February 14, 2023 • 37 mins
EPISODE 133: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: To try to score cheap political points about the downing of the Chinese Spy Balloon, Marjorie Taylor Greene stood before an Idaho Lincoln Day Dinner and defecated on the memory of the dead of 9/11 and the heroes of Flight 93. She actually claimed that the argument that shooting it down over the mainland was "bullshit" because "Do you guys remember on 9/11 when an airplane crashed in Pennsylvania? A jetliner? Remember that? It didn't kill anybody on the ground! It killed everyone on board! But it didn't kill anyone on the ground!" She must resign from Congress immediately, or be expelled, because even for her this is disgraceful and intolerable.
B-Block (15:17) IN SPORTS: The "temporary" Extra Innings Ghost Runner becomes permanent. Baseball has always survived the idiocy of those who run it, as evidenced by the new research of how the old Washington Senators preferred Jim Busby to some guy named Mickey Mantle (22:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Bono and U2 get in bed with a guy using illicit Facial Recognition technology; The College Board talks big, does nothing, to Ron DeFascist; The backlash over 'The Black National Anthem' at the Super Bowl. Moron Benny Johnson not only says it should be illegal, but asks what if there were a 'White National Anthem.' Have I got a surprise for Benny.
C-Block (29:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Daniel, in Texas (30:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is now exactly 43 years since the masters of UPI Radio got the rookie - me - drunk at the 1980 Olympics and then sent me to cover the Men's Downhill in the -50 wind chill of Whiteface Mountain. I somehow got myself there, but I did not get all my equipment with me and boy was THAT a surprise.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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 I Heart Radio.
Marjorie Taylor Green has mocked the dead of nine eleven.
(00:28):
She is human filth. She must be removed from Congress immediately.
There is a reason seventy three United States Congressmen and
congresswomen have gone to prison, seventeen of them in this
century alone. The House of Representatives has never been the
home of just our best, or our brightest, or our
(00:48):
most loyal, or our most respectful, or our most sane.
But by herself, Marjorie Taylor Green may now have exceeded
all of the rest of them. The seventy three convicted,
the others who have just disgraced themselves, the remainder who
have merely served exceeded them in disgracing this country, in
(01:11):
betraying its principles, in abusing its privileges, in desecrating the
memory not merely of the American dead of September eleventh,
two thousand one, but of specifically minimizing, ignoring, and exploiting
those who died aboard Flight ninety three, the ones who
(01:32):
accepted their own deaths, the ones who fought to guide
their stricken craft away from a school, away from a
town away from a capital, who did so to protect
not merely this country's leaders, but to protect this country's
existential concept. Marjorie Taylor Green, in public on Saturday night
(01:57):
last defecated on their memories, their sacrifice, their patriotism, their lives,
and their deaths. She has no place in the House
of Representatives. She has no place in the running of
this country. She has no place among decent human beings.
(02:19):
She has no place in the United States of America.
On Saturday night, at the Lincoln Day Dinner of the
Republican Central Committee of Kootney County, Idaho, at Court Aline,
Marjorie Taylor Green chose to demean the deaths of Mark
(02:40):
Bingham and Jeremy Glick and Todd Beemer and each of
the other thirty passenger victims and each of the seven
crew victims, because this creature, this confidence trickster, this condescending garbage,
this sub human personification of evil, because she needed to
(03:02):
make a crack at the vents of the President of
the United States. I offer you a warning. I'm going
to play part of the recording of what she said
about forty seconds from now on Saturday night, This idiot,
this moron, this clown, this sentient sewage, who days earlier
(03:24):
had insisted both that the Chinese spy balloon might contain
nukes or a bioweapon, and that therefore it should be
shot down immediately over the US mainland. On Saturday night
in Idaho, she told some of the very people on
whom the airship might have fallen that she believed the
explanation for waiting until the craft was over water to
(03:44):
shoot it down was a lie that debris or wreckage
posed no threat to anyone on the ground, and as
supposed proof of her imbecilic conclusion, she had the callousness,
the inhumanity, and the stupidity to invoke September eleven and
flight n Do you know what a bunch of bullshit
(04:06):
that is? They said, it's three school buses, three school
buses wide. Okay, Well, do you guys remember on nine
eleven when an airplane crash in Pennsylvania and jel Remember
that it didn't kill anybody on the ground, killed everyone
(04:27):
on board, but it didn't kill anyone on the ground.
It is beyond belief to use nine eleven, especially to
use flight ninety three as a mechanism for scoring points
and an f list Republican Lincoln Day dinner is without
(04:50):
needing to be analyzed or dissected, something beyond reprehensible, something
beyond cold and evil. But to say that, to describe
Flight ninety three crashing in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as if it
were some accidental event or commonplace occurrence, as if God
(05:11):
knows which of the victims sacrificed what and who had
to confront which horror to make certain that the plane
killed no one on the ground, that only they themselves
would die, to take the almost sacred pain and ever
wounding mortality of those faithful minutes, and twisted into an
argument that does not make any sense in the slightest
(05:35):
is about as close as a secular American can come
to heresy, And that says nothing about the obvious, just
as painful question that someone should have shouted into this
scumbag Green's face the moment she said that what happened
to the people on the ground that same day when
(05:56):
the other three planes crashed? Congresswoman, what happened to the
people on the ground at Old Trade Center Number one?
Marjorie Taylor Creane, What happened to the people on the
grounded world Trade Center number two, Congresswoman, what happened to
the people on the ground at the Pentagon? Or do
you still subscribe to what you said on video distributed
(06:19):
by American Priority Conference barely more than four years ago,
that quote there's never any evidence shown for a plane
in the Pentagon. Did you think what you said was
acceptable to say to Americans? Because you remain a nine
eleven truther bastard, even considering the extraordinary and extraordinarily large
(06:46):
catalog of your cruel and unfeeling and unnecessary remarks, fueled
by your own corrupted soul and your own inadequate brain,
this exceeds anything you have said before, And Madam, it
is intolerable and will not be accepted by the United
(07:09):
States of America. There can be no place, even in
the dubious halls of the United States Congress, for a
pile of feces in a coat, so lacking a conscience,
lacking intelligence, lacking patriotism, as to mock the dead of
Flight ninety three, and of Flight eleven, and of flight
(07:35):
and of Flight one, and of those in New York,
and of those at the Pentagon, and of their loved
ones and friends and fellow citizens in every corner of
this country and in every corner of this world. You
mocked them, madam, to get applause in Idaho. And in
(08:02):
case Congresswoman you believe I have done damage to your
words by truncating your speech and merely summarizing the context
of your stupidity and your inhumanity. Here is the full
minute before and after you mocked the dead of flight
ninety three. The recording was procured by the group Patriot Takes.
(08:28):
The excuses that were given on this we're pa set
absolutely pathet. They told us it was too risky. Oh,
it was too risky to shoot down the Chinese five balloon.
Do you know what a bunch of bullshit that is? Yeah,
they said, it's three school buses, three school buses wide. Okay, well,
(08:51):
do you guys remember when an airplane crash in Pennsylvania
and jail liners. Remember that it didn't kill anybody on
the ground, killed everyone on board, but it didn't kill
anyone on the ground. So they want to tell all
of us that it was too risky to take down
that Chinese favelin over rural Idaho or Montana or any
(09:13):
of these other states or Alaska. There liars they're either
their liars or their cowards, or the president is allowed tree.
(09:33):
There are only two choices. She'll go with all three.
She has no place in the United States of America.
She has no place among decent human beings. She has
no place in the running of this country. She has
no place in the House of Representatives. And to start
with immediately, she can have no place. Nor does anyone
(09:59):
who would use the Dead of nine eleven as a
political punchline, as a amitable expression of their own pathology
and psychosis. She has no place on of all things.
The House Committee on Homeland Security still ahead. There will
(10:34):
be no action taken against Green because the Conservatives live
in a hazy world where reality and common sense and
decency and especially history can only be seen intermittently. There
is a backlash continuing now over the singing of the
so called black national anthem. It's Sunday Super Bowl, with
(10:57):
one fascist named Benny Johnson asking if there is a
white national anthem and how horrible that would be, without
realizing well, yes, yes, there is, written by a slave
owner who prosecuted abolitionists, and Benny Johnson, you may have
even heard it once or twice or ten thousand times
(11:18):
in less contentious issues, baseball refusing to give up the
ghost the awful extra innings rule is to become permanent
and climb every mountain forward every stream. But if you
are climbing the mountain to go report on the men's
Olympic skiing final, as I was forty three years ago, today,
(11:40):
remember to pack your recording equipment, all of your recording
equipment before you go up every mountain. That's next. This
is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is
(12:16):
Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is countdown
with Keith in Sports. The first time somebody observed in
print that baseball has always survived the idiocy of the
people that ran it was I believe in the year
(12:37):
eight's the amazing shrinking formerly national pastime assumed center stage
again with football over, so has the idiocy of the
people what run it. ESPN is reporting that they're going
to make that little league rule permanent in the majors.
The supposed COVID expedient of ghost runners runner at second
(12:57):
base to start every extra inning because today's hitters are
too stupid to actually build a run rather than try
to hit a homer. Every time they come to the
plate in their lives. This will become permanent. The Joint
Competition Committee has voted unanimously to keep the rule, which
is designed to put a time limit on games, and
to jettison baseball's century old boast that it was the
(13:20):
only sport without a clock. That Competition Committee consists of
executives John Stanton of the Mariners, Bill DeWitt of the Cardinals,
Greg Johnson of the Giants, Dick mont for to the Rockies,
Mark Shapiro of the Jay's, Tom Werner of the Red Sox,
umpire Bill Miller, and players Jack Flaherty, Tyler Glass now
with Maryfield and Austin Slater. And when they talk about
(13:41):
the games surviving the idiots who run it, these are
the men they're talking about. I am not going to
tell you that I am now going to stop watching
baseball because of this rule. Along with idiotic executives, baseball
has also always had massochistic fans like me. My predecessories
also protested the home run and night games, and night
(14:04):
games in the World Series, and countless other invaluable innovations.
Some also previous era baseball fans who I do not
claim as my predecessors protested, you know, integration. So I'm
not gonna tell you I'm quitting baseball, but I will
tell you that since they started treating extra innings as
something to be gotten over as quickly as possible, I
(14:26):
have found myself actually turning off games that are in
extra innings the way I turn off a hockey game
that remains tied through overtime and goes to a shootout.
It just doesn't interest me. I'll just read the score later.
Then again, I actually think a steal of home or
a squeeze play is far more exciting than a home run.
(14:47):
In these tiny ballparks with no foul territory and next
to no intelligent hitters, left, baseball fans like me think
we know just how dumb the owners have always been.
And then every once in a while you trip over
something from the past that makes your eyes water. This
is from April eighth, nine fifty four, and all you
really know it need to know is Calvin Griffith would
(15:10):
shortly become the owner of the Washington Senators and a
few years later would move them to Minnesota, and after
that would publicly explain he did so because Washington he
said was full of black people, and he had decided
they did not like to buy baseball tickets. And then
when free agency came, Griffith refused to pay the higher
salaries or signed good players, and his team nearly went bankrupt.
(15:33):
Oh and you need to know who Mickey Mantle is.
This is an Associated Press story from the days just
before the nineteen fifty four baseball season started. As I said,
I just tripped over it researching something else. It is
as bad a talent assessment as I have ever read.
Headline Mantle is overrated. Avers Senator brass Washington, April eight,
(15:58):
Associated Press. Mickey Mantle is probably the most overrated player
in baseball, Calvin Griffith said today. Griffith is executive vice
president of the Washington Senators, who own a bit of
baseball property named Jim Busby. Sure Mantel's a good outfielder,
Griffith said in an interview, but he isn't as good
as Buzzby. Griffith said that if Mantel we're playing for
(16:20):
anybody but the New York Yankees quote, you'd hardly ever
hear of him. His idea was that the Yankee publicists
and New York sports writers have built Mantle up into
something he has not. If Buzzby were playing for the Yankees,
Griffith said, they'd be calling him another trip speaker or something. Mantel,
the youngster from Commerce, Oklahoma, is out of action as
the result of a knee injury and won't be in
(16:42):
the lineup when the Yankees play the Senators on opening
Day here next Tuesday. The Yankee successor to Joe DiMaggio,
he has been built in many parts, is one of
the hottest prospects to hit the major leagues in some time.
Griffith well remembers his power, since it was in the
ballpark here that Mantel socked a five hundred and sixty
five foot home run last year. Buzzby is a native
(17:03):
of Kennedy, Texas, is at seven nearly five years older
than Mantele. Griffith regards him as one of the most
underrated players in the league. Mantle considered an expert in
grabbing flies. Quote can't compare with Buzzby as fielder, Griffith said.
Clark Griffith, eight four year old owner of the Senators,
(17:24):
I might point out, was one of the founders of
the American League. Chimed in quote, Buzzby is one of
the best fly catchers that I've ever seen. Then there's
the matter of hitting. Last year, Mantle batted too. Buzzby's
average was three twelve. Mantel batted in ninety two runs
and Buzzby eighty two. But Calvin Griffith noted that a
(17:46):
lot more Yankees were on base last season for Mantle
to drive home than there were Senators out of Buzby.
The Yankee center fielder considered more of a power hitter
than Buzby hit for two nine total bases last season,
Buzzby's total two three. Mantle stole eight bases. Buzzby that enough,
Griffith asked, with a wink, Hey, you don't know Mickey Mantle,
(18:11):
who was the player who Calvin Griffith said was not
as good as Jim Busby. Mickey Mantel led the league
in that overall stat adjusted OPS plus that's on base
percentage plus slugging percentage adjusted for ballpark and era. He
led the league in at eight times in his seventeen
full seasons. His career number is the ninth best all time,
(18:32):
even though at the age of twenty, that little knee
injury they mentioned He basically destroyed his knee, but continued
to play on it even though he really needed surgery
to correct a torn a c L, the torn mc L,
and a torn meniscus, but they didn't do any of
that then, so instead, Mantel played seventeen seasons on essentially
one leg. He finished with a wins above replacement number
(18:54):
of a hundred and ten point two. Since Mantel retired
in ninety eight, that number has been exceeded by only
one hitter who was not from his own era or
did not use P E D s in a later era.
That one hitter was Ricky Henderson. Mantel was not the
best player of all time, but he would probably be
the one who accomplished the most despite chronic injury. The
(19:17):
guy the owner of the Washington Senators thought was way
better than Mantel, Jim Busby. He never again hit three hundred,
he never again made an All Star team, and remembering
that Mantle's total was a hundred and ten point two,
Buzzby finished with a wins above replacement total of twelve
point seven compared to a hundred and ten point two.
(19:39):
And it is people like the owner of the Washington
Senators who just voted to make the ghost Runner permanent.
Time for the daily round of the misgrants, morons and
Dunning Krueger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
(20:00):
the world. The Bronze Bano and you two announcing a
residency at a new facility in Vegas MSG Sphere, co
owned by Madison Square Garden and it's boss James Dolan.
So Mr World Peace, Bono is now in bed with
a man who is openly and boastfully using facial recognition
(20:21):
technology to keep people he does not like out of
Madison Square Garden, Radio City Musical and maybe MSG Sphere,
where Bono is now going to have a residency. You're
okay with this, pal, Well, okay, Bono, there goes forty
years worth of your good reputation. The runner up, Speaking
of which the College Board, you may recall, Florida Governor
(20:44):
Ron de Fascist banned the College boards African American Studies
AP college placement course in Florida because wow, because Florida
is now as racist a state as it was in
the College Board has finally issued a statement after this action,
reading quote, we deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida
(21:07):
Department of Education slander magnified by the DeSantis administration subsequent
comments that African American studies lacks educational value, our failure
to raise our voice betrayed black scholars everywhere, and those
who have long toiled to build this remarkable field. Now
that's great. College board mad What are they gonna do
(21:27):
about Florida? Are they gonna pull all AP courses out
of Florida? They're gonna take this opportunity to kneecap de
Santis and the racists. They're not. They're gonna stare daggers
at De Santis and they will write more mean press
releases if necessary. Cowards. And by the way, where the
university is refusing to accept Florida high school degrees for
(21:50):
admission after this scunt? More cowards, but our winner, Benny Johnson,
This is the goober who have all the condescending Dunner
Krueger poster boys amongst the fascist rights might be the
most condescending, the most dunning Krugerish, the most fascist, and
the most gooberish. Benji here is upset with them playing
(22:13):
lift every voice and sing at the Super Bowl Sunday,
very upset in fact, he wants people arrested. Bernie says
he watches quote the Super Bowl for cultural moments like
the Black national anthem being sung. How the hell is
this even a thing? What a repugnant, degenerate thing to
do to split up a national anthem by race. This
(22:34):
is antithetical, of course, to America. Benno seems to be
unaware of slavery or segregation, or the fact that the
people who take him seriously today are you know, white
supremacist bastards. But wait, there's more. Quoting Benji again, it
should quite frankly be illegal. You shouldn't be able to
(22:56):
do that. Is there a white national anthem? I'm not
sure anyone would be very happy with that being sung. Well,
since you asked, why, yes, Boubo, there is a white
national anthem. It was written by a slave owner who
also served as the district attorney for Washington, d c.
Before the Civil War, who strictly enforced fugitive slave laws
(23:18):
and prosecuted abolitionists. The third verse of his white National
Anthem actually concludes, no refuge could save the hireling and
slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of
the grave. The White national Anthem was promoted in the
first half of the twentieth century in this country by
(23:38):
the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and after decades of lobbying,
they got their wish. The white national anthem is called
the Star Spangled Banner, and the slave owner who prosecuted
abolitionists who wrote it was named Francis Scott Key. And
when it was adopted as this country's anthem in nine
the United Daughters of the Confederacy celebrated their victory by
(24:00):
holding a parade in which they all carried the Confederate flag.
You so there's your answer, Benny Johnson. Yeah, there is
a white national anthem, and you know you're right. Nobody
should be happy when it sung. In fact, we should
stop singing it. Also as a piece of music, the
Star Spangled Banner, It sucks, Benny, I know nothing at
(24:24):
all about American history, Johnson. That's one ugly Johnson. You've
got there, Today's worst parson and the word still ahead
on countdown. Happy Valentine's Day, whatever that means to you,
(24:47):
it means just one thing to me. Valentine's Day at
the Olympics. My boss has got me drunk the night before.
Then at the crack of dawn, they sent me up
to the top of the mountain to cover the men's
downhill in minus fifty wind chills, which is when I
realized that I'd gone to the top of the mountain,
but I gotten to bring well. Anyway, stand by for
(25:07):
this story. First in each edition of Countdown, we feature
dog in need You can Help. Every dog has its
Day to Magnolia, Texas and Daniel d n a animal
rescue is trying to get Daniel back on his feet.
A young standard issue tan hound mutt. Daniel was attacked
and tortured by a group of teenage boys in Texas.
They drew on him, they stabbed him, they fractured his shoulder,
(25:31):
and yet when the rescue staff found Daniel, he wagged
his tail at them. If you want to donate to
Daniel's rehab, you can find him on Cuddly or on
my Twitter feed. Your retweets will also help. I thank you,
and Daniel, thanks you. I swear I saw a snowflake
(26:09):
or too late Saturday night here the first of the year,
and that makes it forty two consecutive winners that that
first snow has triggered me in exactly the same way,
sending me back in my mind to the nineteen eighty
Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. The alarm goes off.
(26:30):
It is pitch black in my room at the Swiss
Acres Motel. It is Valentine's Day, and I am still drunk.
Keith knew he was in trouble, but I was also
twenty one years old, and in fact, my birthday had
only been eighteen days earlier. So somehow I survived, showered, dressed, packed,
(26:54):
and I mean I packed two cassette tape recorders, four
sets of batteries, an audio processing machine that weighed like
fourteen pounds, the nine bolt batteries it took, I think
it was a dozen of them, a telephone, a backup telephone,
twelve assorted patch chords to loose leaf notebooks, about eight pens,
two microphones, to extra pair of socks. And I got
(27:16):
dressed too, full sets of thermal underwear, shirts, sweaters, snow pants,
snow shoes. Because it was eleven degrees below zero that morning.
I got something quick to eat at the commissary, and
I made it out somehow to the line for the
bus from the Lake Placid Olympics Center to the Lake
(27:36):
Placid Transportation Center to Lake Placid's own White Face Mountain,
then onto the snow track the open penned mountain tractor
that went up the side of White Face Mountain and
took me to the finish line of the nineteen Olympic
Men's downhill ski final still drunk. That is how a
(27:56):
reporter covered the Olympics nearly forty three years ago. You drank,
you woke up, you went, You stood near the finish line,
and when the skiers completed their runs, you hiked or
wobbled over to them and you took out your microphone
or your pen and you interviewed them, like two minutes
after they had finished hurtling towards you down the hill.
(28:17):
You could see almost nothing of the race from there.
There were no TV monitors. Basically, your only clue was
the sound of the crowd that would give you about
thirty seconds worth of warning that the skier was coming
over the near horizon and you should be prepared to
flee just in case he or she wiped out. Also,
(28:37):
you were on top of a mountain at the dead
point of winter, and whereas it might have been a
balmy eleven degrees below zero in the comfort of the
Swiss Acres motel with the wind chill at the base
of the mountain, it was forty eight below zero and
there had already been four inches of new snow since
the sun came up, which is where the still drunk
(29:01):
part came in Handy, my boss is at my first job,
the thousand station radio network called United President National Audio,
had decided the night before to teach me how to
drink while on assignment. My bosses were the bureau manager
for that part of u p I, the late stand Sebek,
who had hired me, and Sam Rosen, the sports director
(29:22):
of the network, who not only somehow survived being my
first boss, but today, just forty three years later, is
still working as the television voice of the New York
Rangers hockey team and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
So I guess my reputation is a tough employee is
wildly overrated, or at least Sam think So. Sam and
(29:43):
Stan kept me drinking at the motel until two am,
knowing full well that I had to get on the
six am bus to go cover the men's downhill because
it was the two of them who had assigned me
to go cover the men's downhill and bluntly. I was
surprisingly pleased with myself that freezing morning, because I had
indeed learned how to drink while on assignment. I had
(30:05):
somehow found the phone jack for the U p I
phone buried under all the new snow, which of course
was buried under all the old snow, attached the phone
to it, got in a dial tone, called the office,
checked the alligator clips with which I would feed the tape,
and always well until I went to put a cassette
(30:26):
tape into the cassette recorder. I didn't have one. Fat
A lot of good two cassette tape machines gonna do
you without a cassette to stick in one of them.
I looked forlornly around the base of White Face Mountain,
twelve feet above sea level as we were. There was
(30:49):
a surprisingly nice shalet and a decent restaurant, but there
were no radio shacks or other electronics stores. There was, however,
one other radio guy, Jack Briggs, from the Associated Press
Radio Network, the nominal arch rival to our own up
I Audio. I knew Jack a little. He was a
nice guy. I went and explained my plight making sure
(31:12):
to blame my bosses for my predicament. Oh man, he said,
his breath turning into first steam and then ice cubes.
I'm so sorry, but I can't give you a cassette.
I'm sorry, you're U p I and I'm a p
oh how, I laughed. That was a great line to
(31:35):
say to a rookie reporter still drunk thanks to the
initiation rituals of his own bosses, the possessor of one
great buzz but zero audio cassettes, Jack Briggs could tell
I thought he was kidding. That's when he said, I'm
not kidding. Look. Look, if my boss, Shelby Whitfield ever
found out, he'd fire me. I suddenly wasn't drunk anymore,
(31:57):
not at all. My my boss will will will fire me.
Briggs was adamant. I can't run the risk of shehallby
finding out. I have to confess. I shouted, how the
hell is he gonna find out? Jack? I think subconsciously
I was hoping to create an avalanche, which would have
(32:18):
been a better solution than the one I was faced with.
I said to him, there's you and there's me, and
we're on top of a goddamn mountain. And Shelby Whitfield.
Your boss is in Washington, d C. And he's a drunk,
and he's probably more drunk than I am, and he'd
probably thank you for helping me to drink more. Briggs
(32:39):
would not budge. I told him I would pay him.
I told him I would give him the cassette back
after I fed my boss the interviews over the phone,
so there'd be no evidence and he wouldn't even have
to do any interviews. No good, I'm sorry, and I
know you're gonna tell this story about me for a while.
As he walked away from me, I shouted after him. Forever.
(33:02):
Turned out there was no radio shack and no camaraderie,
but there was a West Coast newspaper reporter atop the
mountain who heard some of this conversation. I guess I
yelled a little loudly to Mr Briggs. Some guy standing
next to us St. Bernard told me to quiet down.
He mentioned something else about the avalanches, or maybe I
dreamed that part. I don't know. Anyway, the West Coast
(33:23):
newspaper guy said he had a micro cassette machine and
he would loan it to me and I could give
it back to him at the media center that day
or the next one. But I had to do him
a favor because there was this really cute reporter in
our up I bureau and he really wanted to be
introduced to her. And I said, I can promise you
nothing but a handshake, and he understood, and that's how
I did not get fired. But of course, a story
(33:44):
like this has punchlines, and this one has two of them.
The first is two years and a couple of months later,
Shelby Whitfield asked me to lunch. He had left the
Associated Press to run the sports department at the ABC
Radio network, back when that was not only a thing,
but a big thing. We went to a terrific New
(34:04):
York City Chinese restaurant near ABC called shun Lee, and
Shelby Whitfield interviewed me for a job when that kind
of job paid eighty thousand a year in my very
nice studio apartment in a very nice part of town
costs less than five hundred dollars a month later, in
an interesting twist, I found out the jobs didn't exist.
(34:24):
I was mentioning the interview in a press box somewhere
I think Madison Square Garden, and there was another kid
reporter named how He Rose and how are you still working?
He does the New York Mets games on the radio,
and how he said, Wait, they interviewed me for that
job last year, just an excuse for that damn Whitfield
to go drink his lunch on ABC's tab. Anyway, before
(34:48):
we started the interview for the job, I did not
know did not exist at ABC. I told Shelby Whitfield
the white Face Mountain, can I borrow a cassette Jack
Briggs story? And Shelby's exact reply was, I don't know.
Was I going to find out? There was you and
there was him, and you were on top of a
goddamn mountain and I was in Washington. Only he didn't
say goddamn that Briggs. He added, always trying to suck
(35:11):
up to me, I gotta tell you something I actually
once promised I wouldn't tell you if we ever met this.
When the Olympics were over and came back to the office,
he told me what happened. He expected me to be
happy or give him a bonus or something. And I
called him a little snitch. Only Shelby didn't say snitch,
just a word that rhymed with it. The other punch
line is from and remember this happened at the Olympics.
(35:36):
I go to work at ESPN and come in a
little early to launch their radio network of story I've
told here before, and there I find a friend of
mine since my radio days, who I have not seen
in a year or so, and he says, hey, last month,
I was in an NBA game in Washington. I ran
it at Jack Briggs. He heard you were going to ESPN.
He asked me if you were still telling that story
about the time you got stuck on White Face Mountain
(35:57):
without a cassette. And he was the only other reporter
there and he wouldn't give you a spare. And I
told him you were, and I smiled, and I reply,
I hope you remembered to use the word forever. Countdown
(36:22):
has come to you from the studios of Alderman Broadcasting
Empire World Headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York.
Thanks for listening. Here the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are
the Countdown Musical directors. Guitarist based and drums by Brian
ray All, orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Shanelle, produced
(36:46):
by t Ko Brothers. Another Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
the Olderman theme from ESPN Too, and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments
by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was Tony Cornis, who is also written by ESPN. Hey,
(37:07):
everything else is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown
for this, the seven seventieth day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith ol
(37:40):
Reman is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Marjorie Taylor Green has mocked the dead of nine eleven.
(00:28):
She is human filth. She must be removed from Congress immediately.
There is a reason seventy three United States Congressmen and
congresswomen have gone to prison, seventeen of them in this
century alone. The House of Representatives has never been the
home of just our best, or our brightest, or our
(00:48):
most loyal, or our most respectful, or our most sane.
But by herself, Marjorie Taylor Green may now have exceeded
all of the rest of them. The seventy three convicted,
the others who have just disgraced themselves, the remainder who
have merely served exceeded them in disgracing this country, in
(01:11):
betraying its principles, in abusing its privileges, in desecrating the
memory not merely of the American dead of September eleventh,
two thousand one, but of specifically minimizing, ignoring, and exploiting
those who died aboard Flight ninety three, the ones who
(01:32):
accepted their own deaths, the ones who fought to guide
their stricken craft away from a school, away from a
town away from a capital, who did so to protect
not merely this country's leaders, but to protect this country's
existential concept. Marjorie Taylor Green, in public on Saturday night
(01:57):
last defecated on their memories, their sacrifice, their patriotism, their lives,
and their deaths. She has no place in the House
of Representatives. She has no place in the running of
this country. She has no place among decent human beings.
(02:19):
She has no place in the United States of America.
On Saturday night, at the Lincoln Day Dinner of the
Republican Central Committee of Kootney County, Idaho, at Court Aline,
Marjorie Taylor Green chose to demean the deaths of Mark
(02:40):
Bingham and Jeremy Glick and Todd Beemer and each of
the other thirty passenger victims and each of the seven
crew victims, because this creature, this confidence trickster, this condescending garbage,
this sub human personification of evil, because she needed to
(03:02):
make a crack at the vents of the President of
the United States. I offer you a warning. I'm going
to play part of the recording of what she said
about forty seconds from now on Saturday night, This idiot,
this moron, this clown, this sentient sewage, who days earlier
(03:24):
had insisted both that the Chinese spy balloon might contain
nukes or a bioweapon, and that therefore it should be
shot down immediately over the US mainland. On Saturday night
in Idaho, she told some of the very people on
whom the airship might have fallen that she believed the
explanation for waiting until the craft was over water to
(03:44):
shoot it down was a lie that debris or wreckage
posed no threat to anyone on the ground, and as
supposed proof of her imbecilic conclusion, she had the callousness,
the inhumanity, and the stupidity to invoke September eleven and
flight n Do you know what a bunch of bullshit
(04:06):
that is? They said, it's three school buses, three school
buses wide. Okay, Well, do you guys remember on nine
eleven when an airplane crash in Pennsylvania and jel Remember
that it didn't kill anybody on the ground, killed everyone
(04:27):
on board, but it didn't kill anyone on the ground.
It is beyond belief to use nine eleven, especially to
use flight ninety three as a mechanism for scoring points
and an f list Republican Lincoln Day dinner is without
(04:50):
needing to be analyzed or dissected, something beyond reprehensible, something
beyond cold and evil. But to say that, to describe
Flight ninety three crashing in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as if it
were some accidental event or commonplace occurrence, as if God
(05:11):
knows which of the victims sacrificed what and who had
to confront which horror to make certain that the plane
killed no one on the ground, that only they themselves
would die, to take the almost sacred pain and ever
wounding mortality of those faithful minutes, and twisted into an
argument that does not make any sense in the slightest
(05:35):
is about as close as a secular American can come
to heresy, And that says nothing about the obvious, just
as painful question that someone should have shouted into this
scumbag Green's face the moment she said that what happened
to the people on the ground that same day when
(05:56):
the other three planes crashed? Congresswoman, what happened to the
people on the ground at Old Trade Center Number one?
Marjorie Taylor Creane, What happened to the people on the
grounded world Trade Center number two, Congresswoman, what happened to
the people on the ground at the Pentagon? Or do
you still subscribe to what you said on video distributed
(06:19):
by American Priority Conference barely more than four years ago,
that quote there's never any evidence shown for a plane
in the Pentagon. Did you think what you said was
acceptable to say to Americans? Because you remain a nine
eleven truther bastard, even considering the extraordinary and extraordinarily large
(06:46):
catalog of your cruel and unfeeling and unnecessary remarks, fueled
by your own corrupted soul and your own inadequate brain,
this exceeds anything you have said before, And Madam, it
is intolerable and will not be accepted by the United
(07:09):
States of America. There can be no place, even in
the dubious halls of the United States Congress, for a
pile of feces in a coat, so lacking a conscience,
lacking intelligence, lacking patriotism, as to mock the dead of
Flight ninety three, and of Flight eleven, and of flight
(07:35):
and of Flight one, and of those in New York,
and of those at the Pentagon, and of their loved
ones and friends and fellow citizens in every corner of
this country and in every corner of this world. You
mocked them, madam, to get applause in Idaho. And in
(08:02):
case Congresswoman you believe I have done damage to your
words by truncating your speech and merely summarizing the context
of your stupidity and your inhumanity. Here is the full
minute before and after you mocked the dead of flight
ninety three. The recording was procured by the group Patriot Takes.
(08:28):
The excuses that were given on this we're pa set
absolutely pathet. They told us it was too risky. Oh,
it was too risky to shoot down the Chinese five balloon.
Do you know what a bunch of bullshit that is? Yeah,
they said, it's three school buses, three school buses wide. Okay, well,
(08:51):
do you guys remember when an airplane crash in Pennsylvania
and jail liners. Remember that it didn't kill anybody on
the ground, killed everyone on board, but it didn't kill
anyone on the ground. So they want to tell all
of us that it was too risky to take down
that Chinese favelin over rural Idaho or Montana or any
(09:13):
of these other states or Alaska. There liars they're either
their liars or their cowards, or the president is allowed tree.
(09:33):
There are only two choices. She'll go with all three.
She has no place in the United States of America.
She has no place among decent human beings. She has
no place in the running of this country. She has
no place in the House of Representatives. And to start
with immediately, she can have no place. Nor does anyone
(09:59):
who would use the Dead of nine eleven as a
political punchline, as a amitable expression of their own pathology
and psychosis. She has no place on of all things.
The House Committee on Homeland Security still ahead. There will
(10:34):
be no action taken against Green because the Conservatives live
in a hazy world where reality and common sense and
decency and especially history can only be seen intermittently. There
is a backlash continuing now over the singing of the
so called black national anthem. It's Sunday Super Bowl, with
(10:57):
one fascist named Benny Johnson asking if there is a
white national anthem and how horrible that would be, without
realizing well, yes, yes, there is, written by a slave
owner who prosecuted abolitionists, and Benny Johnson, you may have
even heard it once or twice or ten thousand times
(11:18):
in less contentious issues, baseball refusing to give up the
ghost the awful extra innings rule is to become permanent
and climb every mountain forward every stream. But if you
are climbing the mountain to go report on the men's
Olympic skiing final, as I was forty three years ago, today,
(11:40):
remember to pack your recording equipment, all of your recording
equipment before you go up every mountain. That's next. This
is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is
(12:16):
Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is countdown
with Keith in Sports. The first time somebody observed in
print that baseball has always survived the idiocy of the
people that ran it was I believe in the year
(12:37):
eight's the amazing shrinking formerly national pastime assumed center stage
again with football over, so has the idiocy of the
people what run it. ESPN is reporting that they're going
to make that little league rule permanent in the majors.
The supposed COVID expedient of ghost runners runner at second
(12:57):
base to start every extra inning because today's hitters are
too stupid to actually build a run rather than try
to hit a homer. Every time they come to the
plate in their lives. This will become permanent. The Joint
Competition Committee has voted unanimously to keep the rule, which
is designed to put a time limit on games, and
to jettison baseball's century old boast that it was the
(13:20):
only sport without a clock. That Competition Committee consists of
executives John Stanton of the Mariners, Bill DeWitt of the Cardinals,
Greg Johnson of the Giants, Dick mont for to the Rockies,
Mark Shapiro of the Jay's, Tom Werner of the Red Sox,
umpire Bill Miller, and players Jack Flaherty, Tyler Glass now
with Maryfield and Austin Slater. And when they talk about
(13:41):
the games surviving the idiots who run it, these are
the men they're talking about. I am not going to
tell you that I am now going to stop watching
baseball because of this rule. Along with idiotic executives, baseball
has also always had massochistic fans like me. My predecessories
also protested the home run and night games, and night
(14:04):
games in the World Series, and countless other invaluable innovations.
Some also previous era baseball fans who I do not
claim as my predecessors protested, you know, integration. So I'm
not gonna tell you I'm quitting baseball, but I will
tell you that since they started treating extra innings as
something to be gotten over as quickly as possible, I
(14:26):
have found myself actually turning off games that are in
extra innings the way I turn off a hockey game
that remains tied through overtime and goes to a shootout.
It just doesn't interest me. I'll just read the score later.
Then again, I actually think a steal of home or
a squeeze play is far more exciting than a home run.
(14:47):
In these tiny ballparks with no foul territory and next
to no intelligent hitters, left, baseball fans like me think
we know just how dumb the owners have always been.
And then every once in a while you trip over
something from the past that makes your eyes water. This
is from April eighth, nine fifty four, and all you
really know it need to know is Calvin Griffith would
(15:10):
shortly become the owner of the Washington Senators and a
few years later would move them to Minnesota, and after
that would publicly explain he did so because Washington he
said was full of black people, and he had decided
they did not like to buy baseball tickets. And then
when free agency came, Griffith refused to pay the higher
salaries or signed good players, and his team nearly went bankrupt.
(15:33):
Oh and you need to know who Mickey Mantle is.
This is an Associated Press story from the days just
before the nineteen fifty four baseball season started. As I said,
I just tripped over it researching something else. It is
as bad a talent assessment as I have ever read.
Headline Mantle is overrated. Avers Senator brass Washington, April eight,
(15:58):
Associated Press. Mickey Mantle is probably the most overrated player
in baseball, Calvin Griffith said today. Griffith is executive vice
president of the Washington Senators, who own a bit of
baseball property named Jim Busby. Sure Mantel's a good outfielder,
Griffith said in an interview, but he isn't as good
as Buzzby. Griffith said that if Mantel we're playing for
(16:20):
anybody but the New York Yankees quote, you'd hardly ever
hear of him. His idea was that the Yankee publicists
and New York sports writers have built Mantle up into
something he has not. If Buzzby were playing for the Yankees,
Griffith said, they'd be calling him another trip speaker or something. Mantel,
the youngster from Commerce, Oklahoma, is out of action as
the result of a knee injury and won't be in
(16:42):
the lineup when the Yankees play the Senators on opening
Day here next Tuesday. The Yankee successor to Joe DiMaggio,
he has been built in many parts, is one of
the hottest prospects to hit the major leagues in some time.
Griffith well remembers his power, since it was in the
ballpark here that Mantel socked a five hundred and sixty
five foot home run last year. Buzzby is a native
(17:03):
of Kennedy, Texas, is at seven nearly five years older
than Mantele. Griffith regards him as one of the most
underrated players in the league. Mantle considered an expert in
grabbing flies. Quote can't compare with Buzzby as fielder, Griffith said.
Clark Griffith, eight four year old owner of the Senators,
(17:24):
I might point out, was one of the founders of
the American League. Chimed in quote, Buzzby is one of
the best fly catchers that I've ever seen. Then there's
the matter of hitting. Last year, Mantle batted too. Buzzby's
average was three twelve. Mantel batted in ninety two runs
and Buzzby eighty two. But Calvin Griffith noted that a
(17:46):
lot more Yankees were on base last season for Mantle
to drive home than there were Senators out of Buzby.
The Yankee center fielder considered more of a power hitter
than Buzby hit for two nine total bases last season,
Buzzby's total two three. Mantle stole eight bases. Buzzby that enough,
Griffith asked, with a wink, Hey, you don't know Mickey Mantle,
(18:11):
who was the player who Calvin Griffith said was not
as good as Jim Busby. Mickey Mantel led the league
in that overall stat adjusted OPS plus that's on base
percentage plus slugging percentage adjusted for ballpark and era. He
led the league in at eight times in his seventeen
full seasons. His career number is the ninth best all time,
(18:32):
even though at the age of twenty, that little knee
injury they mentioned He basically destroyed his knee, but continued
to play on it even though he really needed surgery
to correct a torn a c L, the torn mc L,
and a torn meniscus, but they didn't do any of
that then, so instead, Mantel played seventeen seasons on essentially
one leg. He finished with a wins above replacement number
(18:54):
of a hundred and ten point two. Since Mantel retired
in ninety eight, that number has been exceeded by only
one hitter who was not from his own era or
did not use P E D s in a later era.
That one hitter was Ricky Henderson. Mantel was not the
best player of all time, but he would probably be
the one who accomplished the most despite chronic injury. The
(19:17):
guy the owner of the Washington Senators thought was way
better than Mantel, Jim Busby. He never again hit three hundred,
he never again made an All Star team, and remembering
that Mantle's total was a hundred and ten point two,
Buzzby finished with a wins above replacement total of twelve
point seven compared to a hundred and ten point two.
(19:39):
And it is people like the owner of the Washington
Senators who just voted to make the ghost Runner permanent.
Time for the daily round of the misgrants, morons and
Dunning Krueger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
(20:00):
the world. The Bronze Bano and you two announcing a
residency at a new facility in Vegas MSG Sphere, co
owned by Madison Square Garden and it's boss James Dolan.
So Mr World Peace, Bono is now in bed with
a man who is openly and boastfully using facial recognition
(20:21):
technology to keep people he does not like out of
Madison Square Garden, Radio City Musical and maybe MSG Sphere,
where Bono is now going to have a residency. You're
okay with this, pal, Well, okay, Bono, there goes forty
years worth of your good reputation. The runner up, Speaking
of which the College Board, you may recall, Florida Governor
(20:44):
Ron de Fascist banned the College boards African American Studies
AP college placement course in Florida because wow, because Florida
is now as racist a state as it was in
the College Board has finally issued a statement after this action,
reading quote, we deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida
(21:07):
Department of Education slander magnified by the DeSantis administration subsequent
comments that African American studies lacks educational value, our failure
to raise our voice betrayed black scholars everywhere, and those
who have long toiled to build this remarkable field. Now
that's great. College board mad What are they gonna do
(21:27):
about Florida? Are they gonna pull all AP courses out
of Florida? They're gonna take this opportunity to kneecap de
Santis and the racists. They're not. They're gonna stare daggers
at De Santis and they will write more mean press
releases if necessary. Cowards. And by the way, where the
university is refusing to accept Florida high school degrees for
(21:50):
admission after this scunt? More cowards, but our winner, Benny Johnson,
This is the goober who have all the condescending Dunner
Krueger poster boys amongst the fascist rights might be the
most condescending, the most dunning Krugerish, the most fascist, and
the most gooberish. Benji here is upset with them playing
(22:13):
lift every voice and sing at the Super Bowl Sunday,
very upset in fact, he wants people arrested. Bernie says
he watches quote the Super Bowl for cultural moments like
the Black national anthem being sung. How the hell is
this even a thing? What a repugnant, degenerate thing to
do to split up a national anthem by race. This
(22:34):
is antithetical, of course, to America. Benno seems to be
unaware of slavery or segregation, or the fact that the
people who take him seriously today are you know, white
supremacist bastards. But wait, there's more. Quoting Benji again, it
should quite frankly be illegal. You shouldn't be able to
(22:56):
do that. Is there a white national anthem? I'm not
sure anyone would be very happy with that being sung. Well,
since you asked, why, yes, Boubo, there is a white
national anthem. It was written by a slave owner who
also served as the district attorney for Washington, d c.
Before the Civil War, who strictly enforced fugitive slave laws
(23:18):
and prosecuted abolitionists. The third verse of his white National
Anthem actually concludes, no refuge could save the hireling and
slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of
the grave. The White national Anthem was promoted in the
first half of the twentieth century in this country by
(23:38):
the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and after decades of lobbying,
they got their wish. The white national anthem is called
the Star Spangled Banner, and the slave owner who prosecuted
abolitionists who wrote it was named Francis Scott Key. And
when it was adopted as this country's anthem in nine
the United Daughters of the Confederacy celebrated their victory by
(24:00):
holding a parade in which they all carried the Confederate flag.
You so there's your answer, Benny Johnson. Yeah, there is
a white national anthem, and you know you're right. Nobody
should be happy when it sung. In fact, we should
stop singing it. Also as a piece of music, the
Star Spangled Banner, It sucks, Benny, I know nothing at
(24:24):
all about American history, Johnson. That's one ugly Johnson. You've
got there, Today's worst parson and the word still ahead
on countdown. Happy Valentine's Day, whatever that means to you,
(24:47):
it means just one thing to me. Valentine's Day at
the Olympics. My boss has got me drunk the night before.
Then at the crack of dawn, they sent me up
to the top of the mountain to cover the men's
downhill in minus fifty wind chills, which is when I
realized that I'd gone to the top of the mountain,
but I gotten to bring well. Anyway, stand by for
(25:07):
this story. First in each edition of Countdown, we feature
dog in need You can Help. Every dog has its
Day to Magnolia, Texas and Daniel d n a animal
rescue is trying to get Daniel back on his feet.
A young standard issue tan hound mutt. Daniel was attacked
and tortured by a group of teenage boys in Texas.
They drew on him, they stabbed him, they fractured his shoulder,
(25:31):
and yet when the rescue staff found Daniel, he wagged
his tail at them. If you want to donate to
Daniel's rehab, you can find him on Cuddly or on
my Twitter feed. Your retweets will also help. I thank you,
and Daniel, thanks you. I swear I saw a snowflake
(26:09):
or too late Saturday night here the first of the year,
and that makes it forty two consecutive winners that that
first snow has triggered me in exactly the same way,
sending me back in my mind to the nineteen eighty
Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. The alarm goes off.
(26:30):
It is pitch black in my room at the Swiss
Acres Motel. It is Valentine's Day, and I am still drunk.
Keith knew he was in trouble, but I was also
twenty one years old, and in fact, my birthday had
only been eighteen days earlier. So somehow I survived, showered, dressed, packed,
(26:54):
and I mean I packed two cassette tape recorders, four
sets of batteries, an audio processing machine that weighed like
fourteen pounds, the nine bolt batteries it took, I think
it was a dozen of them, a telephone, a backup telephone,
twelve assorted patch chords to loose leaf notebooks, about eight pens,
two microphones, to extra pair of socks. And I got
(27:16):
dressed too, full sets of thermal underwear, shirts, sweaters, snow pants,
snow shoes. Because it was eleven degrees below zero that morning.
I got something quick to eat at the commissary, and
I made it out somehow to the line for the
bus from the Lake Placid Olympics Center to the Lake
(27:36):
Placid Transportation Center to Lake Placid's own White Face Mountain,
then onto the snow track the open penned mountain tractor
that went up the side of White Face Mountain and
took me to the finish line of the nineteen Olympic
Men's downhill ski final still drunk. That is how a
(27:56):
reporter covered the Olympics nearly forty three years ago. You drank,
you woke up, you went, You stood near the finish line,
and when the skiers completed their runs, you hiked or
wobbled over to them and you took out your microphone
or your pen and you interviewed them, like two minutes
after they had finished hurtling towards you down the hill.
(28:17):
You could see almost nothing of the race from there.
There were no TV monitors. Basically, your only clue was
the sound of the crowd that would give you about
thirty seconds worth of warning that the skier was coming
over the near horizon and you should be prepared to
flee just in case he or she wiped out. Also,
(28:37):
you were on top of a mountain at the dead
point of winter, and whereas it might have been a
balmy eleven degrees below zero in the comfort of the
Swiss Acres motel with the wind chill at the base
of the mountain, it was forty eight below zero and
there had already been four inches of new snow since
the sun came up, which is where the still drunk
(29:01):
part came in Handy, my boss is at my first job,
the thousand station radio network called United President National Audio,
had decided the night before to teach me how to
drink while on assignment. My bosses were the bureau manager
for that part of u p I, the late stand Sebek,
who had hired me, and Sam Rosen, the sports director
(29:22):
of the network, who not only somehow survived being my
first boss, but today, just forty three years later, is
still working as the television voice of the New York
Rangers hockey team and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
So I guess my reputation is a tough employee is
wildly overrated, or at least Sam think So. Sam and
(29:43):
Stan kept me drinking at the motel until two am,
knowing full well that I had to get on the
six am bus to go cover the men's downhill because
it was the two of them who had assigned me
to go cover the men's downhill and bluntly. I was
surprisingly pleased with myself that freezing morning, because I had
indeed learned how to drink while on assignment. I had
(30:05):
somehow found the phone jack for the U p I
phone buried under all the new snow, which of course
was buried under all the old snow, attached the phone
to it, got in a dial tone, called the office,
checked the alligator clips with which I would feed the tape,
and always well until I went to put a cassette
(30:26):
tape into the cassette recorder. I didn't have one. Fat
A lot of good two cassette tape machines gonna do
you without a cassette to stick in one of them.
I looked forlornly around the base of White Face Mountain,
twelve feet above sea level as we were. There was
(30:49):
a surprisingly nice shalet and a decent restaurant, but there
were no radio shacks or other electronics stores. There was, however,
one other radio guy, Jack Briggs, from the Associated Press
Radio Network, the nominal arch rival to our own up
I Audio. I knew Jack a little. He was a
nice guy. I went and explained my plight making sure
(31:12):
to blame my bosses for my predicament. Oh man, he said,
his breath turning into first steam and then ice cubes.
I'm so sorry, but I can't give you a cassette.
I'm sorry, you're U p I and I'm a p
oh how, I laughed. That was a great line to
(31:35):
say to a rookie reporter still drunk thanks to the
initiation rituals of his own bosses, the possessor of one
great buzz but zero audio cassettes, Jack Briggs could tell
I thought he was kidding. That's when he said, I'm
not kidding. Look. Look, if my boss, Shelby Whitfield ever
found out, he'd fire me. I suddenly wasn't drunk anymore,
(31:57):
not at all. My my boss will will will fire me.
Briggs was adamant. I can't run the risk of shehallby
finding out. I have to confess. I shouted, how the
hell is he gonna find out? Jack? I think subconsciously
I was hoping to create an avalanche, which would have
(32:18):
been a better solution than the one I was faced with.
I said to him, there's you and there's me, and
we're on top of a goddamn mountain. And Shelby Whitfield.
Your boss is in Washington, d C. And he's a drunk,
and he's probably more drunk than I am, and he'd
probably thank you for helping me to drink more. Briggs
(32:39):
would not budge. I told him I would pay him.
I told him I would give him the cassette back
after I fed my boss the interviews over the phone,
so there'd be no evidence and he wouldn't even have
to do any interviews. No good, I'm sorry, and I
know you're gonna tell this story about me for a while.
As he walked away from me, I shouted after him. Forever.
(33:02):
Turned out there was no radio shack and no camaraderie,
but there was a West Coast newspaper reporter atop the
mountain who heard some of this conversation. I guess I
yelled a little loudly to Mr Briggs. Some guy standing
next to us St. Bernard told me to quiet down.
He mentioned something else about the avalanches, or maybe I
dreamed that part. I don't know. Anyway, the West Coast
(33:23):
newspaper guy said he had a micro cassette machine and
he would loan it to me and I could give
it back to him at the media center that day
or the next one. But I had to do him
a favor because there was this really cute reporter in
our up I bureau and he really wanted to be
introduced to her. And I said, I can promise you
nothing but a handshake, and he understood, and that's how
I did not get fired. But of course, a story
(33:44):
like this has punchlines, and this one has two of them.
The first is two years and a couple of months later,
Shelby Whitfield asked me to lunch. He had left the
Associated Press to run the sports department at the ABC
Radio network, back when that was not only a thing,
but a big thing. We went to a terrific New
(34:04):
York City Chinese restaurant near ABC called shun Lee, and
Shelby Whitfield interviewed me for a job when that kind
of job paid eighty thousand a year in my very
nice studio apartment in a very nice part of town
costs less than five hundred dollars a month later, in
an interesting twist, I found out the jobs didn't exist.
(34:24):
I was mentioning the interview in a press box somewhere
I think Madison Square Garden, and there was another kid
reporter named how He Rose and how are you still working?
He does the New York Mets games on the radio,
and how he said, Wait, they interviewed me for that
job last year, just an excuse for that damn Whitfield
to go drink his lunch on ABC's tab. Anyway, before
(34:48):
we started the interview for the job, I did not
know did not exist at ABC. I told Shelby Whitfield
the white Face Mountain, can I borrow a cassette Jack
Briggs story? And Shelby's exact reply was, I don't know.
Was I going to find out? There was you and
there was him, and you were on top of a
goddamn mountain and I was in Washington. Only he didn't
say goddamn that Briggs. He added, always trying to suck
(35:11):
up to me, I gotta tell you something I actually
once promised I wouldn't tell you if we ever met this.
When the Olympics were over and came back to the office,
he told me what happened. He expected me to be
happy or give him a bonus or something. And I
called him a little snitch. Only Shelby didn't say snitch,
just a word that rhymed with it. The other punch
line is from and remember this happened at the Olympics.
(35:36):
I go to work at ESPN and come in a
little early to launch their radio network of story I've
told here before, and there I find a friend of
mine since my radio days, who I have not seen
in a year or so, and he says, hey, last month,
I was in an NBA game in Washington. I ran
it at Jack Briggs. He heard you were going to ESPN.
He asked me if you were still telling that story
about the time you got stuck on White Face Mountain
(35:57):
without a cassette. And he was the only other reporter
there and he wouldn't give you a spare. And I
told him you were, and I smiled, and I reply,
I hope you remembered to use the word forever. Countdown
(36:22):
has come to you from the studios of Alderman Broadcasting
Empire World Headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York.
Thanks for listening. Here the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are
the Countdown Musical directors. Guitarist based and drums by Brian
ray All, orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Shanelle, produced
(36:46):
by t Ko Brothers. Another Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
the Olderman theme from ESPN Too, and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments
by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was Tony Cornis, who is also written by ESPN. Hey,
(37:07):
everything else is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown
for this, the seven seventieth day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith ol
(37:40):
Reman is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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