THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260103
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Long : 135 lines
IT'S HELL to be in jail. You can't play golf. It's hell to be famous. Photographers stalk you on the golf course.
That is some of what I came away with after watching O.J. Simpson sit for an hour's one-on-one conversation with reporter Ed Gordon of Black Entertainment Television Wednesday night.
Golf. Golf. Golf.
Simpson went on and on about how he loves to play golf. Now that he is free after more than 400 days behind bars, what does Simpson want out of life?
``To be left alone, raise my kids and.. . .''
You guessed it.
To play golf.
As Simpson went on and on about golf - he hates the fact that overzealous photographers from ``rag'' magazines and TV shows have spoiled his plans to play even more golf - he set the wrong tone for his first live on-camera interview since he was acquitted of a double homicide.
Until he finished up with tears swelling in his eyes as he said, ``I didn't kill anybody,'' he gave the impression that he cared about golf more than anything else - and that includes finding the people who slashed the throats of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
He defined himself not as a father or a businessman or a broadcaster or a spokesman, but as a golfer. That's what I do, he said time and again.
``I play golf.''
Talk like that trivialized the interview. He came off as shallow and selfish and insensitive.
What about the time you roughed up your former wife and got in trouble with the police, Gordon asked?
``An abusive incident,'' he said.
Incident?
``I paid for it as if it were a crime.''
It was a crime.
I agree with commentator George Curry of Emerge magazine, who came on BET after ``O.J. Simpson: Beyond the Verdict. The Interview'' ended.
The man did badly.
He wouldn't talk about the evidence in the trial that acquitted him. To do that, suggested Simpson, would be to give away for free what he wants people to pay $29.95 (plus $4.95 postage and handling) for: the ``O.J.Tells'' video.
Give America something, asked Gordon of Simpson. ``At the time or the murders, were you sleeping, showering at home, practicing your putting?''
Sorry, said O.J. You'll have to pay $29.95 for those answers.
He needs the money, said the man who rushed his way into the professional football Hall of Fame, to support his children and ensure their education.
Dressed casually in a jacket and shirt open at the collar, Simpson's mood at first was lighthearted, almost jovial. Was that the proper approach for an interview in which the deaths of two young people would come up?
I don't think so.
For a while there, I wondered if he would ever bring up the lives that were lost when somebody ambushed the former Mrs. Simpson and Goldman in a fashionable Los Angeles neighborood. ``I will grieve all my life,'' said Simpson, finally ackowledging the murders.
And what of his pledge to do everything within his power to find the killers? ``I have a few people working on that,'' he said.
It's just a few because that is all he can afford. The expense of winning acquittal was costly, Simpson said. ``The wealth I worked my butt off for all my life is all but gone.''
Gordon was all over the place with his questions, sometimes failing to follow up on Simpson's answers.
Gordon concluded the hour by asking if Simpson feared for his life because the no-guilty verdict made so many people angry. ``I have security,'' he said.
``But I can't live my life in fear.''
Heck no. That would get in the way of his golf game.
I T'S HELL to be in jail. You can't play golf. It's hell to be famous. Photographers stalk you on the golf course.
That is some of what I came away with after watching O.J. Simpson sit for an hour's one-on-one conversation with reporter Ed Gordon of Black Entertainment Television Wednesday night.
Golf. Golf. Golf.
Simpson went on and on about how he loves to play golf. Now that he is free after more than 400 days behind bars, what does Simpson want out of life?
``To be left alone, raise my kids and . . .''
You guessed it.
To play golf.
As Simpson went on and on about golf - he hates the fact that overzealous photographers from ``rag'' magazines and TV shows have spoiled his plans to play even more golf - he set the wrong tone for his first live on-camera interview since he was acquitted of a double homicide.
Until he finished up with tears swelling in his eyes as he said, ``I didn't kill anybody,'' he gave the impression that he cared about golf more than anything else - and that includes finding the people who slashed the throats of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
He defined himself not as a father or a businessman or a broadcaster or a spokesman, but as a golfer. That's what I do, he said time and again.
``I play golf.''
Talk like that trivialized the interview. He came off as shallow and selfish and insensitive.
What about the time you roughed up your former wife and got in trouble with the police, Gordon asked?
``An abusive incident,'' he said.
Incident?
``I paid for it as if it were a crime.''
It was a crime.
I agree with commentator George Curry of Emerge magazine, who came on BET after ``O.J. Simpson: Beyond the Verdict. The Interview'' ended.
The man did badly.
He wouldn't talk about the evidence in the trial that acquitted him. To do that, suggested Simpson, would be to give away for free what he wants people to pay $29.95 (plus $4.95 postage and handling) for: the ``O.J. Tells'' video.
Give America something, Gordon asked of Simpson. ``At the time of the murders, were you sleeping, showering at home, practicing your putting?''
Sorry, said O.J. You'll have to pay $29.95 for those answers.
He needs the money, said the man who rushed his way into the professional football Hall of Fame, to support his children and ensure their education.
Dressed casually in a jacket and shirt open at the collar, Simpson's mood at first was lighthearted, almost jovial. Was that the proper approach for an interview in which the deaths of two young people would come up?
I don't think so.
For a while there, I wondered if he would ever bring up the lives that were lost when somebody ambushed the former Mrs. Simpson and Goldman in a fashionable Los Angeles neighborood. ``I will grieve all my life,'' said Simpson, finally ackowledging the murders.
And what of his pledge to do everything within his power to find the killers? ``I have a few people working on that,'' he said.
It's just a few because that is all he can afford. The expense of winning acquittal was costly, Simpson said. ``The wealth I worked my butt off for all my life is all but gone.''
Gordon was all over the place with his questions, sometimes failing to follow up on Simpson's answers.
Gordon concluded the hour by asking if Simpson feared for his life because the no-guilty verdict made so many people angry.
``I have security,'' he said. ``But I can't live my life in fear.''
Heck no. That would get in the way of his golf game. by CNB