Wonkette
John McCain and his loser friends are all racists, which we know because they made an ad with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton but not Brad Pitt, Tiger Woods, David Beckham or The Police. Can you even believe it. Back here on Planet Earth, however, there actually was some pretty clear racial shit coming out of the McCain campaign yesterday — not necessarily in their accusing Obama of playing the Race Card, but in the cleverly chosen words they used to accuse him of this. Horrible subliminal racist anger over O.J. Simpson, meet the candidacy of Barack Obama.
Ha ha, the venerable New York Times Editorial Board was so pissed at McCain yesterday that they threw together one of their late-afternoon emergency blog freak-outs:
But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’
The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.
It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.
The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”
Your associate editor was like -7 years old during the O.J. Trial and doesn’t remember much about it beyond our teachers canceling recess so they could watch the verdict announcement while we sat in the hall. Did any of you old people get the connotation?
What does Tiger Woods think about all of this?
Say What? John McCain, Barack Obama, and the “Race Card” [NYT/The Board]
…OH C’MON!!! They have to actually SAY the name O-FUKKIN-J for me to win my office pool damn it!!!!
I was in 1st-year real property class in law school when the verdict came down. We came out and everyone was gathered around the TV in the lounge area.
I am old.
Yada yada, after the WALNUTZ folks issue ads implying (shouting?) that BHO is not only gonna schtup Brit and Paris, he’s also coming after your attractive women folk, then they accuse Barry of playing the race card?
Whitey, please. We know that the racist cracker Rove legion of doom is working for the McNutter campaign now, and we knew all along that it was just a matter of time before they started slinging around the shit. And then the sumbitch draws within three points of Barry in a recent poll. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/ Christ, they are evil bastards, but they sure know how to get through to Amerika.
All I know is that I bet that Faux news is darkening Barack’s skin. And making his ears stick out more. Bastards.
I remember we watched the verdict in my seventh grade science class which was almost evenly divided between white and black kids. After he was found not guilty the tension was thicker than Ron Goldman’s mustache for the rest of the day.
I was in grad school when the not-guilty verdict was read. I remember it very clearly. I as in the university dining hall, which had a TV showing the trial. And what I mist vividly recall is the sight of a bunch of white frat boys cheering out loud when OJ was acquitted. I guess that experience colors my view of the entire OJ trial and the racial context, and why for me it’s always been more about money (being able to buy the best lawyers) and sexual politics than race.
If this meme ain’t dope you won’t vote hope.
I was right out of college. The whole office just stopped to watch the verdict. The reaction was straight down race lines. After a year of non-stop coverage, I just went straight for a nap because, I too, am old.
So does this mean that Barrak HooSane Obumma killed that pretty blond girl and her gay waiter friend?
I’ll never forgive Robert Shapiro. Not for the OJ thing but for Keeping up with the Kardasians.
I would put OJ in the same category as Tiger–hold on, people! Don’t riot just yet.
OJ has numerous record on the playing field, both in college and professional play. And in his personal life, he was able to slit his ex-wife’s throat just as a waiter brought back her glasses–and GOT AWAY WITH IT!
Those are accomplishments any way you slice them–literally.
Ha HA…double homicide.
I was in seventh-grade band class. Ha! Nothing like a trial to get you out of practice.
When I was in elemantary school (the verdict dropped when I was 11), we had the following song that we would sing:
“OJ Simpson had a knife
e-i-e-i-o
and with that knife he stabbed his wife
e-i-e-i-o
with a stab slash here
and a stab slash there
here a stab
there a slash
everywhere a slash stab
OJ Simpson had a knife
e-i-e-i-o”
It was also the circus surrounding the trial that prompted the following renaming of what “N.A.A.C.P.” stands for:
Negros Attempting to Acquit Criminal Persons
Clearly, I was a callous piece of shit at 11 years old as well.
The beauty of this is that there is nothing you can pin on McCain. He gets this crap out there and he can always shrug it off if it’s a problem later. This is, also, in the best traditions of Bush/Rove and the genteel political style they have introduced to the Republican party. Oh, and any more criticism more than that would be dangerously racist toward the McCain campaign, so let’s just leave it at that.
I’ve always associated the phrase “playing the race card” with the OJ trial, I don’t think I’d ever heard that phrase before then. I think the negative perception is because people thought Jackie Chiles played it repeatedly and got OJ off.
I don’t say this often, but the NYT blog has a point. But how jaded am I that I didn’t even see the connection until just now?
And now for the snark. ..
I figure that even if the McCain campaign hasn’t been overtly comparing Barry to OJ, they’re thinking it (and so are all their bitter supporters). So it’s pretty much the same thing.
Does this mean that Barry’s lying when he says he’ll go after the real 9/11 terrorists?
It’s dope-smokin’ time on the political scene!
This race is lurching into some pretty noxious territory. I want a drink already, and it’s two hours ’til Hopey Hour.
ColdCupofHope:
So, you’re saying when Tiger retires, he’s going to kill his pretty blonde wife and get away with it? But you’re forgetting golfers never really retire. You can play golf when you’re 100 years old. Ask Gary Player.
Older.
I was nursing brain cells to my second child, so I wouldn’t remember. You would think that I would have been glued to the TV in the stanchion barn.
to what attack, exactly, is the NYT referring?
http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=304&country=us
Jesus Christ… am I really THAT old that most of you were in elementary school when this went down and I was graduated from college by this point?
Wow.
WagTehGod: OJ Simpson’s trial took place in an episode of Seinfeld?
I dunno, seemed to take longer than 30 minutes…
That was the first thing I thought of when I read the douchebag’s memo.
How young is Jim Newell? Jim Newell is so young, Ken Layne and SKS gave him a lecture about puberty…. Last week!
Hey-oh!
Tip your waittress. (I’ll kill myself now.)
O.J. HAS NO BLOOD ON HIS HANDS.
He was wearing a glove.
I remember the OJ verdict too. I was making dinner in the kitchen with my wife. She’s white, I’m not. I was holding a butcher knife. When they announced not guilty, she looked and me and I looked at her and for second or two there was silence. Then she said, “forget it, you could never afford Johnnie”.
RaptorAvatar: HAHA I remember hearing that song! The culture of children is a funny thing.
WagTehGod: It’s because he used the Chewbacca defense….
Serolf Divad: Did they seriously do that? Fucking douches.
I remember the verdict as I am also old. I figured it was basically payback to the LAPD as I still don’t believe there are people who actually think he didn’t do it. I don’t get the Barry connection we’re supposed to draw, though. Black people = scary? Jesus, it’s only August. It’s going to be a long fall.
The Real JR Revisted: welcome, friend. We are geezers.
pdiddycornchips: You win–that is just fabulous!
Coming from the ancient camp here … I was already in my second year of practice (yikes).
After Obama is elected, he’ll hire OJ to hunt down the real 9/11 hijackers, and then have him track down the conspirators who helped shoot JFK.
RaptorAvatar: Wow. That’s far more sophisticated and evil than the songs we sang as a kid. For example,
Glory, glory hallelujah
teacher hit me with a ruler
shot ‘er in the butt with a rotten coconut
and she ain’t my teacher no more…
It goes on, but I’ll spare you the rest.
You’ll know the fix is really in when the Secret Service insists that Obama’s security vehicle has to be a white Bronco.
RaptorAvatar:polar_bear: I was 8 and I remember we would tell jokes like, “What is OJ’s favorite drink?”
“ORANGE SLICE!”
Kids are violent.
I’m surprised that mccain hasn’t dragged his black daughter into the fray.
pdiddycornchips: Are you European or do you just go for the Early Bird Special? I seem to remember the verdict coming in the afternoon since I was at work.
Doglessliberal:
I was in a first-year law school class as well (or was it 2nd year?) — and yeah, it was full-on Trial of the Century time.
I am old, and derivative, and very very poor.
(Univ. of Santa Clara School of Law, ‘96, for a degree I’ve long since left behind)
Can the comparisons to ’string bean’ Negro Jimmy Walker be far behind?
nietzscheprojectile:
“met her at the door with a loaded .44″… ?
What does “O.J.” stand for?
“Orange Jumpsuit”
/nothing to contribute
Obama/Kaelin’08
trophy(forparticipation)wife:
PortlandSmartAss:
Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for you two. I was thinking that I’m way too fucking old to be a wonketteer. I was all growed up with a job and everything when that ridiculous farce happened.
I remember it clearly because I worked with a curvy bimbette who totally thought he was innocent. I got over wanting to jump her bones right then and there.
Good times…good times…
CorkPopper: how ridiculous is this–I remember when my class was: 1-2 EST , so it was toward 2 when it was announced.
jjgittes: if you are ‘96, I think it was likely second semester, first year.
Someone explain to me how this disastrous fucking week for the Repub’s and MC-Cane resulted in him getting a bump in the polls?
What the fuck is wrong with the people in this country!!!!!!!!!!??????????
I’m going to start making that asinine pirate face of his in my office - maybe i’ll get a raise.
Save me Black Jesus! Save me.
The Real JR Revisted: I was in college, if that makes you feel better. Ha, we sound all elitist with our “bachelor’s degrees”.
Doglessliberal: What the Hell?
Okay, quiz: Did anyone here watch Electric Company? Or remember when Snuffleupagus was suppoedly Big Bird’s Invisible Friend?
I want to see hands!
magic titty: I was totally drinking argula in my baby bottle. And my commie diapers were made of the constitution.
Doglessliberal: Ha! I was thinking it was something like that. And I do remember my coworker, Vito from Brooklyn, having some choice words that afternoon.
The Real JR Revisted: Me! Me!
I heard they made Snuffleupagus visible so that kids would report sex abuse and not think grownups wouldn’t believe them. Or some shit like that.
CorkPopper:
Can’t remember exactly what time it was but that sounds about right. I remember CNN saying that a verdict had been reached but it was a few hours before they got everyone into the court room/circus ring. Dinner was good too. Braised short ribs. Umm.
The Real JR Revisted: I Googled Shuffleupagus, and he finally appeared in 1985. I was born in 1986. So, um, no.
The Real JR Revisted: Yes. There is currently a Jim Henson exhibit here at the Smithsonian that I am dying to go see. My parents were elitists and so limited TV for me. Sesame Street and The Electric Company (and Mr. Rogers) were all OK, so those and “nature shows” where wild animals tore viciously into their prey, were my special tv times.
The Real JR Revisted: AND, I have a rapidly approaching birthday (as does Hopey, and we are both left handed, too, so obviously, I am a unicorn).
But seriously, you could not pay me money to relive my 20s.
CorkPopper: The first season of Sesame Street was released earlier this year and it includes a warning that says it may not be suitable for children! Apparently in the first season they had scenes with Cookie Monster smoking a pipe and one questionable scenario where Gordon invites a new girl on the block “up to his apartment for Ice Cream.”
That’s not PBS we can believe in.
RaptorAvatar: I think it went:
“Ol’ black OJ kill his wife.
Ho-de-do-de-do.” Etc.
Stern used to play it all the damn time. “Now looky heyah” etc.
KevoTron: oh, how sad. But I guess kids now don’t get to run around outside until it gets dark and hit each other with wiffle ball bats and get dirty and skin their knees, either. Sigh.
OK, end of “I am an old poop” comments.
I miss Schoolhouse Rock.
My childhood staples, in no particular order:
Electric Company (and its misbegotten cousin, the Zoom kids)
Sesame Street (yes, with Invisi-Snuffleupagus)
3-2-1 Contact (I wanted to be one of those kids, because I was a huge nyerd)
…and the news shows that we watched every night, including the CBS News, 60 Minutes, and all the science shows on PBS, such as Connections.
I am old, and now impossibly elitist.
Doglessliberal: I’m still a young guy but I’m old enough to remember riding a bike without a helmet, slip and slides with rocks underneath, and “lawn darts” (yikes, who thought those were a good idea?)
Other things I was fortunate to experience: rotary phones, electric typewriters and our first “family” computer….the Apple II GS.
Alright Newell you smart ass whippersnapper! I was graduated from College but not by much and I distinctly remember “from the bottom of the deck” as it was just another shameful act by a team of guys who helped a killer go free.
Oh Trucknutz here go Teh Morans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWkgUNmYKQA
Doglessliberal: Reminds me when I was totally busted in front of my mom for raising godless kids. My son (about 4 at the time) asked mom what you did in church. Sing, she said, listen to the minister, and pray. A few seconds went by and he asked, incredulously, “You eat animals?”
The Real JR Revisted: (raises hand), I was in grad chool (after a stint in the military) during the trial, so I feel really really old. McCain old. Unfortunately, the school was Brown, so humor was not allowed (neither were black folks). So I didn’t really get the full experience when the verdict was announced. I should have gone up to Federal Hill. I bet some fucking great remarks were to be heard up there.
tunamelt: My goodness, you’re a youngin. It never occurred to me that anyone on here might be under the age of 30.
KevoTron: how about sparklers on the 4th while running around in bare feet? (yes, I stepped on ones that were “out” but still about 1000 degrees). Man, I am glad our parents were not concerned for our safety.
I lied, I made another old poop comment. I am done.
KevoTron: Man, those were the DAYS.
CorkPopper: oh that is great! Good job!
ChernobylSoup: school dammit. That says a lot.
Doglessliberal: Hey there I’m 24 and my gen was riding bikes and getting molested all over the place.
AnnieGetYourFun: Doglessliberal: Yep. I grew up on Bainbridge Island back before it was a yuppie haven (AnnieGetYourFun knows where that is) and every Summer we blew our allowance on illegal fireworks sold across the water on the Indian Reservation. More than once I came close (by a few inches) to being that kid on the five o’clock news who is now missing a couple of fingers due to reckless use of explosives. Me and my friends were known for blowing up mailboxes if you pissed us off. To this day my best friends family is terrorized by local youths (they’ve destroyed five of their mailboxes) as payback for our years of dickishness.
I watched the verdict with my fellow douchebag futurelawyers, and the stunned, horrified silence of all but the three black people was, well…funny because it had such a ‘oh my god, Buffy, look what THEY went and did!’ quality. I was quietly happy and kind of ashamed of it and knew then that my choice to be a defense attorney was correct because my ODD knows no bounds.
shortsshortsshorts: Now you live in SF, you’re 24, riding your bike and getting molested all over the place. No?
CorkPopper: Hats off to you, CorkPopper. I was just asking my wife the other day how to explain to our kid that Revelation was obviously written by some dude eating wild ’shrooms without him getting thrown out of Sunday School.
Doglessliberal: I can still remember playing outside and whatnot, but my six-year-old brother actually got “recess detention” for running on the school playground.
The Real JR Revisted: my first word was “Trotsky”.
tunamelt: OH MY GOD
that is beyond f’ed up
magic titty: At 1, when most little girls get their ears pierced… I got a “Hussein” tattoo.
Doglessliberal:
I grew up out west and I recall my parents taking us on family vacations in the station wagon. We drove a thousand miles and both parents chain smoked the entire trip. If we complained, we had to sit in the back of the wagon with the dogs. If I did that now, my neighbors would call child services. Back then, my dad would come home and make a giant martini and sit in his lazyboy, watching Walter Cronkite. If we even so much as looked at him, he would snort and sneer at us to STFU. He was a real fucktard but he did find time to teach me to hit a curveball, fix a car, make a fire and remove a bra with one hand.
pdiddycornchips: That last point is invaluable. I had to learn on my own and I didn’t get it down until I was twenty or so. Fuckin Christ. Ladies? You listening? Some of your bras are more frustrating than a goddam rubics cube.
KevoTron: http://www.queerty.com/gay-rape-campaign-up-in-san-fran-20070621/
Man Rape! It could happen to you (if you lived here).
This is the funniest ad campaign like ever, on the planet. Ever. And it’s sponsored by the girl-city-attorney from hell.
KevoTron: God, is it really that hard? They’re hooks. Which you unhook to remove.
shortsshortsshorts: whoa. Are these the “San Francisco values” I keep hearing so much about? For a while it thought they were more focused on Levi’s and Apple computers or something. By the way Shorts…
Where is that magnificent man-raping Ape?
tunamelt: no no NO! They have secret codes and involve withcraft. Also I’m mildly retarded and am easily distracted.
come on, what is this like the recollection of when JFK was shot or where you were when 9/11 happened**. this is just OJ, live and let live people. take it easy.
anyway i welcome walnuts move to hillz playbookz. this will make this whole next few months a helluvah lot more amuzing. i only hope mccrack takes out his wife’s fortune while it happens.
(**for the record i wasn’t born at the time of JFK’s shootings, was takin’ bong hits at one o dem elite schools in boston during the OJ white van chase, and consulting to one of the world’s largest airlines during the 911z)
The Real JR Revisted: Well, as a tot, I was baptized at Columbia University using leftover Qaddafi pee.
My *kid* was in grade school when the Kato Kaylen show was on. Sheesh.
And while I wasn’t aware of JFK being shot, I do remember sitting in front of the TV watching the funeral procession.
I was hanging out with a mixed group of black and white kids in high school when the verdict came down. We all just got together and beat the shit out of some asian kids.
/yea, yea, I know that’s horrible - but our school didn’t have any mexicans.
Your associate editor was like -7 years old during the O.J. Trial
Christ, you’re barely out of diapers, Jim.
I think I was in 3rd grade? or 4th grade. 4th grade. Yes. I was a young’n. I don’t remember anything except my mom spent that evening on the phone with her friends.
nietzscheprojectile: Instead of the rotten coconut, we had “Walked through the door with a loaded forty four and the teacher don’t teach no more.”
TJBeck: but our school didn’t have any mexicans.
Why not? They’re cheap and plentiful!
Naked Bunny with a Whip: You missed the horse thing yesterday. It was right up your alley.
I was an attorney living in LA the day OJ took his ride in the white Bronco. We had summer associates at a recruiting party at the racetrack out by the 405. When he drove by you could see all the cops and choppers. There were little televisions in the stands about every ten feet, and the image of the Bronco showed up on all of them at the same time as he drove by.
Good times . . .
The Real JR Revisted: I was on a flight back to the old school to defend my dissertation, for chrissakes. That’s old. I asked the flight attendant if the capt would announce the verdict (half way through a x-country flight) and she said he said he wouldn’t. But the plane was only a third full, and we were all delegates from The Man, so the pilot relented. Not a person on that plane could believe it–they looked like a buncha nuns who had just been told the pope ain’t catholic. Priceless.
My GF bet me that he’d be acquitted. I took the bet, forgetting that the jury would be drawn from L.A. county, home of dumb DAs, dumberer prosecutors and judges, and seriously stooopid jurors. Now, if they’d done it in Simi Valley….
You missed the horse thing yesterday.
Goddamn it! I need to quit my job so I can follow Wonkette without any interruptions.
If being all growed up when this went down qualifies you as old around these parts, then I too am old. I’m so old I remember the Larry Sanders Tee Vee Show episode about whether OJ was guilty or not. That is all.
Uh, Jim? For some reason I thought you were in your 40s.
Godless Liberal *: Really? Even after this post?
Not_So_Much: Count me in with your crew. I was checking out an assisted living arrangement at the time of the verdict. Now I’m blogging from my crypt. And Nicole is my neighbor!
The Real JR Revisted: At the time of the OJ verdict my college class was getting ready for its 30th reunion. You’re quite young. These others are babies, epistemologically speaking.
KevoTron: Rubics cube you say? How appropriate! http://xkcd.com/457/
I was a freshman in college home on break. I remember turning on the TV and every channel had helicopter shots of white Bronco going down the freeway. This was back when high speed chases were always on TV live, so I thought it was nothing and turned it off.
I have a friend who just threw out a box of OJ books while cleaning out the basement. He teaches PoliSci and said that his OJ class was one of his all time favorites. Great material turned up everyday and nobody slept. He’s dropping Schaivo as a topic this year cuz he just noticed that none of his students have a clue what he’s talking about anymore - it was that long ago.
Fun OJ Trial Fact.
All his lawyers are dead.
hells yes–321 contact, the electric company, shit I even remember when MTV was new (I was a very hip 8 year old). I was a professional high school grad and slacker when oj was news. I didn’t own a tv, but I did have several flannel shirts… yeesh!
Borat: every time you have a conversation about race, the next step is always O.J. I was discussing off shore drilling with my hard working “aspiring voter” co-workers and the next thing you know, they are like “well do you think OJ did it?” did what? exxon valdez?
Canadian Corner Interlude
I know an opportunity when I see it (sweet Jeebus, this OJ guy still pulls more eyeballs and comments than all others wife murderer/philanderer/washed up jocks combined).
So, a shout-out to my wonderful province of British Columbia. 150 years young—baby, you still do it for me.
We Britih Columbians will be celebrating BC Day this weekend in the usual way. A little beaver on the barbie, watching a couple of Canadian Football League games (Real Men Do It in Three Downs!), complaining about something the government isn’t doing for us.
There will be the usual display of Canadian effusiveness as we awkwardly hug and do one of those modified fist bumps on each others arms. (But hey, that Crosby kid scores a goal—we spit polish the tonsils of the guy sitting next to us).
So, here’s to you “Beautiful British Columbia”—The Best Place in The World! (It says so on our licence plates).
PS. Brett Favre can play on my team anytime!
tunamelt: Yeah, the first time I came across a front fastening bra? Confused, and then elated. I had her put it back on, twice!
AngryBlakGuy: So how exactly does this work? Is it like a death pool? Pick a date, closest without going over wins?
Next McCain will argue that Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King played the race card.
This is Jesse Helms’s legacy. He is a true giant of American discourse & polity.
redheadedstepchild: …yeah, I bet that he would use it BEFORE October!
ha ha ha
i was working alright, at a high-tech septage treatment plant.
don’t make waves.
Wagamuffin: Uh, what? The only dead ones are Cochran and Kardashian. If you’ll recall, OJ’s defense team was: F. Lee Bailey, Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck, Robert Shapiro, and Gerald Uelmen.
When an estranged husband goes on trial for a brutal double murder of his wife plus a male friend at his house; then a primary investigating police officer states that the defendant WASN’T a suspect when they cowboyed over his wall and into his house warrantless, and neither the prosecution or the judge breaks out laughing hysterically, the state has a very difficult credibility problem to overcome with any and all evidence they present to the jury.
HughJennicks: And that is how they won. Win win win. Go L.A.P.D. They asked for it when they started the whole “haul people to Skid” thing and “Just stay the fuck out of West L.A.” project, which has worked very well with about 5% of the demographic in L.A.
Kim Kardashian is still as hot as it gets. Even if she was an accomplice or whatever you call it when OJ supposedly injured those people.
shortsshortsshorts: Do you remember the name of the private security company that would place signs on residence lawns that said: “Armed Response”?
During the OJ trial, when on a short vacation to LA, I wanted to steal one of those signs and take it back to Vegas, just for the comedy effect. In Nevada, the thought that a security company would send its employees out to check on a house alarm going off without being armed is pure fantasy.
Doglessliberal: Child. I caught the coverage in an Atlanta businessman’s club, where I was interviewing some banker or other for the paper I worked for. All the rich white folks were very disappointed, while the mostly black staff seemed quietly elated.
I didn’t catch the reference, though, because I couldn’t give a crap about OJ or his trial, and paid as little attention to it as possible. Some ex-jock half-an-actor kills his ex-wife 3,000 miles away. I don’t know anybody in the case. Why would I care?
nietzscheprojectile: Our version of that was “I met her at the door with a loaded .44.” Southern kids, y’know.
I was living 45 min north of LA when all that craziness went down. It was all we saw on television for a year, we weren’t that far removed from the L.A. riots, and I think everyone in my class was holding our breaths to see if there would be fallout from the verdict. I was just relieved it was finally over and we could get information about other things going on in the world - for a year our local, national, and world news had all been about freaking OJ. I remember thinking that I didn’t even care whether or not he did it as long as the whole thing finally stopped being anything we talked about.
Geewhilikers kids, I’m so creaky that I saw OJ play football in person! He’d stiffarm the defense, then slice to the left, slash to the right. He never wore gloves though.
It´s a dirty game after all.
I was actually in Downtown L.A. the day the verdict came down. I walked down to the courthouse, where thousands of people were awaiting word outside. (I still have the “A Great Human Being” O.J. T-shirt with a bad montage of Simpson photos and the cheap O.J. clock with the Bronco and cop cars on the hands.) The atmosphere was pretty tense with both sides (potential protesters of a guilty verdict/cops) spoiling for a fight so I retreated to the L.A. Times building (where I did some freelancing) to watch the verdict.
In a little over 10 years, our childishly executed discussion on race has gone from being framed around a guy who killed people to a guy who may be President, so that counts as progress, one supposes.
Them: And then McCain’s racebaiting ads (luck at this young buck with two of Amerika’s finest white women!) is a big step back from our potential two steps forward.
Ordinarily, I just don’t feel “old.” But after reading the waltzes down memory lane here, I am apparently older than dirt’n'WALNUTS! put together.
By the time of the OJ verdict I’d already had my sixth kid. And I started having kids “late in life.”
Pardon me, but I’ve got to go tell those young whippersnappers at AARP to “Get off my lawn!” now… If I can find the energy….
Wagamuffin: Happy Rockslide Day, hoser. Or Civic Holiday or whatever TF y’all call it there. Don’t travel Greyhound….. if you’ve been watching the news, you’ll know what I mean…. and will have shuddered along with the rest of us…
God Hope I’m not too late with this. I was in a cafe on Haight Street when the verdict was announced. The white woman at the next table said loudly: “Oh god, All the blond bimbos in the country are going to riot” I laughed and laughed
I honestly have no recollection of the verdict being announced. But I was a freshman in college so I was probably high.
autoclavicle: Well, yes, true AC, I was using literary license there when I claimed “all” were dead. Entirely wishful thinking, I guess. Only the most objectionable are ( Cochrane because he was Cochrane, and Kardashian because the spawn of his loin haunt us still. Brrrrr). However, F. Lee Bailey, who fought like crazy with Cochrane and resigned from the team I believe, gets a pass ( only because he also defended Patty Hearst, who, my Catholic mother used to liken me to. Not true, as I found berets too bourgeois, and preferred Uzi’s to that Russian made crap that the SLA used to pack). Robert Shapiro always looked lost, and Gary Sheck is the only other major one I was thinking of—he also gets away with murder as I remember him expressing remorse for being involved in the whole fiasco.
Canuckledragger: Sweet Canuckledragger. Thanks, hon. I think we call it a provincial holiday. You are watching the news! Yep, our newest Olympic mascot will be called “Slidy”, which will actually be tricked out to look like a Japanese style animate of “The Hulk”. For all the wrong reasons. As for the other incident…unspeakable. Madness. The wretchedness of the world is upon us. Tonight, I will drive the horror from my brain by going down to a house party on Kits Point in Van and watching things blow up real good (last night of fireworks tonight). Have a great w/e yerself. COO-ROO-KOO-KOO, KOO-ROO-COO-COO…
Autoclavicle: Of course I meant Barry Scheck.
Like me, the REAL geezers here will remember:
Anything from Sid & Marty Croft - When pot had a HUGE influence in children’s television programming
The Monkees
The Brady Bunch
Speed Buggy
Sanford and Son - Redd Foxx was a genius and one of the funniest fuckin’ people on television
M*A*S*H
Happy Days
The evening news covering the fall of Saigon
Disco - Nuff said
The National Lampoon Radio Hour and it’s then-new television offspring SNL and SCTV
Lawn Darts - Taken away because of stupid people
Bicycles with banana seats - I wish they would bring these back
8-Track tapes and vinyl records
Gas stations with NO GAS
magic titty: I hope not, isn’t he a right-wing string bean now?
I was so trying NOT to know about the OJ trial that I went to Greece on my vacation that year. (A place where I speak/understand not a word of the language.) There I was on a ferry boat in the middle of the Aegean-fucking-sea and a person I had never seen before comes up to me and says, “Did you hear they found OJ not guilty?” It made me hate OJ even more.
roberposteschild: “I was living 45 min north of LA when all that craziness went down.”
Seamy Valley?
This is late but I felt the need to comment because of my very matchy-matchy user picture.
Servo: Does the phrase “…watch out for snakes” mean anything to you? Are you familiar with the oeuvre of Coleman Francis? Just a shot in the dark…
bonghitsforjesus:
Ah…Eegah. That and Coleman Francis’ “The Skydivers” are both part of my MST3K collection.
OLD? OLD??! I’ll give you old: 3 or 4 of us Michigan State grad students went for an early and long liquid lunch at Lou Duby’s bar at Hamilton & Grand River in Okemos (long since torn down). About the time of the post-lunch staff shift change, Marge, the regular Friday night bartender, came in and told us “President Kennedy’s been assassinated!”
Later while teaching english at EMU I used to get ripped over at my colleague Pete’s house, after my last Tuesday day class & before my night creative writing class, and we would watch the watergate hearings, and their evening news summaries. Who could forget psychedelic entertainment highlights like John Dean warning of a Cancer on the Presidency, or the discovery through Alexander whatshisname’s testimony about the WH taping system?
During my next full-time career in the 70’s, Detroit Edison pulled the plug on the whole Shelby Hotel in Detroit, puttintg a serious crimp in my employment as a Detroit jazzman working 6 nights a week there in JJs Lounge. The whole building - residents, shops, staff, meat coolers, etc. etc., was given about a 6-hour notice to evacuate. The residents rushing to & fro with their belongings in the lobby put us in mind of a sort of farce version of the Fall of Saigon, which we’d watched on the TV a few months prior. Farce, because there was no shooting, no killing.
Finally getting to The Point: In modern times, I’ve been working as a Senior Legal Assistant (a title sort of like Executive Messenger, or Principal Factotum, or Policy Analyst) in a big silk-stocking law firm, and in that context a few years back watched moronic Marsha Clark and incompetent Christopher Darden get outlawyered, even creamed by Johnny Cochrane, and more importantly blow their own case in ways that would have been way more hilarious, if it weren’t for there being actual very dead murdered people at the heart of the matter.
Fox still occasionally has one or the other of these two on (as well as Mark Furman) as experts on something, I suppose, or maybe it’s just to wake up the vague OJ racial stirrings. I suppose we’ll hear them weighing in on Obama next, if everybody on this thread is correct. Anyawy, the same almost funny but also creepy mix of prejudice, incompetence and self-righteousness seems to me to unify Fox, the McCain campaign, its surrogates and the ancient candidate himself. He needs a make-over. At a minimum, he should get a bottle tan & some gold chains. Like my hero Jerry Stiller in “The Indie.” And do something about those teeth!