jerseyshorejohnny
Well-known member
We all say things we soon regret. Joe Biden’s “I’m staying in the race.” Donald Trump’s “No, other than day one. . . . After that, I’m not a dictator.” Kamala Harris’s “I will snatch their patent, so that we will take over. Yes, we can do that!” I’ve put my foot in my mouth so often I’ve considered edible socks.
Worse is when someone corrects you right away, as in the 1977 movie “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen, annoyed with a blowhard pontificating about movies, pulls media expert Marshall McLuhan from the shadows, who says to the know-it-all, “I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work!” Mr. Allen sighs and addresses the camera: “Boy, if life were only like this!”
Sometimes it is. Last month, Rep. Ro Khanna asked Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle about former Director Stuart Knight, “Do you know what he did” after the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan. Ms. Cheatle answered, “He remained on duty.” Rep. Khanna corrected her: “He resigned.” Ms. Cheatle did too, a few days later.
I’m also guilty of misspeaking. On a plane to Las Vegas, my seatmate, Jim, said he went to Georgetown. I launched: “Oh, I’ve got a great story. I saw Patrick Ewing’s first game at Madison Square Garden against St. Johns and Chris Mullins. Early 1982, I think?” Jim nodded. “Right away, Ewing was blocking every shot—he must’ve had 20—after maybe 14 minutes it was 41-9.” Jim was vigorously nodding and smiling. “Oh, were you at the game too?” I asked. “Yeah,” Jim said sheepishly, “I was on Georgetown’s bench. I was a walk-on. Didn’t play much.” He added, “Ewing had five blocked shots.” I nervously chuckled and mumbled, “I wish you had stopped me sooner.”
Before browsers and Netscape, I was raising a venture fund based on interactive media and online commerce. I had a line about how if you clicked on Michael Jordan highlights, a video of Michael might pop up to sell you Nike sneakers. At a gathering in Philadelphia around 1993, I noticed Julius Erving—Dr. J. himself—in the audience. As a kid, I used to watch him put on a show at the end of blowout American Basketball Association games. So I ad-libbed, “Dr. J. himself would pop up in a video to sell you Nike sneakers.” He said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I only wear Converse.”
It’s not just sports. I can put my foot in my mouth anytime, anywhere. Learning my wife and I were about to stay at a vegetarian organic farm in Nepal, I feared I would die of starvation. At dinner, my wife and I sat next to two women from the Netherlands. I jokingly asked, “How could anyone be a vegetarian?” and noted that I was hoping all vegetarian stuff would “taste like chicken.” One piped in, “I’m a vegetarian.”
I’m sure I turned the color of a ripe tomato. A plate arrived—a mystery substance buried under a yellow sauce on one side and a purple sauce on the other. It turned out the sauces were so delicious it could have been a car tire underneath, and I would have eaten it. The vegetarian, noticing I had eaten everything, asked with a smirk, “How was it?” I answered, “Tasted like chicken.”
Sometimes we’re embarrassed for others. At San Francisco International Airport, just after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, I was standing at the American Airlines ticket counter and recognized a tall, lean guy next to me picking up tickets. Whoa, I thought, that’s swimmer Matt Biondi. He had just won five gold medals, a silver and a bronze and broken four world records.
A naive ticketing agent asked the most famous guy at the moment his name. Others tittered in awe. One agent asked Mr. Biondi, “How’s your head?” He nicely responded, “That was the other guy”—meaning the diver Greg Louganis, who hit his head on a diving board. She then asked Mr. Biondi, “Can I see an ID?” What? I gave her a funny look. Mr. Biondi fumbled around and didn’t seem to have one. I jumped in, “Uh, I’ll vouch for him. That’s Matt Biondi!” She gave him his ticket.
At a lunch with a nice couple during a Portugal hiking trip, it came out that Brett used to drive Formula One race cars. I launched, “Have you ever seen the movie ‘Rush’? Chris Hemsworth is James Hunt and it’s about his rivalry with Niki Lauda . . .”—I babbled on as the driver nodded—“until Lauda had this terrible crash and . . .” He finally interrupted me. “I was in that race. It was horrible. I helped pull Niki from his car.” Gulp. I then heard the real story.
Mark Twain supposedly said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” My advice: Think. Then speak. “Boy, if life were only like this!”
Worse is when someone corrects you right away, as in the 1977 movie “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen, annoyed with a blowhard pontificating about movies, pulls media expert Marshall McLuhan from the shadows, who says to the know-it-all, “I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work!” Mr. Allen sighs and addresses the camera: “Boy, if life were only like this!”
Sometimes it is. Last month, Rep. Ro Khanna asked Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle about former Director Stuart Knight, “Do you know what he did” after the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan. Ms. Cheatle answered, “He remained on duty.” Rep. Khanna corrected her: “He resigned.” Ms. Cheatle did too, a few days later.
I’m also guilty of misspeaking. On a plane to Las Vegas, my seatmate, Jim, said he went to Georgetown. I launched: “Oh, I’ve got a great story. I saw Patrick Ewing’s first game at Madison Square Garden against St. Johns and Chris Mullins. Early 1982, I think?” Jim nodded. “Right away, Ewing was blocking every shot—he must’ve had 20—after maybe 14 minutes it was 41-9.” Jim was vigorously nodding and smiling. “Oh, were you at the game too?” I asked. “Yeah,” Jim said sheepishly, “I was on Georgetown’s bench. I was a walk-on. Didn’t play much.” He added, “Ewing had five blocked shots.” I nervously chuckled and mumbled, “I wish you had stopped me sooner.”
Before browsers and Netscape, I was raising a venture fund based on interactive media and online commerce. I had a line about how if you clicked on Michael Jordan highlights, a video of Michael might pop up to sell you Nike sneakers. At a gathering in Philadelphia around 1993, I noticed Julius Erving—Dr. J. himself—in the audience. As a kid, I used to watch him put on a show at the end of blowout American Basketball Association games. So I ad-libbed, “Dr. J. himself would pop up in a video to sell you Nike sneakers.” He said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I only wear Converse.”
It’s not just sports. I can put my foot in my mouth anytime, anywhere. Learning my wife and I were about to stay at a vegetarian organic farm in Nepal, I feared I would die of starvation. At dinner, my wife and I sat next to two women from the Netherlands. I jokingly asked, “How could anyone be a vegetarian?” and noted that I was hoping all vegetarian stuff would “taste like chicken.” One piped in, “I’m a vegetarian.”
I’m sure I turned the color of a ripe tomato. A plate arrived—a mystery substance buried under a yellow sauce on one side and a purple sauce on the other. It turned out the sauces were so delicious it could have been a car tire underneath, and I would have eaten it. The vegetarian, noticing I had eaten everything, asked with a smirk, “How was it?” I answered, “Tasted like chicken.”
Sometimes we’re embarrassed for others. At San Francisco International Airport, just after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, I was standing at the American Airlines ticket counter and recognized a tall, lean guy next to me picking up tickets. Whoa, I thought, that’s swimmer Matt Biondi. He had just won five gold medals, a silver and a bronze and broken four world records.
A naive ticketing agent asked the most famous guy at the moment his name. Others tittered in awe. One agent asked Mr. Biondi, “How’s your head?” He nicely responded, “That was the other guy”—meaning the diver Greg Louganis, who hit his head on a diving board. She then asked Mr. Biondi, “Can I see an ID?” What? I gave her a funny look. Mr. Biondi fumbled around and didn’t seem to have one. I jumped in, “Uh, I’ll vouch for him. That’s Matt Biondi!” She gave him his ticket.
At a lunch with a nice couple during a Portugal hiking trip, it came out that Brett used to drive Formula One race cars. I launched, “Have you ever seen the movie ‘Rush’? Chris Hemsworth is James Hunt and it’s about his rivalry with Niki Lauda . . .”—I babbled on as the driver nodded—“until Lauda had this terrible crash and . . .” He finally interrupted me. “I was in that race. It was horrible. I helped pull Niki from his car.” Gulp. I then heard the real story.
Mark Twain supposedly said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” My advice: Think. Then speak. “Boy, if life were only like this!”
