Flashback: O.J. Simpson verdict is announced

by phil on Thursday May 22, 2008 2:06 PM

1995 was a pivotal year. I won't qualify that statement. Anyways, thanks to YouTube, we're all amateur video archivists. I found video of the courtroom reaction to the O.J. Simpson verdict after seeing a reference in Brian Eno's diary. Brian Eno has a diary (titled A Year With Swollen Appendices) from 1995 that's 400+ pages long which I bought from eBay. This is his entry from October 3 ("Bowie" is David Bowie):

Bowie called from a distant American hotel room to relay the O.J. verdict to me as it was delivered, describing the scene in court etc. Then it was on our TV too, so we were watching it together. I don't know what city he was in — Detroit, I think. Incredible tension, with Ito slowly going over the rules. Then the verdict — and the beautiful sad face of Marcia Clark, outwitted by shysters. I am now even more convinced (by his reaction at the news) that Simpson was guilty and that he knew he was going to be acquitted. Somehow it was a fix. As David said, 'It's down to investigative journalism now.'

Hannah said (on the phone) a clever thing: 'Have you ever met an American who was unprepared?' She's right: they always seem so rehearsed — with a TV-acquired degree in how to look happy, how to look sad, how to look contrite, how to look triumphant (this came about from Cochrane's drama-school jubilation at the O.J. result) and how to make you feel all those things (the LA A&R guy who said to me, buddy-buddy-flatteringly, 'Do you work out?', as if that was remotely likely).