Vicious Murder Now Quickest Path to Instant Celebrity

n the past, the best way to become a celebrity overnight was to do something remarkable in a relatively short period of time. The old joke was even that it takes 10 years for an actor, writer, comedian, entertainer in any field to become an overnight success. Now some overnight successes are becoming celebrities practically overnight.

The popularity of murderers has grown significantly in recent years. Basic cable crime shows like The Discovery Channel's The New Detectives and The Justice Files have demonstrated the public's fascination with both alleged and convicted criminals, as well as our hunger for real crime stories. Now, new shows on NBC and ABC are bringing the murderers right into our home, allowing us a first-hand look-see at someone else's horrible pain. On shows like NBC's Crime & Punishment and ABC's State V., viewers are taken from the legal beginning of an actual murder trial to its inevitable legal conclusion, all within the span of an hour. Now the messiness of following a long-lasting court case is made more convenient for fans of true crime death and mayhem.

"We take the majority of the trial, edit it down to the juicy bits, and pop it in after Just Shoot Me or something for some easy high ratings," said some person in the President of NBC's office. "And who knows? If everything works out, we'll be getting the first big glimpse at one of tomorrow's major media stars."

Even without major ratings success, the shows already have a significant improvement over fictional shows in their cheap production costs. Shows about true court cases require neither writers nor paid on-screen talent; and, in contrast to the news department, traveling is limited to the continental United States. The country's interest is only in domestic murderers, foreign murderers with subtitles have yet to capture America's imagination. Also, there's much fewer of them.

According to some industry analysts, the true crime court trial show could be bigger than the Survivor and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? fads, even a new dominating genre of shows.

"We've been heading toward this for years now," said Court-TV correspondent Mickey "Dutch" McMichaels. "First there were the ratings for the O.J. Simpson trial. After that, we've been covering various trials intently, the biggest ones or the most brutal or the strangest cases. And not just day-by-day trial updates. We're talking camera-in-the-courtroom or extensive court record accounts. Showing full or partial testimony, still pictures and drawings, even dramatizations. I think I saw David Schwimmer playing John Wayne Bobbitt somewhere, maybe before Friends was a big hit."

Celebrity court cases like those for O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, even lesser offenses like for Robert Downey, Jr. are already proven successes; but in addition, court cases are making new celebrities of their own. Like Andrea Yates, alleged Daniel Van Dam murderer David Westerfield, and Thomas Junta, the infamous "hockey dad" who murdered a fellow father at one of his son's games. It may have taken longer than expected, but the major networks are finally bringing the public what it wants: more murder stories and more murderers, right after or before their favorite "fake" murder shows, like C.S.I. and Law & Order.

"It's a complex story, with heroes and villains, with victims, a beginning, middle, and end, especially with these new shows that wrap it up in an hour," said McMichaels. "Plus, since it's real, you feel like you've watched real news without all the boring parts like world events and politics affecting our country."

As the style of popular shows change, say industry insiders, so will the kind of celebrities. The stars of tomorrow are planning their murders today.

McMichaels agreed. "If I were a washed-up actor in need of a big hit, like Burt Reynolds or Andrew McCarthy, I'd stop reading tired old scripts and start reading In Cold Blood," he said, referring to some book or something.

Officials to Celebrities: Please Get Out of New Orleans

Wisconsin Man Takes in Jazz Band

“Blond Highlights the Devil’s Work,” Says Iran, Straight Men

Dow Reaches 13,000, Tao Reaches ∞

Dorothy said there's no place like home, but I would say that wartime Yugoslavia can't be all that different. No, dudes, I'm not a homebody. My thoughts don't turn to charming holiday gatherings around the fire with the ones I love since it usually involves a lot of alcohol and the fire involves the firecrackers someone tried to light by cooking them in the oven.

I would say my family's strange, but that's everybody's family. My family is homicidally manic-deppressive—there, that at least sounds more original. Seriously, my family is always happy when I come back to Bellmont for Christmas, but catch any of them on the right day and they're happy when the mail shows up. They're fundamentally unhealthy enablers of every drug habit you could name and they derive pleasure from each other's pain. Which is all fine, since that's how I am, but it's real dangerous to put us all in the same place.

First, there's my dad, Fozzy Coleman—dad somewhere got the impression that he was black, and even more odd, that he's Ike Turner. Dad rules the house with an iron thumb, an iron thumb being some gardening device he got for Christmas 20 years ago that spreads mulch. My favorite holiday memory of dad was that year we converted to Judaism. Mom made soggy cornbread and accidentally poisoned the turkey gravy with make-up remover, and when dad found out he was so pissed he threw the menorah like a trident and it stuck in the wall. The bright side was that it worked so well we use it to hang the Christmas stockings still.

Then there's my mom, who's great when she's sober, if you can be there during that time from 8 to 8:15 a.m. When she gets drunk she says all the things normal moms only think, like, "I had plenty of chances to drown you, Clarissa," and, "By my calculations, you still owe us about $359,000—oh, what, you thought the room and board were free rides?" My mom's name is Bunny, but dad always calls her Bunny Coleman like it's one word. Like, "Bunnycoleman, who ate all my fucking French toast?" Or, "Get my bath ready, Bunnycoleman."

It's hard to complain about my brother and sister, they're not really to blame for anything—between having my parents for their parents and having my shadow to live in all their lives, it's amazing they aren't screwed up.

My brother, Randy, doesn't let us call him Randy anymore since he joined that cult in the compound next door to mom and dad. At least he didn't have to go far to get brainwashed. He prefers to be called Toot now, and he's actually pretty nice, the nicest one of the bunch. He curls up in a ball and chants whenever mom and dad fight now, he tells them they have bad Chaka Khan or something, some kind of karma rip-off the cult made up, and the worst thing he does is steal from mom and dad to give to the cult so they can build that glass temple of theirs. Which is all fine by me, I never take more than $20 home when I go anyway.

My sister's a bit more peculiar. She never had the looks or talent to be an actress like me, so she was driven into this weird-ass obsession with grades and scholarships and stuff. She went to Harvard like that Good Will Hunting guy and majored in lawyering. Now she works for the ACLU and writes books on feminism in her spare time, really spaced-out shit. She doesn't come home too often, actually, but she sends self-help books and fruit baskets.

I guess, more than anything, this time of year is about forgetting your family is clinically sociopathic and learning to keep your temper in check long enough to sit down for a single Christmas dinner. To gather around the tree, open up crappy presents, and pretend you like at least one of the things. To sleep in your old room and act like you don't hear your dad getting nasty with your mom, shouting, "Take me to town, Bunnycoleman!" in the room right next door. But at least when you hear that, you know it's just another ten minutes until everyone gathers in the living room around the kitchen fire and opens their presents. And that's as much family as anybody gets these days.º more columns

My opponent, Raoul Dunkin, makes a good case. That case is herpes. On the subject of politics, the old adage on children applies to him: Both should be seen beaten to a bloody pulp.

The liberal left is scared guiltless by the powerful agenda put forth by an assumably well-hung president. Still, the best they could offer is Senator John Kerry. John Kerry, who is from Massachusetts and doesn't even sound a bit like Cliff Clavin. Just where is Kerry really from? I'm not naming names, but let it be known that I, Ted Ted, was the first one to notice how French he looked. I'm pretty sure he wears lifts in his shoes to rise above his usual height of 5'1". I have it on good authority.

Kerry comes from the oldest tradition of tax-and-spend liberals. But taxes don't necessarily bother me—okay, they do. They bother me in the worst way. But his lesser qualities are what really scare me about Kerry. All these promises to provide increased medical insurance and bring more jobs to the country. Sure, they'll probably be service industry jobs, but I still say fuck that. The fact that we have four guys vying for one job right now, in some areas, is all that insures me I'm going to get a Whopper without hair in it. Take some fucking care with that sandwich, pizza face, 'cause there's three other greasy teen-agers and a Mexican with a fake green card who are ready to do it my way. Unless Kerry has his way.

Not to mention all the flip flops. I don't want to see my president wearing flip flops. My corneas are still scarred from the sight of Clinton in his jogging shorts—pardon me while I projectile vomit. Presidents should only wear flannel shirts, jeans, and cowboy hats when on vacation, or at the occasional funeral for a world leader. The Democrats have proven they can't be trusted to pick their own off-hours wardrobe. I would like to make it to my death without having seen the president of the United States wearing a hoodie and parachute pants, thank you.

Oh, and he's indecisive on issues. Or not really, perhaps, maybe he's too decisive. He believes in everything everyone else does. He makes fond use of the polls, don't he? Like how he comforts the gay nation and the rest of us at the same time with his assuring mantra: "I support the right for people to do whatever they want, and endorse your heterosexual insecurities, while at the same time embracing the more minor agenda of the homosexual community. I will not allow what you do, nor will I reject America's interference into your private lives." He sidesteps the serious issues like that neighbor of mine whose feet I shoot at every weekend.

Plus, his wife's the ketchup lady. Electing him means being forced to sit through a thousand product placements for Heinz during national speeches, State of the Union addresses, and photo opportunities.

Worse than all of it, if we elect stringbean, he's going to start curbing back the military. Jesus H. Christ on a hobby horse, we're supposed to quit the one thing our country still does best? During three short years we've occupied two enemy countries, made threats and allegations against several others, and pissed off any possible allies we used to have. We rock! Give us one more term, I swear we'll annex Poland and get the French to apologize for getting us into Vietnam.

No more of this pacifistic, sanctions-filled bullshit of a Democratic regime. September 11 gave us a license to kill, and by god, it's only good for a limited time. Let's re-elect the president, reinstate the draft, and start inheriting the earth again.

º Last Column: The Rotten Stink of Valentines
º more columns