An American Nightmare

I have now made it through the five parts of ESPN’s O.J.: Made in America, all seven hours and 44 minutes of it. I suppose watching and playing in poker tournaments -- or maybe it’s all those transatlantic flights I’ve taken -- has made sitting through nearly eight hours of anything seem a lot less remarkable than it was before.

The reviews of the film, directed and produced by Ezra Edelman, have been consistently glowing, and I, too, thought it very good and compelling throughout. Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) is an obvious influence (narrative pace, music, editing, interview format), and as I greatly enjoy Morris’s films and storytelling style that ensured I was hooked from early in the first hour.

I knew a lot about Simpson’s background, though the film presents numerous details that were new to me (and to most viewers, I’d imagine). Much of what was presented concerning the murders and trial was very familiar, while some of the participants’ reflections were interesting to hear articulated for the first time.

The civil case (in which Simpson was found responsible for the murders) was mostly familiar ground as well for those who followed it when it happened. Meanwhile the entire post-trials sequence detailing Simpson’s downward spiral into decadence and his eventual arrest, conviction, and imprisonment in Nevada for a different crime was mostly new to me.

The film clarifies in a comprehensive way how studying the complicated legacy of race relations both in southern California and Los Angeles in particular and in the nation as a whole adds considerably to our understanding of why the trial played out as it did. It also sheds light on Simpson’s own strange, frighteningly-destructive psychological makeup, which helps explain -- as much as is possible, anyway -- how exactly he had become a person able to perpetrate such horrors.

“There was nothing ever, ever in the past that would indicate would be capable of doing what he’s doing right now” says Al Michaels on air during the Bronco chase, articulating the position of the great majority of the public at the time who thought they knew Simpson but really did not. The film helps make it clear that not only was Simpson capable, but predisposed to commit such acts.

Probably the most affecting part of the entire documentary (for me) was the creeping, mounting, chest-tightening dread that builds toward the end of the second part when all of the many, many instances of abuse and other loud forewarnings build upon each other -- both saddening and maddening. I also was affected during the discussion of the Rodney King beating, trial, and the L.A. riots, as they triggered some anxiety-filled memories of that time. (As well as some trepidation about how such a situation might play out today, nearly a quarter-century later.)

In the end, I appreciated the lengthy exposition (i.e., the first two parts) a bit more than the narrative of the trial and its aftermath, probably because the latter was on the whole both more familiar to me and tended to be overwhelmed at several points by the incredibly sensational aspects of the murders and trial.

As I say, the argument that race relations was a key component to America’s “making” a figure like O.J. was persuasive and thorough. But when it was over I was thinking also about other influences upon attitudes and values -- namely, sports, celebrity, and money/class -- all suggested as well by the film, but not explored as fully. Of course, that might’ve carried the film another couple of hours further, as it didn’t appear there was much included that didn’t seem to belong.

I’ll finish with one last observation about the documentary. Early on it is established how Simpson not only avoided drawing attention to race and the many injustices marking race relations as his personal fame and cultural stature grew, but overtly defended his right to pursue self-interest. The position is uniformly opposed by others in the film, and indeed Simpson’s lack of interest in any larger community is made to appear monstrous -- another piece of evidence presented to explain Simpson’s narcissism and lack of regard for anyone but himself.

As that case was being made, though, I found myself thinking -- how unusual is that position, really? Especially today. We’re surrounded by others adopting the exact same approach to society at large and their place within it, not feeling any responsibility at all to the “community” and appearing exclusively and unembarrassedly motivated by self-improvement.

It’s a not uncommon type, and also -- to an extent -- “made in America.”

Image: ESPN.

A Lifestyle-and-Death Story

Late Friday night -- while a lot of us were watching St. Louis win Game 7 of the World Series -- NBC’s “Dateline” took the opportunity to share the sordid tale of professional poker player Ernest “Ernie” Scherer III. Was another instance of poker turning up in the mainstream in a not-so-flattering light, I suppose, although I’d hope most who saw the program wouldn’t take Scherer as representative of poker players as a whole.

I actually flipped over a couple of times on Friday during the commercials to catch some of the show. Then over the weekend I had a chance to watch the whole thing online.

I’d heard bits and pieces of the story beforehand. Scherer had been a minor character on the pro poker circuit for a few years, known by many of the players but not a guy the average fan would know about.

As far as tourneys are concerned, Scherer’s career peaked in 2006 and 2007 with a handful of WSOP cashes, including one final table in ’06 in the $3,000 limit hold’em event won by Bill Chen. That’s Scherer in the Full Tilt Poker cap on Chen’s right in the picture below (a shot repeatedly shown during the “Dateline” show). According to Hendon Mob, Scherer racked up nearly $340,000 worth of winnings from 2003 to 2008.

Scherer was found guilty of killing both of his parents in their Pleasanton, California home in March 2008. He was arrested in February 2009, tried and found guilty in early 2011, then sentenced to consecutive life terms for the murders.

Introducing the story, “Dateline” host Lester Holt set up the program by referring to the murders of Ernest Scherer, Jr. and his wife Charlene Abendroth, then introduced Ernie as a possible suspect. The opening immediately connects “poker” with a certain “lifestyle,” delivering what sounds like an implicit judgment on what it means to be a pro player.

“Their son, it turned out, played poker for a living,” says Holt. “Could that lifestyle have had something to do with it?”

The angle subsequently taken by the show -- titled “The Player” -- was to present the story of the murders and investigation mostly from the perspective of Adrian Solomon, a woman who’d had a two-year relationship with Scherer from early 2006 until early 2008 (i.e., until just prior to the murders).

Thus a lot of the show consists of correspondent Keith Morrison interviewing Solomon. While visiting Las Vegas on business, Solomon met Scherer and became romantically involved with him, their mostly long-distance relationship eventually progressing to a point where they were talking about marriage and children before they finally broke it off.

Scherer is introduced as from a Mormon family and college-educated. We also learn he was an Eagle scout, a detail I found kind of interesting. You might recall how last week Rep. Joe Barton mentioned in that House hearing he’d learned poker in the Boy Scouts. Inspired by that comment, I ended up looking into a few other connections between poker and scouting, writing about it for my next Epic Poker “Community Cards” column (which will appear tomorrow). (EDIT [added 11/2/11]: Here is that column on poker and the Boy Scouts.)

Anyhow, Solomon notes early on how it seemed a little odd that Scherer would be a professional poker player with such a background. In other words, being educated, having some sort of religious upbringing, and becoming an Eagle Scout all seem to contrast with the image of someone playing cards for a living.

Scherer represented himself as a successful player to Solomon, although as the show eventually spells out he was losing a lot more than he was winning. He was also lying to her about just about everything else -- including the fact that he was married and had a child. In fact, it turns out he had a few different mistresses in various locations.

Sticking with Solomon’s P.O.V., we learn with her about the especially brutal double-murder of Scherer’s parents, then leave her for a while to follow the detectives’ initially unsure investigation. Later in the story we hear about Scherer trying later on to revive their relationship, telling Solomon he “was thinking of changing his lifestyle, quitting poker” if she’d take him back. But by then detectives have told her about his wife and child and she’s not interested in any such reunion. She’s also struggling to figure out how her “read” of Scherer had been so far off.

It takes a while, but investigators eventually are able to come up with a motive for Scherer. They’re also able (more or less) to place him at the scene of the crime the night of the murders.

Scherer was deep in debt, something like $150,000 in the hole between credit cards and what he owed to casinos. He’d also borrowed $616,000 from his father to buy a house. He couldn’t get a loan, it is explained, because banks had become “not quite so sanguine anymore about the security of poker player’s income.”

Scherer had missed a payment to his father just before the murders. Also, it was determined that he stood to inherit half the parents’ considerable estate on his 30th birthday, just a few months away at the time of the killings. “‘His house of cards was collapsing before his very eyes,’” the prosecutor would say later when making the case against Scherer.

Eventually the detectives are able to produce a few different pieces of evidence that together appear to put Scherer at the home on the night of the killings, too. Scherer’s wife tries to get him to confess in a recorded phone call, their conversation described as involving her working a “bluff” and the two “playing” each other like poker players. That doesn’t quite elicit anything damning, but there’s a ton of circumstantial evidence that ultimately proved persuasive enough to get the guilty verdict.

It sounds like Scherer’s status as a poker player didn’t help him much, either, when it came to the jurors’ consideration of the case. In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of the story was how the prosecutors, the defense, and the jury all understood that Scherer’s “lifestyle” was being judged along with all of the evidence and argumentation regarding the actual crime.

“He is very proficient at misinformation and disinformation,” explained one of the investigators, alluding at once to Scherer’s poker playing and to his allegedly having planted some misleading evidence at the crime scene.

“‘It goes back to him thinking ‘I’m at a table and there’s all kinds of chips in the middle,’” says another, characterizing what he believed to be Scherer’s thinking while on the stand. “‘I’ve bluffed some of the best,’” he continues, “‘and these 12 people, they’re nothing compared to some of the poker players that I’ve bluffed so I’m gonna give it my best.’”

The defense apparently made much of the fact that prejudice against his “lifestyle” was clouding over the fact that the physical evidence connecting their client to the murders was all circumstantial. Morrison alludes to that argument near the end when interviewing a couple of jurors, saying how the defense lawyers were “claiming it was his lifestyle the prosecution put on trial.”

“Somebody should,” cracks one of the jurors in response, adding that “all other things being equal, his lifestyle counted against him.”

These “Dateline”-type shows can be engrossing sometimes. One of my all-time favorite films is Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, the 1988 documentary that kind of provided the template both in form and content for all of these procedural-slash-true crime news shows. But I don’t really think this one would’ve grabbed my attention if it weren’t for the poker connection. In fact, it kind of felt like there were a number of details about the actual case that got glossed over in favor of promoting Solomon’s story and her tangential involvement.

Just as there was no “smoking gun” in the actual case, there was no explicit charge against poker as being to blame for what happened. I guess, though, it’s possible some who watched might feel there’s some “circumstantial evidence” suggesting as much. The image of poker or poker pros presented by the show certainly wasn’t favorable, and the show pretty much ignored the possibility that there was such a thing as a poker pro living a healthy “lifestyle.”

Solomon did note that being a poker player hardly made one more or less likely to be a murderer, although it was suggested throughout that his ability to deceive at the tables characterized how he related to her and others elsewhere, too. Another woman -- another of Scherer’s girlfriends -- was also shown explicitly saying “that’s a very far jump from being a poker player to murdering your parents.” But even she was speaking of poker as a strike against him, something that had to be forgiven, so to speak, along with his many other liaisons of which she was aware during their relationship.

That said, I don’t necessarily fault the producers for using poker and gambling as they did here. Truthfully, while the great majority of us can only speculate about what ultimately motivates a killer, the “lifestyle” of reckless gambling and accumulating significant debt wasn’t without significance in this particular story.

And really, there’s a lot worse here to be sorry about than poker’s image taking yet another hit.