"guys like us, we had it made..."

 

cast of All In The Family (first season) - Jean Stapleton, Carroll O'Connor, Sally Struthers, Rob Reiner, Mike Evans

        Recently it was reported that Rob Reiner's son, Nick Reiner, has Alan Jackson as his defense lawyer.

        Today Mr. Jackson withdrew from the case.

        Someone with a podcast just said, "People say Alan Jackson is a legend."

It said last week Mr. Jackson charges $2,000 per hour.

What I noticed was, in one video where Mr. Jackson was speaking, he said, "Me and my team have been working on this..."

"Me and my team" - ??

        OK, would you say, "Me has been working on this" - ?

        Then another video played where Alan Jackson was speaking on microphones to press, and that time he said, "My team and I..." were working on it, or whatever....

"My team and I" is the correct grammar.

But - how is it that any lawyer, anywhere, doesn't use correct grammar - let alone, the highest-priced lawyer on the planet not using good grammar...?

I don't understand that.

It's befuddling.

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"everything I want to work for, as your president...."

 In my last post here, I mentioned Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was President of the United States from 1963 (after the murder of President John Kennedy) through 1968.  

        I thought later, that maybe I made it sound like Lyndon Johnson had a 5-year political career, as President of the U.S., from 1963 to 1968.

That isn't correct - to be specific, Johnson had a much longer political career than that - he devoted his whole life to public service.  (And - come to find out, he only lived to be 64 years old.)

He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1949.  And he was a U.S. Senator from 1949 to 1961.

In 1961 he became Vice President of the United States of America, when John Kennedy got elected President, and he had Lyndon as his Vice Presidential candidate.

In 1963, Lyndon Johnson became President of the United States when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Johnson's accomplishments included:

*  (during his time as a Congressman, in the late 1930s) establishing the REA (Rural Electrification Association) - which provided electricity for people who lived out in the country, and could not get electricity from the private companies, who considered serving them as not profitable enough

*  signing the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) as President

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        Before he got involved in politics, Lyndon Johnson was a schoolteacher for a couple of years, in a little town in Texas:  Cotulla.  A few years ago, I was reading a book about Johnson's life and I read the school-teaching part, and I talked to a man who worked in Refrigeration at the company where I work - he was from Texas, and spoke Spanish and English, and when I shared with him the part about Johnson teaching in Cotulla, he said he was from Cotulla.

We talked about that a couple of times, before he retired.

Lyndon Johnson; John Kennedy

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someone was wrong on the Internet

 
Willie Mays

        I once saw a cartoon where a wife calls down the stairs to her husband, "Aren't you coming up to bed?"

        And the husband answers, while typing away intently:  "In a minute.  Someone is wrong on the Internet."

I had to make a correction to something on the Internet - it wasn't in someone's "Comment," it was in a video telling the story of O.J. Simpson's life.

        And it was unusual, because it was about sports - that is a subject where I don't have very much knowledge - people would probably expect me to be the one making the mistake about sports, not the one correcting the mistake.

But the video narrator told about Willie Mays meeting with O.J. Simpson when O.J. was a teenager getting in trouble, being a juvenile delinquent - Mays counseled the future running back, telling him, You can have a career in sports, you have talent, don't get in trouble with the law.

        And the narrator, speaking with some U.K. accent - Welsh?  Scottish?  The north of England? - I don't know... said Willie Mays was a football player, a "center for the San Francisco 49ers."

                Even I know that's not right! LOL.

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        a reader comment under a Willie Mays biography video on You Tube:

----------------------- I saw Mays play a lot when I was a kid in the 60s at Candlestick.  He was undoubtedly the greatest player I have ever seen, and I've seen many over the years.

The smartest, too.  He knew the strengths and weaknesses of every player like an encyclopedia.  He would position the outfielders from pitch to pitch, he knew how to steal the signs from the opposing team.

He ran the bases like a demon in a manner calculated to intimidate and disrupt the other team, and caused many defensive errors in the opposition.

I saw him make unbelievable throws from the deepest parts of the outfield and run down fly balls no one else could possibly have caught....greatest all-around player ever, bar none. -------------------------

        The part where "he knew the strengths and weaknesses of every player" reminds me of Lyndon Johnson (U.S. President 1963 - 1968) - he was described as knowing every member of the U.S Senate, their backgrounds, preferences, priorities, enthusiasms, temptations.... He learned to know them so that he could cajole their votes.

When Willie Mays wanted to speak to someone, instead of addressing them by name, he had a habit of going, "Say, hey!" - earning him the nickname of "the Say-hey kid."

       He appeared on an episode of Bewitched, which I caught in morning re-runs several times, in fourth or fifth grade.  Samantha says, "Say, hey! - Willie!" 

        The famous baseball player in the photograph below, is flanked by actors Agnes Moorehead ("Endora") and the always humorously sarcastic Paul Lynde ("Uncle Arthur").

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Kato

 On the night of her murder, Nicole Brown Simpson's dog alerted the neighborhood to something being wrong, by barking.  A couple of people who were out after dark finally joined the dog and followed him back to the location of two dead bodies.

The dog's name was Kato, named after Nicole and O.J.'s friend who was staying in the guest-house on their property, at their invitation.  The children named him.

        Once a few years ago when I was reading on the Internet about the case, I became concerned about what happened to the dog, an Akita.  (I had never heard of that dog breed, before the murder story was reported, in 1994.)

The Brown family (Nicole's parents) took in the dog.  He lived a long life, passing away in 2004.  The Browns keep the dog's ashes under the piano, because that is where Kato (the dog, not the house guest) liked to curl up and rest, and observe the family's activities.

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running through the city of New York

 

Manhattan   1979

When Harry Met Sally...   1989

When I saw the movie When Harry Met Sally... (directed by Rob Reiner), when it first came out in 1989, I picked up on a whole lot of Woody Allen influence, there.  That is part of the reason I loved it.

        The influence is all over the movie, all through it, woven in.  However, there are two scenes where they are just like scenes in Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan.

        And - nothing wrong with that.  It was great.

The first scene:  the main characters who are destined to be a couple are out and about in New York City, and they unexpectedly encounter a former lover.

In When Harry Met Sally, Sally and Harry are shopping and Harry's ex-wife and her new (either boyfriend or husband) walk up and speak to them.

In Manhattan, Isaac and Mary are out, and Mary's ex, played by Wally Shawn, comes up and speaks to her.

        The second scene that is the same, in the two movies, is the ending.

In Manhattan, Woody Allen's character, Isaac, realizes he's still in love with Tracy, and he tries calling her but the line is busy.  He decides to go and see her, and tries to get a cab, but traffic is too busy and he ends up just running across many blocks in the city to get to Tracy's apartment building.

        In When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal's character, Harry, realizes he's in love with Sally and must talk to her - he can't get a cab either because it's New Year's Eve and there are not enough taxis for the people who want one, so he ends up just running through a section of New York City to see Sally as soon as possible.

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famous and well known people

The attorney who will represent Nick Reiner is Alan Jackson - I notice when he speaks - in "public-speaking" mode, to an audience - he is similar to Princess Diana:  he says a phrase, then pauses, then says the next phrase. ... The whole thing is punctuated by pauses which are not really necessary.

But -- it's a speaking style.  

        Princess Diana worked with a speaking coach for a bit.  She wanted to improve her speech-making ability.  After working with the coach, she started using the pauses between phrases.

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        Listening to documentaries about the Nicole Brown Simpson / Ron Goldman murders, I think of Howard Cosell a couple of times.  A sports announcer, he would say, "The Juice is loose!" when O.J. Simpson would run, in football games during the 1960s and '70s.

He liked O.J.

        I wondered, 'Did Howard Cosell live long enough to know about the murders at South Bundy Drive?'

        Yes, Google says Cosell died in 1995, so he would have been aware.

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When people comment on the Rob Reiner murders, several people have said "At least his dad didn't live to see this."

        (His dad was Carl Reiner, comedy writer and creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show.  He lived to be 98 - was still writing books and typing away on Twitter....) 

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        In a podcast about the 1994 Simpson murders, a limo driver says he drove many "famous and well known people."

The word "famous" and the phrase "well known" mean the same thing, so it's redundant, but I'm not making fun of the guy for saying that.  Everyone can misspeak a little bit, sometimes - and "famous and well known people" is actually kind of a nice, slightly ironic phrase....

Carl Reiner

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