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IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS...A HIT
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"Seated one day at the organ in vacant and pensive mood" I decided to write
this column. Not really, I don’t have an organ, but I’ve always wanted to use
the phrase some way. It’s accurate enough in describing the condition of a
man looking for something to write about so that people won’t conclude that he’
s not updating and can safely be skipped when surfing the net. This almost
happened last week when I didn’t get into print until Wednesday due to a glitch
on Sunday when I submitted "Predictions". I’m back to Mondays now, I hope,
and I’ll stay there as long as I can.
The subject matter problem is of my own making, since I’ve ruled out politics
as a subject on the grounds that all I know about it is what I get from the
media and have no inside info at all. The last politician I had any
relationship with is now in jail and unavailable as a source. If that’s the kind of
luck I bring people, I’m unlikely to find new ones, although I had nothing to do
with the man’s misfortune.
I admit I’ve been rethinking my abnegation of political subjects in view of
the fact that, however little real-life contact I have with people in the
business, I do see a lot of them on C-Span and other TV. Only snapshots most of
the time, because most of them cause me to flee in panic. Still you do pick up
things here and there. I now know the best speaker in the House of
Representatives is Rep. Thomas of California. The best speaker in the Senate is…
nobody. I’ve learned that Senator Biden thinks he’s Judge Judy and likes to scream
at witnesses before his committee like they were prisoners at the bar.
So maybe I have learned a little about politics and may even be better
qualified to comment on them than someone who’s never done his survival course at
C-Span. I‘ll consider the matter.
For the here and now, though, I’ll stick to one of my usual subjects, cops,
not as I’ve experienced that lifestyle, but as I see it reflected on, well, TV.
I surf that too, I’m afraid. I don’t even want to admit how many times I
click in on a crucial moment in a story and find myself staying to the end to
find out what happened. Mostly it‘s the true crime programs that entrap me
like this, but it can happen with fiction too. "Law and Order" is the most
dangerous. The rapid-fire pacing keeps you hooked and gives you the feeling of
progressing toward a goal. Sometimes the goal is just a self-righteous speech by
Sam Waterston denouncing Naziism or the Klan or some other politically
incorrect target, but other times the courtroom duels strike some real sparks.
I’m convinced the ideological message is what drives the program, no matter
how much melodrama is served up to get the customers into the tent. The
message isn’t announced with a blare of trumpets, except when the DA is declaiming,
but is usually inserted into the action casually in the character of a
spontaneous remark made without malice aforethought. So far I’ve heard flings at
George Bush, Ronald Reagan and Oliver North. Just casual, as I said. No hidden
agenda or bias, just what anyone might say without thinking. Sure.
Sorry, I don’t believe that. I believe the swipes at conservatives represent
the real rationale of the program and all the elaborate plots and incidents
are just superstructure to set the stage for the digs at the right. The
creator of the program, Dick Wolf, is apparently one of those people who think that
a political effect can be produced by a steady barrage of wisecracks aimed at
tearing down reputations. If repeated often enough, it will have an effect
like the Chinese water torture and bring victory to the forces of progress. It
worked with George Bush, didn’t it? Well no, it didn’t . But that’s
irrelevant. The word is still, keep your shoulders to the wheel, boys, and we shall
overcome.
Watching the show in snatches as I do, can be confusing and has left me with
some questions that I’ll enumerate here in the interest of demystification:
What is Fred Thompson doing on the show? I remember him when he was
Republican counsel at the Watergate hearings in 1973-4. He wrote a book about it,
then climbed up off the canvas to become senator from Tennessee for two terms,
leaving last year for personal reasons. He filled in his time in the Eighties
by acting, employing a skill most lawyers have, but only use in the
courtroom. Maybe having him on the show will mean the Republicans will get a break,
because they won’t get one otherwise, as I’ve intimated above.
What squad is this? Is it the DA’s squad? It must be, to have so many of
the little sexpots tripping in and out of the office all the time. I’ve never
seen them around like that in any station house I’ve ever been in. Aren’t
there any male ADA’s?
Why does Briscoe have different partners in different episodes? Why is he
missing from the ones featuring the big mean-looking mother with the cute lady?
Isn’t he glad he’s not in the ones with the wise guy with the glasses and
the perpetual smirk?
Why is the boss in one episode a white male captain and in another one a
black female lieutenant? And where does Sipowicz fit in in this? Oh, he’s on
another program? Well it’s better that way. I saw him once and he was slapping
a prisoner around in the squad room. After that I avoided his company. Cops
like that can get you in trouble. Does the P.D. know about this?
Who told the producers that the audiences in the courtroom scenes should
include the witnesses in the case on trial? Witnesses are not permitted to attend
trials. The law doesn’t want them to have their stories influenced by the
testimony of other witnesses.
Who is the one getting the kicks from the scenes where a white character gets
humiliated by a black one? Is this guy Wolf "passing" maybe? Or he’s not
and he’s just a self-hater? Who knows? I guess you can’t have a cop show
without a mystery or two, and there it is.
Yes, I know about the death of Jerry Orbach. It shouldn’t make a difference
in the show because he had already retired from it. All the same, there is a
difference because alive he could always have been brought back if the show
got into trouble. I think it will. Most of the characters simply don’t seem to
be enjoying themselves, whereas he did. He was hard not to like, although he
was given the job of making one of the ideological wisecracks which I
objected to. This came when someone said the President liked gun owners and Jerry
answered "I didn’t vote for him". That made him the only cop in the United
States who didn’t. Hardly in character for Detective Briscoe. But I forgave him
for it.
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