We Feel His Pain

If you can’t say something nice…

Jesse Jackson said something he shouldn’t the other day, and it was heard by all the wrong people.

We’ve been there. One of the reasons we let this Web site do the talking for us is because, if left to our own devices, we have the uncanny ability to say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. We’ve ruined surprise parties, anniversaries, … you name it, we’ve put our foot in our mouth talking about it.

Here are two of the worst examples:

Fenway Park, 2003. We were fortunate enuff to be in THE luxury box of all luxury boxes. Luis Freaking Tiant was assigned to our box as our personal ambassador. John Henry himself came by halfway thru the game. So now it’s gametime. Carl Beane began the introductions which led to a discussion of Leslie Sterling, the female public address announcer who worked Fenway for a few years. Nobody liked her. “A girl cant do it” someone said. Our reply?

“No matter how bad she is, she cant be any worse than the Okely-Dokely Ned Flanders, Ed Brickley. God, that guy was awful.”

Standing behind us was none other than Ed Brickley and his daughter. Seems he had tickets to the same suite that we did. Longest nine inning game we ever attended.

New York City, 1994. We're in New york, interviewing for jobs in the exciting world of video production. At one of our stops, we're introduced to Michael Daly, an authentic new York columnist and author. We were young and full of ourselves. so when we met this grizzled, veteran newshound, we were anxious to impress him with how much we knew. When he told us what he did for a living, we lifted our nose in the air and said:

"The printed word is dead.”

Something we probably read in the NY Times or some fucking place. He just smiled and walked away. 16 years later, he’s still writing, still being paid by the printed word, and we're dashing this stuff off for you people, free of charge.