Just Saying, Is All...Why O.J. Simpson Is Irresistible

I couldn’t help myself, Bubba.

I just couldn’t help myself.

When O.J.’s the one knocking, after all, you can’t not open the door.

I won’t claim here to have any idea what actually went down in Vegas last Thursday. All that’s clear at this point is that there was some kind of fracas at the Palace Station casino, which may or may not have involved some stolen sports memorabilia, and a handgun, and a four-man posse raised ad hoc at a wedding cocktail reception.

And oh, by the way, O.J. Simpson was there.

Remember him?

It would have been easy to get high and mighty this week—to rail against a world in which the misadventures of a raving 60-year-old facing seven felony counts are somehow fodder for the front page of ESPN.com. We are Better Than This, after all. There were points to be made. And pleas. And Detective Nordberg jokes, even.

But I couldn’t help myself, Bubba—I just couldn’t help myself.

In fact, I’m as hooked on O.J. Simpson as everybody else is.

There’s a kind of celebrity fixation that’s beneath jaded curiosity and beyond morbid voyeurism. That’s where we are with O.J. The Simpson beat was a kick when his life was just a spectacle, or just a train wreck. Now, though, it’s become something far more essential—and far less fun.

Now, Bubba, O.J. is irresistible.

Which speaks a lot more pointedly about Us than it does about him.

Let’s at least give credit where it’s due. O.J. Simpson is the ultimate leper, and the consummate Other—a dull-eyed and dimly-understood loon by whom we measure our own normalcy. We need O.J., is the thing: need him because he is what we might be and yet are not; need him because he’s the pariah that shapes the paradigm, and gives substance to all those who define themselves by it.

Without wingnuts like the Juice to mark the fringe, We—the Rest of Us—would have no purpose, no aim, no Center.

Plus, We wouldn’t have much to talk about.

And Lord knows none of Us want to be only just saying, is all...