And sure enough, there's William Shatner and Adrian Zmed there, doing their little takes. And in between takes, Adrian Zmed, he's Mr. Personality. He's there, he's working the crowd. Little teen-age girls are all giggly and getting his autograph. He had the good hair and he was just being Mr. Congeniality, you know. There's him doing his thing, then way over to the side, there's the lone, dark horse — it's William Shatner standing by himself with a beer in his hand, talking to no one, saying nothing, just staring off into space doing his own thing.

Five-O: Was he drinking from a cup or a can?

Eric: I think it was in one of those clear plastic party cups, disposable throw away cups. They're doing this scene where the police car is parked in front of the park and then they run out and get into the car and then peel the tires and burn out and take off. And they're like spraying chemicals on the tires to make them smoke. And, you know, Shatner's like passing his beer off to his lackey or whatever when he was ready to do the scene. It's just funny, you know, because police and drunk driving don't usually mix.

Five-O: What's Heather Locklear doing?

Eric: There was no chick. It was just William Shatner and Adrian Zmed. And they couldn't be anymore opposite in appearance and everything. So ultimately we're sitting here watching this. I don't know how come they had to do so many takes of this stupid scene, it's just them speeding away from the park but — you know, accidently I end up standing next to Shatner, and I'm not even really aware of it. And he kinda looks down at me and he's, you know, grumpy and he's got his beer in his hand. And he says to me something along the lines of, Ugh, I suppose you want an autograph too. And so like real casually I just look up at him and I go, Well I suppose you guessed wrong.

But I'm thinking in my head, what the fuck? Fuck you, what are you talking about? (laughter).

That's the big story. That's the day I put William Shatner in his place. And ironically, he and I have the same birthday. March 22nd.

Five-O: And every time some Shatner disaster is in the news, you get to remember that moment.

Eric: I do. I mean, I think about that all the time. Whenever I see him, I think of that time.

Five-O: At that time what were you guys watching in your house?

Eric: I think I was actually watching T.J. Hooker. I can remember that show being popular, CHiPS was popular.

Five-O: What about the A-Team?

Eric: The A-Team was popular, definitely, great show. Magnum P.I. I think is still going. Dallas.

Five-O: The Dukes get any play at your place?

Eric: Dukes of Hazzard, yes. I think Charlie's Angels is dead by now. Dukes are on their last legs too.

Five-O: But then there's the dawn of these other kind of shows, like I guess MacGyver, right?

Eric: Air Wolf. Knight Rider. A little David Hasselhoff.

Five-O: Didn't Miami Vice start about that year?

Eric: '83/'84 Miami Vice was definitely going. The pink stupid shirts they were wearing. Izod.

Five-O: Shatner is Mr. TV. So what about "Star Trek" — you guys watch that?

Eric: They were still showing the reruns of the original ones. Yeah, we were watching that. Superman the Movie was still big.

Five-O: E.T. came out summer '82.

Eric: Poltergeist was like '83. That was a great one.

Five-O: Gnarly. Absolutely gnarly. Damn, I know there's shows just as bad as T.J. Hooker that we gotta name-check in this thing.

Eric: I think CHiPS was pretty bad. (sings CHiPS theme)

Five-O: I guess it was still prime time for Love Boat, Fantasy Island and all that crap too.

Eric: Those were bad but everybody watched them!

Five-O: They were on every set in America. Love Boat would be on everywhere you went. Every house you went to.

Eric: But you know what, now I like shows like Law & Order. The Shield. But I miss those dumb pointless TV series, you know. You don't have any of that now. Now everything's trying to be so high brow. Have good writing and great intellectual context and all that. It's like —

Five-O: Where's the squealing tires?

Eric: Yeah! Where's the bad punch line? We need more cheese. California I thought was famous for the cheese.

Five-O: Oh man, I never thought I'd be accusing Hollywood of having too much integrity, but that's pretty much what it boils down to.

Eric: That's what they're trying to do. I don't know if — it's raining.

Five-O: In North Hollywood?

Eric: Yeah.

Five-O: Far out. So you're still in the same area where you grew up.

Eric: Yeah, I am right down the street from the very park where the incident took place (laughter). Of course, Mr. Shatner is rolling the dough and I'm still a block away from the incident. I don't know what that says —

Five-O: But you know he's gone through many, many dry spells — bankruptcies. There's been lean years for sure. Scraping in the '70s.

Eric: The best thing is, there's not a library shelf full of books out there that are partially dedicated to hating me, either. All of my former co-workers are allies. They don't talk crap about me when I turn my back on them.

Five-O: Which brings me to an important question: Did Shatner kill his wife?

Eric: (without hesitation) Oh man, yes. I mean, come ooon — of course he killed her! (laughter)

Five-O: Unfortunately I can't publish that.

Eric: Well, I don't know why you can't. It's just hearsay and slander. What's the big deal? Maybe there's no evidence and maybe they couldn't prove that he killed her but —

Five-O: I have to go the other way and say he just married a lunatic, like Phil Hartman did. It could have gone the other way — she could have killed Shatner!

Eric: What do you mean? She killed herself?

Five-O: Yeah. It was a drinking accident.

Eric: Right. Or was he tired of her binge too and helped her into the pool? She got herself loaded. But he helped her into the pool.

Five-O: Interesting. We'll have to leave that in the capable hands of the tried and true LAPD Blue. Dennis Fong can tell you the answer. The Trial of William Shatner. Let's have a TV movie where Shatner is put on trial for what happened to his wife. Of course, he'll be exonerated at the end for lack of evidence and police misconduct.

Eric: "The glove... just doesn't — fit. It's not...my glove."

Five-O: Of course he has to function as his own lawyer. That's just essential.

Eric: Yeah, but that O.J. thing. I don't know what to say about that. There's never been more evidence on somebody.

Five-O: And speaking of Keystone cops, O.J. played one of the greatest, Nordberg from Naked Gun, which is basically a spoof on T.J. Hooker.

Eric: Have you heard anything about him spending big money to find the real killers?

Five-O: Here's the news in O.J.-land. He went to the USC practice before the big bowl game. Now that USC is on the scene again as a national force in football, he's gonna suck it up. He went down there for practice and afterwards they interviewed the players. They're like, "Aw, it was just great having him here. It was just an honor to meet him." And I'm thinking, this must be enjoyable for the murder victims' families. Having these 18, 20 year-old kids totally idol-worshipping him on TV.

Eric: I can't believe that. I thought the majority of people in the
country —

Five-O: The celebrity trump card rules in the room. And that translates onto TV and everything else. When you're there, you're like, awww man, I known O.J. my whole life! Fuck, he's this notorious figure. I can't wait to get a picture with him.

Eric: When it first happened, I was like, no way. He didn't do it. There's no way he woulda done that. Everybody, I mean truly, everybody loved him.

Five-O: How long did it take you to come around?

Eric: The Al Cowlings chase. When I saw that slow speed chase, I decided that A.J. was in on the actual murders. Because I think there had to be two people. I know it was messy but I think it would have been even more messy —

Five-O: You think there were two people on the scene doing the killing?

Eric: Yeah.

Five-O: That's a reading I haven't heard. I'm not sure there's any evidence of multiple assailants.

Eric: I think it was that Cowling guy. But I could be totally wrong. But why else would he get involved in it?

Five-O: The thing is, these crimes are common in South America. North America too, just not as accepted. They're "dignity killings." I think that's a thing that a guy does on his own. I think he was more in the spy mode, lurking in the bushes, and something made him say that was the night he was going to do it. He had it planned.

Eric: Her kids, their kids, were asleep in the place.

Five-O: Oh, man. That's heavy. So O.J.'s going to find the real killers and we have to trick William Shatner into confessing on a recording. Because you know on TV if you trick somebody into confessing, it's all automatically over — you go straight to jail and it's all over. They take you to jail without trial.

Eric: I wonder if he got a DUI if we'd find out about it.

Five-O: The latest DUI was Diana Ross. Queen Latifah before that.

Eric: And Nick Nolte, right?

Five-O: Maybe the sloppiest of them all in the DUI category.

Eric: Was Winona in that?

Five-O: She got in a little bit of drug trouble with what was in her purse during the shoplifting spree, but I don't think she was behind the wheel. Huh. The streets have been relatively quiet this season. I wonder what that is. I mean, most celebrity DUIs are handled probably by on-the-site bribe or just a wave-on or whatever.

It's not as fun when celebrities are victims of DUI drivers. It's better when they're carousing and screwing things up.

Eric: When they're slapping motorcycle cops.

Five-O: By all means. Well, I think we've done all we can today to recreate that perfect moment of TV versus Reality.

Eric: Yes indeed. Welcome to the other side of civilian life in Hollywood. Speaking of killer TV, I was watching "Max X," this really bad real video show, and they have footage of this hostage-taker in Brazil - like you were saying about O.J. and dignity killings. This guy's got his wife and brother-in-law hostage with a hand grenade and he wants a gun and a car. They say, we'll give it to you one at a time - free the brother-in-law and you'll get the car. So he does, and he takes the wife and the grenade and the car to the place he's supposed to trade her for the gun. So the cop hands in the gun, which they unloaded first, and the kidnapper is grabbing it but the cop doesn't let go. And that buys a lot of time. So these other cops swoop down and pull the wife out the window and everyone splits. So now the grenade goes off and just splits this car apart. Shit is flying everywhere. Then the best is, the cops just open up - Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom - full on, unloading their guns and rifles into the wreckage. That was good television. Forget "Ally McBeal." That was good TV.