Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Tio Marco's list of "Things everyone knows" that aren't true & other dribs & drabs.



It really set me off yesterday when ABC's News ticker came out with "Cobra strangles 2 children in Canada". Even though the body of the article said, correctly, that the snake was a constrictor, it made me wonder who's 4 year old brat in their newsroom was allowed to write headline copy. 

Not that this is anything new. So best example first;

Marshal Ney did not tell the British at Waterloo "The Old Guard dies but never surrenders". For years after the event he told one and all what he really said, when asked to surrender, was "Eat Shit!". Just before he died some journalist said to him "Oh, you're the guy who said "The Old Guard, etc." and being old, sick, and feeling like King Canute holding back the tide said, "Yea. That was me" and so put the official stamp on that piece of made up bullshit.

A bright point in the narrative was when Jack Benny hired Don Wilson because he had once introduced then President Hover as; " And now here's our President Hebert Hoover, I mean Hubert Heaver, I mean.....er....here's the President".  Too bad I can't remember the guy at the Democratic Convention who introduced Hubert H. Humphrey as Hubert Horatio Hornblower.

I had Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Jr., the then ex-governor of California, as a dinner companion at the Tadich Grill in SF. Pat was a great man and was a good governor but he always had his foot in his mouth, like when he got off the plane that rushed him back after the "Watts Riots" started and he said "This is the worst disaster to befall California since they elected me Governor".  It was just he and I across the table from one another and I must say he was the most self-a facing, humble, and just downright nice person I've ever had the honor to break bread with. 

The bottom of the barrel is, of course, "The Girl on the Gear Shift Knob" that everyone knew personally.

Rick in "Casablanca" never said "Play it again Sam".

The bandits in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" never said "We don't need no stinking badges". 

Queen Victoria Did Say "Just close your eyes and think of England" but it was in exasperation with her feather-headed grand-daughter after an hour of trying to explain the joys of sex to her and her grand-daughter staunchly refusing to say anything but, "But what will I do???" in a shrill whiny voice.




No comments:

Post a Comment