May 18, 2023 • 51 mins
EPISODE 205: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour has become the first on-air CNN journalist to openly criticize CNN's televising of last week's Trump Town Hall - and she did it in no less a venue than the Commencement Speech at Columbia's Journalism School. She was polite and diplomatic but still left little pieces of CEO Chris Licht spread all over the campus as she stealthily apologized for CNN, and one casual remark about how she "would have dropped the mike at 'nasty person'" completely erased the hapless moderator Kaitlan Collins
Full coverage and recorded excerpts of Amanpour's speech to Columbia J-School grads.
B-Block (17:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Jamaal Bowman, evokers of the 14th Amendment, the National Archives and the DA in NY are among those who are reminding Democrats: THROW THE FIRST PUNCH.
C-Block (31:12) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Venice - who you helped save when he was still named "Venom" again pleads for your help (32:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day I fell off a cliff making a Boston Market TV commercial: Eat Something! Well, I sure did.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. CNN
has finally been called out for its televising of the
(00:25):
Trump town hall. Called out by an active CNN broadcast journalist,
and not just by any active CNN broadcast journalist, but
by one of the seminal figures in the entire history
of the network, and called out by her not just
in public, but during the commencement address at the Columbia
(00:48):
University Graduate School of Journalism, CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane
Amanpour the first on air person at CNN to say
what so many evidently feel as sharply now as they
did when the Trump fiasca was still live on CNN's air.
She used the terms of the diplomat she has often covered,
(01:10):
and she maintained the tone of respect and politeness that
has defined her since that day I first met her
in the nineteen nineties, and then for twenty five minutes,
she diplomatically and respectfully and politely blew Chris Licked to
hell and the decision to prostitute the network for the
sake of the ephemeral Trump ratings with him, often by
(01:33):
merely repeating what journalism is supposed to do and never
having to say that last week Chris Licked and CNN
did nothing of the kind.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Especially to speak truth to power, to hold the powerful
accountable is not just a slogan. It is vital. And
when we do it well, it makes a huge difference,
and when we don't, it makes an equal but opposite difference.
I was advised early on to find my voice, and
once I figured out what that meant, I did, And
(02:02):
for better or for worse, I've always to speak out
when staying silent might have been easier. So right now,
in this moment, for me personally, I want to do
what's right and empathize with and acknowledge all those who
need to trust us at CNN, the most trusted name
in news, I understand that the town hall a week
(02:23):
ago was for many an earthquake. And indeed, because I'm
a reporter, before I came here today, i'd come from London.
I met with CNN CEO Chris Licked at our New
York headquarters, and he said the same thing, that it
was an earthquake, but for slightly different reasons, and I'll
go into them. I wanted to hear from him firsthand
(02:43):
what he had been thinking we had a very robust
exchange of views.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Well, I bet Christi anavan por emphasized two critiques of
the town hall, the presence of the live, uncontrolled, uncontrollable
audience and another issue, the presence of the live, uncontrolled,
uncontrollable Trump.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear
in that particular format. We're all grown ups, of course,
and we can hold differing opinions without a great, big
blow up. We know Trump and his tendencies. Everyone does.
(03:25):
He just seizes the stage and dominates. No matter how
much flak the moderator tries to aim at the incoming
it doesn't often work for me. I would have dropped
the mic at nasty person, but then that's me. I've
been in the ring for a long time with many
of these people.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And with that aside, Caitlin Collins disappeared in a quick
puff of smoke, and when Christiana, i'm'm poor compared what
CNN and Licked and almost everybody else in American journalism
had been doing to how the media of seventy years
ago initially tried to cover the infamous Senator Joe mcac
arthy and thus let him run rampant across our landscape
(04:08):
unchecked for four years. Lichts and CNN's arguments for putting
Trump on live also disappeared. In a quick puff of smoke.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Your own Columbia Journalism Review a few weeks ago addressed
precisely this issue, concluding that the American press and maybe
the world's press, still hasn't learned how to deal with
or cover Donald Trump. Maybe we should revert back to
the newspaper editors and TV chiefs of the nineteen fifties, who,
in the end refused to allow McCarthyism onto their pages
(04:41):
unless his foul lies, his witch hunts, and his rants
reached the basic evidence level required in a court of law.
His influence gradually decreased with all but his fervent cliques
and cults. So maybe less is more, Maybe lie is
(05:05):
not always right.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And then never saying the words Christian I'm I'm poor
did what Chris Licht and Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper
and Caitlin Collins and a hatful of unnamed CNN spokespeople
never had the simple courage nor the simple decency to do.
After the Trump fiasco, she apologized on behalf of her
(05:27):
beloved network.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Today, I can only hope that your trust in us
might have been shaken but not shattered, that you believe
we can survive and rebuild that trust, and that most importantly,
you will continue to see and know that we are
still the only network that brings you the world. I
(05:50):
also want you to digest this. It is my mantra
and I've learnt it through bitter experience in the field.
Be truthful, but not neutral both ciderism, on the one hand,
and on the other hand, is not always objectivity. It
does not get you to the truth. Drawing false moral
(06:14):
or factual equivalence is neither objective or truthful. Objectivity is
our golden rule, and it is in weighing all the
sides and all the evidence, hearing everyone reporting everything, but
not rushing to equate them when there is no equating.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Memorial services for Chris Licht's professional reputation and any possible
defense of the Trump town hall will be held next week.
Missamonpor will not be invited to speak. In a bit
of meta reporting. However, CNN's Oliver Darcy, previously the only
CNN employee of any kind to express even the mildest
criticism of the town Hall on the record reported that
(06:57):
Lickt knew in advance that Amanpor was to speak at Columbia,
and that he even emailed the entire CNN family of
four thousand employees worldwide that they should watch the feed
from the Jay School because it was a quote rare
and exceptional honor. I guess that's the only thing he
could have done. See if he messed with her, or
if he messes with her now, he will have a
(07:19):
walkout on his hands. And I know, Christian, i'manpoor for
about twenty five years, and we are professional friends. And frankly,
I think that she pulled punches in her speech and
obviously in her meeting with Lickt, at least as she
described it. She is polite and sincerely, polite and old
fashioned formal, as you heard. And on the other hand,
(07:42):
I have always believed, and she has always smiled when
I have told her this, that she could disappear people.
If Lickt vanishes tomorrow without leaving a clue, and somebody says, Keith,
what do you think happened to him? I would simply mumble, Christian,
I'm poor. Probably, and still with four knowledge, CNN managed
(08:04):
to screw this up Amanpour's address to the Columbia Jay
School graduation ceremony. And remember this is something that came
to a baseball player's speech upon being inducted into the
Baseball Hall of Fame. That address occurred at almost the
exact hour that Chris Lick rewarded the hapless Kitlyn Collins,
who did not drop the mic at nasty person for
(08:25):
selling out whatever principles a former George Soros conspiracy theorist
for Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller could possibly have and being
the punching bag on CNN for Trump rewarding Kitlyn Collins
by giving her her own nine PM show with weeks
and weeks of anchoring experience on her resume. The amanpur remarks,
(08:46):
as they spread today and in the days and weeks
and probably years to come, will subsume the Collins show,
which they're not saying they've named, but which I assume
will be called. Well, at least she tried with Caitlyn Collins,
CNN executive speaking off the record, I think, to the
New York Times and others said that no, they had
not even gotten around to figuring out what kind of
(09:08):
show Collins would do the show premieres next month in primetime,
even as she is being trashed on the left and
misogynistically and crudely mocked on the right. Maybe it can
be televised live from the Anderson Cooper's career memorial broadcast silo.
But Chris Flicked always has a plan. See an executives
(09:29):
against speaking off the record. That means Licked see an
executive speaking off the record, think that maybe what they
could do with her show is are you ready cover
one or two of the top news stories every night?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Genius a news show on cable news network only only
we'll do news in it. Wait, we're already putting news
in CNN news shows. Damn. I would point out here
that Licked has also done the following strategy, which which
is either thirty seventh dimensional chess or its plain old.
(10:08):
When we worked together at MSNBC, we used to think
he ate paste stupidity. Upon arrival at CNN a year ago,
he had an okay morning show and at Okay Primetime
without a nine pm host because the guy had just
gotten fired. Soon after his arrival. He moved his ten
PM host, Don Lemmon from that hour to the morning show.
To shore up mornings. Now he is moving his morning
(10:31):
host Collins from the mornings to nine PM to shore
up primetime. Maybe before year's end he can complete this
by moving Collins back to mornings to shore up the
mornings again, or by doing what he wound up doing
to Lemon when Lemon could not function in the mornings.
As everybody told him, Lemon could not function in the mornings,
a firing, speaking of which, so sure looks like I'm
(10:57):
not the only one who dumped Laura Ingram. Matt Drudge
reporting yesterday that Fox is moving Sean Hannah into Tucker
Carlson's old eight PM slot, which is actually an adroit
move that may not stop the bleeding over there, but
will probably staunch it. But Drudge, without spelling it out,
says that Jesse Waters and the spectacularly overconfident Greg Guttfeld,
(11:22):
We'll be getting new primetime shows, and all that would
be left if Hannity is moving to eight would be
nine and ten, And if one of them is on
at ten, it means Ingram just lost her primetime ten
PM program, didn't she? Lots of people jumped on this
by saying this meant Laura Ingram had been fired by Fox,
and Fox jumped right back, stridently saying she was the
(11:42):
highest rated woman in cable and she hadn't been fired,
and also stridently avoiding saying anything like what time her
show would be on going forward or if we just
see her like for fifteen seconds at a time between commercials.
Fox also made the claim that the firing presumption was
being spread by left wing activists, which is the first
time anybody's called Matt Drudge alone left wing activist. I'll
(12:07):
remind you from the yes, I dated Laura Ingram twenty
five years ago, and I have the scars to prove
it that. On our first of two dates, Laura explained
to me how the not very vast right wing conspiracy
worked and how it included her brother and his friend,
Matt Drudge. I don't know if that's the footprint of
(12:28):
information movement here, but it's funny. It was Drudge who
first reported Tucker Carlson getting the Fox eight pm show
and Megan Kelly, if you remember who the hell she was,
getting the nine pm slot, And in fact, Drudge once
hosted a show himself on Fox, but insisted on wearing
his hat during it, and the only thing anybody remembers
(12:49):
from it is the hat from what I was able
to see on here. Neither Hannity nor Ingram said anything
in their broadcasts last night about reassignments. Still big day
over here in keith Land, My God, God, Tucker Carlson
and probably Laura Ingram are gone from Fox in a
little over three weeks. And Chris got his licked kicked
(13:13):
by Christian Amanpoor at Columbia j School. And whereas there
is much to discuss about the debt limit and the
fourteenth Amendment and why the man I would nominate for
president right now is Representative Jamal Bowman. I'll get to
that in a moment, but for now, excuse me while
I kiss the sky.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Right A talk on our Ston f drumcon Derisia, dinm Dinazoa,
(14:00):
Don Lastmo god.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Man, Bell, Don Broyd, Don Bood, Don Kananzi Falst.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman postscripts to the news,
some insights, some snarks, some predictions, and the lesson for
today is throw the first punch. You know who throws
the first punch? Democratic Congressman Jamal Bowman, who represents my hometown,
(14:47):
and I am damn proud of it and damn proud
of him. Democrat Robert Garcia filed a privilege motion to
expel George Santos and all of the other people living
in his body from Congress. The privilege motion must be
voted on within two days. Republicans then vote to refer
that motion to the Ethics Committee, which allows them both
(15:08):
to bury the motion for months, while still pretending that
they are standing up against Santos's bottomless pit of con jobs. Well,
at dusk yesterday, George Santos is standing there on the
steps of the House talking to gullible easy mark reporters,
exercising his one and only skill, making it up as
he goes along. And who appears but Conresson Jamal Bowman.
(15:33):
You will recognize him. He used to be a school principal.
They did not have a PA system at his school.
His voice thus sounds like a first punch. I can't
continue to.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Asrust you guys.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
I'm gonna lotch all right. Why don't the party Republicans kicking?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Come on?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Hate it gets better? Who now enters stage right? Marjorie
Taylor Barney, rebel Karen Green, Party's hanging by your thread
and the party hands. The party's hanging by your thread.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
You got to save the party. Listen, no more cuanon,
no more mad that heart feel.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
No more death ceiling nonsense. Come on now, save the party.
We save America.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Saved it's children. We do something about guns.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Come on infesting as a case s because baughter is
the party is.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
What truck left talking about? Where's the microhood kids?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
You got?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Where is something that we love them?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
We love the mife and children probably be awesome.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
You can't find them?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
What are you talking about talking about my grant children?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
No, no, we don't know. I don't know. That's Fox
Boos has Fox this.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I needs to save the party. Save the party, Save
the party. Also save the liver. Jamal Bowman knows how
to make a scene, knows how to mock the easily mocked,
is not afraid to do any of that. Bless him,
(17:28):
clone him. There are some exceptions to this, but generally speaking,
this is the way it has been in our country
for two decades or more. Nearly the entirety of the
moral force of the nation, nearly the entirety of responsible
governance in the nation, nearly the entirety of law and legality,
and justice. All of that has belonged to the Democrats,
(17:51):
but all of the political courage and skill, all of
that has belonged to the Republicans and the fascists. And
you know how that changes. You know how Democrats stop
losing despite having more responsible governance, law, legality, and justice.
By Jamal bowmaning this by throwing the dam first punch
(18:18):
to that end, quote, Republicans have made it clear that
they are prepared to hold our entire economy hostage unless
you accede to their demands to reduce the deficit on
the backs of working families. That is simply unacceptable, writes
a group of Democratic senators including Ed Markey, Liz Warren,
and Bernie Sanders. To President Biden, we write to urgently
(18:40):
request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the
fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Using this authority would allow
the United States to continue to pay its bills on
time without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe. The fourteenth Amendment.
We have discussed this before, particularly that part about the
(19:00):
validity of the public debt authorized by law shall not
be questioned. And what Biden should do is schedule a
news briefing or a short speech and say simply, the
Constitution of the United States obligates me, under the fourteenth
Amendment to pay the debts incurred by the previous Trump administration,
and I will do so. There will be no default,
(19:23):
There will be no Republican cuts to services or anything
else to benefit the rich and the corporations and the Trumps.
The debts will be paid regardless of what the House does.
And I do not negotiate with terrorists. There will be
no further negotiations with Republicans until they raised the debt ceiling.
(19:45):
Thank you. That's it. Tell the country who's at fault.
Tell them how you are going to stop those who
are at fault. Tell them why for once, for once,
let the lead Democrat in this country throw the first punch.
What would the Republicans do in the mo mirror image
of this situation. They would throw the first goddamned punch.
(20:08):
They would tell the public what they were going to do.
They'd do it. They'd proclaim themselves righteous and good and
God driven, and they would blame the other party. Dare
the other party to do something about it. Always make
sure the other party looks like the guilty party, throw
the first punch. Does the fourteenth Amendment constitutionally obligate the
president to pay national debts? I don't know. I'm not
(20:29):
a constitutional lawyer. I took one law class as a
junior at Cornell. But act like it does, Act like
it does until Kevin McCarthy proofs he is really stupid
enough not just a posture and threaten about the debt ceiling,
but to actually go into a court with the expressed
obvious desire to get a judge to rule that, sorry,
(20:52):
the world economy has to crash. Go ahead, keV, explain
that to your corporate masters. Go ahead, keV, find a
judge who wants to push the button and launch the
economic nukes against every man and child in the country.
Mister President, throw the first punch. You know who else
(21:16):
threw the first punch yesterday? The National Archives, the proud,
the few, the brave, the librarians, the archivists, might be
the ones who put Trump in jail, and they just
threw another first punch against him. The Archives warned Trump
by letter that it will now hand over to Jack
Smith's sixteen records, which show that Trump knew damned well
(21:38):
that he couldn't just declassify documents by snapping his fingers.
His primary line of defense, especially after he boasted on
that Nuremberg rally on CNN last week, that he deliberately
took classified records. His primary defense has been that a
president can just I don't know, blink three times, and
then a classified document is a not classified any more document.
(22:02):
The sixteen records in question, the Archives has written Trump
all reflect communications involving close presidential advisors, some of them
directed to you personally concerning whether, why, and how you
should declassify certain classified records. In other words, those sixteen
documents provide that thing all prosecutors love, and we're beginning
(22:24):
to see that Jack Smith especially loves guilty for knowledge.
They told Trump he didn't have carte blanche to declassify.
He and his aides clearly responded. Message understood. Then he
stole the records. Then he claimed he could declassify them
as if he never knew any differently, Oh, Starry, here
are sixteen documents proving you did damn well too know
(22:47):
differently throw the first punch, and you know who else
threw a first punch at Trump? The office of Manhattan
District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump's main skill in life is
to use the bureaucracy to wear and slow the bureaucracy down.
He gets indicted, he gets arrested, he stalls. He and
(23:10):
his lawyers complained that the DA was not specific about
the alleged crimes and the specific laws he is supposed
to have broken. And then the right wing echo chamber shouts,
it doesn't even say which law he's broken. Guess who
just sent him a list of the laws he's broken. First,
the agreement to unlawfully suppressed negative stories about defendant before
an election in order to influence the outcome of the
(23:31):
election that breaks New York Election Law one seven Dash
one five to two and Federal Election Campaign Act fifty
two USC. Three zero one zero one. Second, multiple false
statements in the business records of different entities to advance
that agreement that breaks New York tax Law one to
eight zero one dash a dash three. Third, disguising reimbursement
(23:55):
payments by doubling them and falsely characterizing them as income
for tax reasons that breaks the same state tax law.
And fourth, multiple admissions of specific crimes by participants, including
by guilty please to felonies breaking New York State penal
Law one seven five point zero five. Will there be
(24:15):
anything else? Mister Trump? Do you need a receipt for
having had your head handed to you? And one more
first punch throwne Ron Widen, God Love, Ron Wyden. While
Dick Durbin is sitting there wondering if he can get
(24:36):
Dianne Feinstein an assistant to help her figure out where
she's been the last three months California or Washington. Senator
Ron Wyden just threatened to subpoena Harlan Crowe's ass Widen,
in his role as the Senate Finance Committee Chair, was
the one who wrote Crow a month before Durbin elaborately
announced he was going to write him. Widen wanted a
(24:57):
full list of every gift pride well gift thrift. He
wanted a list of every rift Harland Crowe ever gave
Clarence Thomas and the accompanying tax records. And Crowe's lawyer
wrote back saying Senate Finance had no jurisdiction. So Widen
just hit Crow's lawyer in the face with the first
punch metaphorically, of course, wrote him back. The lawyer's quotes
(25:21):
assertions are without merit. Senator Widen wrote a cursory review
of the committee's activities demonstrates long standing oversight and legislative
interests in gift and estate tax laws. It goes without saying,
but mister Crow is not a branch of government. My
hope is that with the issue of committee jurisdiction settled,
mister Crowe provides answers to the questions I've put before
(25:42):
him a second time un quote Owen. Then surprise, Ron
Wyden also throws the second punch quote. I realize the
committee may need to follow another route to compel his answers,
and I'm prepared to make that happen.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And he's down.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Arland, Crow's lawyer is down.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
The count is five ah four three tarhar and Crow's
lawyer has beaten in one round.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Throw the first punch. Still ahead on countdown, just to
get away from politics and Fox Quote News and CNN
for two minutes the day I fell off a cliff
shooting the commercial in things I promise not to tell
(26:38):
first in each tradition of Countdown, we feature a dog. Indeed,
you can help. Every dog has its day. Two weeks
ago I told you about venom an. Unfortunately, named Pity
Puppy who faced death here in New York. Even though
he's great with kids, he plays with other dogs, he
lets you rub his cheeks. What do I find out yesterday?
But he's not only been saved, but he's being fostered
(26:59):
by one of my old dog sitters. She has changed
his name from Venom to Venice, and she says quote,
he's a huge angel. He also has a growth they
have to remove. They believe it's benign, but it has
to go. And she and Happy Go Lucky Mastiff Rescue
are trying to raise funds for the operation. If you
can help Venice, you can find him at Happy Go
(27:21):
Luckymastiff Rescue dot com or on my Twitter feeds. Any
donation will be gratefully accepted. I thank you, and Venice
thanks you. There's an ad agency in Santa Monica. They
(27:47):
just called me, would you like to do two commercials
for Boston Market? I answered with profound indifference, Okay, would
you like to do two commercials for Boston Market for
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? I believe My next
words were, well, I can't do them today, but sure.
They faxed me the scripts. They're actually pretty funny, very
(28:08):
well done. I think you like them. I believe. My
next next words were, if I don't have to kill
anybody in them, call them back and say yes and
get the money. Since the idea was these ads would
run on sports telecasts, most of them on ESPN. My
yes got back to management at ESPN pretty quickly. You
can't do these, one of the executives explained, dismissively. We
(28:30):
don't let anybody do commercials, I laughed. Every one of
us has done this is Sports Center commercials. Some of
us have written that this is Sports Center commercials. You
don't even give us days off for making them, let
alone give us money. This is money I don't have
to ask you for. The executive shook his head. Those
aren't commercials. Those are promotional announcements. They're in your contract.
(28:52):
Nobody here does commercials, I said. Chris Berman has done
a beer commercial in three out of the last five
Super Bowls. My commercial is just for food. Well, he's
b I pointed out. I went to high school with him,
and I was the star of their most popular program,
a little thing called Sports Center TV Guy thatd just
(29:13):
named us one of the top ten shows on TV. Shows,
not sports shows usin Seinfeld. Sorry, well, now I got
a little angry, which never happened to me at ESPN,
and I went to my ace in the hole. My
contract expires in like ten months, and you know I
intend to leave, and during those ten months, you're going
(29:33):
to pay me about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
So Boston Market is going to pay me two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for two days work instead of
ten month's work. Plus they're going to take me out
first class to LA for a couple of days, and
they're probably going to do some radio spots and I'll
make another twenty five grant. So you're giving me a choice,
make say, two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in
(29:58):
like five days for them, or make two hundred and
sixty thousand dollars here between now and next September when
I'm planning and leaving. Anyway, if you make me choose
between those two, which do you expect me to choose?
The executive coughed we'll get back to an hour later.
He got back to me by phone. Okay, we see
your point, but there are still two problems we can't
just let everybody do commercials. I said, well, you know,
(30:21):
why don't you just let anybody who went to the
high school that Berman and I went to do commercials.
He did not laugh at that. Wow, how about only
your regular weekday sports center anchors get to do commercials?
There was a grunt and a maybe. Then we got
to the gist of the real problem. Here's the real problem.
People on your show. They'll be resentful. And I said,
(30:45):
why will they be resentful? Because the production assistants are
expecting that they're going to get their own commercials too.
And I said, how about this, the day I'm out
there actually shooting the commercial, I will get Boston Market
to like cater dinner for the show staff, even if
I have to pay for it myself. There was a
long silence. Ones would management be included in that? And
(31:08):
can we get all the side dishes too? I swear
to God so off. I flew at the beginning of December,
during a winter that had gone frigid in October in Bristol, Connecticut,
and the next thing I knew, I was on the
beach in Malibu at Leo Correo State Park. The crew
is complaining because it is raining lightly and only about
(31:31):
fifty five degrees. To me, fresh from the hinterlands and
having not been back to La since I had moved
out in nineteen ninety two, It's like I'm in Tahiti.
And my agent was right. The scripts were funny and original.
They were ascend up of the old Calvin Klein obsession
perfume commercials. There are two extremely thin models and they
(31:51):
are filmed writhing in frustration on the beach on the
big rock outcroppings at Leo Correo State Park. She is
supposed to say, emptiness, how can I fill this empty
void of mpess? They are in black and white, but
I emerge from behind a rock or or wherever I'm
in color. They are in black and white, and I
(32:14):
say when they say, don't know what to do about
this emptiness, I say, eat something. I then sell the sandwich.
Then it cuts to a shot of me walking them
down the beach with my arm over each of their shoulders,
telling them eating is a good thing, and who's wearing
cologne or who likes sports or other stupid things like that.
(32:36):
For a quarter of a million dollars, Well, we start
this at eight am and the producer and the director
John say to me and the two models and the crew, look,
this rain is just going to get heavier as the
day goes on. So what we want to do is
not take a break for lunch. We'll just shoot until
like two pm, and then you can have lunch, or
you can take your lunch with you, and you'll all
get paid for a full day. And everybody agrees. The
(32:57):
actress agrees, and she swears as she agrees. The actress
is named Una. Una is from Chicago, and it will
soon prove Una swears more than a long shoreman. This
blanking colt can blank my blanking blank. To be fair,
Una and the guy are dressed in Calvin Klein rags
(33:19):
and they are there and they are from there, and
they are freezing while I am wearing a production company
brand new suit and shoes, and to me it feels
like it's Tahiti. We take a couple of hours where
we do all the shots where I emerge from behind
the rocks, or go around the rocks, or over the rocks,
or I look over the rocks, and the director finally says, okay,
(33:39):
we got five good options. Let's set up for the
walk down. The beach with your arms around each other's shoulders.
By now it's noon or twelve thirty. And as they
move the cameras and the rain starts to move from
a mist to like a light rain. Two prop guys
bring out rakes, and I'm sitting with the crew and
(33:59):
I've been asking them questions all morning in between takes
about how this is all being arranged and made lit.
And I say, rakes, what do you need rakes for
on a commercial? And they say you'll see. And then
each time me and Una and the guy walk down
the beach and the director says cut, we go back
to the starting point. Now out come two stage hands
with rakes and they rake the sand on the beach smooth,
(34:24):
and I say, oh, footprints. So each time I walk
down this damp beach with the rain just a little
harder than it was the take before, in my brand
new dress shoes, what I'm basically doing is polishing the
soles of these brand new shoes on damp sand. I mean,
by the time the director John says we are done,
(34:45):
these soles of these shoes are so shiny. I could
go ice skating in these shoes. And John comes over
and he says, listen, we got another half an hour.
Can we go back and try a new way for
you to appear on the rocks? I mean, can you
Can you climb rocks at all? And I say, yeah, actually,
I'm surprisingly good at it. You wouldn't think so, but
I can climb rocks. And he points to one rock
(35:07):
out cropping on the beach. Maybe it's eighteen twenty feet high,
and he says, try to climb up that and go
as high as you can. If there's nothing that'll support you,
we'll forget it. And I try, and sure enough I
get up near the top and there is a perfect
little shelf in the rock that I can comfortably stand on.
And the director points the camera up and he says, oh, damn,
the angle's too tough. I can't swing the camera down
(35:30):
fast enough for when you say eat something, so I
refocus on the models. It won't work. Is there anything
lower on the rock where you could stand? Can you
come down at all? And I said, I think so.
I think I can come down a little bit. Well,
little did I know? Sure enough, maybe nine ten feet
from the beach, up in the sky, there is another
(35:53):
little foothold on this rock. Outcropping. It is not big
enough for me to put both my feet on it.
But I say, if you don't mind me holding onto
the rock as I say, eat something, I can do
it from here. And the director says, okay, let's try it.
And I climb down the rock and he's moving the
camera and I put my left foot on this flat part,
which is nine or ten feet up from the beach,
(36:15):
and for a couple of seconds everything is fine. I'm good.
And that's when I feel that my left shoe, my
brand new left shoe, straight from the floor, shine catalog,
bright and shiny and now having been polished by four
hours of walking up and down on a wet beach,
complete with two guys there to rake the beach and
(36:37):
make sure it is as shiny as it possibly can be.
My left shoe, slipperier than a diamond, is now moving
of its own accord. I'm holding, I'm doing a good
rock climbing job, but the shoe, the shoe is not holding. Hey,
I say, with some alarm, I'm about to fall off.
(37:02):
I hit the sand no more than five five seconds later,
so that's about us sixteen foot drop from my head
to the beach. And for weeks, for years still to
this day, it has amazed me more than anything else
that happened. It has amazed me how much went through
my mind before I crashed. In fact, before I actually fell,
(37:25):
I know, I did a quick height calculation. Yeah, fifteen
sixteen feet. I recognized that the outcropping was so vertical
that I was unlikely to hit any of the rock
on the way down. But just the same I remember
that the rocks continued under the sand. See. I took
two years of geology, and this was going to be
a hard landing. More amazingly than all that, Though I
(37:49):
had taken judo as a kid, I hated every minute
of judo. Nineteen sixty five nineteen sixty six, so twenty
six and twenty seven years before we shot this commercial,
I was in the studio, the Judo Studio in White Plains,
New York, the day of the nineteen sixty five Northeast blackout,
(38:12):
and the only happy memory of the entire judo experience
I had was when our instructor, Bob Durocher locked us
in the dojo that had been converted from a store
that had a front door that was set in several
feet from the streets so they could put display cases up.
And now it's pitch black. So he went out and
got his Volkswagen Karmen Gia drove it up over the
(38:34):
sidewalk into that set in entryway of this converted storefront.
He put his high beams on. He flooded the dojo
with enough light that we kids could change out of
our judo stuff and back into our regular clothes and
wait for our parents to come get us. He did
a great job. I didn't like the judo so much,
but his blackout operations practice was superb. So now, with
(38:59):
all of this having gone through my head in a second,
I began to fall, and everything else from that year
of once a week judo classes comes back to me. Relax.
As you drop, the more of your body that hits,
the less you'll get hurt. Hands protect the head. Drop
like a sack of sand. I did not hit the sand,
per se. I kind of splattered on my left side
(39:22):
swop as I rolled over onto my back and took
a breath and sat up. Of all people, Una was
the first to race over to me. You want some
blank and tea. I said, no, thanks, let me see
if I'm dead. The grips. Tried to help me to
my feet, but I felt some very sharp pain that
which suggested we should slow down. The problem was, though,
(39:46):
even if I needed an ambulance, there was no way
to get one down to where we were shooting, As
that rock out cropping that I had just fallen from suggested,
I like to call it a cliff every now and again.
Leo Correo State Park had a real cliff in it
and a flight of stairs, I mean a hundred steps
to one hundred steps up to the Pacific Coast Highway
(40:07):
and a park. Sure enough, I was able to stand,
but I couldn't move easily. Everything hurt. So the two
biggest members of the crew let me drape my arms
over their shoulders, exactly the way I had draped my
arms over their shoulders of the models during the beach shot.
I stopped for a second. Hey, Ona, you sure you
(40:29):
don't want to Frankin carry me up the stairs, she said,
with genuine sincerity. Now that's blank and funny. Seemed to
me like it took about a month to get up
those stairs. I assumed there would be an ambulance waiting
by this point. Instead, there was a park ranger. This
(40:49):
is a state park. I have to see you first,
then I have to call the fire department. I said, well,
this pain on my side here, this feels like fire,
but I don't think it's actually fire. He called the
fire department. They showed up, They assessed me. They called
the ambulance. At some point, probably when I was being
half dragged up the steps, something happened on the impact side.
(41:10):
If I now tried to lower my left arm from
way above my head, I got severe shooting, burning pain
from my left arm pit to about my left knee. Cleverly,
I figured out not to do that. Keep your left
arm above your head and it won't hurt. I use
(41:32):
the restroom in the ranger station. There was no blood,
so no kidney damage. I'm okay. It does, however, hurt,
and something could be broken. Now I go back outside,
my arm above my head like I'm signaling for a
cab on the streets of New York City. And the
ambulance shows up and the AMTS tell me to get
on there gurney, and I said, I can't. I can't
(41:54):
lower my arm unless I want excruciating pain. I can't
move my arm. I have to stay in this position,
looking like a Flamenco dancer. But I said, listen, can
you lock the wheels on this gurney? And they said,
sure we can, of course we can. And I said,
just lock the wheels and I'll just back up onto
(42:14):
the end of it and I'll fall backwards. And it worked,
and so with my left arm still extended over my head,
they loaded me into the ambulance. Apparently, when I fell
from that rock or cliff as I call it, it
looked like I had been shot. Fifty sixty people on
a commercial crew. The shooting day is over. They have
(42:36):
missed lunch. There is a very nice catered lunch sitting there.
And they told me later that everybody was so disturbed
by what happened to me that only three people even
took something to go and know. The director was not
filming as I fell. Sadly, so we hit every pothole
on Pacific Coast Highway on the trip from the beach
(42:57):
to the hospital. Oh ah, ooh, I call my agent
from my cell phone, she laughed. I called ESPN actually
to check on the catered dinner. Oh what's new? Oh?
I fell off a cliff shooting the commercial. They laughed.
And I'm lying there in the emergency room waiting for
X rays when my cell phone rings again and I
reach into my left pocket and I had the phone
(43:18):
halfway to my ear when I realized, my left side
does not hurt anymore at all. It does not hurt
at all. Well, that was a quick recovery. I sat up.
My left side felt fine, In fact, it felt great,
and a nurse came over and suggested I should lie
back down again. I said, why, somehow I got better
(43:38):
on the trip from all the potholes and just lying here,
in fact, I feel great. Did you guys remove my
left leg while I wasn't looking? Did you replace it
with the left leg that I had when I was twelve?
Because I could hop back to Connecticut on my left
leg right now, Just cancel the flight, she laughed. She said, no,
what I was feeling would be the morphine they gave
me so they could twist me around and take the
(44:00):
X rays they needed. And I said, please never ever
give me any more that ever again. Thank you. My
Judo flashback, as it turned out, had done the job.
I had broken nothing. The er doctor complimented me on
my fall, and he said, I probably had six or
eight different sprains on my left side. It would hurt,
(44:21):
but it would keep getting better and I'd be able
to make my flight home the day after next. He
was completely right, although I now found twenty five years
later that it's beginning to hurt like I just fell
off the cliff. Anyway, I went back to the hotel.
I ate well, I slept well, I managed to walk
around with the help of a cane, and I went
back for day two of the commercial shoot. This one
(44:42):
is in a mansion in Pasadena, a room teeming full
of UNA's lying on the floor. They're photographs through chandeliers.
They're lazy, rich kids who also need to be told
to eat something. I arrived and walked into applause from
the crew, and I delivered a well rehearsed line. And
now for my next trick, which is when the director
(45:04):
John came over and apologized, and he said he thought
this entry into shot for me would be way easier.
What I had to do is lie on the floor,
then sit up and deliver the line eat something. If
you can sit up, he said, that is. If you can't,
we can do something else. Can you sit up? And
I thought about it, and I rubbed my lower back
(45:24):
and I said, based on the day so far, yeah,
I could, but probably only six or seven times. And
I said, while I can sit up, it's clear to
me one of those bad sprains was in the muscles
somewhere of my lower back. And if I try to
lay back down, I lose control. I'll just crash back
to the floor. That actually happened getting out of bed
(45:46):
this morning. So after each take, the same two guys
who had walked me up the stairs after I fell
at the beach gently held my arms and shoulders and
lowered me back to lying on the floor. We got
what we needed. I went back to the hotel. I
had dinner with some friends. The next day. I was
a little sore, but perfectly fine to get back on
(46:08):
the plane east, and sure enough, only time ever, I
had a west to east tailwind. The flight from lax
to Newark took three hours and forty eight minutes. We
traversed the country like a dart shot from a gun
or an Ulderman falling from a rock out cropping. Oh,
by the way, the commercial was an immediate success, unlike
(46:30):
any that Boston Market had ever done before. In those days,
they were packed each night for dinner at every location,
selling half chickens and full meals with potatoes and salads,
and they were getting an average of twelve dollars out
of every customer. The rest of the day the place
was empty. The idea behind my commercials. They were designed
(46:51):
to bring in a lunch crowd a sandwich and a
soda and a bag of chips for four dollars. Soon
they were swamped at lunchtime. Boston Market ordered three more commercials,
these to be shot in a studio in New York.
They offered me fifty grand a day. An entire new
career vista was opening in front of me. I was,
(47:11):
for a week or two in early nineteen ninety seven
the most successful male commercial actor in the country. We
shot those three spots. I interrupted a grunge concert to
shout eat something at the band, and then I got
carried off by the crowd in a mosh pit. And
I interrupted a Romeo soap opera surgeon coming on to
(47:32):
his nurse by rising from the operating table to shout
eat something. And then we did something with ballplayers at
the stadium on Randall's Island. And I remember nothing of
that because Unlike the first two, they never edited the
film because that's when it happened, their equivalent of falling
off the cliff. I will confess it had not occurred
(47:54):
to me. Then again, I did not own Boston Market.
I did not work for their marketing department. I did
not run the ad agency they employed. But none of
them anticipated it either. After the first few weeks of
giddy glee about the lunch crowds I had brought them,
somebody noticed something unfortunate and unexpected. Basically, for every four
(48:16):
dollar lunch they were now selling, they were selling one
fewer twelve dollars dinner. They had not gained any new customers.
They had just managed to get their customers to each
spend eight dollars less. These very well made, very memorable
commercials worked very very well, And the problem with that
(48:36):
was each time they did work, it cost Boston Market
eight dollars. By the end of nineteen ninety seven, Boston
Market was something like nine hundred million dollars in debt.
It had filed for bankruptcy and had been taken over
by McDonald's. On the other hand, I got my money,
and in the twenty five years plus since Boston market
(48:59):
has not once used a celebrity endorser to try to
sell their food. Oh and there was one other positive outcome.
I'm actually very proud of this. The ad agency got
the award in question. I did not, so I don't
know which group gave it to us, but that eat
Something campaign actually won an award because somehow my shouting
(49:22):
eat something at Una and the other way thin models,
somehow that cut through to at least some victims of
eating disorders. The Boston Market eat Something ad campaign for
which I fell off a cliff. Okay, a rock outcropping
for which I fell off a rock outcropping got an
award from a national Bolimia association. I've done all the
(49:59):
damage I can do here. Thank you for your support.
Last night, Countdown got its nine millionth download since we
started last year. Half of these have been since February.
Thank you tell the others. Here are the credits. Most
of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
Ray and John Phillip Shaneal, who are the Countdown musical directors.
(50:21):
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip, Schanelle, guitars based
and drums by Brian Ray. Produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged unperformed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Fauss. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was Kenny Maine.
(50:44):
Everything else is pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
this the eight hundred and sixty third day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Do not forget to keep arresting him
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and throw the first punch. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(51:14):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. CNN
has finally been called out for its televising of the
(00:25):
Trump town hall. Called out by an active CNN broadcast journalist,
and not just by any active CNN broadcast journalist, but
by one of the seminal figures in the entire history
of the network, and called out by her not just
in public, but during the commencement address at the Columbia
(00:48):
University Graduate School of Journalism, CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane
Amanpour the first on air person at CNN to say
what so many evidently feel as sharply now as they
did when the Trump fiasca was still live on CNN's air.
She used the terms of the diplomat she has often covered,
(01:10):
and she maintained the tone of respect and politeness that
has defined her since that day I first met her
in the nineteen nineties, and then for twenty five minutes,
she diplomatically and respectfully and politely blew Chris Licked to
hell and the decision to prostitute the network for the
sake of the ephemeral Trump ratings with him, often by
(01:33):
merely repeating what journalism is supposed to do and never
having to say that last week Chris Licked and CNN
did nothing of the kind.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Especially to speak truth to power, to hold the powerful
accountable is not just a slogan. It is vital. And
when we do it well, it makes a huge difference,
and when we don't, it makes an equal but opposite difference.
I was advised early on to find my voice, and
once I figured out what that meant, I did, And
(02:02):
for better or for worse, I've always to speak out
when staying silent might have been easier. So right now,
in this moment, for me personally, I want to do
what's right and empathize with and acknowledge all those who
need to trust us at CNN, the most trusted name
in news, I understand that the town hall a week
(02:23):
ago was for many an earthquake. And indeed, because I'm
a reporter, before I came here today, i'd come from London.
I met with CNN CEO Chris Licked at our New
York headquarters, and he said the same thing, that it
was an earthquake, but for slightly different reasons, and I'll
go into them. I wanted to hear from him firsthand
(02:43):
what he had been thinking we had a very robust
exchange of views.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Well, I bet Christi anavan por emphasized two critiques of
the town hall, the presence of the live, uncontrolled, uncontrollable
audience and another issue, the presence of the live, uncontrolled,
uncontrollable Trump.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear
in that particular format. We're all grown ups, of course,
and we can hold differing opinions without a great, big
blow up. We know Trump and his tendencies. Everyone does.
(03:25):
He just seizes the stage and dominates. No matter how
much flak the moderator tries to aim at the incoming
it doesn't often work for me. I would have dropped
the mic at nasty person, but then that's me. I've
been in the ring for a long time with many
of these people.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And with that aside, Caitlin Collins disappeared in a quick
puff of smoke, and when Christiana, i'm'm poor compared what
CNN and Licked and almost everybody else in American journalism
had been doing to how the media of seventy years
ago initially tried to cover the infamous Senator Joe mcac
arthy and thus let him run rampant across our landscape
(04:08):
unchecked for four years. Lichts and CNN's arguments for putting
Trump on live also disappeared. In a quick puff of smoke.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Your own Columbia Journalism Review a few weeks ago addressed
precisely this issue, concluding that the American press and maybe
the world's press, still hasn't learned how to deal with
or cover Donald Trump. Maybe we should revert back to
the newspaper editors and TV chiefs of the nineteen fifties, who,
in the end refused to allow McCarthyism onto their pages
(04:41):
unless his foul lies, his witch hunts, and his rants
reached the basic evidence level required in a court of law.
His influence gradually decreased with all but his fervent cliques
and cults. So maybe less is more, Maybe lie is
(05:05):
not always right.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And then never saying the words Christian I'm I'm poor
did what Chris Licht and Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper
and Caitlin Collins and a hatful of unnamed CNN spokespeople
never had the simple courage nor the simple decency to do.
After the Trump fiasco, she apologized on behalf of her
(05:27):
beloved network.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Today, I can only hope that your trust in us
might have been shaken but not shattered, that you believe
we can survive and rebuild that trust, and that most importantly,
you will continue to see and know that we are
still the only network that brings you the world. I
(05:50):
also want you to digest this. It is my mantra
and I've learnt it through bitter experience in the field.
Be truthful, but not neutral both ciderism, on the one hand,
and on the other hand, is not always objectivity. It
does not get you to the truth. Drawing false moral
(06:14):
or factual equivalence is neither objective or truthful. Objectivity is
our golden rule, and it is in weighing all the
sides and all the evidence, hearing everyone reporting everything, but
not rushing to equate them when there is no equating.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Memorial services for Chris Licht's professional reputation and any possible
defense of the Trump town hall will be held next week.
Missamonpor will not be invited to speak. In a bit
of meta reporting. However, CNN's Oliver Darcy, previously the only
CNN employee of any kind to express even the mildest
criticism of the town Hall on the record reported that
(06:57):
Lickt knew in advance that Amanpor was to speak at Columbia,
and that he even emailed the entire CNN family of
four thousand employees worldwide that they should watch the feed
from the Jay School because it was a quote rare
and exceptional honor. I guess that's the only thing he
could have done. See if he messed with her, or
if he messes with her now, he will have a
(07:19):
walkout on his hands. And I know, Christian, i'manpoor for
about twenty five years, and we are professional friends. And frankly,
I think that she pulled punches in her speech and
obviously in her meeting with Lickt, at least as she
described it. She is polite and sincerely, polite and old
fashioned formal, as you heard. And on the other hand,
(07:42):
I have always believed, and she has always smiled when
I have told her this, that she could disappear people.
If Lickt vanishes tomorrow without leaving a clue, and somebody says, Keith,
what do you think happened to him? I would simply mumble, Christian,
I'm poor. Probably, and still with four knowledge, CNN managed
(08:04):
to screw this up Amanpour's address to the Columbia Jay
School graduation ceremony. And remember this is something that came
to a baseball player's speech upon being inducted into the
Baseball Hall of Fame. That address occurred at almost the
exact hour that Chris Lick rewarded the hapless Kitlyn Collins,
who did not drop the mic at nasty person for
(08:25):
selling out whatever principles a former George Soros conspiracy theorist
for Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller could possibly have and being
the punching bag on CNN for Trump rewarding Kitlyn Collins
by giving her her own nine PM show with weeks
and weeks of anchoring experience on her resume. The amanpur remarks,
(08:46):
as they spread today and in the days and weeks
and probably years to come, will subsume the Collins show,
which they're not saying they've named, but which I assume
will be called. Well, at least she tried with Caitlyn Collins,
CNN executive speaking off the record, I think, to the
New York Times and others said that no, they had
not even gotten around to figuring out what kind of
(09:08):
show Collins would do the show premieres next month in primetime,
even as she is being trashed on the left and
misogynistically and crudely mocked on the right. Maybe it can
be televised live from the Anderson Cooper's career memorial broadcast silo.
But Chris Flicked always has a plan. See an executives
(09:29):
against speaking off the record. That means Licked see an
executive speaking off the record, think that maybe what they
could do with her show is are you ready cover
one or two of the top news stories every night?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Genius a news show on cable news network only only
we'll do news in it. Wait, we're already putting news
in CNN news shows. Damn. I would point out here
that Licked has also done the following strategy, which which
is either thirty seventh dimensional chess or its plain old.
(10:08):
When we worked together at MSNBC, we used to think
he ate paste stupidity. Upon arrival at CNN a year ago,
he had an okay morning show and at Okay Primetime
without a nine pm host because the guy had just
gotten fired. Soon after his arrival. He moved his ten
PM host, Don Lemmon from that hour to the morning show.
To shore up mornings. Now he is moving his morning
(10:31):
host Collins from the mornings to nine PM to shore
up primetime. Maybe before year's end he can complete this
by moving Collins back to mornings to shore up the
mornings again, or by doing what he wound up doing
to Lemon when Lemon could not function in the mornings.
As everybody told him, Lemon could not function in the mornings,
a firing, speaking of which, so sure looks like I'm
(10:57):
not the only one who dumped Laura Ingram. Matt Drudge
reporting yesterday that Fox is moving Sean Hannah into Tucker
Carlson's old eight PM slot, which is actually an adroit
move that may not stop the bleeding over there, but
will probably staunch it. But Drudge, without spelling it out,
says that Jesse Waters and the spectacularly overconfident Greg Guttfeld,
(11:22):
We'll be getting new primetime shows, and all that would
be left if Hannity is moving to eight would be
nine and ten, And if one of them is on
at ten, it means Ingram just lost her primetime ten
PM program, didn't she? Lots of people jumped on this
by saying this meant Laura Ingram had been fired by Fox,
and Fox jumped right back, stridently saying she was the
(11:42):
highest rated woman in cable and she hadn't been fired,
and also stridently avoiding saying anything like what time her
show would be on going forward or if we just
see her like for fifteen seconds at a time between commercials.
Fox also made the claim that the firing presumption was
being spread by left wing activists, which is the first
time anybody's called Matt Drudge alone left wing activist. I'll
(12:07):
remind you from the yes, I dated Laura Ingram twenty
five years ago, and I have the scars to prove
it that. On our first of two dates, Laura explained
to me how the not very vast right wing conspiracy
worked and how it included her brother and his friend,
Matt Drudge. I don't know if that's the footprint of
(12:28):
information movement here, but it's funny. It was Drudge who
first reported Tucker Carlson getting the Fox eight pm show
and Megan Kelly, if you remember who the hell she was,
getting the nine pm slot, And in fact, Drudge once
hosted a show himself on Fox, but insisted on wearing
his hat during it, and the only thing anybody remembers
(12:49):
from it is the hat from what I was able
to see on here. Neither Hannity nor Ingram said anything
in their broadcasts last night about reassignments. Still big day
over here in keith Land, My God, God, Tucker Carlson
and probably Laura Ingram are gone from Fox in a
little over three weeks. And Chris got his licked kicked
(13:13):
by Christian Amanpoor at Columbia j School. And whereas there
is much to discuss about the debt limit and the
fourteenth Amendment and why the man I would nominate for
president right now is Representative Jamal Bowman. I'll get to
that in a moment, but for now, excuse me while
I kiss the sky.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Right A talk on our Ston f drumcon Derisia, dinm Dinazoa,
(14:00):
Don Lastmo god.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Man, Bell, Don Broyd, Don Bood, Don Kananzi Falst.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman postscripts to the news,
some insights, some snarks, some predictions, and the lesson for
today is throw the first punch. You know who throws
the first punch? Democratic Congressman Jamal Bowman, who represents my hometown,
(14:47):
and I am damn proud of it and damn proud
of him. Democrat Robert Garcia filed a privilege motion to
expel George Santos and all of the other people living
in his body from Congress. The privilege motion must be
voted on within two days. Republicans then vote to refer
that motion to the Ethics Committee, which allows them both
(15:08):
to bury the motion for months, while still pretending that
they are standing up against Santos's bottomless pit of con jobs. Well,
at dusk yesterday, George Santos is standing there on the
steps of the House talking to gullible easy mark reporters,
exercising his one and only skill, making it up as
he goes along. And who appears but Conresson Jamal Bowman.
(15:33):
You will recognize him. He used to be a school principal.
They did not have a PA system at his school.
His voice thus sounds like a first punch. I can't
continue to.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Asrust you guys.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
I'm gonna lotch all right. Why don't the party Republicans kicking?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Come on?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Hate it gets better? Who now enters stage right? Marjorie
Taylor Barney, rebel Karen Green, Party's hanging by your thread
and the party hands. The party's hanging by your thread.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
You got to save the party. Listen, no more cuanon,
no more mad that heart feel.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
No more death ceiling nonsense. Come on now, save the party.
We save America.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Saved it's children. We do something about guns.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Come on infesting as a case s because baughter is
the party is.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
What truck left talking about? Where's the microhood kids?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
You got?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Where is something that we love them?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
We love the mife and children probably be awesome.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
You can't find them?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
What are you talking about talking about my grant children?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
No, no, we don't know. I don't know. That's Fox
Boos has Fox this.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I needs to save the party. Save the party, Save
the party. Also save the liver. Jamal Bowman knows how
to make a scene, knows how to mock the easily mocked,
is not afraid to do any of that. Bless him,
(17:28):
clone him. There are some exceptions to this, but generally speaking,
this is the way it has been in our country
for two decades or more. Nearly the entirety of the
moral force of the nation, nearly the entirety of responsible
governance in the nation, nearly the entirety of law and legality,
and justice. All of that has belonged to the Democrats,
(17:51):
but all of the political courage and skill, all of
that has belonged to the Republicans and the fascists. And
you know how that changes. You know how Democrats stop
losing despite having more responsible governance, law, legality, and justice.
By Jamal bowmaning this by throwing the dam first punch
(18:18):
to that end, quote, Republicans have made it clear that
they are prepared to hold our entire economy hostage unless
you accede to their demands to reduce the deficit on
the backs of working families. That is simply unacceptable, writes
a group of Democratic senators including Ed Markey, Liz Warren,
and Bernie Sanders. To President Biden, we write to urgently
(18:40):
request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the
fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Using this authority would allow
the United States to continue to pay its bills on
time without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe. The fourteenth Amendment.
We have discussed this before, particularly that part about the
(19:00):
validity of the public debt authorized by law shall not
be questioned. And what Biden should do is schedule a
news briefing or a short speech and say simply, the
Constitution of the United States obligates me, under the fourteenth
Amendment to pay the debts incurred by the previous Trump administration,
and I will do so. There will be no default,
(19:23):
There will be no Republican cuts to services or anything
else to benefit the rich and the corporations and the Trumps.
The debts will be paid regardless of what the House does.
And I do not negotiate with terrorists. There will be
no further negotiations with Republicans until they raised the debt ceiling.
(19:45):
Thank you. That's it. Tell the country who's at fault.
Tell them how you are going to stop those who
are at fault. Tell them why for once, for once,
let the lead Democrat in this country throw the first punch.
What would the Republicans do in the mo mirror image
of this situation. They would throw the first goddamned punch.
(20:08):
They would tell the public what they were going to do.
They'd do it. They'd proclaim themselves righteous and good and
God driven, and they would blame the other party. Dare
the other party to do something about it. Always make
sure the other party looks like the guilty party, throw
the first punch. Does the fourteenth Amendment constitutionally obligate the
president to pay national debts? I don't know. I'm not
(20:29):
a constitutional lawyer. I took one law class as a
junior at Cornell. But act like it does, Act like
it does until Kevin McCarthy proofs he is really stupid
enough not just a posture and threaten about the debt ceiling,
but to actually go into a court with the expressed
obvious desire to get a judge to rule that, sorry,
(20:52):
the world economy has to crash. Go ahead, keV, explain
that to your corporate masters. Go ahead, keV, find a
judge who wants to push the button and launch the
economic nukes against every man and child in the country.
Mister President, throw the first punch. You know who else
(21:16):
threw the first punch yesterday? The National Archives, the proud,
the few, the brave, the librarians, the archivists, might be
the ones who put Trump in jail, and they just
threw another first punch against him. The Archives warned Trump
by letter that it will now hand over to Jack
Smith's sixteen records, which show that Trump knew damned well
(21:38):
that he couldn't just declassify documents by snapping his fingers.
His primary line of defense, especially after he boasted on
that Nuremberg rally on CNN last week, that he deliberately
took classified records. His primary defense has been that a
president can just I don't know, blink three times, and
then a classified document is a not classified any more document.
(22:02):
The sixteen records in question, the Archives has written Trump
all reflect communications involving close presidential advisors, some of them
directed to you personally concerning whether, why, and how you
should declassify certain classified records. In other words, those sixteen
documents provide that thing all prosecutors love, and we're beginning
(22:24):
to see that Jack Smith especially loves guilty for knowledge.
They told Trump he didn't have carte blanche to declassify.
He and his aides clearly responded. Message understood. Then he
stole the records. Then he claimed he could declassify them
as if he never knew any differently, Oh, Starry, here
are sixteen documents proving you did damn well too know
(22:47):
differently throw the first punch, and you know who else
threw a first punch at Trump? The office of Manhattan
District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump's main skill in life is
to use the bureaucracy to wear and slow the bureaucracy down.
He gets indicted, he gets arrested, he stalls. He and
(23:10):
his lawyers complained that the DA was not specific about
the alleged crimes and the specific laws he is supposed
to have broken. And then the right wing echo chamber shouts,
it doesn't even say which law he's broken. Guess who
just sent him a list of the laws he's broken. First,
the agreement to unlawfully suppressed negative stories about defendant before
an election in order to influence the outcome of the
(23:31):
election that breaks New York Election Law one seven Dash
one five to two and Federal Election Campaign Act fifty
two USC. Three zero one zero one. Second, multiple false
statements in the business records of different entities to advance
that agreement that breaks New York tax Law one to
eight zero one dash a dash three. Third, disguising reimbursement
(23:55):
payments by doubling them and falsely characterizing them as income
for tax reasons that breaks the same state tax law.
And fourth, multiple admissions of specific crimes by participants, including
by guilty please to felonies breaking New York State penal
Law one seven five point zero five. Will there be
(24:15):
anything else? Mister Trump? Do you need a receipt for
having had your head handed to you? And one more
first punch throwne Ron Widen, God Love, Ron Wyden. While
Dick Durbin is sitting there wondering if he can get
(24:36):
Dianne Feinstein an assistant to help her figure out where
she's been the last three months California or Washington. Senator
Ron Wyden just threatened to subpoena Harlan Crowe's ass Widen,
in his role as the Senate Finance Committee Chair, was
the one who wrote Crow a month before Durbin elaborately
announced he was going to write him. Widen wanted a
(24:57):
full list of every gift pride well gift thrift. He
wanted a list of every rift Harland Crowe ever gave
Clarence Thomas and the accompanying tax records. And Crowe's lawyer
wrote back saying Senate Finance had no jurisdiction. So Widen
just hit Crow's lawyer in the face with the first
punch metaphorically, of course, wrote him back. The lawyer's quotes
(25:21):
assertions are without merit. Senator Widen wrote a cursory review
of the committee's activities demonstrates long standing oversight and legislative
interests in gift and estate tax laws. It goes without saying,
but mister Crow is not a branch of government. My
hope is that with the issue of committee jurisdiction settled,
mister Crowe provides answers to the questions I've put before
(25:42):
him a second time un quote Owen. Then surprise, Ron
Wyden also throws the second punch quote. I realize the
committee may need to follow another route to compel his answers,
and I'm prepared to make that happen.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And he's down.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Arland, Crow's lawyer is down.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
The count is five ah four three tarhar and Crow's
lawyer has beaten in one round.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Throw the first punch. Still ahead on countdown, just to
get away from politics and Fox Quote News and CNN
for two minutes the day I fell off a cliff
shooting the commercial in things I promise not to tell
(26:38):
first in each tradition of Countdown, we feature a dog. Indeed,
you can help. Every dog has its day. Two weeks
ago I told you about venom an. Unfortunately, named Pity
Puppy who faced death here in New York. Even though
he's great with kids, he plays with other dogs, he
lets you rub his cheeks. What do I find out yesterday?
But he's not only been saved, but he's being fostered
(26:59):
by one of my old dog sitters. She has changed
his name from Venom to Venice, and she says quote,
he's a huge angel. He also has a growth they
have to remove. They believe it's benign, but it has
to go. And she and Happy Go Lucky Mastiff Rescue
are trying to raise funds for the operation. If you
can help Venice, you can find him at Happy Go
(27:21):
Luckymastiff Rescue dot com or on my Twitter feeds. Any
donation will be gratefully accepted. I thank you, and Venice
thanks you. There's an ad agency in Santa Monica. They
(27:47):
just called me, would you like to do two commercials
for Boston Market? I answered with profound indifference, Okay, would
you like to do two commercials for Boston Market for
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? I believe My next
words were, well, I can't do them today, but sure.
They faxed me the scripts. They're actually pretty funny, very
(28:08):
well done. I think you like them. I believe. My
next next words were, if I don't have to kill
anybody in them, call them back and say yes and
get the money. Since the idea was these ads would
run on sports telecasts, most of them on ESPN. My
yes got back to management at ESPN pretty quickly. You
can't do these, one of the executives explained, dismissively. We
(28:30):
don't let anybody do commercials, I laughed. Every one of
us has done this is Sports Center commercials. Some of
us have written that this is Sports Center commercials. You
don't even give us days off for making them, let
alone give us money. This is money I don't have
to ask you for. The executive shook his head. Those
aren't commercials. Those are promotional announcements. They're in your contract.
(28:52):
Nobody here does commercials, I said. Chris Berman has done
a beer commercial in three out of the last five
Super Bowls. My commercial is just for food. Well, he's
b I pointed out. I went to high school with him,
and I was the star of their most popular program,
a little thing called Sports Center TV Guy thatd just
(29:13):
named us one of the top ten shows on TV. Shows,
not sports shows usin Seinfeld. Sorry, well, now I got
a little angry, which never happened to me at ESPN,
and I went to my ace in the hole. My
contract expires in like ten months, and you know I
intend to leave, and during those ten months, you're going
(29:33):
to pay me about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
So Boston Market is going to pay me two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for two days work instead of
ten month's work. Plus they're going to take me out
first class to LA for a couple of days, and
they're probably going to do some radio spots and I'll
make another twenty five grant. So you're giving me a choice,
make say, two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in
(29:58):
like five days for them, or make two hundred and
sixty thousand dollars here between now and next September when
I'm planning and leaving. Anyway, if you make me choose
between those two, which do you expect me to choose?
The executive coughed we'll get back to an hour later.
He got back to me by phone. Okay, we see
your point, but there are still two problems we can't
just let everybody do commercials. I said, well, you know,
(30:21):
why don't you just let anybody who went to the
high school that Berman and I went to do commercials.
He did not laugh at that. Wow, how about only
your regular weekday sports center anchors get to do commercials?
There was a grunt and a maybe. Then we got
to the gist of the real problem. Here's the real problem.
People on your show. They'll be resentful. And I said,
(30:45):
why will they be resentful? Because the production assistants are
expecting that they're going to get their own commercials too.
And I said, how about this, the day I'm out
there actually shooting the commercial, I will get Boston Market
to like cater dinner for the show staff, even if
I have to pay for it myself. There was a
long silence. Ones would management be included in that? And
(31:08):
can we get all the side dishes too? I swear
to God so off. I flew at the beginning of December,
during a winter that had gone frigid in October in Bristol, Connecticut,
and the next thing I knew, I was on the
beach in Malibu at Leo Correo State Park. The crew
is complaining because it is raining lightly and only about
(31:31):
fifty five degrees. To me, fresh from the hinterlands and
having not been back to La since I had moved
out in nineteen ninety two, It's like I'm in Tahiti.
And my agent was right. The scripts were funny and original.
They were ascend up of the old Calvin Klein obsession
perfume commercials. There are two extremely thin models and they
(31:51):
are filmed writhing in frustration on the beach on the
big rock outcroppings at Leo Correo State Park. She is
supposed to say, emptiness, how can I fill this empty
void of mpess? They are in black and white, but
I emerge from behind a rock or or wherever I'm
in color. They are in black and white, and I
(32:14):
say when they say, don't know what to do about
this emptiness, I say, eat something. I then sell the sandwich.
Then it cuts to a shot of me walking them
down the beach with my arm over each of their shoulders,
telling them eating is a good thing, and who's wearing
cologne or who likes sports or other stupid things like that.
(32:36):
For a quarter of a million dollars, Well, we start
this at eight am and the producer and the director
John say to me and the two models and the crew, look,
this rain is just going to get heavier as the
day goes on. So what we want to do is
not take a break for lunch. We'll just shoot until
like two pm, and then you can have lunch, or
you can take your lunch with you, and you'll all
get paid for a full day. And everybody agrees. The
(32:57):
actress agrees, and she swears as she agrees. The actress
is named Una. Una is from Chicago, and it will
soon prove Una swears more than a long shoreman. This
blanking colt can blank my blanking blank. To be fair,
Una and the guy are dressed in Calvin Klein rags
(33:19):
and they are there and they are from there, and
they are freezing while I am wearing a production company
brand new suit and shoes, and to me it feels
like it's Tahiti. We take a couple of hours where
we do all the shots where I emerge from behind
the rocks, or go around the rocks, or over the rocks,
or I look over the rocks, and the director finally says, okay,
(33:39):
we got five good options. Let's set up for the
walk down. The beach with your arms around each other's shoulders.
By now it's noon or twelve thirty. And as they
move the cameras and the rain starts to move from
a mist to like a light rain. Two prop guys
bring out rakes, and I'm sitting with the crew and
(33:59):
I've been asking them questions all morning in between takes
about how this is all being arranged and made lit.
And I say, rakes, what do you need rakes for
on a commercial? And they say you'll see. And then
each time me and Una and the guy walk down
the beach and the director says cut, we go back
to the starting point. Now out come two stage hands
with rakes and they rake the sand on the beach smooth,
(34:24):
and I say, oh, footprints. So each time I walk
down this damp beach with the rain just a little
harder than it was the take before, in my brand
new dress shoes, what I'm basically doing is polishing the
soles of these brand new shoes on damp sand. I mean,
by the time the director John says we are done,
(34:45):
these soles of these shoes are so shiny. I could
go ice skating in these shoes. And John comes over
and he says, listen, we got another half an hour.
Can we go back and try a new way for
you to appear on the rocks? I mean, can you
Can you climb rocks at all? And I say, yeah, actually,
I'm surprisingly good at it. You wouldn't think so, but
I can climb rocks. And he points to one rock
(35:07):
out cropping on the beach. Maybe it's eighteen twenty feet high,
and he says, try to climb up that and go
as high as you can. If there's nothing that'll support you,
we'll forget it. And I try, and sure enough I
get up near the top and there is a perfect
little shelf in the rock that I can comfortably stand on.
And the director points the camera up and he says, oh, damn,
the angle's too tough. I can't swing the camera down
(35:30):
fast enough for when you say eat something, so I
refocus on the models. It won't work. Is there anything
lower on the rock where you could stand? Can you
come down at all? And I said, I think so.
I think I can come down a little bit. Well,
little did I know? Sure enough, maybe nine ten feet
from the beach, up in the sky, there is another
(35:53):
little foothold on this rock. Outcropping. It is not big
enough for me to put both my feet on it.
But I say, if you don't mind me holding onto
the rock as I say, eat something, I can do
it from here. And the director says, okay, let's try it.
And I climb down the rock and he's moving the
camera and I put my left foot on this flat part,
which is nine or ten feet up from the beach,
(36:15):
and for a couple of seconds everything is fine. I'm good.
And that's when I feel that my left shoe, my
brand new left shoe, straight from the floor, shine catalog,
bright and shiny and now having been polished by four
hours of walking up and down on a wet beach,
complete with two guys there to rake the beach and
(36:37):
make sure it is as shiny as it possibly can be.
My left shoe, slipperier than a diamond, is now moving
of its own accord. I'm holding, I'm doing a good
rock climbing job, but the shoe, the shoe is not holding. Hey,
I say, with some alarm, I'm about to fall off.
(37:02):
I hit the sand no more than five five seconds later,
so that's about us sixteen foot drop from my head
to the beach. And for weeks, for years still to
this day, it has amazed me more than anything else
that happened. It has amazed me how much went through
my mind before I crashed. In fact, before I actually fell,
(37:25):
I know, I did a quick height calculation. Yeah, fifteen
sixteen feet. I recognized that the outcropping was so vertical
that I was unlikely to hit any of the rock
on the way down. But just the same I remember
that the rocks continued under the sand. See. I took
two years of geology, and this was going to be
a hard landing. More amazingly than all that, Though I
(37:49):
had taken judo as a kid, I hated every minute
of judo. Nineteen sixty five nineteen sixty six, so twenty
six and twenty seven years before we shot this commercial,
I was in the studio, the Judo Studio in White Plains,
New York, the day of the nineteen sixty five Northeast blackout,
(38:12):
and the only happy memory of the entire judo experience
I had was when our instructor, Bob Durocher locked us
in the dojo that had been converted from a store
that had a front door that was set in several
feet from the streets so they could put display cases up.
And now it's pitch black. So he went out and
got his Volkswagen Karmen Gia drove it up over the
(38:34):
sidewalk into that set in entryway of this converted storefront.
He put his high beams on. He flooded the dojo
with enough light that we kids could change out of
our judo stuff and back into our regular clothes and
wait for our parents to come get us. He did
a great job. I didn't like the judo so much,
but his blackout operations practice was superb. So now, with
(38:59):
all of this having gone through my head in a second,
I began to fall, and everything else from that year
of once a week judo classes comes back to me. Relax.
As you drop, the more of your body that hits,
the less you'll get hurt. Hands protect the head. Drop
like a sack of sand. I did not hit the sand,
per se. I kind of splattered on my left side
(39:22):
swop as I rolled over onto my back and took
a breath and sat up. Of all people, Una was
the first to race over to me. You want some
blank and tea. I said, no, thanks, let me see
if I'm dead. The grips. Tried to help me to
my feet, but I felt some very sharp pain that
which suggested we should slow down. The problem was, though,
(39:46):
even if I needed an ambulance, there was no way
to get one down to where we were shooting, As
that rock out cropping that I had just fallen from suggested,
I like to call it a cliff every now and again.
Leo Correo State Park had a real cliff in it
and a flight of stairs, I mean a hundred steps
to one hundred steps up to the Pacific Coast Highway
(40:07):
and a park. Sure enough, I was able to stand,
but I couldn't move easily. Everything hurt. So the two
biggest members of the crew let me drape my arms
over their shoulders, exactly the way I had draped my
arms over their shoulders of the models during the beach shot.
I stopped for a second. Hey, Ona, you sure you
(40:29):
don't want to Frankin carry me up the stairs, she said,
with genuine sincerity. Now that's blank and funny. Seemed to
me like it took about a month to get up
those stairs. I assumed there would be an ambulance waiting
by this point. Instead, there was a park ranger. This
(40:49):
is a state park. I have to see you first,
then I have to call the fire department. I said, well,
this pain on my side here, this feels like fire,
but I don't think it's actually fire. He called the
fire department. They showed up, They assessed me. They called
the ambulance. At some point, probably when I was being
half dragged up the steps, something happened on the impact side.
(41:10):
If I now tried to lower my left arm from
way above my head, I got severe shooting, burning pain
from my left arm pit to about my left knee. Cleverly,
I figured out not to do that. Keep your left
arm above your head and it won't hurt. I use
(41:32):
the restroom in the ranger station. There was no blood,
so no kidney damage. I'm okay. It does, however, hurt,
and something could be broken. Now I go back outside,
my arm above my head like I'm signaling for a
cab on the streets of New York City. And the
ambulance shows up and the AMTS tell me to get
on there gurney, and I said, I can't. I can't
(41:54):
lower my arm unless I want excruciating pain. I can't
move my arm. I have to stay in this position,
looking like a Flamenco dancer. But I said, listen, can
you lock the wheels on this gurney? And they said,
sure we can, of course we can. And I said,
just lock the wheels and I'll just back up onto
(42:14):
the end of it and I'll fall backwards. And it worked,
and so with my left arm still extended over my head,
they loaded me into the ambulance. Apparently, when I fell
from that rock or cliff as I call it, it
looked like I had been shot. Fifty sixty people on
a commercial crew. The shooting day is over. They have
(42:36):
missed lunch. There is a very nice catered lunch sitting there.
And they told me later that everybody was so disturbed
by what happened to me that only three people even
took something to go and know. The director was not
filming as I fell. Sadly, so we hit every pothole
on Pacific Coast Highway on the trip from the beach
(42:57):
to the hospital. Oh ah, ooh, I call my agent
from my cell phone, she laughed. I called ESPN actually
to check on the catered dinner. Oh what's new? Oh?
I fell off a cliff shooting the commercial. They laughed.
And I'm lying there in the emergency room waiting for
X rays when my cell phone rings again and I
reach into my left pocket and I had the phone
(43:18):
halfway to my ear when I realized, my left side
does not hurt anymore at all. It does not hurt
at all. Well, that was a quick recovery. I sat up.
My left side felt fine, In fact, it felt great,
and a nurse came over and suggested I should lie
back down again. I said, why, somehow I got better
(43:38):
on the trip from all the potholes and just lying here,
in fact, I feel great. Did you guys remove my
left leg while I wasn't looking? Did you replace it
with the left leg that I had when I was twelve?
Because I could hop back to Connecticut on my left
leg right now, Just cancel the flight, she laughed. She said, no,
what I was feeling would be the morphine they gave
me so they could twist me around and take the
(44:00):
X rays they needed. And I said, please never ever
give me any more that ever again. Thank you. My
Judo flashback, as it turned out, had done the job.
I had broken nothing. The er doctor complimented me on
my fall, and he said, I probably had six or
eight different sprains on my left side. It would hurt,
(44:21):
but it would keep getting better and I'd be able
to make my flight home the day after next. He
was completely right, although I now found twenty five years
later that it's beginning to hurt like I just fell
off the cliff. Anyway, I went back to the hotel.
I ate well, I slept well, I managed to walk
around with the help of a cane, and I went
back for day two of the commercial shoot. This one
(44:42):
is in a mansion in Pasadena, a room teeming full
of UNA's lying on the floor. They're photographs through chandeliers.
They're lazy, rich kids who also need to be told
to eat something. I arrived and walked into applause from
the crew, and I delivered a well rehearsed line. And
now for my next trick, which is when the director
(45:04):
John came over and apologized, and he said he thought
this entry into shot for me would be way easier.
What I had to do is lie on the floor,
then sit up and deliver the line eat something. If
you can sit up, he said, that is. If you can't,
we can do something else. Can you sit up? And
I thought about it, and I rubbed my lower back
(45:24):
and I said, based on the day so far, yeah,
I could, but probably only six or seven times. And
I said, while I can sit up, it's clear to
me one of those bad sprains was in the muscles
somewhere of my lower back. And if I try to
lay back down, I lose control. I'll just crash back
to the floor. That actually happened getting out of bed
(45:46):
this morning. So after each take, the same two guys
who had walked me up the stairs after I fell
at the beach gently held my arms and shoulders and
lowered me back to lying on the floor. We got
what we needed. I went back to the hotel. I
had dinner with some friends. The next day. I was
a little sore, but perfectly fine to get back on
(46:08):
the plane east, and sure enough, only time ever, I
had a west to east tailwind. The flight from lax
to Newark took three hours and forty eight minutes. We
traversed the country like a dart shot from a gun
or an Ulderman falling from a rock out cropping. Oh,
by the way, the commercial was an immediate success, unlike
(46:30):
any that Boston Market had ever done before. In those days,
they were packed each night for dinner at every location,
selling half chickens and full meals with potatoes and salads,
and they were getting an average of twelve dollars out
of every customer. The rest of the day the place
was empty. The idea behind my commercials. They were designed
(46:51):
to bring in a lunch crowd a sandwich and a
soda and a bag of chips for four dollars. Soon
they were swamped at lunchtime. Boston Market ordered three more commercials,
these to be shot in a studio in New York.
They offered me fifty grand a day. An entire new
career vista was opening in front of me. I was,
(47:11):
for a week or two in early nineteen ninety seven
the most successful male commercial actor in the country. We
shot those three spots. I interrupted a grunge concert to
shout eat something at the band, and then I got
carried off by the crowd in a mosh pit. And
I interrupted a Romeo soap opera surgeon coming on to
(47:32):
his nurse by rising from the operating table to shout
eat something. And then we did something with ballplayers at
the stadium on Randall's Island. And I remember nothing of
that because Unlike the first two, they never edited the
film because that's when it happened, their equivalent of falling
off the cliff. I will confess it had not occurred
(47:54):
to me. Then again, I did not own Boston Market.
I did not work for their marketing department. I did
not run the ad agency they employed. But none of
them anticipated it either. After the first few weeks of
giddy glee about the lunch crowds I had brought them,
somebody noticed something unfortunate and unexpected. Basically, for every four
(48:16):
dollar lunch they were now selling, they were selling one
fewer twelve dollars dinner. They had not gained any new customers.
They had just managed to get their customers to each
spend eight dollars less. These very well made, very memorable
commercials worked very very well, And the problem with that
(48:36):
was each time they did work, it cost Boston Market
eight dollars. By the end of nineteen ninety seven, Boston
Market was something like nine hundred million dollars in debt.
It had filed for bankruptcy and had been taken over
by McDonald's. On the other hand, I got my money,
and in the twenty five years plus since Boston market
(48:59):
has not once used a celebrity endorser to try to
sell their food. Oh and there was one other positive outcome.
I'm actually very proud of this. The ad agency got
the award in question. I did not, so I don't
know which group gave it to us, but that eat
Something campaign actually won an award because somehow my shouting
(49:22):
eat something at Una and the other way thin models,
somehow that cut through to at least some victims of
eating disorders. The Boston Market eat Something ad campaign for
which I fell off a cliff. Okay, a rock outcropping
for which I fell off a rock outcropping got an
award from a national Bolimia association. I've done all the
(49:59):
damage I can do here. Thank you for your support.
Last night, Countdown got its nine millionth download since we
started last year. Half of these have been since February.
Thank you tell the others. Here are the credits. Most
of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
Ray and John Phillip Shaneal, who are the Countdown musical directors.
(50:21):
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip, Schanelle, guitars based
and drums by Brian Ray. Produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged unperformed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Fauss. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was Kenny Maine.
(50:44):
Everything else is pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
this the eight hundred and sixty third day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Do not forget to keep arresting him
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and throw the first punch. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(51:14):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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