Gary Freedman's Blog

Why I'm Smarter Than A Harvard Professor

Five simple rules for dealing with the police.

1. Be respectful.

2. Do what the officer tells you to do even if you think it's stupid, meaningless, or offensive. (Police forced their way into my house on one occasion and accused me of having threatened to commit a serious crime. I was innocent. But they didn't believe me at first. They even told me what chair I should sit in -- IN MY OWN HOUSE. But I did as they told, and they eventually left. Even if the police enter YOUR… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 25, 2009 at 10:00am — 2 Comments

Theme and Variations: On Pushing the Envelope

THEME

I get accused of "pushing the envelope" -- here, on TBD, and elsewhere in life. There's merit to the observation. I am constantly testing the limits, constantly challenging the rules. I took a battery of psychological tests a few years ago and the test results said: "Subject has a tendency to challenge or denounce social sanctions to the point where he may lose sight of his own best interests."

Several days ago a TBD member posted the following comment on a blog I… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 24, 2009 at 10:00am — 13 Comments

Does Referring to a Town in Austria Constitute a Prohibited F-Bomb?

I left a post on "All Drift All The Time" about the town of Fucking, Austria. It was meant as humorous, and I think it would be viewed as humorous by any reasonable standard. I do not believe that referring to the name of a town in Austria, whether it be Vienna, Linz, or Fucking constitutes the use of offensive language. It does not even constitute an F-bomb by any stretch of the imagination.

Several days later -- I emphasize, several days later -- I was deleted from the group on the… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 20, 2009 at 11:38am — 5 Comments

On the Problem of Censorship--on TBD and Elsewhere

I guess the rules of some of the groups on TBD preclude me from quoting some of my favorite passages from James Joyce's masterpiece, the novel "Ulysses." Can you imagine getting deleted from a TBD group because you have quoted from a masterpiece of literature? Ha, absurd! I suspect that some of the TBD group administrators are just a clinamen away from insanity.

Speaking of Ulysses, my tenth-grade (1968-1969) English teacher, Thomas Horan, a proud Irishman, wrote his Ph.D. thesis on… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 19, 2009 at 12:30pm — 3 Comments

Whatever Happened to Ben Greenberg?

My thoughts go back 19 years, to the year 1990, when I worked at the Washington, DC office of the Dallas-based law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. And, yes, those were the happiest times of my life, working for my mentor, Bob Strauss.

During the summer of 1990 the firm hired three temporary employees. They were college students: Ben Greenberg (University of Pennsylvania); Robert Wyman (Brown University); and Matthew Erskine (University of Virginia). Greenberg, Wyman,… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 19, 2009 at 11:00am — No Comments

On Talking About Toothpaste in Non-Toothpaste Groups on TBD

I got a message from George V. Richards yesterday about wanting to keep his group "All Drift All The Time" light. He doesn't want toothpaste comments on his site. He thinks it's inappropriate to talk about toothpaste there. And we all know about the sites where they talk about toothpaste and related issues all the time.

But I'm a nonconformist and a free-speech advocate. So, what the heck, if I want to talk about toothpaste, I'll talk about toothpaste! Here goes.

I do it… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 18, 2009 at 11:00am — 6 Comments

Why Isn't Joan Nathan Preparing for Shabbat?

It's 4:30 on a Friday afternoon at the Cleveland Park Public Library in DC, and Joan Nathan, the world renowned authority on Jewish cuisine is talking to Barbara Gaunt, one of the librarians, about research on her latest book. Wow, a celebrity in my midst! I can't believe it. At this very moment I'm looking at the face of a woman I've seen on Martha Stewart. My heart is racing. I'm in the presence of a real-life personage. I wonder if she's ever read my story, The Dinner Party?

Wow,… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 17, 2009 at 2:00pm — 2 Comments

The Other Seinfeld

Jeffrey Seinfeld, Professor of Social Work

BA City College of NY; MSW Hunter College; PhD New York University

jeffrey.seinfeld@nyu.edu | (212) 998-5978

Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld, professor of social work, joined the faculty at NYU in 1987. He served as chairperson of the Human Behavior and Social Environment area from 1998 to 2001. Dr. Seinfeld’s professional areas of interest include Object Relations Theory, Social Philosophy, and Existential Philosophy. He has received… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 17, 2009 at 1:30pm — 2 Comments

The Ore and Aura of the Real

I swim in a sea of reality, but that makes me no more a fish than Moby Dick was. Mine is an unreal universe in which the exceptional is commonplace, in which the transient states of frustration or depression or meaninglessness are the norm. I am not a character whose life conforms more or less to the life of the ordinary man. I am an anticharacter in my experiences and in my sense of the world of reality. I require the fabulous and the bizarre. That is my metier. My purpose and philosophy of… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 17, 2009 at 10:59am — No Comments

Growing Up Jewish in the South -- by Jesse Raben

Back in the late 1980s I worked with a fine young man named Jesse Raben at a local law firm. This is his story:

Twenty years later, I still remember one incident vividly. I was in 8th grade at Aycock Junior High School. A boy named Darryl Massey had been bothering me everyday in class, calling me names, sometimes making reference to the fact that I was Jewish. I asked him to stop, but he continued.

I didn’t know what to do about it. I brought the issue up around the dinner… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 17, 2009 at 10:17am — 3 Comments

A Visit to the Psychiatrist

Today I visited my psychiatrist, Didi Bailey, MD. She practices at the McClendon Center in DC. She prescribes my medications. I see another psychiatrist, Abbas Jama, MD, who does psychotherapy. Two psychiatrists and I'm still looney!

Added by Gary Freedman on July 16, 2009 at 1:44pm — 4 Comments

The Birth of a New Self

I see a psychotherapist once a week. I've been thinking about cutting down the sessions to once every two weeks, or even once a month. There is no magic in our sessions. I attach no feeling of specialness to our interaction. Psychotherapy should be magical, it should be special. Special in the sense that one feels sensations that are not experienced in the mundane world. One should feel some connection to one's inner self, a connection to one's past and one's future possibilities. One should… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 15, 2009 at 12:30pm — 8 Comments

The Confessions of a Psychoanalyst

THE FIRST HOUR:

A troublesome -- aren't they all? -- new patient, thirty-seven years old, raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father had a typical petty bourgeois Jewish Orthodox background. The patient's mother was a Polish-Catholic. He is highly intelligent, a compulsive talker, extremely narcissistic and exhibitionistic. He hides his intellectual arrogance behind ironic self-deprecation. He cannot stop his diarrhea of talk, because it is his way of denying his essential… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 15, 2009 at 11:44am — 1 Comment

Do Mice Make Good Tenants?

Yesterday, I was walking down the hall on my floor of my apartment building. I happened to notice a mouse scampering ahead of me. It would stop for a moment, I would catch up with it, it would scamper some more, I would catch up, then, scamper once again. I wonder if the mouse was a tenant in the building? How do mice reach the doorknobs to their apartments, I wonder? Is a lease signed by a mouse legally enforceable? And how do you evict a mouse for nonpayment of rent? They're damn hard to… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 15, 2009 at 10:12am — No Comments

Why I Write

I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.

Added by Gary Freedman on July 13, 2009 at 11:57am — 1 Comment

My First Summer Job

Thirty-nine years ago today, June 13, 1970, I started my first summer job, at the Franklin Institute Research Laboratories in Philadelphia. I was 16 years old at the time.

And look at where I am today!

Added by Gary Freedman on July 13, 2009 at 11:30am — No Comments

Is There Such A Thing as Holocaust Humor?

The Holocaust is a grim and sacred event in history. It is not the subject of humor. But I once heard a story tangentially related to the Holocaust that I found amusing.

A few years ago, the Metropolitan Opera in New York presented the modern opera "Moses and Aron," by Arnold Schoenberg, the great and innovative composer of the twentieth century. The music is atonal and its lack of traditional melody and harmony taxes a listener's patience.

During the performance, an old… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 13, 2009 at 10:11am — 3 Comments

Whatever Happened to David Freund?

I sometimes wonder: Whatever happened to David Freund? David Freund attended my junior high school, Wagner Junior High School in Philadelphia. We were in the same classes in the seventh grade (homeroom teacher, Miss Lillian Camaioni) and the eighth grade (Mrs. MacKay). He later attended Central High School, but transferred after the tenth grade. We were in the same homeroom classes in ninth and tenth grades; the homeroom teachers were Mrs. Barbara Sandler, a French teacher and Mr. Santo Diano,… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 12, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

What Are We Going To Do About Stanley Schmulewitz?

There's this old guy who lives in my apartment building. He's lived in the building for about 35 years. He's in his late seventies.

This is what gets me about the guy. He works out every day in the building's fitness center. In his street clothes. He uses the reclining stationary bicycle. I know this isn't the Christian thing to say, but neither I nor Stanley Schmulewitz is Christian. The guy is a total pain in the ass. He listens to the radio while he works out. He laughs, talks to… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 11, 2009 at 11:55am — 4 Comments

A Boring Life

After all the dislocation of my life, and the uncertainties of my existence, it is paradise to be in this quiet apartment in Washington. Some people say that my neighborhood is the dreariest part of northwest Washington. I am a stranger here, but I feel at home: it is life, and I am content--yes, miserable, but content with my misery.

I spend the day doing small things, drinking my morning cup of coffee, going to the library, then coming home and listening to music; afterwards going… Continue

Added by Gary Freedman on July 10, 2009 at 11:26am — No Comments

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