The Swamp

76. Cancer.

OJ Simpson. Not a Jew.

multiple gunshots❌
bumping head ❌
burning hand ❌
wet paint ❌
window ❌
cake to face ❌
bear trap ❌
drowning ❌
murder charges ❌
cancer✅

Such a stupid moment in history.

Now is as good a time as any to say that Made in America is utterly fantastic.

He'll always be Nordberg to me.

A really good day to avoid Buffalo sports radio.

EnochRoot wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:11 am Such a stupid moment in history.

Let's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down. I was in 2nd year university and students were huddled around a small tv in the food court.

This basically created reality TV, even if unwittingly

I dont really remember where I was for the verdict. Rodney King felt like the more definitive verdict of my life. I do remember watching that Ford Bronco though. Most watched car chase in history?

Think I was in high school? One of the other 47 y/o's on here will have to verify.

Freshman year of college with about 100 other kids in our dorm lobby.

P.D.X. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:19 am Think I was in high school? One of the other 47 y/o's on here will have to verify.

I'm 47, you would have been past high school at aged 19?

Freshman year in college. Everyone was in their rooms watching the verdict come out (if they were lucky enough to have a TV in their room).

Andy, your timeline is right. 48, graduated HS in '95.

College junior, watched in the student center.

Stayed home “sick”

duff wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:23 am Freshman year in college. Everyone was in their rooms watching the verdict come out (if they were lucky enough to have a TV in their room).

Andy, your timeline is right. 48, graduated HS in '95.

Is there an extra year of school in the US?

I was born in 76 and graduated HS in 94.

oh ok... literally the same month as my graduation (June '94)

Too bad SNL is new this week. If it weren't they could've just had 90 minutes of Norm just shitting on him.

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:26 am

duff wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:23 am Freshman year in college. Everyone was in their rooms watching the verdict come out (if they were lucky enough to have a TV in their room).

Andy, your timeline is right. 48, graduated HS in '95.

Is there an extra year of school in the US?

I was born in 76 and graduated HS in 94.

Born October of '76. Graduated 95.

Was at my GF's house about to leave for a six week college prep experience at Norhtern Kentucky. Summer after my jr. Year.

I had just finished college and visiting a buddy in Boca. Friday afternoon we were at some happy hour, eating wings, drinking beer & playing pool. Jukebox on, but CNN on all the TVs. The coverage was about the LAPD searching for OJ. We got home a few hours later to what I guess you would call ‘the chase.’

I was working (Oct 95) when OJ was acquitted.

As for Rodney King? I was getting high with a buddy in our dorm watching TV, jaws dropped.

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:34 am Too bad SNL is new this week. If it weren't they could've just had 90 minutes of Norm just shitting on him.

Apparently that cost him the SNL news desk job (OJ had a friend in a high place at NBC).

Giff wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:21 am Freshman year of college with about 100 other kids in our dorm lobby.

Junior year of college in the student union with like 250 other students.

EnochRoot wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:44 am

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:34 am Too bad SNL is new this week. If it weren't they could've just had 90 minutes of Norm just shitting on him.

Apparently that cost him the SNL news desk job (OJ had a friend in a high place at NBC).

Don Ohlmeyer. Also tried to get Norm banned from Conan O'Brien's show.

Conan O’Brien Says NBC Exec Tried to Ban Norm Macdonald from His Show

Macdonald served as host of “Weekend Update” on “Saturday Night Live” from 1994 through 1998. His emcee duties happened to overlap with the OJ Simpson trial, and he frequently made jokes about Simpson that did not sit well with NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer, who was a friend of the former NFL running back. In later interviews with David Letterman and Howard Stern, Macdonald blamed Ohlmeyer, whose feud with Macdonald didn’t end there.

“The word came down: You can’t book Norm Macdonald anymore. It came from the top, from Don Ohlmeyer,” O’Brien said. “Don Ohlmeyer was the one who suggested me for ‘Late Night’ — he gave me the job — so I had a lot of feelings of loyalty toward Don Ohlmeyer. I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for Don sticking with me. I owe him that. So I wrote a letter to Don that said, ‘I got this directive. You’ve hired me to do the best show I can do, and this is my best guest. So I need to do my job, which is the best show I can do.'”

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:15 am

EnochRoot wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:11 am Such a stupid moment in history.

Let's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down. I was in 2nd year university and students were huddled around a small tv in the food court.

Where was I? Having surgery in Chicago on an ankle that I'd blown out a few weeks earlier playing ultimate. I joke that I was the last person in the world to hear the verdict. When I came out of surgery, the first question I asked the recovery nurse was about the verdict.

What really sucked was that I really just wanted to watch some TV when I got home, and every channel was nothing but "All OJ, All the time".

P.D.X. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:28 am oh ok... literally the same month as my graduation (June '94)

June 94 was the white Bronco chase and arrest. October 95 was the verdict. As a fellow 47 yo, I was in the doctors office getting my college physical when I first heard there was a warrant for OJ's arrest, waiting room tv. I remember watching the Knicks/Rockets Finals and they cut in with live coverage of OJ's arrest or maybe it was still a chase. I just remember furiously yelling at the TV that they were showing it on every channel, go back to the fucking game!

As for the verdict, I was a sophomore in college in the Student Union, and it's the only time I ever felt racial tension or division on campus. A lot of black students standing in one section. When the verdict was announced, the black students were cheering and celebrating while the rest of us looked shocked. I was really surprised by the reaction, as I didn't view this as a racial issue, but a rich celebrity literally getting away with murder because he could afford the legal Dream Team. OTOH, the police were held accountable for fucking up, so not all bad.

I'm just sad for OJ that he never found the killer.

Great running back.

I knew a guy who grew up in the same San Francisco neighborhood as OJ and Al Cowlings (he was a couple years younger than them). He said that in addition to being a star high school and Juco running back, he and his friends were also well known in the neighborhood as being tough hoodlums not to be messed with. My friend was unsurprised when then the news came out that he beat, and later killed his wife.

So, the funny thing is the person who brought Norm McDonald to that basketball game I played in years ago in LA... Kato Kaelin.

I am 100% serious. One of our regulars brought a guy a couple times, who turned around and brought Kato at some point. He became a regular and eventually started bringing Norm.

My senior year of college...I remember the class I was in right before but I don't remember exactly where I was for the verdict.

Funny (now maybe a little cringe) story: my roommates and I happened to be planning a party that Saturday night...I decided to theme it "Juice is Loose"....went to the local Kroger and bought 20 or so cans of frozen concentrated orange juice (H/T Trading Places) and a bucket. We provided the OJ everyone else bring whatever alcohol to mix. I still have that bucket today.

Really seems odd that his passing is such a "normal" thing given how not normal everything OJ has been for the last 30 years.

L-Jam3 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:12 am Now is as good a time as any to say that Made in America is utterly fantastic.

Yes it is...

And I remember thinking that the last episode (the post-verdict one, with his weird "Punked" type show, and the story about how he got busted in Vegas for stealing back his own memorabilia) could have been its own seperate series.

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:15 amLet's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down.

Senior year of HS, left class and went to the senior lounge where someone had a radio.



(Is it controversial to say they may have gotten the verdict right given the case presented despite OJ being 100% guilty?)

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:15 amLet's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down.

Being the old guy here, I was well into my working life. I don’t know where I was for the verdict, but for the slow-motion Bronco chase, I recall it was a Friday, post-work hours, and I was having drinks with work friends at a Palo Alto bar. The “chase” was shown on a tv screen there, and everybody gathered ’round.

sancarlos wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:31 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:15 amLet's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down.

Being the old guy here, I was well into my working life. I don’t know where I was for the verdict, but for the slow-motion Bronco chase, I recall it was a Friday, post-work hours, and I was having drinks with work friends at a Palo Alto bar. The “chase” was shown on a tv screen there, and everybody gathered ’round.

Was it the Rose & Crown? (Just kidding but I did spend a few evenings there myself. Great Irish Pub if you’re ever back in PA and looking for a pint.

Sitting in my office at the University of Idaho Law School in Moscow, ID, where I was working as a legal writing instructor.

I was stunned to see pictures of black folks celebrating the verdict. Now I understand a little bit more.

The discussion today among the young black women lawyers I follow on Twitter is quite interesting.

I really was expecting to see a few Norberg images like the chalk outline floating or Norberg hooked to hospital machines from Naked Gun

brian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:42 pm

sancarlos wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:31 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:15 amLet's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down.

Being the old guy here, I was well into my working life. I don’t know where I was for the verdict, but for the slow-motion Bronco chase, I recall it was a Friday, post-work hours, and I was having drinks with work friends at a Palo Alto bar. The “chase” was shown on a tv screen there, and everybody gathered ’round.

Was it the Rose & Crown? (Just kidding but I did spend a few evenings there myself. Great Irish Pub if you’re ever back in PA and looking for a pint.

I haven’t been there for ages, but when I worked in Palo Alto we used to frequent the Rose and Crown. It’s still there. Good pub. But, on the night in question, we were at the Gordon Biersch. (Which has since closed and is now a BBQ/brewpub joint - I had a drink and a meal there once with DSafetyGuy.)

mister d wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:23 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:15 amLet's age ourselves, where were you when the verdict came down.

Senior year of HS, left class and went to the senior lounge where someone had a radio.



(Is it controversial to say they may have gotten the verdict right given the case presented despite OJ being 100% guilty?)

As someone who was sure he was going to law school and had watched most of the trial over the summer, I thought at the time it was the right verdict and was the only one in the room with my skin tone who agreed.

Yeah, that's why I'm asking. Is 45 year old me just carrying along the opinion formed by a 17 year old contrarian or is it somewhat grounded in fact?