There’s only one thing keeping us interested in the OJ Simpson trial, you know – and that’s good old fashioned acute myocardial infarction.

Just a few days after one witness in the OJ Simpson trial called a halt to proceedings because he was too busy clutching his chest and gasping for air, another witness has decided to blame everything on his dodgy heart, too. OJ Simpson’s co-defendant Charles Ehrlich says that he can’t really remember the Las Vegas hotel room raid in much detail because he’s had a couple of heart attacks and they’ve made him all forgetful.

Whoever came up with this heart attack idea is a genius, because now we don’t know what the hell’s going on at all. Except for one thing – if OJ Simpson really wants to be found innocent, he should be sure to slowly cough his own heart up and out into his hands if he ever has to testify. It’s probably the only way.

Back when he was arrested for it, the notion that OJ Simpson gathered together a gang of armed thugs to raid a hotel room, hold everyone hostage and steal a number of sports memorabilia items seemed completely absurd. If it happened the way police were making out, OJ Simpson was always going to be caught and punished for it.

But now that we’re some way into the actual trial, OJ Simpson is looking more and more like a mastermind. Why? Because it looks like he chose a gang of middle-aged men with a series of health complaints to raid a couple of old men with even more health complaints. And, as a result, nobody can remember anything.

For instance, Bruce Fromong’s heart attack scare destroyed the momentum of his testimony on the first day of the OJ Simpson trial and, as such, nobody can really remember what he was banging on about. And now Charles Ehrlich, the man who spent most of Monday saying that OJ Simpson knew about the guns involved in the alleged crime, is trying to pull a similar trick. AP reports:

Ehrlich said he had posed questions to middleman Thomas Riccio about the planned meeting at a room in the Palace Station Hotel Casino. But when Galanter asked what the questions were, Ehrlich protested…”That was a year ago.” Since then, he said, he had two heart attacks and conceded some things have become “foggy” in his memory.

Whew! Thank God for multiple heart attacks, huh? Actually, because of all these shenanigans we’ve decided that we don’t actually care whether OJ Simpson is found innocent or guilty of this crime any more, because the trial has already taught us more than we thought we’d ever learn about crime. Heart attacks make you forgetful.

It’s true – we’re going to take down the local Natwest on Friday and we need to form a gang first. Barry Pacemaker, Don The Frail, Emphysemic Terry, Bobby Fourscars, Angioplasty Maud, break out of the nursing home and be at ours by 7:30. We’re cooking some special pre-job bacon-wrapped cheesesteaks! Delicious!

The OJ Simpson armed robbery trial has already been dragging on for what seems like a thousand years, but finally we’re onto guns.

According to one of OJ Simpson’s goons in court yesterday, OJ must have known that some of his henchmen were carrying guns because he shouted “Put the guns away,” at them during the raid. Unless he didn’t, which is what another witness is saying.

Incidentally, Charles Ehrlich – the man who claims that OJ Simpson knew about the guns – is an old friend of his. Or at least he was until he pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for a testimony against Simpson, anyway. Now the pair have probably fallen out. And you know what happens to you if you fall out with OJ Simpson, don’t you.

You get one less Christmas card a year, that’s what. Why, what did you think we meant?

We have to admit, for a case that could send a man to jail for the rest of his life, the OJ Simpson armed robbery trial isn’t exactly exciting, is it?

It should be exciting – believe the prosecutors and you’ll know that last year OJ Simpson smashed into a hotel room with a small armed of tooled-up thugs and held everyone hostage briefly. That’s exciting, right? Sure it is. Then why isn’t the trial itself exciting?

This is how dull the OJ Simpson trial is – the other day a man nearly had a heart attack and barely anyone even bothered to pay attention. Not even the secret tape – the cornerstone of the entire prosecution – managed to get much response from anyone other than “Huh? What’s he saying? He wants them to give him his sheep? Why, that hardly makes any sense at all.”

Well, you asked for it. Now the OJ Simpson trial is going to get crazy exciting? You know why? Guns. Guns are exciting, aren’t they? Especially when a man can definitely prove that OJ Simpson knew that some of the goons he’d employed to accompany him of his hotel room raid were armed. You’re going down, Simpson!

Charles Ehrlich was the man who OJ Simpson sent into the hotel room to pose as a buyer before the raid, and he’s got proof that OJ Simpson knew about the guns. The LA Times reports:

“Put the gun away,” Charles B. Ehrlich quoted Simpson as saying to one of their associates during the Sept. 13, 2007, confrontation. Shortly after the incident, Ehrlich said Simpson muttered to himself: “Why did I tell those guys to come along?”

Now, it doesn’t matter that Thomas Riccio, the auctioneer who set up the encounter who was in the room during the raid and made the secret recordings of it, didn’t hear OJ Simpson say this. And it also doesn’t matter that Ehrlich might only be making these claims about OJ Simpson because he was given a lighter sentence for his role in the incident if he promised to testify against him.

Because saying that you think you heard OJ Simpson say something out of earshot of everyone else is definitely proof of OJ Simpson’s guilt. Definitely. Isn’t it?

Not really? Bugger. The trial continues, then. More’s the pity.