Random noun: Telephone.
Did you know that in the 1940s a slang term for telephone was “Ameche”? As in, “Hey Sal, hand me the Ameche.”
That’s because the actor Don Ameche had been the star of the popular movie The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939). It also stars Henry Fonda as Bell’s assistant, Watson. There’s the famous moment when Bell, who has been toiling over his machine for years, spills acid and calls out, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!”
Watson comes in and tells Bell he heard him over the wire! The invention worked!
Bell received a patent on March 7, 1876, and the telephone became part of our American landscape.
It used to be that if you were out in public and needed to make a call, you had to find a phone booth and put in a nickel or a dime. When cell phones came in, followed by smart phones, the phone booth died. There was no place for Superman to change. And how did he do that in a phone booth anyway? Where did he hide his Clark Kent suit? I did a little research and the answer apparently is that he was able to compress the suit, made of special material, down to the size of a tablet and put it in a pocket of his cape. Still, that took precious seconds away from trying to save Lois.
I remember Superman as played on TV by George Reeves, flying through the air and the clouds. And as I sit here in my back yard, typing, the blue skies of L.A. are filled with fluffy cumulus clouds, as opposed to the nimbus clouds that dumped rain a few days before. When the kids were little I used to teach them snippets from The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, using little rhymes or word plays to help them remember. To this day they know the four basic cloud types:
Cumulus, which I pronounced Cummmulus, the mmm sound, because cumulus clouds look like whipped cream.
Nimbus. No, no nimbus! (In other words, don’t rain on us!)
Stratus is “at us.” The low, overcast clouds that cover the sky like a blanket.
Cirrus isn’t serious. They are playful wisps of cloud.
I also did a little sing-song for famous people, like “1066, William the Conqueror.”
“Julius Caesar, emperor of Rome.”
“Harriet Tubman, freed the slaves.”
Only years later did the kids confess they liked to have fun behind my back, singing things like, “Harriet Tubman, emperor of Rome.”
At least they knew the material.
***
O.J. Simpson died. Being a USC football fan since my youth, and blown away by Simpson’s ability; and then, as a nutty-comedy fan, loving his portrayal of Nordberg in the Naked Gun movies, I was as stunned as everyone when he was arrested in 1994 for committing two horrific murders.
His televised trial created a new breed of TV commenter, the legal analyst. All the news shows couldn’t get enough jurisprudential pontificating. It was a large net, for even I appeared briefly on Good Morning, America as an expert in search and seizure law. There was an issue in the preliminary hearing about the warrantless entry of police onto Simpson’s property. When the judge ruled against Simpson’s motion to suppress evidence, she cited a case that not been mentioned by either side, but was in my book on California search law. I can’t claim she or her clerk found the case that way, but I do know it was a distinct possibility as most criminal lawyers, prosecutors, and judges had the book.
Simpson, of course, was acquitted and walked free. He said he wanted to find the “real killer.” He played a lot of golf. The joke was that Simpson thought the “real killer” was a caddy, and therefore was searching every golf course in America.
Which reminds me, I was playing golf with friends at a course called Camarillo Springs one fine day, when I looked at the group on the next fairway…and there he was—Orenthal James Simpson. You couldn’t miss him. He was a big guy, especially across the shoulders. I had no desire to say anything to him, even though he always had people coming up to him for autographs. There’s a big ick for you.
Simpson was successfully sued by the Goldman family, who won a $33.5 million judgment, hardly any of which Simpson paid. His NFL pension was legally beyond reach. He made side money selling his memorabilia. In Las Vegas he got into a dispute with a dealer, he and some cronies broke into the guy’s hotel room and brandished a gun and took some items he claimed were his.
For that he and the others were arrested and charged with kidnapping and armed robbery. Some of the cronies took plea deals in return for testifying against Simpson. He was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Some thought justice had finally nabbed O. J. Simpson.
But after serving nine years, he was paroled. Another shocker. That was in 2017.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. Well, he didn’t anticipate social media. Simpson soon showed up on Twitter (now X) and posted videos of himself pontificating on this or that. He got himself a big following. He continued to play golf.
His second act lasted nearly seven years, until prostate cancer tackled him from behind and ended the show forever.
There has always been a perverse fascination with celebrities connected to crime. Why is that? Is it because something within us enjoys when the mighty fall? Or does it give us some comfort to know that “having it all” is not the secret to happiness?
“What shall it profit a man,” asked the Nazarene, “if he should gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul?”
That’s a truth not even O.J. Simpson could outrun.
Quote of the Week: “Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door.” – Marlo Thomas
Timeless Truth: Some people wake up and find themselves famous. Others find themselves famous and then wake up.
And the busy signal was invented shortly thereafter.