Jack McCoy, who has been the prosecutor on Law and Order since man walked upright, is moving up to Fred Thompson’s job as DA.
Did you hear what I said? Jack is moving from being the scrappy, pit-bull, motorcycle riding, liberal, tough guy to being the guy behind the desk, a suit, a politician.
I just don’t know what to think of this. On one hand I’m happy for him and his promotion. But I’m left feeling the way I felt when Mr. Sostaric, the best high school biology teacher in my bleak history as a science student, was rewarded with a principal’s job.
I wouldn’t even know about this if it weren’t for the orthodontist’s office. Doctors’ offices have the best magazines and are my primary source of magazine-type news. It’s where I read Newsweek, Kentucky Living, Cooking Light and Highlights. It’s how I know that Goofus is still kicking Gallant’s ass on the playground and with the chicks. (That untucked shirt . . . the piece of unkempt hair falling over his one eye . . . that mama’s boy Gallant never had a chance.)
At a recent orthodontic visit, I picked up the latest copy of Newsweek, the issue with John Edwards on the cover looking like he’s getting ready to take his clothes off for a prostitute, and was flipping through when I saw the full-page photo of Jack McCoy, looking like a Doctor Seuss character. I almost choked on my complimentary toffee coffee when I read the news.
The article barely even mentions his new job. It’s a bunch of paragraphs of Sam Waterston’s other life, the real one; the one where he’s a Yale alumnus, politically active, folksy enough to have goats on his Connecticut farm, and humorous enough to star in a fake Saturday Night Live commercial selling insurance for the elderly against robots who “eat old people’s medicine for fuel.”
The article mentions a scene that was filmed at a coffee shop in New York City. When I was in New York last I looked for him. I didn’t see him, but I swear I saw Detective Ed Green down by the Chelsea Pier, getting on a 10-speed. I’ve only seen a handful of famous people on the street in New York (Wesley Snipes and Darryl Hammond to be exact, if you don’t count Ed Green, which I’ll admit is iffy) and I’d love nothing more than to see Jack McCoy walking to his station wagon after a shoot.
Now that he’s a big politician, he probably wouldn’t even stop and have coffee with me.