Because You Never Asked

O.J.

     (This essay was written back when the three ring circus created by the Simpson murder case first broke. I was in Spain at the time and the event created an interesting situation for an American outside the country. It is now 2007 and Mr. Simpson has once again run afoul of the law in Las Vegas. This seems as good a moment as any to put this essay up on my website.)

     For those of us who have become addicted to the Mediterranean, yesterday morning should have been typical of what we come here for. A metallic blue sky, smudged lightly with a delicate brush stroke of high cloud, framed a warming sun diligently lighting a splendid landscape of ancient hills meeting the deeper blue of the Roman Sea. But this was not to be a typical day.

     Unlike the Vegas-Disney crowd, people come to the Mediterranean in search of nothing to do. This is an art form that usually includes a dreamy morning on a lovely “terraza”  sipping a “café con leche”.

     Yesterday was just such a morning and I was enjoying it with some Italian friends. Across the table from me was Claudio, his head buried in a newspaper from home. The page facing me seemed to be saying --- O.J. Simpson. My Italian is what I’d call low grade functional, which was enough to piece together the awesome perversion of the murdered victims, the chase through L.A., and the whole incredible antipasto. Strangely enough, as I was to find out over the next few days, no other publication in Europe chose to carry the story. Contrary to the conceited pretensions of the pinkie ring moguls who run American football, their sport is little more than a curiosity here, and O.J. Simpson a complete unknown. There must be something in the soap opera character of the Italians that alerted them to the story.

     The operable word with regard to this lamentable drama is “perverse”, starting with the fate of the couple’s now motherless children and ending with my own reaction to it. For the first time since I’d left home five weeks before, I felt a slight twinge of homesickness. It was as if a certain part of my American patrimony had been denied me, as if I had somehow been defrauded and swindled. This denial, quite ironically, made me feel more American than ever. As I scanned the relaxed morning ambiance on the “terraza”, with its exotic smattering of foreign nationalities, I realized I had no one to share my astonishment with. There was this sudden urge to go dashing off in search of a compatriot, in search of someone I could commiserate with, someone who understood.

     If “perverse” is the word best suited to describe this unfortunate incident, the criminal act itself is least suited for such connotation. Barbaric acts protagonized as sequels to ill-fated love affairs are as much a part of human history as the wars, famines, earthquakes and other disasters, both natural and man made, which periodically dot the movement of time. This is not to exonerate the perpetrators of such acts. If Simpson has done the things he is accused of, he should be brought before the proper institutions in order to meet his fate. This is perhaps the most primary function of any society calling itself civilized.

     Unfortunately, there is very little civilized to be found in all this, with American television leading the barbaric hordes into savage battle. As I clumsily deciphered the Italian version of the event, I began to realize that a thirsting public had been treated to nine hours of continuous television coverage of O.J. leading the Los Angeles police on a merry chase cross the freeways and not so freeways of the colossal urban sprawl. Dantesque images of blade thumping helicopter pursuit, gun-brandished suicide threats, forewarned crowds of rubber-necking onlookers and police car escorts played out to a backdrop of incessant media play by play, started to become a reality in my mind. It seemed so preposterous that I had to get a confirmation of my translation from Claudio. Like a blitzing linebacker zeroing in on a blind side quarterback, commercial TV went for the kill here, presenting the soap opera masses with marathon coverage of this morbose, pathetic incident, as if we were all a clan of hedonistic Roman patricians enjoying the whimsied destruction of another beautiful slave in the Coliseum. Boy, what fun!

     I don’t mean to put myself above all this. Undoubtedly, I’d have done my fair share of watching too --- but somewhere in the mechanism of a civilized society, there should be a higher authority that says “no”, this is quite enough for now. Should we all so passionately crave the opportunity to witness the most humiliating, degrading, agonizing moments of a troubled, perhaps even deranged man, just for the sake of entertaining ourselves? Aren’t we showing what “losers” we really are by paying such devoted attention to the misfortune of another?

     The most sickening part is that American television does not do anything without a bottom line motive. It surely provided this spectacle in delirious anticipation of the commercial bonanza this circus is likely to engender. Ladies and gentlemen, this was little more than “lumpen” entertainment paid for by eager sponsorship. The spectacle of O.J. Simpson’s life going down the toilet was nothing more than another way to sell cars, sneakers, beer and Las Vegas. I wonder what a sponsor paid for a plug during the “Humiliation of O.J. Simpson Show”? (Being that I was not there, I cannot know how commercial free the 9 hours of chase was, but I do know that commercial interests will  profit for years from the whole fandango).

     Shame on us.

     When I had digested the story about O.J. Simpson, I tried to explain to my Italian friends who this man is and why this was such a powerful story in the United States. My last words, spoken more to myself than anyone else, had to do with O.J. running with a football. I tried to evoke his smooth, elegant stride, such a perfect blend of strength and speed, like a lion effortlessly slashing cross a grassy plain --- but how can an Italian ever understand O.J. on a football field?

     Before long, Claudio was again hidden behind the façade of his paper and O.J. was just a blip on the memory of my friends. I too sat back, immersed in my own American thoughts. I gazed out at the eternal sparkle of the placid Mediterranean --- and I felt very sad.

     Post Script: A few days later, the British tabloids began hitting on the story with their customary ferocity. These publications are to journalism what pro wrestling is to sport.

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info