Jon Carroll vs Bill O'Reilly
So it was Wednesday, Sept. 27, and I was running through my e-mail one more time before turning off my computer and heading for the high plains, where I planned to eat hearty beef products and increase my knowledge of the playful eared grebe. I got this note from reader Carol Brock:
"So, are you going to take Bill O'Reilly's put-up-or-shut-up challenge tonight? He's betting you're not, but I hope you will."
My readers are as playful as eared grebes, so I assumed this was some sort of jape. I said as much, turned off my machine and went to play with Alice, who was involved in a narrative involving flying horses being threatened by evil wolves. Dungeons were involved; it was quite swell.
I got back a week later, and it turned out that, lo, I had in fact been challenged by Bill O'Reilly. I had to page through the Fox News site for a while to find the transcript, but here it is, in its entirety, unedited by me:
"Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, John Carroll says I'm a liar. So don't believe anything I say. Carol also asserts David Letterman kicked my butt.
"Now, Carroll is invited on this program tomorrow to chronicle -- pardon the pun -- my lies. Place a bets now on whether he'll show up."
Well, they're busy -- they can't be bothered to spell my name right, or even to spell it wrong consistently. I also like the wanton insouciance of "place a bets." But, you know, it's Fox. They edit, you decide.
O'Reilly was apparently referring to a column I had written several days earlier about (among other things) YouTube.com, the aggregation site on which members upload videos of just about anything. Here's the relevant section:
"Would you like to recut 'The Shining' to make a trailer for a heartwarming family comedy? Been done. How about 'Star Wars' with Darth Vader speaking James Earl Jones lines from other movies? Already out there. Plus, the really good stuff: The greatest Jon Stewart bits, the greatest Stephen Colbert bits, the really great gaffes, the really intense put-downs -- all available. Madonna on David Letterman? Sure. David Letterman takes down Bill O'Reilly? Yup. Bill O'Reilly caught lying? We have about a dozen of those."
So I did not really call Bill O'Reilly a liar. I said that there were videos out there that purported to catch Bill O'Reilly lying. Type "Bill O'Reilly lying" into the YouTube search engine, and you have 20 clips to choose from. So the notional "debate" would have been about whether he lied when he said that I said that he lied, or was I lying now? Or was he? I'm confused just typing that -- imagine what it would have sounded like on television.
You'd think that, having challenged me to a debate, he would have called me. He would have wanted to be fair. But he didn't. Someone who may have been his representative left a message on my office voice mail, but I didn't get it until I returned from the badlands of Nevada.
But I'm not going to be coy -- even if I had heard about it, even if Bill O'Reilly had actually challenged me face to face, or at least voice to voice, I would not have gone on the program. I also would not pound rivets into my forehead. I can't understand why anyone would go on Bill O'Reilly's program. Where is Lassie when we need her? "Watch out, Timmy, it's a trap!"
As far as I can tell, the script of every Bill O'Reilly program is the same. Poor but honest Bill is besieged on all sides by effete liberals. They say bad things, but our lad wins because his heart is pure and because he sees the truth beneath the craven lies of his opponents. He also yells a lot, asserts facts not in evidence, and -- look, it's his show. The guests are props. They're furniture -- furniture meant to be jumped up and down on by petulant children. Why in God's name would anyone volunteer to be Bill O'Reilly's chesterfield?
Besides, the Fox thing is so 20th century. It's a vestige of a vanishing civilization. The public is craving new sensations, and beating up on liberals just doesn't have the same cachet that it once enjoyed. You know what's hot right now? Eared grebes. If Bill O'Reilly wants to join me at Mono Lake, we could have a grebe-counting contest. There would be no yelling, because we'd just scare the grebes.
(My infinitely postponed date with Bill O'Reilly: a metaphysical love story that has the virtue of being true, except for the parts where the other guy lies.)
Jon Carroll is love.
"So, are you going to take Bill O'Reilly's put-up-or-shut-up challenge tonight? He's betting you're not, but I hope you will."
My readers are as playful as eared grebes, so I assumed this was some sort of jape. I said as much, turned off my machine and went to play with Alice, who was involved in a narrative involving flying horses being threatened by evil wolves. Dungeons were involved; it was quite swell.
I got back a week later, and it turned out that, lo, I had in fact been challenged by Bill O'Reilly. I had to page through the Fox News site for a while to find the transcript, but here it is, in its entirety, unedited by me:
"Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, John Carroll says I'm a liar. So don't believe anything I say. Carol also asserts David Letterman kicked my butt.
"Now, Carroll is invited on this program tomorrow to chronicle -- pardon the pun -- my lies. Place a bets now on whether he'll show up."
Well, they're busy -- they can't be bothered to spell my name right, or even to spell it wrong consistently. I also like the wanton insouciance of "place a bets." But, you know, it's Fox. They edit, you decide.
O'Reilly was apparently referring to a column I had written several days earlier about (among other things) YouTube.com, the aggregation site on which members upload videos of just about anything. Here's the relevant section:
"Would you like to recut 'The Shining' to make a trailer for a heartwarming family comedy? Been done. How about 'Star Wars' with Darth Vader speaking James Earl Jones lines from other movies? Already out there. Plus, the really good stuff: The greatest Jon Stewart bits, the greatest Stephen Colbert bits, the really great gaffes, the really intense put-downs -- all available. Madonna on David Letterman? Sure. David Letterman takes down Bill O'Reilly? Yup. Bill O'Reilly caught lying? We have about a dozen of those."
So I did not really call Bill O'Reilly a liar. I said that there were videos out there that purported to catch Bill O'Reilly lying. Type "Bill O'Reilly lying" into the YouTube search engine, and you have 20 clips to choose from. So the notional "debate" would have been about whether he lied when he said that I said that he lied, or was I lying now? Or was he? I'm confused just typing that -- imagine what it would have sounded like on television.
You'd think that, having challenged me to a debate, he would have called me. He would have wanted to be fair. But he didn't. Someone who may have been his representative left a message on my office voice mail, but I didn't get it until I returned from the badlands of Nevada.
But I'm not going to be coy -- even if I had heard about it, even if Bill O'Reilly had actually challenged me face to face, or at least voice to voice, I would not have gone on the program. I also would not pound rivets into my forehead. I can't understand why anyone would go on Bill O'Reilly's program. Where is Lassie when we need her? "Watch out, Timmy, it's a trap!"
As far as I can tell, the script of every Bill O'Reilly program is the same. Poor but honest Bill is besieged on all sides by effete liberals. They say bad things, but our lad wins because his heart is pure and because he sees the truth beneath the craven lies of his opponents. He also yells a lot, asserts facts not in evidence, and -- look, it's his show. The guests are props. They're furniture -- furniture meant to be jumped up and down on by petulant children. Why in God's name would anyone volunteer to be Bill O'Reilly's chesterfield?
Besides, the Fox thing is so 20th century. It's a vestige of a vanishing civilization. The public is craving new sensations, and beating up on liberals just doesn't have the same cachet that it once enjoyed. You know what's hot right now? Eared grebes. If Bill O'Reilly wants to join me at Mono Lake, we could have a grebe-counting contest. There would be no yelling, because we'd just scare the grebes.
(My infinitely postponed date with Bill O'Reilly: a metaphysical love story that has the virtue of being true, except for the parts where the other guy lies.)
Jon Carroll is love.