Juiced by O.J.

[mark_chalifoux]

The (sports) Gospel According to Mark: Juiced by O.J.


By Mark Chalifoux
Wednesday, June 09, 2004


There are many ways to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the murder of an ex-wife and her friend. You could start a scholarship in their name, you could donate some money to a charity, you could attend Mass or a church service and say a prayer for them, or you could follow through with your proclaimed life goal of finding their killers.

Or you could take the O.J. Simpson route, and celebrate by selling interviews and pictures of you and your kids at the grave. And what has O.J. done recently to achieve his "primary goal in life" to find the real killers?

"Very little," O.J. said.

I suppose it’s hard to fault O.J. for this. I mean, who hasn’t changed a life goal before? I remember that when I was young, I wanted more than anything to be a Ghostbuster; I even memorized the theme song. Eventually, I decided I did not want to spend the rest of my life with Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (who reminds me of a slimmer Tony Saragusa) and decided to go into sports journalism. I can understand why O.J. could get tired of his fantasy of searching for "the real killers" and focus on something more important, his kids. Well, his kids and his new reality show, "Juiced."

Of course, O.J. is very careful about what he does. He can’t get a job or the money he earns will go to pay the $33.5 million he owes the Brown and Goldman families from the civil suit. He is adamant that they get as little as possible from him.

"I'm not paying a penny," Simpson said. "I'm not doing nothing that the law doesn't dictate me to do. I followed the law to the letter."

O.J. stating that he “followed the law to the letter” is like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, like Pete Rose saying he didn’t bet on baseball, or like John Kerry saying he’s made up his mind on something.

“The Today Show’s” Katie Couric asked Simpson about the civil trial, in which he was found responsible for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, and asked if he was ever going to pay them any of the money. O.J. said he wasn’t going to and what he said after that was even more shocking.

"I’ve been very clear," Simpson said. "I won. I didn’t commit the crime."

It may be me, but I never thought that MURDER trials were just a game with winners and losers. O.J. Simpson has won many games in his sports career, but I would wager that none of them come close to the monumental victory he ‘won’ over the American legal system.

If that’s not bad enough, he continues to flaunt his victory in front of the entire country. Only for O.J. is the anniversary of an ex-wife’s death a major money maker. He even had the audacity to say that he was "angry" at Nicole for not being around to help with the kids. It makes me wonder if Jayson Williams ever gets angry at Gus Christofi for not driving him places anymore.

Nicole isn’t the only one O.J. is angry with, however. Simpson said that he is angry with Nicole’s parents.

"I had a lot of anger towards them and their family," he said. "I felt that they tried to assist in, you know, getting rid of my life and liberty." Luckily for O.J., Hammurabi’s Code and its principles of an ‘eye for an eye’ have been replaced by a much more docile judicial system.

Thanks to that, O.J. can get on with his life. He is working on his reality show, a rip-off of MTV’s “Punk’d”, and his lawyer expects him to be working again in show business.

"I envision one day when O.J. will again be a celebrity spokesman in the mainstream of commerce," Simpson’s attorney Yale Galanter told the New Yorker. "Americans are very forgiving."

This definitely sounds like someone representing an innocent man. Forgiveness is something every "innocent" guy needs.

What Fred Goldman, father of Ron Goldman, needs is justice. And he has been very outspoken in his attempt to bring O.J., who Goldman, along with most of America, thinks is the murderer, to justice. Simpson, however, said that Goldman got such an opportunity from this with TV exposure and that Goldman is just out for money.

"I don't think I've ever heard him speak without him saying, ‘We didn't get any money’," O.J said. "So hey, tell him to go get a job."

That is coming from the man who would rather profit off of the 10th anniversary of the death of his ex-wife than get a job. O.J has got to get his now, because it’s going to be another five-10 years before he hits another cash cow like this.

This should be enough to hold off O.J for awhile. He should be able to get in a few rounds of golf, do some traveling, work on his best Ashton Kutcher impersonation and maybe even get around to that life’s goal of his. Although, I think the odds are better that I team up with Egon Spengler and Peter Venkman to take on Gozer the Gozerian than the odds of O.J. finding the "real killers."