Sept. 17, 2007 *
THE STRIP SENSE
Coming Soon: Cirque du O.J.
By STEVE FRIESS
I swear I didn't want to write this. Really. And the fact
that I cannot but do so is a terrible, horrible sign of things
to come.
I had wanted to kick off my new, permanent column in this
space by regaling you all with frothy tales of Steve Wynn dissing
the entire south end of The Strip as "down market" and challenging
the sales figures of the fine folks next door to him at Tao.
It's good stuff. But it'll have to wait. So I apologize in advance.
Forgive us, good people, for we in the media know not what we
do. And you, good people, know not what you watch and read,
either.
You probably don't believe me when I say there is nothing
I want less than to have to cover the arrest, the endless court
hearings and, inevitably, the trial of O.J. Simpson in Las Vegas.
You sit there thinking, 'Oh, please, you media jackal. You live
for this." Some may. I don't. And thus far, I've not spoken
to a single real journalist on the ground in Vegas who thinks
this is great news. The only folks with glee in their eyes are
those popping popcorn and gearing up for the national spectacle
on cable news.
No, I've been trying to figure out a way out of all this for
you and me from the moment early last Friday when my editors
at The New York Times forwarded me the first Associated Press
piece headlined, "O.J. Simpson questioned about break-in involving
sports memorabilia at Las Vegas casino."
I knew what that meant. My plans to power down and focus on
some household projects after two weeks of covering the search
for still-missing aviator Steve Fossett were canceled. I might
decline the Times (yeah, right) but then I'd have had to also
rebuff Newsweek, Reuters and the Chicago Tribune, all of which
called subsequently begging for my services. As my editor at
the Times told me later as we commiserated over the fact that
O.J. Simpson was back in our lives in a big way, "It's the kind
of story that will do nothing for your career, but if you don't
do it, you'll damage yourself."
Still, on Friday and Saturday I hoped and prayed that, however
unlikely, there was a reasonable explanation for why O.J. Simpson
would storm a hotel room with a group of gunned-up thugs and
depart with a treasure trove of sports memorabilia, some of
which had nothing to do with the former football great. I'm
betting the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the
Clark County district attorney's office felt the same way. There
must be some way we can all avert this meteor heading right
at us, right? O.J. seemed so calm and confident that all this
was nothing much; how we all hoped he was right, not for his
disgusting sake but for ours.
Alas, everyone but O.J. knew better in their heart of hearts.
This story wasn't going away. No matter how the it was sliced,
whether O.J. was retrieving his own property or whether one
of his accusers backpedaled and said he wouldn't testify against
Simpson, it was an absurd and quite probably criminal situation.
And so we got an arrest but, thankfully, none of the slow-speed-chase
theater that accompanied the last one.
Oh, but won't this be one of those big stories that journalists
thrive on? Well, maybe, but there is a motif to O.J. coverage
that is both daunting and predictable. Those who did this in
the mid-1990s have a definite advantage, having well-worn paths
to the likes of Mark Fuhrman, Marcia Clark, Fred Goldman, Denise
Brown and even O.J. himself, which explains how the A.P.'s Linda
Deutsch got him on the line to incriminate himself for the world
to see. I was able to wave the New York Times name here and
there and scootch to the head of the line - I chatted with Goldman
on Sunday as O.J. was being arrested - but that really only
helped me stay barely even with my competition.
What's so frustrating is how much effort we all will pour
into something that really matters very little. Back in 1995,
I was as fascinated by the O.J. murder trial as anyone else
-- and happy not to be covering it. And, ultimately, the sudsy
soap opera ended up having some relevant social meaning in terms
of exposing, with reaction to the not-guilty verdicts, the racial
schism that persists in America.
But this? Unlike pretty Nicole Brown Simpson or utterly unlucky
but handsome Ronald Goldman, there's nobody in this case I'd
want to see in a bathing suit or even on a talk show. The people
involved here are, after all, the same gross people who believe
that the sports memorabilia of a man who probably hacked to
death the mother of his kids has real monetary value. Not a
sympathetic one in the bunch. And falling back on our sympathies
for the Browns and Goldmans to get emotionally engaged in this
case is about as hollow as voting for Hillary because we miss
Bill. It's just not the same.
Of course, as with any good international story playing out
in here, the inaccuracies and stereotypes abound. O.J. got the
ball rolling by telling some friends that he thought what happens
in Vegas stays in Vegas. For that alone he ought to be jailed.
Several times I heard on cable TV that either Palace Station
or the Palms are on the Strip. And some crazy lawyer on CNN
said Simpson ought to be fear a jury trial where he'd face "the
conservative people of Las Vegas." Huh?
Sigh. Whether we like it or not, Cirque du O.J. is on and
we'll all play our parts. I'll be there for the Times and whoever
else will pay me enough when they're sick of it. The cops and
lawyers will leak bits and pieces to whichever reporters they
favor that day. The cable talking heads will offer endless gossip
and speculation. And you will all shake your heads in disgust
while all the while tuning in.
"Avenue Q" lasted eight months. "Hairspray" got four. The
Hans Klok debacle will stick around however long they can pretend
Pam Anderson is his girlfriend.
But Cirque du O.J.? It's here to stay. And finally, Oscar
Goodman has a downtown attraction that might actually stick
around for a while.
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