Orchinik's 50th birthday. He's still in good shape. He did permanent damage to his nails -- He was a chronic nail-biter. He has to use "Lee Press-On Nails" as a prosthetic. Did you know "Lee Press-On Nails" are covered by Medicare, if they're medically-indicated?

[Attached is magazine cover ("Men's Fitness") of a male model, with a caption I've written in: "Prosthetic nails turned my life around." Orchinik (229th class, Central High School, 1970) was a year older than me and practiced at the Philadelphia firm of Sagot & Jennings, where I clerked during law school (1980-1982). Orchinik specialized in ERISA, and now practices personal injury law at a suburban Philadelphia firm. Orchinik graduated summa cum laude in psychology from SUNY-Buffalo, 1974. My friend Craig W. Dye graduated from SUNY-Buffalo in about 1980. Tom Jennings, Esq. described Orchinik as "brilliant."]

11-19-02 Yesterday, Velvel was drinking a soft drink at his desk in the library -- a violation of library rules. Brian is gone for a week, and the library starts to fall apart -- as I've pointed out before. Also, I think I said this last year, but today is the anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Saturday, Nov 16 -- That's when Kent (Big Brother 2) said he was going on a cruise with some of the other contestants and "the Fans" -- I guess there's nothing like reliving a confining experience than by having another confining experience. At least on a cruise you can jump ship. I guess Hardy won't be going on the cruise. It's a shame Hardy and Lindsey broke up. Looking back, I guess she was really a gold digger. Maybe she should have dated Eddie McGee, the one-legged kid from "Big Brother 1" -- She could have shared in the half million and gotten some kinky amputee sex!

11-19-02 BONUS / FEDERAL FACILITY MARION, OHIO -- MACHINE SHOPPE

DENNIS RACE: This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "tool time."

11-20-02 Yesterday (11-19) at the library, some more inappropriate behavior occurred. An elderly patron was talking to Velvel in a loud tone of voice about fellatio (the technical term for Lewinskying) and masturbation. The conversation started off innocently enough about Eugene, Oregon (which, I learned, is in the "southern" part of the state). Velvel just encouraged the whole thing by saying he used to reside in Eugene. I know people say I exaggerate, but it was loud and raunchy. Objective confirmation came from another patron, Matthew Wolfe. He was seated at a table adjacent to mine, and called over to me. "Hey, hey" -- I turned to Wolfe. He said "are you following this?" I said, "Yes" -- He said "Do you believe this?" The librarians, as I see it, are enablers of this type of behavior by being chatty. That needs to stop -- policy recommendation. -- "Librarians may only engage in conversations related to library business." I may file a complaint with the library trustees. Sorry, Velvel, but you need to rein things in ! ! !

[I do not know the patron Matthew Wolfe; he used to use the "sign-in" ledger to use one of the public computers. Note that William Dacosta ("Velvel") had no problem with a patron talking in a loud and disruptive voice about sexually-explicit material, but called the DC Police on me for writing an undelivered message that referred obliquely (and in lawful language) to my emotional reaction to my psychiatric treatment and my past employment problems. I believe that the stated reason for summoning the police on April 21, 2004 to evict me from the library was not the real reason. In any event, lesson learned: From now on I'll just talk about masturbation and fellatio at the library -- I don't NEED to talk about "dark places."]

11-20-02 BONUS I've upped my anti-psychotic meds (Risperdal) to 2 mg/day, per my prescription. You see the change? Yesterday at the library, I noticed two things that were related in content--

1. On the shelf of "Books on Tape," one "book" was set off, askew. The title was something like "Cheaters" by an author named "Eric" something.-- FINE, OK. BUT THEN--

2. In the magazine exchange a magazine was prominently displayed (attached). The cover story was "Cheating, Writing, and Arithmetic." (Meaning(?) -- David Ellis, 7th grade. "Cheaters never prosper?" -- I really don't know the meaning.

11-21-02 Dr. Shaffer is still "P Streeting" me off. I can tell someone talked to her about how to deal with my "ideas" about the surveillance. Her whole approach to my "paranoia" was different -- more, shall we say, superficially (at least) appropriate. What's odd is that Dr. Shaffer is even more transparent than the supervised residents I used to see at GW. I can actually tell with Dr. Shaffer when she's been "corrected" -- which was not apparent with the residents. As I see it, Dr. S--- is not part of the solution, she's (to use a hip word) "emblematic" of the fucking problem!

11-21-02 I'm thinking of contacting Stephen D. Harlan, Board Chairman of the "Council for Court Excellence" to tell him that Dennis Race engaged in actions that resulted in my being barred from jury duty on two occasions. A.K.A. -- Jury Tampering. Or [Deputy Corporation Counsel] Chuck Reischel, or [my former treating psychiatrist] Dr. Taub, or GW -- etc. (Actually I think I'm going to write to him about the 10 (bizarre) "mistakes" that have ruined my chances for jury duty.)

[I did, in fact, write to Stephen Harlan at about that time. I recall delivering the letter in person to the organization's receptionist.

Jerrold ("Jerry") Zwirn, a former full-time librarian at the Cleveland Park Branch of the DC Library (and an employee of Brian Brown), served as a member of "The Court Community Observers," February - April 2001. Jerry Zwirn was part of the Council for Court Excellence project described in "Report and Recommendations of the Court Community Observers Project in the District of Columbia Superior Court and its Civil Division" (report issued July 2001). I believe that Jerry Zwirn knows the complete story of the surveillance of me by Brian Brown and Akin Gump managers.]

11-22-02 Yesterday Brian (at the library) was in a rare form. He was acting out in a way I haven't seen him act out in a long time. It used to be, back in the '90s, he'd act out like this just about every day. I see a "scientific" opportunity -- whatever it was he was reacting to yesterday highlights (in all probability) what irks people generally about me. What happened was that Brian was talking on the telephone in an affected tone of voice, and was using a whole procession of double entendres. He seemed to have a need to discharge, in some socially-appropriate form, a lot of angry feelings. Maybe that's a good thing. In past times, "Brian's" type would be herding me off to a concentration camp. So, maybe his behavior reflects a social advancement. (I myself am very excited about the insight this material may hold about my social difficulties -- I suspect the underlying issue is jealousy). The things I remember about the telephone call are as follows:

--Brian was affectedly pretending to speak Italian. He was affectedly friendly

--He was talking about somebody's mother-in-law -- that she was "crazy" -- and that she was going "senile"

--He used the phrase "some of my best friends are" [inaudible].

--He used the phrase "Be that as it may" (That's Dr. Eissler's phrase)

--He talked about the fact that someone was actually Italian

--He mentioned that the person's relatives in "the old country" [note the reference in another context above to the word "senile"] were reportedly Protestants. He then added: "But I don't believe that." -- "I don't believe they were Protestant."

I think whatever it was that Brian was reacting to will give a clue as to my difficulties with people generally. Again, I suspect it's jealousy. One thing to keep in mind -- I had a session with Dr. Shaffer the day before and I didn't mention Brian -- Despite the fact that he had been on vacation for a week, and therefore I had been denied the sight of his hot Irish-Catholic ass for about 8 days!

[I had formed the opinion that Brian, by this time, knew I liked him. I suspected (in paranoid fashion) that he was put off by the fact that I didn't talk about him with my psychologist the previous day. I had the paranoid impression that Brian had wanted me to express the idea to my psychologist that I missed him because he was on vacation.]

11-25-02 I think my psychiatrist, Dr. Cooper, is an admirer of the Virgin Mary. I am too: I hear her kreplach were fantastic! Dr. Cooper has a statue of the Virgin Mary in her office. I think it violates the First Amendment.

11-25-02 I just thought of something that is sure to generate a ton of telephone calls to Dennis Race. Did I mention that my sources tell me he has temper tantrums when he gets these calls?

[Note to reader: Don't waste time trying to figure out the meaning of the following; it's nonsensical.]

Dear Mr. -----, Esq.

The DC Corporation Counsel determined that my belief that Vernon Jordan or other management attorneys at AGSH&F entered my apartment unlawfully (with the possible intent to commit a felony) was material to the employer's decision to terminate my employment. The only way that the firm could have learned of my belief is via my psychiatrists, since the record discloses that I never told the employer about the possible burglary. The District determined that I formed a good faith belief that my employer had unlawful contacts with my psychiatrists -- (etc.)

[Obviously, I'm playing games with the District's use of "after-acquired evidence" in the Brief of Appellee, DC Government.]

11-25-02 Here's some Kernberg material: Last Wednesday (11-20-02) I told my psychologist, Dr. Shaffer, that I thought there was a parallel between (1) the incident on "Big Brother 2" where one of the contestants Shannon scrubbed the toilet with Hardy's toothbrush and (2) what I believe was my supervisor's presumed action in putting a baby-food jar in my trash can. I went "back to the videotape" -- and I discovered a comment by the aggressor's friend and ally in the game (Will Kirby, MD) that refers to Hardy as a "cry baby:" "You know, I think cleaning the toilet with someone's toothbrush is a little extreme for me. However, I think it is a very intelligent move because Hardy is such a CRY-BABY, pretty-boy, you know, eyebrow-waxing freak that this is the type of thing that really sets him off." (Note that Will was also a "pretty boy" who used to shave his entire body & pluck his eyebrows.)

[Otto Kernberg, MD, is an expert in group dynamics.]

11-26-02 I had another idea for some fun. I could send out letters to foreign embassies, explaining that I'm being persecuted by the government (providing the "10 mistakes" as proof) -- and requesting political asylum in their country. -- With, of course, a reference to Felix's telephone number. Both Felix AND the Secret Service will love that one! Gotta run, I'm set to tee off at 10:00 AM.

11-27-02 (Will Kirby '01; Freedman '02; George Bush; Felix '91): Now I have a goal in the White House, and my goal is to eliminate (Hardy '01; Felix '02; Saddam; Freedman '91) in a painful way, not in a pleasant way, in an embarrassing way. [The message is a paraphrase of a comment made by Will Kirby, MD on the CBS reality-show "Big Brother 2" during the summer of 2001]. I have a session with Doc Shaffer this afternoon. Six years at the clinic -- and what worthwhile six years they've been. Do you see the changes? I've become increasingly bitter and vindictive. I spent 4 years at GW with those incompetent nut jobs telling me I needed medication to change my paranoid thinking. Now that I'm taking medication they tell me it won't necessarily change my thinking -- rather it will allow me to function despite my paranoia!

11-27-02 RUBENSTEIN: Why me?

11-27-02 BONUS I found out that the statue in my psychiatrist's (Dr. Cooper's) office is not the Virgin Mary. It's actually "Our Blessed Lady of Pharmacology" -- I hear she works miracles -- if you believe in her healing powers. Unfortunately, I don't.

11-28-02 / 11-29-02 / 12-02-02 Written at 3 mg/day Risperdal. LETTER TO ATTORNEYS.

Dear Mr. Attorney:

My pain and suffering has been horrendous. I feel I could convulse the heavens with my horror. In August 1998 the U.S. Capitol Police forced their way into my home -- giving me the impression that I had no alternative to permitting their entry -- and interrogated me about a report that I had [redacted]. I met with the Capitol Police the following day, 8-7-98, at headquarters. I was advised that the report was a mistake. I was relieved, but stunned. I had no idea that in dear, free America, the land of freedom, that a citizen could be subjected to such humiliation -- the degradation of being subjected to false accusations by armed agents. I was informed, on August 7, that my name was listed on a [redacted] because of a letter I had written two years earlier, to one Beth Smith. I was dumbfounded, nay, horrified that a letter I had written two years earlier, in June 1996 -- A letter that prompted no law enforcement inquiry at the time -- was now, in August 1998, the subject of concern -- and all because of a report -- a false report that I had [redacted]. The letter in question was an inquiry to a psychiatric hospital about psychiatric treatment. Four and a half years earlier, in October 1991, my then employer -- a law firm managed by a close friend of former President Clinton -- determined in consultation with a psychiatrist that I fit the profile of a [redacted]. My direct supervisor determined, following a consultation with one of the firm's senior attorneys (Dennis M. Race, Esq. -- a graduate of Fenn College) that I was [redacted]. I reported these concerns in a factual manner to Beth Smith in my written inquiry of June 1996. The letter, though factual and non-threatening (the failure of law enforcement to contact me about the letter at the time I sent it speaks for itself) was written in a desperate tone appropriate to my situation -- I had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (falsely, it now turns out) and had been accused by the law partners of the President's close friend of fitting the profile of a [redacted] -- possibly a [redacted]. I am innocent -- totally innocent. I have never committed a [redacted]. I have never [redacted]. As God is my witness I am innocent. Please help me. My pain and suffering has been interminable since that all-nameless hour in August 1998 when I was accused of having [redacted] and was told I was [redacted]. What's more -- even after the police had assured themselves that I was innocent they advised me that they would proceed to [redacted] -- a clear case of guilt by suspicion. I must take tranquilizers daily -- to live, to sleep, perchance to dream. I deserve compensation! You may contact Dennis Race at 202 887-4208 [sic]. Mr. Race is the sole repository of evidence relating to my potential for violence. He must speak with you.[THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REDACTED PER THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND A SUPERVISORY OFFICER OF THE METRO DC POLICE, SECOND DISTRICT.]

[The above letter, though histrionic in tone, is factual. The letter is pertinent to the difficulties that a victim of defamation faces. Regardless of my status on medication, my act of simply reciting the facts of my case, is enough to make me sound mentally disturbed and potentially violent. This point raises a question: Has the Social Security Administration paid me more than $100,000 because of a disabling mental illness that features disturbed ideations, or is my failure to find work simply an anger reaction to substantial and compensatable defamation? I plan to redact this entire message when I send this document to third parties, and insert the note "[Redacted for reasons of national security by order of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Metro DC Police]" That note alone should be an attention-grabber.]

12-02-02 Give my regards to the Big Man on Campus. You can tell him that Eric done good!

[Attached is cover of "Columbia College Today" (September 2002 issue) that features a photograph of the president of Columbia University, with the caption "The Life of the Mind: An Interview With President Lee C. Bolinger, By Alex Sachare '71.]

12-03-02 I'm now at 4 mg/day of anti-psychotic medication. See the remarkable changes in me? I'm still full of much rage about what those people did to me. I feel like Saddam Hussein -- eleven years of pure hell. Eleven years of surveillance, inspections, false accusations, surprise raids -- and now [the British Foreign Secretary] dusting off accusations they haven't used since 1914, -- like I've just marched into Belgium, or something. Potentially violent, my ass. I'm still stuck on THAT one. And then the Feds -- "Well, if you don't have anything to hide, why won't you let us have a look around?" -- Like I have scud missiles under my pillow, and a storehouse of enriched plutonium in my closet -- give me a break. The British: Can't live with them; can't get screwed without them!

[Note, incidentally, that the accusation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was never proven. "How can all these people say these things about you, and none of it is true? Some of it must be true." In the case of Saddam Hussein, none of it was true.]

12-04-02 If you talk to Michael Bacon, tell him I was particularly enchanted by the passage (or, more appropriately, the variation) that sounded like Robert Schumann -- I thought -- "Wow! That sounds just like Schumann!! Aida Epstein should hear this." I thought -- This is like the Diabelli Variations where Beethoven quotes Mozart's "Don Giovanni." (If you don't get it, you don't get it.) I think the whole thing was a parody of the Diabelli Variations -- Variations, here, on the Kaiser Waltz.

[Refers to the music score of a PBS-TV special on the life of Sigmund Freud, produced by David Grubin. The show was broadcast the day before Thanksgiving, in the year 2002. The score was written by Michael Bacon.]

12-04-02 I left my rent with Mr. Castleberry yesterday -- without an envelope. I understand he prefers that. But it felt strange, nonetheless. Of course, I walk around my apartment naked -- So I don't know why I'm worried about a "naked" check. My paranoia is still in full swing. Yesterday, the tenant "Richard" -- The graduate of Brown Univ, who works at the USIA [U.S. Information Agency] (?) -- sighed when he saw me. That meant something to me -- like "Oh, man -- it's you!" Then at the library yesterday Barbara the librarian seemed unusually circumspect -- and perturbed. But at one point, while she was talking to a patron about the Xerox machine she said (about the machine) "It lies." -- She seemed to me to be talking about me. I have to say-- "What -- me lie?"

["The tenant 'Richard'" is Richard Peyton Howard, who has lived in the building since at least the year 1990 (Apartment 522). I have believed strongly since 1990 that Howard knows my identity and my personal history, and is part of the information network that continues to receive updates about my situation. Howard is a graduate of Brown University.]

12-05-02 SNOW! Called the library this morning. Spoke to Ignacio -- what a nice young man! Library obviously open. Brian -- How did your doctor visit go yesterday. I hope it went better than mine! How did she react when you got naked for her -- did your juices flow? You know, with every ejaculation, you lose some creative powers. It's like Balzac once said after having sex -- "Another masterpiece lost to French literature!" (Something I didn't learn from Linda Miller[, one of my high school French teachers]).

[Ignacio (last name?) used to work at the circulation desk at the library. He was liked and respected by the library staff.]

12-06-02 PASTICHE. Sunday is my grandmother's birthday -- she'll be 110. It seems Brian doesn't like it when I talk about his body fluids -- Sorry, Brian -- Can you ever forgive me? Dr. Sack doesn't look like a happy camper. I guess he's realizing he threw away a lot of cash on a Harvard education, when he could have done just as well with a degree from Temple Univ, like Fred Cohen, MD or Mike Shapiro, MD. Temple University -- It's the Harvard of North Philadelphia.

[Lawrence C. Sack, MD, earned both an undergraduate degree and medical degree from Harvard University. He was a psychiatrist whose professional office was in my building. I had three consults with Dr. Sack in May 1991; I quit when I formed the impression Dr. Sack was in communication with Akin Gump management. Dr. Sack was an individual who I genuinely thought could help me. He passed away in early August 2003; his death was a great blow to me. "On the afternoon of August sixth, or maybe it was the fifth. I can't be sure."]

12-09-02 What do you think of my new stereo? Nice, huh? Thank you President Roosevelt! Well, I think I've done my part this Christmas season to help the economy! By the way, speaking of FDR -- God bless you, People of Louisiana! (Bob Strauss & his friends will know what I mean. Apparently the people of Louisiana are a lot smarter than the people of Minnesota. Maybe it's the climate).

12-10-02 Here's anther letter I might send to the DC Department of Employment Services.

DC Dept of Employment Services
Washington, DC

Dear Sir:

In November 1991 I qualified for unemployment benefits in the District of Columbia. In May 1992, I qualified for extended benefits, pursuant to which I was required to engage in a systematic and sustained effort to obtain work by making contact with at least 5 new employers each week of eligibility. See D.C. Code section 51-107. This will advise that at the time I contacted various employers in 1992, pursuant to my statutory duty, I did not know that --

1) My former employer, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld had determined that I was [redacted]

Dennis M. Race Esq. (202 887-4028) had determined that I suffered from a psychiatric disorder that rendered me not suitable for employment

3) My direct supervisor had determined that I was [redacted]

4) My co-workers had a genuine and credible fear that I might [redacted]

5) The District Government would determine, on August 6, 1998, that facts relating to my job termination, in October 1991, would contribute to a reasonable conclusion that I might [redacted]

6) The District of Columbia Department of Human Rights possessed sworn statements pertaining to my [redacted] and mental impairment.

In summary, I had no knowledge in 1992 that my former employer had information relating to the possibility that tort liability might attach to an employer's decision to employ me.

Sincerely yours,

Gary Freedman

I'M NOW AT 4 MG/DAY ANTI-PSYCHOTIC MEDS -- (RISPERDAL)

[Dennis Race filed his sworn Interrogatory Response on May 22, 1992 with the DC Department of Human Rights stating that he had determined (in October 1991) in consultation with a psychiatrist that I was potentially violent. I wrote Dennis Race a letter in about early June 1992 advising that I qualified for extended unemployment benefits, and soon thereafter began my job search. I did not receive a copy of Dennis Race's Interrogatory Response (dated May 22, 1992) from the DC Department of Human Rights until late December 1992. Dennis Race, therefore, showed a wanton disregard for the possible tort liability I might pose to a prospective employer owing to my "potential for violence."]

12-11-02 Last night I was watching Paul Anthony doing his pitch for contributions to WETA [public television]. Once again, hats off, you do a superprofessional job. By the way, I love it when you use the word "preclude" -- so erudite! By the way, Mr. Anthony, did Malcolm send you the latest version of my book? I think Malcolm contacted you for the first time back in about '93 or '94 after you broadcast that Claudio Abbado concert of Wagner's music (you know, the broadcast where Katie Couric says of Wagner's music -- "Tender, heroic, tragic.") How did you earn your millions, Mr. Anthony, or did you inherit your money? I used to feel sorry for you. I thought -- poor guy -- does voice overs for public television. Probably lives in Section 8 housing in PG County. Then I saw that house -- that palace -- you lived in. Wow! Section 8, my ass.

12-12-02 Last night the crazies were out in full force. I must have gotten about 6 crazy telephone calls in about a 3-hour period. I'm starting a new anti-psychotic med today. The one I was taking (Risperdal) didn't do anything for me (could you tell?). The new one (Abilify) just came out on the market. My doctor said that it worked miracles for the one other patient who was taking it in her practice. I told my psychiatrist that at the library yesterday, I was picking up signals about someone named "Helen" -- who do I even know who's named Helen? I notice it's Julianne Donofrio's birthday this month -- is she related to Vincent D'Onofrio? (Law and Order - Criminal Intent). I hear they're coming out with a new "Law and Order" -- called "The Special Moron's Unit" -- It's about incompetent attorneys who screw their partners through their incompetence. Yesterday at the library, someone left the attached in the magazine bin. -- A reference to my Westlaw Card at Akin Gump?

[Attached is the back cover of an issue of the ABA Journal: an ad for Westlaw that features a photo of a man's hands holding a card with the word "Westlaw" written on it. "Helen" is the name of Robert Strauss's wife, the former Helen Jacobs. I do not know the tenant Julianne Donofrio; building management used to post the birth dates of tenants on a bulletin board in the mail room.]

12-13-02 The country would have been better off if Harry Truman had decided to run and had been elected President in 1952. We wouldn't have all the problems we have today that started in the Eisenhower Administration. Things like split-level houses and pink flamingoes. By the way, wasn't it a Republican who sent federal troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation? What's up with that? Does Trent Lott have a brain?

[Refers to Senator Lott's public statement that the country would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected President of the United States in 1948, instead of Harry Truman.]

12-16-02 CLINTON - LOTT SHOWDOWN (edited for content)

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What goes around comes around and PB, baby. Payback.

TRENT LOTT: I'm not no mean person, man. I'm happy bein' a multi-millionaire Senator bustin' my ass for everything I have. I was happy before. You don't understand going back to my town. It's what you don't understand. I don't want to go back anymore. I don't want to be looked upon or frowned upon, and that's what's gonna happen. I find myself losing who I am here in the Senate. I came all this way, for what? To lose something inside me?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Lose what inside you? Your bigotry? Your mean-spiritedness?

TRENT LOTT: I don't want to be mean. I was just happy bein' me. You keep running scenarios through your mind -- What's right, what's wrong, what's ethical. Just everything. It just drives you crazy.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You turned on me. I have no respect for you. It really hurt me that we couldn't be friends. But I hope you understand and (smiling cynically) -- See ya!

(It's all Krista, all the time)

[Parody of statements from the CBS-TV reality series "Big Brother 2," from the summer of 2001. Most of the "Trent Lott" lines are drawn from the comments of Krista, a contestant from -- oddly enough -- Louisiana (it must be something in the water). Trent Lott led the impeachment campaign against former President Clinton.]

12-17-02 Barbara, the librarian, said the weirdest thing yesterday. She was spelling out someone's name to a patron on the telephone. You know, like "Wells" -- "W" as in water, "E" as in election, etc. Well when she got to the "S" in the name, she said "S" as in "Schama" -- Now -- Really! Simon Schama is a Professor at Columbia Univ and I quote him in my autobiography. Who says "S" as in "Schama"? That woman is so pretentious!

[Simon Schama wrote a book about the painter Rembrandt, which I quote prominently in my autobiography in the section on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, a renegade who was excommunicated by the Amsterdam Jewish community in The Netherlands. My former psychiatrist, Stanley R. Palombo, MD, is a graduate of Columbia Medical School].

12-17-02 When I was a senior in college (Spring Term 1975) I took a course in Jewish history that was taught by the Rabbi at Hillel. There was a young lady in the class -- a student named Lisa Lippin -- a journalism major from Philadelphia. We were in the same graduating class (May 1975). We had no contact whatsoever. Just letting you know that I don't just notice penises. -- Sorry, Bruce Stein! Yesterday was Beethoven's birthday -- (232 years old) (He doesn't look a day over 200!) I listened to the Opus 132 string quartet. That's the one Daniel Ellsberg [Apartment] (146) asked me about in the exercise room, several years ago.

[Daniel Ellsberg, who gained notoriety by his act of leaking a secret history of the Viet Nam War to the "New York Times" in 1971 (the so-called Pentagon Papers), used to reside in my apartment building at 3801 Connecticut Avenue. He moved in the fall of 2003.

Note my associative process: both Bruce Stein and Lisa Lippin (like myself) were journalism majors. I used to see Bruce Stein naked ("exposed," like the government decisionmakers who ran U.S. policy in Viet Nam) in a locker room in college before and after a phys. ed. course. Both Stein and I took the same course in modern Southeast Asian history at Penn State (History 171) taught by Claire Hirshfield, Ph.D. (Stein and I didn't know each other.) Beethoven was known for his hatred of political tyranny and his highly-developed sense of morality. The Jewish religion sees itself as an "ethics-based" religion. What appear to be "loose associations" (Judaism, history, sexuality, penises, nudity, physical exercise, Beethoven, Viet Nam, Daniel Ellsberg, and journalism (a profession that "exposes" the truth)) are in fact cohesive and overdetermined. A highly-creative individual (who possesses a capacity for remote associations) might always appear to be psychotic to an inexperienced or incompetent psychiatrist.

12-18-02 I know my admission yesterday [that I had a sexual interest in females] raised the hopes of a lot of hot babes -- that maybe I'd be getting into the market. I'm not a player. I'm not even sure what team I want to be on. Here's another admission. I can remember first term, first year of college someone in philosophy class -- Jeff Conner. He graduated in May 1975. His picture in the yearbook -- well -- he looks like a girl. I wonder if he remembers first day of class with Dr. [Fred] Rieman -- 2:00 PM, Monday, Sept 27, 1971. One alligator, two alligator, three alligator, the Kitty Genovese case as it related to the topic of Duty and Responsibility. Gloria Goldsmith & Bill Devuono were in that class. The first day of class I sat in back of Conner -- later I sat in a different spot -- on first row.

[Bill DeVuono was in my high school graduating class (Central High School, 1971, 230th class); we were acquaintances. Gloria Goldsmith and I were in the same class in seventh and eighth grades in junior high school. On the first day of class in Rieman's philosophy course, Rieman took a Polaroid of the class and counted "one alligator, two alligator, three alligator," as he waited for the photo to develop. The first day of class we discussed the philosophical meaning of the Kitty Genovese case; a young woman who was murdered in an apartment courtyard while her neighbors did nothing in response to her desperate cries for help. My identification with Genovese at age 17 (as evidenced by my lifelong recollection of the class discussion on 9-27-71) is revealing. Psychoanalytically, we can infer that my current desperate circumstances parallel childhood feelings of desperation.]

12-19-02

TRENT LOTT [in a threatening tone]: If this thing doesn't get resolved soon, I may quit the Senate altogether and retire to Pascagoola. You'll end up with a 50/50 split in the Senate.

HILLARY CLINTON: O-o-o-o, I'm scared!

12-20-02 I'll tell you what I'd like to do. I'd like to type up all these notes on a computer disc. I've been communicating with you since mid-June 2001. That's a lot of notes -- about 400 notes. I could send the disc out to different people -- like members of Congress -- that would be fun. No-- it would be F - U - N

12-23-02 Happy birthday to me! -- The big four-nine. Did you notice that Trent Lott made the cover of "Newsweek" last week? I guess you could say Lott is quite literally the Senator that "Time" forgot. (A little Evan Thomas humor).

12-23-02 Here's somebody to look into: DOUGLAS ANDERSON. Dean, College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University (814) 863-1484. You can tell Dean Anderson that a '75 journalism major is on the road to a Pulitzer Prize!

12-24-02 Today, December 24, 2002 is the 36th anniversary of the great Christmas Eve snowstorm of 1966. Just don't mention that to Sid Dorfman -- He'll whack you over the head if he hears you say that.

[Dorfman and I were coworkers and friends at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Subject graduated Central High School in June 1966 (225th class). We both worked with Hilliard Cohen (Central High School, June 1965, 224th class). Cohen and I attended subject's wedding in the summer of 1977 or 1978. Subject said he used to work with an annoying person who used to refer all the time to the great Christmas Eve snowstorm of 1966].

12-25-02 / 12-26-02 I'm thinking of going on strike. I just won't take medication, if I decide to strike. What does the medication do, really? It's a crutch for the clinic. It gives the impression that they're doing something, when, in fact, they're not doing anything. I've been at this clinic for over 6 (six) years now. How far have I come? What really gets me, is that for about 4 years at GW, those nut jobs kept saying I needed to take meds. Well, I've been taking meds -- and what? Not nothin'. It's crap. This will go on for years. Where is this going? I need to register my discontent, and believe me, I am discontented. This is the moral equivalent of WAR ! ! !

12/27/02 I notice that Kenya has its first new prime minister in 24 years -- and (Big Surprise!) his name is not Rubenstein. Here's something I had forgotten since high school, and it recently came back to me. I can recall that on one occasion David Rosenbaum (229th class) [Central High School, 1970] had started to write a string quartet. He had the first and second violin parts written to what, I guess, was the first movement. Not exactly the Beethoven C# minor quartet. I remember he got somebody to play it with him. People were standing around, some laughing. But it went on and on -- and you couldn't help but be impressed by Rosenbaum's seriousness of purpose. -- And now 50 resume pages later, well--

[Rosenbaum is now a professor of psychology at The Pennsylvania State University at College Park (with a resume that lists an extraordinarily extensive list of publications). Note the parallel between my description of the teen-age Rosenbaum ("seriousness of purpose") and my description of Cleveland Park Branch Librarian Brian Brown as "an earnest young man, a man who exemplifies 'the meaning of 'Meaning It.'" Don't get me wrong, sex and alcohol have their place. But there should be more to life than getting laid and getting wasted.]

12-30-02 Message for Howard Jacobson [-- an Akin Gump tax attorney] -- like I always said -- Say what you will about the goyim, but they know how to celebrate New Years. None of that fasting and praying and out-of-tune rams horns. For the Gentiles it's all about getting drunk and getting laid. I see them as a positive influence on the Jewish people. Say, Mr. Jacobson, I still remember seeing you, Trude [Jacobson's wife], and the kids on TV for that fund-raiser for Children's Hospital. I got a real charge out of your older son who was so proud of his kid brother's reading of his Haphtarah portion. -- Say, are you still a fan of the "Sports Illustrated" swim suit edition? What about that Israeli chocolate you used to sell? You know I can still remember seeing you in the office on Sunday Dec 23, 1990. --Check your billing records. Remember: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny."

[Jacobson and I had offices on the firm's ninth floor in the year 1990. Note, as in an earlier message, the association of religion and sex. (One recalls Jeffrey Masson's observation: "I still considered myself a spiritual person, but I was becoming increasingly obsessed with sex." Analytically, the association of "tax attorney" and "chocolate" may be overdetermined references to anality. December 23 is my birthday. Note the reference to mentoring and warm fraternal feelings ("your older son who was so proud of his kid brother's reading of his Haphtarah portion"). Compare the note dated 12/27/02 -- specifically, my feelings of esteem and admiration for Rosenbaum's compositional effort.]

12-31-02 This medication Abilify is a real Catch-22 situation. The medication is so new that pharmacies won't have it available till January 2003, but the coupon for free meds (see reverse side of prescription) expires today -- December 31, 2002. By the way, you know what Boris Yeltsin's psychiatrist told Ambassador Bob Strauss? -- "Trust but Abilify"

["Trust but Abilify" is a play on President Reagan's motto concerning arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, "Trust but Verify."]

1-1-03 / 1-2-03 Nothing to report. Slow news day. Can you see going through another year of these notes? I'm a psycho-freak and the meds aren't helping. Like I told Judge Penn, the ravages of mental illness are indeed tragic.

[Back in the late 1990s I wrote a letter to U.S. District Court Chief Judge John Penn detailing my situation. The letter was sarcastic in tone and closed with the line: "Such are the tragic ravages of severe mental illness." Judge Penn must have thought I was a disrespectful wiseacre.]

1-3-03 I remember in high school chemistry [class,] all fall, my teacher used to say that her goal was to get to the "gas laws" by Christmas break. I wonder if she met her goal this past year. Did she get to the gas laws? And, on another front: [cut out from magazine] "I can't even remember the last time I had sex." Robert Plant

1-6-03 There's been a change in Barbara, the librarian. She leaves me alone now, totally ignores me. I see that as a good thing -- But I wonder what prompted that. Look into that!

1-7-03 My take on the Bush economic proposal: It's Keynes on crack!

1-8-03 The shit is going to hit the fan this afternoon, when I visit my psychologist [Dr. Shaffer] and psychiatrist [Dr. Cooper]. I'm going to press my demands to know what the heck is going on! I'm going to set out a list of specific and recognized criteria of psychological functioning and ask how I would be evaluated according to these criteria. Happy Birthday President Nixon! 90 years old! Was it yesterday or today or tomorrow?

1-08-03 / 1-09-03 Doc Shaffer refused to accept this document, yesterday 1-8-03.

Dr. Shaffer:

Please complete the following psychological assessment questionnaire. The questionnaire is based on specific and recognized criteria of personality functioning. It is hoped that in reviewing or completing the questionnaire, you will focus on specific problem areas in your work with me, and the causal links between my level of functioning and (1) my interpersonal difficulties and (2) indications for medical treatment.

1.(a) What is the patient's level of self-cohesion?

--level of integration
--dependency on object attachments
--sense of identity
--degree of complementary role play
--mechanisms used to maintain cohesiveness
--degree of identity diffusion

(b.) How does patient's level of self-cohesion impair his interpersonal relations?

(c.) What are the medical indications?

2.(a.) What is the level of patient's self-object differentiation?

--How does patient maintain self-object differentiation in the face of object attachments of varying intensity

See 1(b) and 1(c), above, and answer with respect to variable 2(a.)

3. Describe the patient's object relations

--Are his emotional relationships impoverished in any way?

--do they lack genuineness?

--does he have a capacity for object cathexis?

--Are his object relations merely need-satisfying?

--What is patient's level of object constancy?

--Are his relations superficial/transient?

--Does he engage in passive compliance?

--Are his attachments narcissistic?

See 1(b) and 1(c), above, and answer with respect to variable 3(a.)

4. What is patient's level of internalization?

--Does patient have a capacity for identification?

--Are patient's internalizations merely imitative or introjective?

SEE 1(b.) and 1(c.), above, and answer with respect to 4(a.)

5.(a.) What is the level of patient's ego organization?

--How is patient's ego organization affected by the absence of object attachment?

See 1(b) and 1(c), above, and answer with respect to 5(a.)

6(a) What is the level of the patient's reality resting?

SEE 1(b,) and 1(c.), above, and answer with respect to 6(a.).

7.(a.) What is the level of patient's impulse control?

SEE 1(b) and 1(c), above, and answer with respect to 7(a.)

8. What is the degree and sources of anxiety for patient?

--Does separation anxiety predominate

--Is there fear of abandonment

SEE 1(b) and 1(c), above, and answer with respect to 8(a)

9.(a) What is the patient's level of superego development?

--What is the nature of patient's moral standards/ideals

--Do his ideals tend to be imitative

--Do his ideals shift easily from one contradictory view to another?

--Does he depend on external objects to maintain his moral values?

SEE 1(b) and 1(c), above, and answer with respect to 9(a.)

10(a.) Describe patient's primary process functioning?

--characteristic

--non-characteristic

SEE 1(b.) and 1(c.), above, and answer with respect to 10(a.)

11(a.) Describe patient's defensive organization

--What are the predominant ego defenses?

12(a.) Describe patient's libidinal phase development with reference to constancy, level, and regressions.

13(a.) Describe patient's regressive potential

--How is patient's regressive potential affected by loss of object attachment

--Is regression easily reversed (under what conditions)?

1-10-03 My psychiatrist, Dr. Cooper, says she's unfamiliar with literature indicating that Paxil (paroxetine) [an antidepressant] is useful for the treatment of insomnia. I would like to direct her attention to Nowell PD et al. "Paroxetine in the Treatment of Primary Insomnia: Preliminary Clinical and EEG Sleep Data." Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Volume 60, pages 89-95 (1999). As Lynn Margulies would say: "Read It!"

[Lynn Margulies is a brilliant and renowned microbiologist who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the literature in her field. She was the subject of a "New York Times Magazine" article several years ago. Whenever someone contradicts her professional opinion she will rattle off, from memory, the title of a published paper that supports her view, and state emphatically: "READ IT!" Margulies was married to famed astronomer Carl Sagan (now deceased).]

1-13-02 Here's somebody to look into: PETER SCHEINER. Central High School, 230th graduating class, 1971. We were in the same music theory class in 1970-1971 (senior year). He can give you the inside scoop on Joseph Ostrow, who taught renowned linguist, Noam Chomsky, now at MIT. Scheiner doesn't seem very promising. He lists no extracurricular activities and for career ambition he lists "undecided."

1-14-03 Message for Senator Lieberman-- I think John Edwards is better-looking than you. He has that nice goyish grin that you look for in a candidate. Yesterday at the library Velvel was talking about the upper-class in ancient Rome -- "The Patricians." I thought it was a reference to Pat Loud. Then Brian mentioned something about sexual orientation -- that was the clincher.

[In January 2003 PBS-TV broadcast a show on Lance Loud, and rebroadcast an episode of the PBS series "An American Family," originally aired in the year 1973. "An American Family," an early prototype of reality-TV programming, followed the daily lives of the Loud family, "a typical middle-class family," who lived in Santa Barbara, California. The oldest son, Lance Loud, was homosexual. The mother was named Pat Loud. I had mentioned to several people not associated with the library, including my psychologist (Dr. Shaffer), that I was a big fan of the show.]

1-15-03 Trivia question for Elliott Feldman -- In 11th grade social studies (1969-70 school year), in William Ruderman's class -- we had a student teacher (I forget his name, I think he was a student at LaSalle). As a parting gift the class got him what? ANSWER 1. A bottle of whiskey and 2. William L. Shirer's book, "The Collapse of the Third Republic."

[Feldman is now an attorney who practices insurance law in Philadelphia. In 9th grade English class, Feldman and I sat next to each other. A course assignment in that English class was "All Quiet on the Western Front," a World War I novel by Erich Maria Remarque.]

1-16-03 It's been unusually quiet in the library. What's up? Brian seems quite circumspect (or is it circumcised -- I always get the two confused). Brian has been using the phrase "the old-fashioned way" a lot. A reference to disbarment? Yesterday Brian kept mentioning Washingtoniana -- a reference to somebody named "Anna" or something that sounds like "Anna"-- [or Tony?] I'm at 15 mg/day Abilify -- an anti-psychotic med. Cool, huh? I take meds -- and they don't jeopardize my disability benefits. Happy snowstorm!

[Years earlier I had created a witty paraphrase of the Morgan Stanley advertising slogan: "DC BAR COUNSEL -- We disbar attorneys the old-fashioned way. One lawyer at a time." "The Old-Fashioned Way" (Morgan Stanley) might also refer to my former treating psychiatrist, Stanley R. Palombo, MD, apparently of Italian heritage. In an earlier message (11-22-02) I attributed disguised feelings of rage to Brian Brown, discharged in a barrage of double-entendres (so I believed) that referred manifestly to persons of Italian heritage; the "old country;" as well as "senile."

On 11-22-02 I interpreted Brian Brown's statement "Be that as it may" as a symbolic reference to Kurt R. Eissler, MD. Kurt Eissler, MD, was the founder of the Sigmund Freud Archives, an entity currently headed by Harold Blum, MD, who has professional connections with Dr. Palombo. Drs. Blum and Palombo co-chaired a professional seminar on the work of the psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson in 1994 in New York City ("The Dream Specimen in Psychoanalysis.")

The paraphrase I created (concerning the DC Bar Counsel) was contained in a document on a computer disc that I had sent to numerous parties.

"Circumcised:" In Yiddish it's called a "Bris," which was also the title of a Seinfeld episode that I parodied in a previous message. That particular Seinfeld episode featured references to professional ethics and loss of license. In that episode a mohel (the person who performs a circumcision) states: "I should have been a kosher butcher like my brother. You make a mistake with a cow, you move on with your life." "Nobody ruins this for me, it's my life, it's my livelihood!"

Analytically, note the intriguing connection between the notes dated 1-15 and 1-16. The note dated 1-15 poses a "trivia question," and uses the phrase "parting gift" (which is frequently used on TV game shows). The note dated 1-16 refers to the word "jeopardize:" "Jeopardy" is a popular TV trivia quiz show.

1-17-03 That was some snow storm, wasn't it -- all 1/2 inch of it! Laurie Kravitz ([Apartment] 236) is moving out -- that's a real loss to the 2d floor community.

[Kravitz and I did not know each other. Her apartment was directly above mine. She was very chatty and her voice used to travel through the ventilation duct to my apartment.]

1-20-03 / 1-21-03 Here's somebody to look into JONATHAN K. FEARS, M.D. Fears was an abstracter at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Elena Saboe used to edit his work. He graduated from Haverford College with a B.A. in English. He received an MD from the University of Virginia Medical College and specializes in asthma, allergy, & immunology. He's in Huntingtown, Maryland -- 301 855-1644. He can give a summary of the culture at The Franklin Institute in the mid-seventies.

[Elena Saboe used to be my supervisor at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. She wrote a letter of recommendation for me for law school in 1979. Elena Saboe shared an office for several years (1976-1979) with an employee named Verlyn Hewer, whose husband, William Bener, Esq., is an attorney who practices in Doylestown, PA.]

1-22-03 Message for President Bush -- The French! Jacques Chirac is a crock. Don't take orders from Eurotrash. God Bless Tony Blair!

[Refers to international diplomatic conflict about the upcoming war in Iraq.]

1-23-02 I just learned yesterday that Dr. Jerry Mortimer Wiener died in September 2001. A real loss to the psychiatric community. Also, I would request that Dr. Sack's daughter reconsider her decision not to go into psychiatry. Radiology has too much math in it.

[The late Lawrence C. Sack, MD, a psychiatrist, had a professional office in my apartment building. I had read on the Internet that Dr. Sack's daughter decided to do a residency in radiology instead of her first choice, psychiatry, because of her concerns about the managed-care system. Dr. Sack's son, Robert Sack, MD, is a local psychiatrist.]

1-24-03 I'm not taking anti-psychotic meds (Abilify) anymore. It may have been causing insomnia. Do you notice the difference? Do I seem more irrational, out-of-control, wild, in need of supervision, on the verge of involuntary commitment, potentially violent, argumentative, even more paranoid than usual?

[Insomnia is a recognized side-effect of Abilify. I have a long history of insomnia, and have been medicated for the symptom since 1999.]