December 9, 2024 • 56 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 77: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump's return to the world of TV interviews is important (and crazy) but the shooting of the head of United Health Care just blocks from my home actually seems to be one of the watershed moments of 21st Century American Politics. We have often descended into the slough of despond that all political parties, voting, law, government, the entirety of the power structure mean nothing and that the only way to change things is violence. I think we're entering such a stage. If so: fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night.
AS TO TRUMP apart from his latest threat to imprison opponents (everybody on the January 6 House Committee should go to jail) did anybody notice his insistence that we are "subsidizing" Mexico and Canada by $100 Billion a year and at those rates they should become states.
Wait. What?
Mr. Numb Nuts Psycho President? If Mexico is a STATE in the United States – you know, where you are right now – the people LIVING there become CITIZENS of the United States, so not only can’t you deport people from the US State of Mexico… but you can’t put up a wall between Texas and the state of Mexico and in fact you can’t inhibit movement BETWEEN Mexico and any state of the union. I hope somebody told MAGA about Trump’s new Mexico solution: make it a state. That’d be two senators from Mexico and if New York has 20 million people, 26 congressmen, Mexico with130 million people at 13 congressmen per 10 million residents would get 169 Congressional seats.
Trump proposes giving Mexico 169 seats in the US Congress.
Also a GOP Senate operative uses the A-word on Tulsi Gabbard, and a Trump operative is ready to blackmail Republican Senators to get Pete Hegseth confirmed anyway.
B-Block (25:00) THE OTHER WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: "Democratic" Governor Polis again sides with Sideshow Bob Kennedy. Laura Loomer isn't just hateful, she's stupid. And Marshal Petain would be proud: Jeff Bezos, Joe Scarborough, and Mika Brzezinski all double down on collaborating with the Trump Regime.
C-Block (35:55) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My Lunch With Elie. How a delightful afternoon getting to meet Elie Mystal meant I did NOT meet Martin Scorsese. That, in turns, evokes the story of Francis Ford Coppola unintentionally paying a former colleague of mine something like a million dollars to be in the background of one scene in Godfather II.
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. I
don't want to undersell Trump's television return from seclusion and
(00:26):
his latest basket full of insanities. And maybe I'm a
little close to this other story, and by close, I
mean it happened five blocks from my house. But you
do realize that the murder of the head of United
Healthcare may have been the first political assassination of the
second Trump presidency. It may also signal a new echelon
(00:50):
for political violence in the United States. I don't mean
Brian Thompson was shot because he was a Republican or
a Democrat, or a MAGA or a liberal. I mean
I think we have reached a point where many people
in this country think that voting and government and the
law are meaningless and they have no other means of
influencing the culture without violence. I also don't want to
(01:14):
leave the impression that I am somehow in favor of
people shooting visitors here in fun City and then escaping
along one of the routes on which I walk my dogs.
I am just saying that something that started now more correctly,
something that resumed no later than two thousand and eight
something that was not satiated by Trump's fake populism, nor
(01:36):
anti woke, nor any of that crap. Something is now
boiling over, as it has so many times in our
American past. Caveat. We still don't know who shot him,
never mind why this could be somebody else's husband for
all we know. If so, then my point here is
a little less relevant that I'm suggesting. But if you
(01:58):
had to guess, you would say he was murdered by
somebody who was not happy with something to do within
show currants. And of course you have to guess, because
New York's eleven billion dollar paramilitarized police force needed two
days to find the shooter's backpack where he stashed it
a fourteen minute walk from the shooting, full of Monopoly money,
(02:24):
and it took them three days to announce the manhunt
was being extended to New Jersey and Connecticut, even though
the guy went all the way uptown and was on
a bus for New Jersey before they finished cleaning up
the crime scene. And by now he could have closed
on his own house in Uruguay. Monopoly money. Somebody heard
(02:45):
that and said, he's just playing with the cops now,
And I answered, no, these are New York cops. The
cops are playing with themselves three days to extend the search,
possibly because it took NYPD at least a day to
figure out where in New York this Central Park place was.
(03:07):
But back to my point, A historian named John Grinspan
noted that in the half century starting with Lincoln's assassination,
we had three presidents killed by guns. We had another
ex president running to regain the office also shot. We
had one impeachment, and two elections won by the loser
of the popular vote. Anarchism, often violent terrorism, exploded, and
(03:32):
after that half century ended. On September sixteenth, nineteen twenty,
a horse drawn wagon parked across the street from the
headquarters of JP Morgan on Wall Street. It blew up.
It sent shards of shrapnel into the crowds. Thirty killed immediately,
ten later, hundreds of injuries never solved, probably anarchists. When
(03:56):
I was a kid, President Kennedy was assassinated by a
man whose bio, if you read it one way, paints
him as a pro Russian leftist, and if you read
it the other way, paints him as a virtual John Bircher.
When I was eleven, the radical Weather Underground staged a
series of bombings. In the worst of them, they managed
to blow up their own bomb making house on West
eleventh Street, and they killed three of their own members.
(04:19):
In nineteen sixty eight, an American assassinated Martin Luther King,
and four years later another tried to assassinate the racist
George Wallace after the shooter had given up trying to
shoot Nixon. Lord knows if we will ever figure out
why a Trump supporter shot at Trump last summer, but
(04:40):
he did. But the point is, throughout our history this country,
we have sunk into stages in which political violence has
had almost nothing directly to do with political parties or alignments,
just a sense that political action by anybody in any
direction no longer sufficed. You got a grievance, you throw
(05:03):
a bomb. The most startling thing is that anybody is
startled by the general reaction to the killing of the
insurance guy. I don't think anybody has done any polling
on this, and I'm almost afraid to suggest it because
I have a sinking feeling the number of those who
approved of it, or didn't care or had no opinion
(05:23):
that that number would exceed those who condemned the killing.
We have long since reached that point, I'm sure. Just
to ratchet this up a little bit, all my embittered
New Yorker sarcasm aside, it is now evident that one
of the drawbacks to having fifty million conspiracy theories and
how to shoot videos and assassination fantasies active online and
(05:47):
in every entertainment venue, from video games to YouTube to musicals,
the disadvantage to that is that the mayhem makers are
getting better at it and the authorities are getting worse.
They could spend fifty billion a year on cops here
every year, and you're not going to be able to
protect every corporate fat cat that somebody hates. And as
(06:08):
to the Secret Service, after the late eight years of
near disasters with Trump and Biden alike, I think we
all know what the secret is. The secret is the
Secret Service is not very good at this. Fasten your
seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night. And
(06:55):
as if on Q after the phrase it's going to
be a bumpy night, here's Trump on NBC back from
I don't know where where he goes to get stupider
and crazier.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And Cheney was behind it. So was Benny Thompson and
everybody on that committee. We're gonna for what they did. Yeah,
honestly they should go to jail.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail for
what everyone on the committee us? I think anybody that
voted in, are you going to director FBI, director in
your attorney general to send them to jail?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Not all?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think that they'll have to look at that.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Okay, you heard that right, nothing new. But he wants
Cheney and Benny Thompson and everybody else in the January
sixth hous committee in jail, he said that, But he's
not going to make it happen. His attorney general, whose
price is apparently twenty five k, that would all be
her call. There were You heard it right, You heard
(07:53):
him say that. This is how the now fully compromised
New York Times first reported that threat by Trump that
standard Trump Candy asked, I'm not jailing them, but they
should be jailed threat by proxy. This is how the
New York Times lied about what Trump said on NBC
(08:14):
Where Things Stand. President elect Donald J. Trump said an
interview with NBC's Meet the Press that aired on Sunday
that he would not direct his administration to seek retribution
against his political enemies, though he made clear he would
like to see them punished. There continued to be a
(08:36):
few scattered reporters alive and well and doing great work
within the New York Times. But as an institution, I
now have to double check everything I read in the
New York Times. It is sliding inexorably down towards being
on a par with the Epoch Times, or worse still,
(08:56):
the Los Angeles Times. In the same interview, Kristen Welker
actually pushed back on some She asked Trump if he'd
now try to unify the country by admitting he lost
in twenty twenty and he said, why would I do that?
And she said, because you lost, And he said, that's
your opinion. So you know where this world is headed,
(09:18):
and where it's headed is towards President. Nathan Thrm Nathan Therm,
Marty Short's priceless old SNL character who answered questions with
deflections like I'm not being defensive. You should be defensive
with that hairdoo, and is it him or is it me?
It's him right now, eventually doing nothing but equivocating and
(09:42):
waffling and plausibly denying, you know, saying nothing but stuff
you can deny later or insist you got it right,
depending on how it actually turns out. Keep doing that
and eventually you will trip yourself up. And Trump did it.
He again insisted he can overrule birthright citizenship by executive order,
(10:03):
and again said he will deport undocumented immigrants. And then,
and almost nobody noticed this, he undercut all of that
by actually suggesting Canada and Mexico should become states. No,
in our country, the United States of America co starring
(10:27):
Mexico and Canada.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
We're subsidizing Canada to the tune of over one hundred
billion dollars a year. We're subsidizing Mexico for almost three
hundred billion dollars. We shouldn't be subsidized. Why are we
subsidizing these countries. If we're going to subsidize them, let
him become a state.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
The fifty first and fifty second states, and maybe fifty
third and fifty five. I don't know Mexico as a state,
mister numb nuts psycho president. If Mexico is a state
in the United States, you know where you are right now.
The people living there in Mexico become citizens of the
(11:04):
United States. So not only can't you deport people from
the US state of Mexico, but you then can't put
up a wall between Texas and the state of Mexico.
In fact, you cannot inhibit movement between Mexico and any
other state of the Union. I hope somebody has told
(11:28):
MAGA about Trump's new Mexico solution. Make it a state.
That would mean there'd be two senators from Mexico. And
let's calculate this together. New York twenty million people, twenty
six congressmen and women, Mexico one hundred and thirty million people,
and the rate is thirteen congressman per ten million residents.
(11:51):
That it'd be Mexico gets one one hundred and sixty
nine congressional seats. Headline, Trump proposes giving Mexico one one
hundred and sixty nine seats in the US House of Representatives.
And we haven't even talked about those fifty three Canadian congressman. Oh,
(12:24):
by the way, Trump continued to screwed up his own transition,
and thank you for that, Pal. They still think they'll
get Pete Hegseth confirmed, and that's debatable. The team trying
to push his drunk ass over the finish line, says
they have not found three no votes among all those
Republican senators. But the money quote about this is from
Jony Ernst of Iowa, who was asked if even after
(12:45):
a frank and thorough conversation with Heggy, she's not ready
to vote yes because of the little alcoholism and sexual
misconduct allegation stuff, and Senator Ernst replied, I think you
are right, and then she gave the money quote. The
vetting will continue, I am certain through the next month
(13:06):
or so until we approach that hearing date. Sounds like
they've given up on the idea of the recess appointment
and they're going to go for a hearing. But oh
my god, another month of this, Another month of how
drunk is Pete Hegseth today? Another month of Pete Hegseth
saying well, if I'm named Secretary of Defense, I'll stop drinking.
(13:30):
Oh my god, another month of this. Thank you. This
isn't Brett Kavanaugh. With Trump in charge of the FBI
and able to stop further revelations before they happen, heg
Seth is a tire fire, and Trump keeps buying him
new white walls. Oh a nice typo President Moron Pete
(13:52):
Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep,
much more so than the fake news. What have you believe?
He was a great student military state of mind. He
will be a fantastic, high energy Secretary of Defense Defense,
one who leads to the Secretary of Defense Defense. Cheez, Trump.
(14:14):
I mean, you do not have to actually translate your
brain freezes into the written word. Just proofread these things once. Still,
they might actually get him confirmed. Politico interviewed trumpest haacked
Mike Davis, and I have to admire Mike Davis's willingness
(14:34):
to explain how their side blackmails people before they actually
do the blackmailing in this case. Quote. In an interview
with Playbook, Davis went further, threatening to hire private investigators
to sift through the backgrounds of any potential senate GOP holdouts.
The Article three project is very excited about this new
(14:57):
standard that drinking and womanizing is disqualifying for public office.
Davis tells Playbook, I'm very happy to hire investigators for
senators and use that standard. Sure, because that works so
well with Matt Gates. Wait, no, it didn't work at all.
Didn't work at all anyway, Please blackmail away, mister Davis.
(15:22):
The more Republican damage against other Republicans the better. Meanwhile,
big to do the other night. Rachel Campos Duffy, co
host with the Secretary of Defense Designate, writes, so much
fun at the Patriot Awards where at Donald Trump won
(15:46):
the Patriot of the Year and topped off the night
dancing YMCA to the crowd's delight. And there's a picture
of Judge Janine Pirot upright the punchline. Punchline is the
producer of the Fox Nation Patriot Awards, where Trump surprisingly
(16:06):
won Patriot of the Year. The producer of that is
Pete Hegseeth's wife. Breaking news for both Trump and Tulsy Gabbard.
Assad overthrown in Syria after an uprising that lasted well,
(16:30):
lasted just a little longer than New York City bike insurance.
Assassin was at large now granted asylum in Moscow by Putin.
So if you want to plan ahead, Trump and Gabbard
remember Gabbard on this topic August eleventh, twenty sixteen, when
it was still Twitter. It's time to end the illegal,
counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad vote
(16:55):
Tulsey eight eleven sixteen. Meanwhile, back on the Hill, off
the record quote from the insider website The Hill about
Tulsy Gabbard from what The Hill identifies as a Senate
Republican aid. The quote from the Senate Republican aid in
the Hill quote behind closed doors, people think she might
(17:17):
be compromised. Like it's not hyperbole. There are members of
our conference who think she's a Russian asset. Unquote The
Hill anonymous quote about Tulsy Gabbard. I mean about one
hundred former senior US diplomats and intel and n set
folk have urged the Senate that if Gabbard lasts to
(17:39):
a Senate hearing on her nomination to be DNI, that
the hearings be closed door. Their plea includes the assertion
that her past actions quote call into question her ability
to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and
to the entire National security apparatus. Before a sad fell
(18:02):
John Bolton said, if he did, Syrian government files on
some Americans in the hands of the rebels could prove interesting,
you bet. And lastly, there is what must be described
as nothing less than right wing panic about Biden preemptive pardons.
Biden preemptive pardons. It is as if to them there
(18:24):
was no previous understanding that anybody besides Trump could do
what Trump has done. The idea that Mark Millie and
Christopher ray Fauci everybody else might get whatever you did
or didn't do pardons is astonishing to them. The main
questions on the right seem to be, well, we can
(18:47):
just overrule it, right, and that can't be legal, But
it's an admission of guilt. While they cheer on Trump's
plan to pardon the January sixth domestic terrorists and don't
worry about that admission of guilt. And I repeat what
I have said before, I want ten million pardons. Ford
(19:07):
and Nixon started this, Trump escalated it, Republicans built it.
This is the America you fascists wanted. This is the
America you get. Hell, I'm going to increase my demands.
Not only should President Biden preemptively pardon every elected Democrat
of the last twenty years and every Trump critic and
(19:29):
every media person, even Chris Salizza, but I think the
president should now preemptively pardon every immigrant living in this
country documented or not. No matter what, you don't like
that idea, mega you broke it, you bought it. Also
(19:58):
of interest here in an all new edition of Countdown,
and forgive me if I stumbled over a few words
here and again the eye is still bob me. Well
still come. Everybody gets a pardon, except Joe Scarborough and
Mika Brzynski, who are back on the worst Person's list
because they're worms. And I've even got a brand new
(20:21):
things I promised not to tell. We're getting to meet
one of my favorite reporters turns into not meeting one
of the greatest film directors of all time who was
sitting behind me, and the reporter didn't tell me until
after the director had left. Jesus H. Christ. Seriously, that's next.
(20:42):
This is Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith Olberman still ahead.
(21:09):
We will end on a lighter note. How my lunch
with one of the best legal reporters in the country
ended with him asking me if I'd noticed that the
guy sitting behind me was America's greatest filmmaker who I
always wanted to meet but still have not because I
did not notice this, And the related story of how
one of his rivals for that title, wound up paying
(21:32):
somebody I knew something like a million dollars for the
football TV play by play playing in the background in
just one scene from Godfather Part two, a rather intricate
return in an all new episode of Countdown of a
brand new things I promised not to tell first, believe
(21:55):
it or not. Never mind the high and lighter notes,
there's still new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup
of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimen
who constitute today's other worst persons in the world Lebrons
worst Governor Jared Polis of Colorado Democrat. First he sucked
(22:18):
up to Robert F. I'm not wearing pants Kennedy Junior.
Then Polus went after President Biden for pardoning his own son. Now,
having not given us enough reason to kick his term
limited ass out of the Democratic Party, Polus is back
to sucking up to RFK Junior. I truly believe that
(22:38):
RFK is not beholden to big Pharma. I think he's
an independent voice, and I think he's somebody who means
what he says when he cares about reducing chronic disease
through better nutrition I might add Governor Polis that there'll
be less chronic disease if more people die in childhood,
because what Kennedy is doing will kill kids, and you're helping.
(23:02):
By the way, Governor Polis is a libertarian. Libertarian means
you are free, free from intelligence. The runner up worser,
one time Trump favorite and Florida Magas Starr and would
be congressperson Laura No, my face has always looked like this.
I haven't had any work done recently. What do you mean,
(23:22):
I went to the college where they trained them, Loomer,
She's how do I put this? She's not smart breaking,
she posted on Twitter X for those of you who
don't go there anymore, anti Trump. Democrat Congressman Representative Adam Schiff.
Adam Schiff, who is the top client of Judge Mershawn's daughter,
(23:46):
just resigned from Congress so we can get an early
start on running for the US Senate in California. Here's
his resignation letter, effective December eighth. He's going to try
to help the Democrats reclaim the Senate so they can
impeach President Trump and help the Senate Dems obstruck President
blah blah blah, blahlah blah BLA. Laura Lumer, who believes
(24:08):
she is a force in politics, does not know B
that the Senate does not impeach. The House which she
ran for impeaches. But more importantly, A, she has no
idea that Adam Schiff resigned from Congress so he can
assume his seat in the Senate because he was already
(24:29):
elected senator from California in November. It was in all
the papers, Laura, This, of course, presumes you can read.
I'd like to introduce Laura Lumer to Governor Polis. I
have a sense they'd have a lot to talk about.
But our winners, speaking of which, Jeff Bezos and Joe
(24:51):
Scarborough and Mika Brzhinsky, Scarborough doubling down on collaborating with
the incoming fascist regime. At a New York Times breakfast
for Billionaire or whatever it was, or short billionaires, whatever
it was, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Bezos, as it was
(25:13):
put in Oliver Darcy's newsletter. Asked by Sorkin about Trump's
menacing rhetoric towards the news media, Bezos only replied that
he would quote try to talk him out of that
idea that the press is the enemy. Earlier, Bezos said
he was very proud of the decision that The Washington
Post declined to make an endorsement in the High Stakes
(25:34):
twenty twenty four race. Yes, I'm very proud that the
paper I own and everybody there is my employee, and
I would have fired them if they didn't do what
I told them to do. Did what I told them
to do. What a little weasel, this Amazon bastard turns
out to be. Going back to Oliver Darcy, Bezos rejected
the notion that his decision to block his editorial boards
(25:54):
planned endorsement of Kamala Harris created more distrust, saying he
doesn't follow that logic. He claimed it was far from
cowardly because we knew there would be the blowback in
the form of a quarter million subscription cancelations. Let's dry
that at Amazon Prime. As to Scarborough and missus Scarborough,
(26:16):
whose great contribution to that program is to go. This
is also, I believe from the Darcy column. Fresh off
their visit to Marri Lago, the host of Morning Joe
last Wednesday rebuked guest David Frumm, who is still nominally
a Republican, for a remark he made about Pete Hegseth's
alleged drinking issues at Fox. There was an NBC report
(26:41):
you will recall that Hegsith would show up to work
with alcohol on his breath work at Fox. Frum said
on MSNBC on Morning Day, if you're too drunk for
Fox News, you're very, very drunk. Indeed, in the same program,
Missus Joe said Frum's remark was inappropriate, quoting the comment
(27:03):
was a little too flip for this moment that we're in.
She's referring, of course, to the moment in which she
betrayed her audience and America by trying to sidling up
to Trump again for the second time in eight years,
after trying to decidle in between and trying to make
money off pretending to be anti Trump. We just want
to make that comment as well. We want to make
(27:27):
that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News,
and that's a good debate that we should have often.
But right now, I just want to say there's a
lot of good people that work at Fox News who
care about Pete Hegseth, and we want to leave it
at that. You heard them bashing their own guests their
own regular guests, a Republican on his own network, bashing
(27:50):
his own network for a joke about HEG Sith that
actually understates the reality of the Hegseth situation. And moreover,
the comments about Fox News, a sympathetic statement about Fixox News.
Rashinsky and Scarborough are also collaborating with Fox News. This
gives rise to the thought that has been sometimes right
(28:13):
front of mind at MSNBC and elsewhere, dating back to
at least two thousand and two, that Joey scars was
really just auditioning for a job at Fox I mean
track his career. Sudden resignations still unexplained from Congress right
after he was re elected, hired on by MSNBC's Phil
Griffin as a sop to his own bosses, who threatened
(28:35):
to fire Phil if he didn't find a fascist to
put on the air. They put Joe Scarborough on a
nighttime show called Scarborough Country, in which all Joe did
was threatened Democrats and liberals and try to undermine everybody
else who worked at his own network. As things evolved
and the network became successful by doing fewer shows like Scarborough,
he was kept on as a counterbalance to me. On
(28:58):
at least one occasion, he went in and told his
bosses that, having violated a rule against criticizing other MSNBC
he hosts in non MSNBC venues, if you did that,
you were to be suspended. He told Griffin and Me
that if they suspended him for criticizing me, he would
go public with it and say he had been suspended
(29:18):
because he was a conservative and I was a liberal,
and I and not Phil Griffin ran the network. This
is quoting Phil Griffin quoting Joe Scarborough. So in any event,
after I left, they kept him on as a sort
of middle of the road coffee clotch host. Then he
became in twenty fifteen and sixteen an unofficial advisor to
(29:39):
Donald Trump and a frequent host of Donald Trump and
a sane washer before the term existed of Donald Trump.
Then when Trump did not pick him to be vice
president or offer him a job in his cabinet, he
became anti Trump and called him hitler. I think he
was probably still in the top one hundred people in
(30:01):
media to call him hitler, lower them than me, but
he still did it. And then, of course he has
now become a turncoat who actually traveled secretly to Mary
Lago to beg for Trump's forgiveness and an interview. He
then doubled down by having his useless wife apologized to
Fox and criticizing the host favorite guest, David From the
(30:28):
network's favorite sort of Republican guest, David From, for making
a really good joke about how if you're too drunk
for Fox, you're really really drunk. It was a good
joke and I applaud David From for it, And right
now Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzhinsky are the symbols of
a new network msnvsh Bezos, Scarborough, Virshinski, Marshall Tatan would
(30:57):
be proud. Two days other worst War said he finally
(31:19):
on the theory that we should close with something optimistic,
because God knows, there isn't very much optimistic going on
at the moment, despite the holiday season. In things I
promised not to tell, which is a total misnomer because
I didn't promise anybody I wouldn't tell this, I had
the pleasure on Thursday of having lunch with Ellie miss Stal,
who I have mentioned before quoted many times about his
(31:39):
extraordinarily good coverage of the Supreme Court, and I don't
think it's a secret since he posted about it in
social media and I posted about it. And I left
this lunch thinking, why does this man not have his
own TV news show. I don't know if that's a
compliment or a curse. In any event, we talked about
the news and the dire situations we all face right now,
(32:00):
but we also talked about our lives and histories, and
I got talking about Lost Angelus and having worked there
and having known somebody who worked for Coppola on the
Godfather films. And then at the end of this lunch,
he says to me, did you notice who was sitting
behind you in the adjoining booth? And I said no,
I was talking to you, and he said, Martin Scorsese.
(32:23):
And I said, you could have mentioned that. He said, well,
how am I supposed to say to you Martin Scorsese's
sitting behind you. When Martin Scorsese is sitting behind you,
I said, text me, write me a note. I would
love to have met him. I've never met him. I
never met Coppola. I met lots of people, and I
don't have any complaints about the number of people I
have met. Those Eh, those are probably it. I guess
(32:48):
I would like to meet Robert de Niro, who was
a great fan of the old TV show, And there
are a couple of other people here and there, But
you know, as I like to say, I met Jim
Thorpe's Olympic roommate from nineteen twelve, and I was apparently
a regular thing to watch on TV for the great
actor Joseph Cotton from Citizen Kane. And my friend Norman Lloyd,
(33:11):
who lived to be one hundred and six, had worked
with Wells and basically everybody between Wells and Amy Schumer
in the industry, in the film industry, so I don't
have any complaints about that, but it all brought me
back to this story of talking about how I happened,
by one remove to have known Coppola, or at least
(33:32):
somebody I knew knew Coppla. And I've been meaning to
tell this story for a while. Ellie and I talked
about my tenure in Los Angeles as a sportscaster, the
first one I had two nineteen eighty five to nineteen
ninety two, and one of my two or three jobs
there was at KNX Radio, the all news station then
(33:53):
in a heated rivalry with the other all news station
which later went out of business, KFWB. But I worked
at KNX, and it was an extraordinary place, perhaps journalistically
as as good as anywhere else I've ever worked, probably
a little bit better. And the history there literally was
on the walls. KNX had been in Los Angeles and
(34:14):
been in that studio on Sunset Boulevard, Columbia's Square. They
called it so long that the television studio in which
I eventually worked used to be Jack Benny's live studio
for his network radio show in the nineteen forties. And
our makeup artist, Billy, once explained to me he had
(34:36):
been working in the building since the early forties. And
I said, Billy, they didn't have television in this building.
CBS didn't have a television station in Los Angeles till
something like nineteen fifty one. He said, yeah, I used
to work makeup in radio, And I said, how in
the hell did that work? He goes, you don't know,
you're too young. Something I don't hear much anymore. He said,
you're too young. Everybody used to The performers used to
(35:00):
not only dress up in formal attire, often in tuxedos,
at least in suits, but there was a live audience.
The orientation for a radio show in nineteen forty eight,
even as television began to come in, was not, oh,
this is the easier version of television. We don't even
have to wear any clothes, let alone a tucks. We
can just get away with whatever we're wearing on the street.
(35:22):
In those days, they dressed up and they had a
studio audience. The theory was essentially it was Broadway, only
it was recorded it. It was even tenser than Broadway.
People would hear this again. You had to give an
even better presentation of yourself than you would if you
were live somewhere in the theater. Your only advantage was,
(35:43):
of course, if you screwed it up, they could do
it over again, because there were transcriptions and recording, even
before there was audio tape. So Jack Benny, my friend Billy,
used to make Jack Benny up so that the audience
would see only the youngish looking Jack Benny, who of
course always claimed to be thirty nine years old. The
story I wanted to tell came from not that floor
(36:03):
of the Columbia Square building, the television floor, as it were,
but the radio floor CANX Radio in LA. And it
sort of circumnavigates back to Martin Scorsese and how I
did not meet him on Thursday when I met Ellie
Mestap because Ellie didn't say, that's Martin Scorsese sitting behind you,
(36:24):
like you know. Okay, Here's how I knew Coppola by
one remove. When they called me, and I'm referring today
as the people at KNX Radio, which was an excellent
all news radio station and still is. They suggested that
I could come over there if I had time in
the afternoons. Since my job consisted at that point at
(36:45):
Channel five in Los Angeles of only doing the sports
on the ten o'clock news at night, I had a
lot of time to prepare. Usually get into the TV
station around three in the afternoon, and they said, would
you like to split our afternoon radio sports updates here
on KNX. We already have somebody doing them, but he
wants to cut back a little and we like to
(37:06):
cut him back a little bit. And I went Tom
Kelly and he said, this was roger Na Delby, assistant
news director of the station, telling me this. He said, yes,
you know him. I said, well, yeah, he's kind of
well known even outside LA. So a few months after
I got to Los Angeles and started on Channel five here,
I was in the afternoons splitting the shift with Tom Kelly,
who was legendary, and I would say there were many
(37:28):
reasons he was legendaries, an excellent play by play man.
He had been a local sportscaster and had a similar
arrangement that they were making for me on Channel eleven.
He did the weeknight sports news on Channel eleven in LA.
Just as I got there, they demoted him from that
and he didn't do much television thereafter. But he was
also in the afternoon drives slot at KNX, and he
(37:48):
did play by play of USC football and basketball. Chick Hearn,
the legendary voice of the Los Angeles Lakers, actually was
in LA before the Lakers moved to LA and did
all the USC games, basketball and I think for years football,
and he later did other sports. He did soccer play
by play on television if you can imagine such a thing,
(38:10):
and he did a bowling for dollars kind of show.
He did lots of things before the Lakers, even though
he's remembered only for the Lakers. When the Lakers came
to town, they wanted their guy, and it was Chick
Hern and they hired him away essentially from USC and
Tom Kelly got the job and became synonymous with USC
sports on KNX on television for probably twenty years, to
(38:33):
the point where he told me, and my impression of
Tom Kelly, I can't really give it the full value.
There are some who are who are born loud, some
who achieve loudness, some have loudness thrust upon them. I'm
way louder as a broadcaster than I was the day
I started in nineteen seventy five. And then there are
(38:56):
those who are all three. Tom Kelly had a voice
on him like you weren't actually hearing him over your radio.
He was simply seeping through your walls. This was a
problem in a newsroom where as we were ahead of
the curve there at can X, we had already adopted computers,
and they'd had them before I got there, but they
(39:17):
were in full use by nineteen eighty five. I don't
think there was a typewriter left in the place downstairs.
The television station used typewriters well into nineteen eighty nine.
In any event, so you'd be sitting there was a
fairly quiet environment, and the phone would ring and you'd
hear this Kelly speaking, and Tom would conduct a conversation
like that, only not as forced sounded, but with that
(39:38):
kind of volume. And I did move my mouth away
from the mic, so you didn't hear that in full flower.
But Tom Kelly was really loud, like this, like a
PA system at a local Metropolitan Railroad station near you,
only louder. So we used to joke about, how you know, Tom,
it probably save you a little strain on your voice
(40:00):
if you use a microphone instead. In any event, I
like Tom. Tom was, I guess grudgingly okay with me
taking some money out of his pocket. But he explained
that he had and would have until he died, a
steady scream stream of income, noticed the Freudian slipped there
about him screaming absolutely apt. Tom said he'd have this
(40:23):
steady stream of income until the day he died. Because
one day after the success of Godfather, the movie produced
by Francis Ford Coppola, he got a call directly from
Francis Ford Coppola saying that he was a big usc
fan and he used to listen to K and X
in the afternoons, and the people used to listen to
K and X. It's how I met Vin Scully. He
(40:45):
was a regular listener of mine before I had the
courage to screw up the whatever it was that required
I required before I introduced myself to Vin Scully and
he said, I listened to you every afternoon. I thought
I'd done something to offend you. We had extraordinary audiences.
And of course, as I said, the station had been
on the air in various guyses as a talk station,
(41:07):
as a comedy station, as a rock and roll station
since the thirties, and as the home for Jack Benny,
so it had a cachet in Los Angeles that was
just tremendous. Los Angeles was an underrated broadcasting town with
people who had been on the air in television. As
I always tell the story of my late friend Stan Chambers,
(41:27):
that he was there the day KTLA Channel five signed
on in nineteen forty seven, went through every job in
the place, including news director, and eventually before he retired,
he was working alongside his own grandson, who is still
a reporter and an excellent one in this business. Based
in San Diego, Jamie Stan was there at KTLA for
(41:48):
like one hundred and forty four years, and he was
going out on stories at ten o'clock at night every
night the week he retired. So there were long lived,
longevity kind of guys, and they became very familiar to
the audience. So the phone ringing in the kN X
newsroom sometimes in I guess the early eighties, maybe the
late seventies. I forget my timing on the making of
(42:09):
the second Godfather film, I guess still late seventies. But
the phone rings and Kelly answers it sports like that,
and then he says, nice to talk to you, mister Coppola.
What can I do for you? And what mister Copplo
wanted was he wanted Tom Kelly to research, produce, and
(42:31):
record and hand him a tape of the play by
play of the USC Notre Dame football game from I
guess nineteen sixty one two. I looked this up once,
and of course, advancing in my own age and not
really being able to see anything at the moment, as
(42:52):
alluded to earlier, I don't remember what I found. I
think it was nineteen sixty two. What he wanted was
like half an hour's worth of play by play, actual
literal play by play of that football game, so that
the actor Lee Strasberg playing Hyman Roth could be watching
it in his home outside Miami when Michael Corleone comes
(43:16):
and visits him. And I might add that the actor
who played Michael Corleoni, who was not Robert de Niro,
who was the other one, used to live in the
same building I did, and I used to see him
all the time, and he was about three feet tall,
and he had a dog who was about six feet tall.
So I already met him, and I never met Robert DeNiro.
(43:36):
So he wanted Corleone to have this meeting with Hyman Roth.
Francis Ford Coppola, did I have too many hymns in
this statement? He wanted him to have the game on
in the background. But one of the things that makes
and few people recognize this, my father did, and he
was the first one to point it out to me.
(43:57):
And I find, to my great surprise to this day,
fifty years later, nearly after the success of the Godfather films,
that many people don't recognize this as one of the great, great,
understated but important components to the spectacular nature and the genuineness,
(44:18):
the resilience, the very similitude of the Godfather films. Coppola
thought that the more background details that he got that
were historically accurate to the day he was pretending to
take you to, whether you knew anything about the historical
record of that date or not, the more that he
got exactly right, the better the film would be. My
(44:39):
father pointed this out to me not long after he
bought the first VCR I had ever seen. This is
in nineteen seventy seven. It costs two thousand dollars apiece,
and the blank tapes were twenty dollars. Bootleg versions of
popular films were one hundred dollars. Real versions of videos
of films were two hundred dollars. The Godfather was two
(45:01):
hundred dollars. Porn was two hundred dollars. Bad movies were
two hundred dollars. Needless to say, they didn't sell a
lot of movies. But my dad got a bootleg version
of The Godfather Part two and he called me in
one day as he was watching it out in our
living room. I guess I was home from Cornell. It
(45:22):
was the winter break. I remember it being very cold,
and my dad had frozen. It had paused the video
of Godfather Part two, in which de Niro is standing
there on the street in New York in nineteen oh four,
whenever it is nineteen oh six, just before he kills
(45:44):
the mafia leader and makes begins his assent to running
the families of New York. And my dad says, you
got to see this. I spent time in the public
library here in Hastings the other day to check this out.
I had a feeling this was true, and it's true.
Do you see the window of the grocery store behind
(46:06):
him in this tight shot? What do you see in
the window? I said, it looks like a poster for
a fight, an advertisement for a boxing match at Madison
Square Garden. Not an uncommon sight in nineteen oh four,
or in my own youth or in years thereafter here
in New York. And there it was somebody, kid, somebody
(46:26):
versus somebody junior. All the boxers of the days were
either John L. Sullivan Junior or kid John L. Sullivan.
That was the joke. It was, you know, kid Sullivan
versus Sullivan Junior for the championship of the Sullivan Division.
Referee John M. Sullivan in any event. My dad said,
(46:47):
I went and looked this up. That fight actually happened
on that date at Madison Square Garden. That is the
kind of detail this man brings to these films. That's
why they're so good. Because you may never notice that
you are actually seeing sort of time to time travel here,
but the story seems legit because the background to it
(47:08):
is legit. He said, I don't know if that helps
you in what you're doing in your career, but maybe
you should think about that, and I said I will,
and I still am. So this was why Francis Ford
Koppola called my colleague Tom Kelly one day at KNX
and said, would you do this for me? I want
you to research it. I know there's no videotape of
(47:31):
the game. I know there's no copy unless you have
one audio tape of the game, but I will give
you fifty thousand dollars to go and research. However. You
can research it in the newspapers at the USC Sports
Information Office, however you could research it. I want you
to go and research it and produce for me a
(47:54):
real to reel tape with half an hour of this
game as you would have called it. And Kelly goes,
I can do that, not a problem. Excuse me. I
can do that, not a problem, he said. But I don't.
I don't need the cash. Is there any way you
could give me one millionth of a point of the
film or something joking like that, And Coppola says, frankly,
(48:18):
this job is worth more like one hundred thousand dollars,
but I don't have it, not for something like this.
They won't let me spend the money. If you can
clear this where I wind up paying you five hundred
dollars in cash and it shows on the books that
I paid you five hundred dollars in cash, I will
give you zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero
(48:38):
zero one percent of the profits of this film, a
microscopic number estimated to be worth maybe maybe long term,
one hundred thousand dollars Godfather Part two. And Kelly, who
had been in Los Angeles long enough and had done
enough part time gigs in television and full time gigs
in television and cameos in movies and TV series to
(49:00):
know exactly how much zero point zero zero zero zero
one percent of the profits of a film or TV
series might be and what it would be at minimum said, Okay,
when do you need it? Kelly said, he took a
couple of days off, went into the library of the
Sports Information Office and the Athletic department at usc where
(49:21):
he obviously had entree as the play by play man
for both football and basketball, and he wrote down every
detail he could and went into a studio and recorded it.
He may have even recorded it at KNX, and everybody
just said, what is Kelly doing in there? Well, listen carefully.
We can hear him coming through the soundproof windows as
(49:41):
you can hear him at home doing this whatever he's doing.
And he said he went to Koppola's office and handed
him that tape, and Coppola listened to a couple of
minutes and said, this is exactly what I need. Here's
your five hundred dollars sign here. You now have zero
points zero zero, zero one percent or whatever it was
of the profits of Godfather too for doing this for
(50:01):
me and keeping it off the books and helping me
with my idea. It partners and producers in the studio
and everybody else who would never understand why I need
that play by play of that game in the background
that nobody will notice. It will only be full volume
for maybe five seconds in the whole film, but it's
got to be there, so Strasbourg and Pacino can can
(50:26):
be in that space and it helps the actors too.
And Kelly goes well to himself and he told me
this later, I don't care if this guy's nuts. I
just got zero point zero zero zero zero one percent
of the profits of the sequel to The Godfather. And
so what Tom Kelly was explaining to me where he
didn't really care how much he worked, that it was
(50:47):
nice to work. He liked to work. It was his
job and it was his calling, and he enjoyed it,
and he liked the hours, and he didn't mind not
being on television and the radio. Work would take care
of nearly all of his expenses, but his main income
was that zero point zero zero zero one percent of
all profits from The Godfather. Because he even now, and
it would have been five ten years later after Godfather
(51:09):
Part two came out, he said that he had never
had a year so far that with the advent of
VHS tapes being available and of course the rebroadcasts on
television and cable and things like that, that weren't really
definable in nineteen seventy eight, or whenever he signed this
deal and made this tape of this football game. Between
(51:31):
all of those sources of income, to say nothing of
the theatrical re releases of the film, and the time
that Koppla cut it all together again to make it
chronologically sequential and issued it again and made more hundreds
of millions of dollars. Tom Kelly said that having agreed
to take five hundred dollars in cash and the rest
and a promise, he had never made less than one
hundred thousand dollars a year from thirty minutes of recording
(51:55):
and two days worth of work on a subject. He
was already an expert. For one hundred thousand dollars a year,
That's what I'm remembering at It may have been more,
it may have been a little less, but I remember
it was in six figures. Good God. That was his
source of income. He said, it's my retirement fund, and
I don't even have to retire. So I always wanted
(52:18):
to tell that story, and I was reminded of it
because not Coppola, who I haven't met, but Scorsese, who
I haven't met, was sitting next to me, and no,
he was not sitting next to de Niro, and that
somehow is my story of my lunch with Ellie Mestaal
(52:47):
just wanted to cheer things up a little bit, given
the fact that it's my neighborhood in which the guy
got shot, signaling the start of a new era of
the key word in American politics being duck. Anyway, I've
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
(53:08):
for listening. Let me see if I can read this.
I'm now reminded of a Genesis video Land of Illusion
maybe which they have puppets, British puppets, and there's a
British puppet of Bob Hope and he's reading his catchphrase
I gotta tell you off Q cards only. His vision
(53:29):
is so bad that every Q card has one word
on it, and one word only. I feel like I
need that for these scripts. I'm reading off a piece
of paper that's got like two hundred and sixty four
point type. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, I know
by heart that they're the musical directors. Have Countdown. They arranged,
(53:49):
produced and performed most of our music, and mister Shanelle
was on orchestration and keyboards mister Ray was on the guitars,
the bass, and the drums. The producer is credited as
Tko Brothers, which was something Brian suggested once. That's him
and Shaneil and me. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(54:12):
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Other music was arranged and performed by the group Noah
Horns Allowed and continuing the musical theme. My announcer was
my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything else was as ever
my fault. My excuse is I can't really read. Still,
(54:35):
I'm fine. Full checkup of the eyes later in the week.
The dogs are fine. In fact, three of them have
joined me in producing this show. Kit is sitting here
in front of me, Stevie is here, Ted is here.
Rose is outside because she's a contrarian. In fact, I
think she's watching Godfather Part two at the moment. This
(54:58):
part about the football game is really good. One hundred
thousand dollars a year forever, it's probably more now anyway.
That's countdown for today, just one thousand. This I have
to read five hundred and four days until the scheduled
(55:20):
end of the lame duck presidency of the very lame Trump.
Probably the next scheduled countdown will be Thursday. As always,
bulletins as the news warrants, and my eyeballs permit, till
next time, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. I did want to add something here
(55:49):
if you're still listening. The moment, this is how well
trained and knowledgeable and smart my dogs are. The moment
I said good luck, just there, Stevie, who had been
reclining gracefully in front of me, stood up like, oh
good are we going to eat now? Because good luck
he's finished. These are smart dogs. Countdown with Keith Olreman
(56:20):
is 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. I
don't want to undersell Trump's television return from seclusion and
(00:26):
his latest basket full of insanities. And maybe I'm a
little close to this other story, and by close, I
mean it happened five blocks from my house. But you
do realize that the murder of the head of United
Healthcare may have been the first political assassination of the
second Trump presidency. It may also signal a new echelon
(00:50):
for political violence in the United States. I don't mean
Brian Thompson was shot because he was a Republican or
a Democrat, or a MAGA or a liberal. I mean
I think we have reached a point where many people
in this country think that voting and government and the
law are meaningless and they have no other means of
influencing the culture without violence. I also don't want to
(01:14):
leave the impression that I am somehow in favor of
people shooting visitors here in fun City and then escaping
along one of the routes on which I walk my dogs.
I am just saying that something that started now more correctly,
something that resumed no later than two thousand and eight
something that was not satiated by Trump's fake populism, nor
(01:36):
anti woke, nor any of that crap. Something is now
boiling over, as it has so many times in our
American past. Caveat. We still don't know who shot him,
never mind why this could be somebody else's husband for
all we know. If so, then my point here is
a little less relevant that I'm suggesting. But if you
(01:58):
had to guess, you would say he was murdered by
somebody who was not happy with something to do within
show currants. And of course you have to guess, because
New York's eleven billion dollar paramilitarized police force needed two
days to find the shooter's backpack where he stashed it
a fourteen minute walk from the shooting, full of Monopoly money,
(02:24):
and it took them three days to announce the manhunt
was being extended to New Jersey and Connecticut, even though
the guy went all the way uptown and was on
a bus for New Jersey before they finished cleaning up
the crime scene. And by now he could have closed
on his own house in Uruguay. Monopoly money. Somebody heard
(02:45):
that and said, he's just playing with the cops now,
And I answered, no, these are New York cops. The
cops are playing with themselves three days to extend the search,
possibly because it took NYPD at least a day to
figure out where in New York this Central Park place was.
(03:07):
But back to my point, A historian named John Grinspan
noted that in the half century starting with Lincoln's assassination,
we had three presidents killed by guns. We had another
ex president running to regain the office also shot. We
had one impeachment, and two elections won by the loser
of the popular vote. Anarchism, often violent terrorism, exploded, and
(03:32):
after that half century ended. On September sixteenth, nineteen twenty,
a horse drawn wagon parked across the street from the
headquarters of JP Morgan on Wall Street. It blew up.
It sent shards of shrapnel into the crowds. Thirty killed immediately,
ten later, hundreds of injuries never solved, probably anarchists. When
(03:56):
I was a kid, President Kennedy was assassinated by a
man whose bio, if you read it one way, paints
him as a pro Russian leftist, and if you read
it the other way, paints him as a virtual John Bircher.
When I was eleven, the radical Weather Underground staged a
series of bombings. In the worst of them, they managed
to blow up their own bomb making house on West
eleventh Street, and they killed three of their own members.
(04:19):
In nineteen sixty eight, an American assassinated Martin Luther King,
and four years later another tried to assassinate the racist
George Wallace after the shooter had given up trying to
shoot Nixon. Lord knows if we will ever figure out
why a Trump supporter shot at Trump last summer, but
(04:40):
he did. But the point is, throughout our history this country,
we have sunk into stages in which political violence has
had almost nothing directly to do with political parties or alignments,
just a sense that political action by anybody in any
direction no longer sufficed. You got a grievance, you throw
(05:03):
a bomb. The most startling thing is that anybody is
startled by the general reaction to the killing of the
insurance guy. I don't think anybody has done any polling
on this, and I'm almost afraid to suggest it because
I have a sinking feeling the number of those who
approved of it, or didn't care or had no opinion
(05:23):
that that number would exceed those who condemned the killing.
We have long since reached that point, I'm sure. Just
to ratchet this up a little bit, all my embittered
New Yorker sarcasm aside, it is now evident that one
of the drawbacks to having fifty million conspiracy theories and
how to shoot videos and assassination fantasies active online and
(05:47):
in every entertainment venue, from video games to YouTube to musicals,
the disadvantage to that is that the mayhem makers are
getting better at it and the authorities are getting worse.
They could spend fifty billion a year on cops here
every year, and you're not going to be able to
protect every corporate fat cat that somebody hates. And as
(06:08):
to the Secret Service, after the late eight years of
near disasters with Trump and Biden alike, I think we
all know what the secret is. The secret is the
Secret Service is not very good at this. Fasten your
seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night. And
(06:55):
as if on Q after the phrase it's going to
be a bumpy night, here's Trump on NBC back from
I don't know where where he goes to get stupider
and crazier.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And Cheney was behind it. So was Benny Thompson and
everybody on that committee. We're gonna for what they did. Yeah,
honestly they should go to jail.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail for
what everyone on the committee us? I think anybody that
voted in, are you going to director FBI, director in
your attorney general to send them to jail?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Not all?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think that they'll have to look at that.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Okay, you heard that right, nothing new. But he wants
Cheney and Benny Thompson and everybody else in the January
sixth hous committee in jail, he said that, But he's
not going to make it happen. His attorney general, whose
price is apparently twenty five k, that would all be
her call. There were You heard it right, You heard
(07:53):
him say that. This is how the now fully compromised
New York Times first reported that threat by Trump that
standard Trump Candy asked, I'm not jailing them, but they
should be jailed threat by proxy. This is how the
New York Times lied about what Trump said on NBC
(08:14):
Where Things Stand. President elect Donald J. Trump said an
interview with NBC's Meet the Press that aired on Sunday
that he would not direct his administration to seek retribution
against his political enemies, though he made clear he would
like to see them punished. There continued to be a
(08:36):
few scattered reporters alive and well and doing great work
within the New York Times. But as an institution, I
now have to double check everything I read in the
New York Times. It is sliding inexorably down towards being
on a par with the Epoch Times, or worse still,
(08:56):
the Los Angeles Times. In the same interview, Kristen Welker
actually pushed back on some She asked Trump if he'd
now try to unify the country by admitting he lost
in twenty twenty and he said, why would I do that?
And she said, because you lost, And he said, that's
your opinion. So you know where this world is headed,
(09:18):
and where it's headed is towards President. Nathan Thrm Nathan Therm,
Marty Short's priceless old SNL character who answered questions with
deflections like I'm not being defensive. You should be defensive
with that hairdoo, and is it him or is it me?
It's him right now, eventually doing nothing but equivocating and
(09:42):
waffling and plausibly denying, you know, saying nothing but stuff
you can deny later or insist you got it right,
depending on how it actually turns out. Keep doing that
and eventually you will trip yourself up. And Trump did it.
He again insisted he can overrule birthright citizenship by executive order,
(10:03):
and again said he will deport undocumented immigrants. And then,
and almost nobody noticed this, he undercut all of that
by actually suggesting Canada and Mexico should become states. No,
in our country, the United States of America co starring
(10:27):
Mexico and Canada.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
We're subsidizing Canada to the tune of over one hundred
billion dollars a year. We're subsidizing Mexico for almost three
hundred billion dollars. We shouldn't be subsidized. Why are we
subsidizing these countries. If we're going to subsidize them, let
him become a state.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
The fifty first and fifty second states, and maybe fifty
third and fifty five. I don't know Mexico as a state,
mister numb nuts psycho president. If Mexico is a state
in the United States, you know where you are right now.
The people living there in Mexico become citizens of the
(11:04):
United States. So not only can't you deport people from
the US state of Mexico, but you then can't put
up a wall between Texas and the state of Mexico.
In fact, you cannot inhibit movement between Mexico and any
other state of the Union. I hope somebody has told
(11:28):
MAGA about Trump's new Mexico solution. Make it a state.
That would mean there'd be two senators from Mexico. And
let's calculate this together. New York twenty million people, twenty
six congressmen and women, Mexico one hundred and thirty million people,
and the rate is thirteen congressman per ten million residents.
(11:51):
That it'd be Mexico gets one one hundred and sixty
nine congressional seats. Headline, Trump proposes giving Mexico one one
hundred and sixty nine seats in the US House of Representatives.
And we haven't even talked about those fifty three Canadian congressman. Oh,
(12:24):
by the way, Trump continued to screwed up his own transition,
and thank you for that, Pal. They still think they'll
get Pete Hegseth confirmed, and that's debatable. The team trying
to push his drunk ass over the finish line, says
they have not found three no votes among all those
Republican senators. But the money quote about this is from
Jony Ernst of Iowa, who was asked if even after
(12:45):
a frank and thorough conversation with Heggy, she's not ready
to vote yes because of the little alcoholism and sexual
misconduct allegation stuff, and Senator Ernst replied, I think you
are right, and then she gave the money quote. The
vetting will continue, I am certain through the next month
(13:06):
or so until we approach that hearing date. Sounds like
they've given up on the idea of the recess appointment
and they're going to go for a hearing. But oh
my god, another month of this, Another month of how
drunk is Pete Hegseth today? Another month of Pete Hegseth
saying well, if I'm named Secretary of Defense, I'll stop drinking.
(13:30):
Oh my god, another month of this. Thank you. This
isn't Brett Kavanaugh. With Trump in charge of the FBI
and able to stop further revelations before they happen, heg
Seth is a tire fire, and Trump keeps buying him
new white walls. Oh a nice typo President Moron Pete
(13:52):
Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep,
much more so than the fake news. What have you believe?
He was a great student military state of mind. He
will be a fantastic, high energy Secretary of Defense Defense,
one who leads to the Secretary of Defense Defense. Cheez, Trump.
(14:14):
I mean, you do not have to actually translate your
brain freezes into the written word. Just proofread these things once. Still,
they might actually get him confirmed. Politico interviewed trumpest haacked
Mike Davis, and I have to admire Mike Davis's willingness
(14:34):
to explain how their side blackmails people before they actually
do the blackmailing in this case. Quote. In an interview
with Playbook, Davis went further, threatening to hire private investigators
to sift through the backgrounds of any potential senate GOP holdouts.
The Article three project is very excited about this new
(14:57):
standard that drinking and womanizing is disqualifying for public office.
Davis tells Playbook, I'm very happy to hire investigators for
senators and use that standard. Sure, because that works so
well with Matt Gates. Wait, no, it didn't work at all.
Didn't work at all anyway, Please blackmail away, mister Davis.
(15:22):
The more Republican damage against other Republicans the better. Meanwhile,
big to do the other night. Rachel Campos Duffy, co
host with the Secretary of Defense Designate, writes, so much
fun at the Patriot Awards where at Donald Trump won
(15:46):
the Patriot of the Year and topped off the night
dancing YMCA to the crowd's delight. And there's a picture
of Judge Janine Pirot upright the punchline. Punchline is the
producer of the Fox Nation Patriot Awards, where Trump surprisingly
(16:06):
won Patriot of the Year. The producer of that is
Pete Hegseeth's wife. Breaking news for both Trump and Tulsy Gabbard.
Assad overthrown in Syria after an uprising that lasted well,
(16:30):
lasted just a little longer than New York City bike insurance.
Assassin was at large now granted asylum in Moscow by Putin.
So if you want to plan ahead, Trump and Gabbard
remember Gabbard on this topic August eleventh, twenty sixteen, when
it was still Twitter. It's time to end the illegal,
counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad vote
(16:55):
Tulsey eight eleven sixteen. Meanwhile, back on the Hill, off
the record quote from the insider website The Hill about
Tulsy Gabbard from what The Hill identifies as a Senate
Republican aid. The quote from the Senate Republican aid in
the Hill quote behind closed doors, people think she might
(17:17):
be compromised. Like it's not hyperbole. There are members of
our conference who think she's a Russian asset. Unquote The
Hill anonymous quote about Tulsy Gabbard. I mean about one
hundred former senior US diplomats and intel and n set
folk have urged the Senate that if Gabbard lasts to
(17:39):
a Senate hearing on her nomination to be DNI, that
the hearings be closed door. Their plea includes the assertion
that her past actions quote call into question her ability
to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and
to the entire National security apparatus. Before a sad fell
(18:02):
John Bolton said, if he did, Syrian government files on
some Americans in the hands of the rebels could prove interesting,
you bet. And lastly, there is what must be described
as nothing less than right wing panic about Biden preemptive pardons.
Biden preemptive pardons. It is as if to them there
(18:24):
was no previous understanding that anybody besides Trump could do
what Trump has done. The idea that Mark Millie and
Christopher ray Fauci everybody else might get whatever you did
or didn't do pardons is astonishing to them. The main
questions on the right seem to be, well, we can
(18:47):
just overrule it, right, and that can't be legal, But
it's an admission of guilt. While they cheer on Trump's
plan to pardon the January sixth domestic terrorists and don't
worry about that admission of guilt. And I repeat what
I have said before, I want ten million pardons. Ford
(19:07):
and Nixon started this, Trump escalated it, Republicans built it.
This is the America you fascists wanted. This is the
America you get. Hell, I'm going to increase my demands.
Not only should President Biden preemptively pardon every elected Democrat
of the last twenty years and every Trump critic and
(19:29):
every media person, even Chris Salizza, but I think the
president should now preemptively pardon every immigrant living in this
country documented or not. No matter what, you don't like
that idea, mega you broke it, you bought it. Also
(19:58):
of interest here in an all new edition of Countdown,
and forgive me if I stumbled over a few words
here and again the eye is still bob me. Well
still come. Everybody gets a pardon, except Joe Scarborough and
Mika Brzynski, who are back on the worst Person's list
because they're worms. And I've even got a brand new
(20:21):
things I promised not to tell. We're getting to meet
one of my favorite reporters turns into not meeting one
of the greatest film directors of all time who was
sitting behind me, and the reporter didn't tell me until
after the director had left. Jesus H. Christ. Seriously, that's next.
(20:42):
This is Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith Olberman still ahead.
(21:09):
We will end on a lighter note. How my lunch
with one of the best legal reporters in the country
ended with him asking me if I'd noticed that the
guy sitting behind me was America's greatest filmmaker who I
always wanted to meet but still have not because I
did not notice this, And the related story of how
one of his rivals for that title, wound up paying
(21:32):
somebody I knew something like a million dollars for the
football TV play by play playing in the background in
just one scene from Godfather Part two, a rather intricate
return in an all new episode of Countdown of a
brand new things I promised not to tell first, believe
(21:55):
it or not. Never mind the high and lighter notes,
there's still new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup
of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimen
who constitute today's other worst persons in the world Lebrons
worst Governor Jared Polis of Colorado Democrat. First he sucked
(22:18):
up to Robert F. I'm not wearing pants Kennedy Junior.
Then Polus went after President Biden for pardoning his own son. Now,
having not given us enough reason to kick his term
limited ass out of the Democratic Party, Polus is back
to sucking up to RFK Junior. I truly believe that
(22:38):
RFK is not beholden to big Pharma. I think he's
an independent voice, and I think he's somebody who means
what he says when he cares about reducing chronic disease
through better nutrition I might add Governor Polis that there'll
be less chronic disease if more people die in childhood,
because what Kennedy is doing will kill kids, and you're helping.
(23:02):
By the way, Governor Polis is a libertarian. Libertarian means
you are free, free from intelligence. The runner up worser,
one time Trump favorite and Florida Magas Starr and would
be congressperson Laura No, my face has always looked like this.
I haven't had any work done recently. What do you mean,
(23:22):
I went to the college where they trained them, Loomer,
She's how do I put this? She's not smart breaking,
she posted on Twitter X for those of you who
don't go there anymore, anti Trump. Democrat Congressman Representative Adam Schiff.
Adam Schiff, who is the top client of Judge Mershawn's daughter,
(23:46):
just resigned from Congress so we can get an early
start on running for the US Senate in California. Here's
his resignation letter, effective December eighth. He's going to try
to help the Democrats reclaim the Senate so they can
impeach President Trump and help the Senate Dems obstruck President
blah blah blah, blahlah blah BLA. Laura Lumer, who believes
(24:08):
she is a force in politics, does not know B
that the Senate does not impeach. The House which she
ran for impeaches. But more importantly, A, she has no
idea that Adam Schiff resigned from Congress so he can
assume his seat in the Senate because he was already
(24:29):
elected senator from California in November. It was in all
the papers, Laura, This, of course, presumes you can read.
I'd like to introduce Laura Lumer to Governor Polis. I
have a sense they'd have a lot to talk about.
But our winners, speaking of which, Jeff Bezos and Joe
(24:51):
Scarborough and Mika Brzhinsky, Scarborough doubling down on collaborating with
the incoming fascist regime. At a New York Times breakfast
for Billionaire or whatever it was, or short billionaires, whatever
it was, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Bezos, as it was
(25:13):
put in Oliver Darcy's newsletter. Asked by Sorkin about Trump's
menacing rhetoric towards the news media, Bezos only replied that
he would quote try to talk him out of that
idea that the press is the enemy. Earlier, Bezos said
he was very proud of the decision that The Washington
Post declined to make an endorsement in the High Stakes
(25:34):
twenty twenty four race. Yes, I'm very proud that the
paper I own and everybody there is my employee, and
I would have fired them if they didn't do what
I told them to do. Did what I told them
to do. What a little weasel, this Amazon bastard turns
out to be. Going back to Oliver Darcy, Bezos rejected
the notion that his decision to block his editorial boards
(25:54):
planned endorsement of Kamala Harris created more distrust, saying he
doesn't follow that logic. He claimed it was far from
cowardly because we knew there would be the blowback in
the form of a quarter million subscription cancelations. Let's dry
that at Amazon Prime. As to Scarborough and missus Scarborough,
(26:16):
whose great contribution to that program is to go. This
is also, I believe from the Darcy column. Fresh off
their visit to Marri Lago, the host of Morning Joe
last Wednesday rebuked guest David Frumm, who is still nominally
a Republican, for a remark he made about Pete Hegseth's
alleged drinking issues at Fox. There was an NBC report
(26:41):
you will recall that Hegsith would show up to work
with alcohol on his breath work at Fox. Frum said
on MSNBC on Morning Day, if you're too drunk for
Fox News, you're very, very drunk. Indeed, in the same program,
Missus Joe said Frum's remark was inappropriate, quoting the comment
(27:03):
was a little too flip for this moment that we're in.
She's referring, of course, to the moment in which she
betrayed her audience and America by trying to sidling up
to Trump again for the second time in eight years,
after trying to decidle in between and trying to make
money off pretending to be anti Trump. We just want
to make that comment as well. We want to make
(27:27):
that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News,
and that's a good debate that we should have often.
But right now, I just want to say there's a
lot of good people that work at Fox News who
care about Pete Hegseth, and we want to leave it
at that. You heard them bashing their own guests their
own regular guests, a Republican on his own network, bashing
(27:50):
his own network for a joke about HEG Sith that
actually understates the reality of the Hegseth situation. And moreover,
the comments about Fox News, a sympathetic statement about Fixox News.
Rashinsky and Scarborough are also collaborating with Fox News. This
gives rise to the thought that has been sometimes right
(28:13):
front of mind at MSNBC and elsewhere, dating back to
at least two thousand and two, that Joey scars was
really just auditioning for a job at Fox I mean
track his career. Sudden resignations still unexplained from Congress right
after he was re elected, hired on by MSNBC's Phil
Griffin as a sop to his own bosses, who threatened
(28:35):
to fire Phil if he didn't find a fascist to
put on the air. They put Joe Scarborough on a
nighttime show called Scarborough Country, in which all Joe did
was threatened Democrats and liberals and try to undermine everybody
else who worked at his own network. As things evolved
and the network became successful by doing fewer shows like Scarborough,
he was kept on as a counterbalance to me. On
(28:58):
at least one occasion, he went in and told his
bosses that, having violated a rule against criticizing other MSNBC
he hosts in non MSNBC venues, if you did that,
you were to be suspended. He told Griffin and Me
that if they suspended him for criticizing me, he would
go public with it and say he had been suspended
(29:18):
because he was a conservative and I was a liberal,
and I and not Phil Griffin ran the network. This
is quoting Phil Griffin quoting Joe Scarborough. So in any event,
after I left, they kept him on as a sort
of middle of the road coffee clotch host. Then he
became in twenty fifteen and sixteen an unofficial advisor to
(29:39):
Donald Trump and a frequent host of Donald Trump and
a sane washer before the term existed of Donald Trump.
Then when Trump did not pick him to be vice
president or offer him a job in his cabinet, he
became anti Trump and called him hitler. I think he
was probably still in the top one hundred people in
(30:01):
media to call him hitler, lower them than me, but
he still did it. And then, of course he has
now become a turncoat who actually traveled secretly to Mary
Lago to beg for Trump's forgiveness and an interview. He
then doubled down by having his useless wife apologized to
Fox and criticizing the host favorite guest, David From the
(30:28):
network's favorite sort of Republican guest, David From, for making
a really good joke about how if you're too drunk
for Fox, you're really really drunk. It was a good
joke and I applaud David From for it, And right
now Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzhinsky are the symbols of
a new network msnvsh Bezos, Scarborough, Virshinski, Marshall Tatan would
(30:57):
be proud. Two days other worst War said he finally
(31:19):
on the theory that we should close with something optimistic,
because God knows, there isn't very much optimistic going on
at the moment, despite the holiday season. In things I
promised not to tell, which is a total misnomer because
I didn't promise anybody I wouldn't tell this, I had
the pleasure on Thursday of having lunch with Ellie miss Stal,
who I have mentioned before quoted many times about his
(31:39):
extraordinarily good coverage of the Supreme Court, and I don't
think it's a secret since he posted about it in
social media and I posted about it. And I left
this lunch thinking, why does this man not have his
own TV news show. I don't know if that's a
compliment or a curse. In any event, we talked about
the news and the dire situations we all face right now,
(32:00):
but we also talked about our lives and histories, and
I got talking about Lost Angelus and having worked there
and having known somebody who worked for Coppola on the
Godfather films. And then at the end of this lunch,
he says to me, did you notice who was sitting
behind you in the adjoining booth? And I said no,
I was talking to you, and he said, Martin Scorsese.
(32:23):
And I said, you could have mentioned that. He said, well,
how am I supposed to say to you Martin Scorsese's
sitting behind you. When Martin Scorsese is sitting behind you,
I said, text me, write me a note. I would
love to have met him. I've never met him. I
never met Coppola. I met lots of people, and I
don't have any complaints about the number of people I
have met. Those Eh, those are probably it. I guess
(32:48):
I would like to meet Robert de Niro, who was
a great fan of the old TV show, And there
are a couple of other people here and there, But
you know, as I like to say, I met Jim
Thorpe's Olympic roommate from nineteen twelve, and I was apparently
a regular thing to watch on TV for the great
actor Joseph Cotton from Citizen Kane. And my friend Norman Lloyd,
(33:11):
who lived to be one hundred and six, had worked
with Wells and basically everybody between Wells and Amy Schumer
in the industry, in the film industry, so I don't
have any complaints about that, but it all brought me
back to this story of talking about how I happened,
by one remove to have known Coppola, or at least
(33:32):
somebody I knew knew Coppla. And I've been meaning to
tell this story for a while. Ellie and I talked
about my tenure in Los Angeles as a sportscaster, the
first one I had two nineteen eighty five to nineteen
ninety two, and one of my two or three jobs
there was at KNX Radio, the all news station then
(33:53):
in a heated rivalry with the other all news station
which later went out of business, KFWB. But I worked
at KNX, and it was an extraordinary place, perhaps journalistically
as as good as anywhere else I've ever worked, probably
a little bit better. And the history there literally was
on the walls. KNX had been in Los Angeles and
(34:14):
been in that studio on Sunset Boulevard, Columbia's Square. They
called it so long that the television studio in which
I eventually worked used to be Jack Benny's live studio
for his network radio show in the nineteen forties. And
our makeup artist, Billy, once explained to me he had
(34:36):
been working in the building since the early forties. And
I said, Billy, they didn't have television in this building.
CBS didn't have a television station in Los Angeles till
something like nineteen fifty one. He said, yeah, I used
to work makeup in radio, And I said, how in
the hell did that work? He goes, you don't know,
you're too young. Something I don't hear much anymore. He said,
you're too young. Everybody used to The performers used to
(35:00):
not only dress up in formal attire, often in tuxedos,
at least in suits, but there was a live audience.
The orientation for a radio show in nineteen forty eight,
even as television began to come in, was not, oh,
this is the easier version of television. We don't even
have to wear any clothes, let alone a tucks. We
can just get away with whatever we're wearing on the street.
(35:22):
In those days, they dressed up and they had a
studio audience. The theory was essentially it was Broadway, only
it was recorded it. It was even tenser than Broadway.
People would hear this again. You had to give an
even better presentation of yourself than you would if you
were live somewhere in the theater. Your only advantage was,
(35:43):
of course, if you screwed it up, they could do
it over again, because there were transcriptions and recording, even
before there was audio tape. So Jack Benny, my friend Billy,
used to make Jack Benny up so that the audience
would see only the youngish looking Jack Benny, who of
course always claimed to be thirty nine years old. The
story I wanted to tell came from not that floor
(36:03):
of the Columbia Square building, the television floor, as it were,
but the radio floor CANX Radio in LA. And it
sort of circumnavigates back to Martin Scorsese and how I
did not meet him on Thursday when I met Ellie
Mestap because Ellie didn't say, that's Martin Scorsese sitting behind you,
(36:24):
like you know. Okay, Here's how I knew Coppola by
one remove. When they called me, and I'm referring today
as the people at KNX Radio, which was an excellent
all news radio station and still is. They suggested that
I could come over there if I had time in
the afternoons. Since my job consisted at that point at
(36:45):
Channel five in Los Angeles of only doing the sports
on the ten o'clock news at night, I had a
lot of time to prepare. Usually get into the TV
station around three in the afternoon, and they said, would
you like to split our afternoon radio sports updates here
on KNX. We already have somebody doing them, but he
wants to cut back a little and we like to
(37:06):
cut him back a little bit. And I went Tom
Kelly and he said, this was roger Na Delby, assistant
news director of the station, telling me this. He said, yes,
you know him. I said, well, yeah, he's kind of
well known even outside LA. So a few months after
I got to Los Angeles and started on Channel five here,
I was in the afternoons splitting the shift with Tom Kelly,
who was legendary, and I would say there were many
(37:28):
reasons he was legendaries, an excellent play by play man.
He had been a local sportscaster and had a similar
arrangement that they were making for me on Channel eleven.
He did the weeknight sports news on Channel eleven in LA.
Just as I got there, they demoted him from that
and he didn't do much television thereafter. But he was
also in the afternoon drives slot at KNX, and he
(37:48):
did play by play of USC football and basketball. Chick Hearn,
the legendary voice of the Los Angeles Lakers, actually was
in LA before the Lakers moved to LA and did
all the USC games, basketball and I think for years football,
and he later did other sports. He did soccer play
by play on television if you can imagine such a thing,
(38:10):
and he did a bowling for dollars kind of show.
He did lots of things before the Lakers, even though
he's remembered only for the Lakers. When the Lakers came
to town, they wanted their guy, and it was Chick
Hern and they hired him away essentially from USC and
Tom Kelly got the job and became synonymous with USC
sports on KNX on television for probably twenty years, to
(38:33):
the point where he told me, and my impression of
Tom Kelly, I can't really give it the full value.
There are some who are who are born loud, some
who achieve loudness, some have loudness thrust upon them. I'm
way louder as a broadcaster than I was the day
I started in nineteen seventy five. And then there are
(38:56):
those who are all three. Tom Kelly had a voice
on him like you weren't actually hearing him over your radio.
He was simply seeping through your walls. This was a
problem in a newsroom where as we were ahead of
the curve there at can X, we had already adopted computers,
and they'd had them before I got there, but they
(39:17):
were in full use by nineteen eighty five. I don't
think there was a typewriter left in the place downstairs.
The television station used typewriters well into nineteen eighty nine.
In any event, so you'd be sitting there was a
fairly quiet environment, and the phone would ring and you'd
hear this Kelly speaking, and Tom would conduct a conversation
like that, only not as forced sounded, but with that
(39:38):
kind of volume. And I did move my mouth away
from the mic, so you didn't hear that in full flower.
But Tom Kelly was really loud, like this, like a
PA system at a local Metropolitan Railroad station near you,
only louder. So we used to joke about, how you know, Tom,
it probably save you a little strain on your voice
(40:00):
if you use a microphone instead. In any event, I
like Tom. Tom was, I guess grudgingly okay with me
taking some money out of his pocket. But he explained
that he had and would have until he died, a
steady scream stream of income, noticed the Freudian slipped there
about him screaming absolutely apt. Tom said he'd have this
(40:23):
steady stream of income until the day he died. Because
one day after the success of Godfather, the movie produced
by Francis Ford Coppola, he got a call directly from
Francis Ford Coppola saying that he was a big usc
fan and he used to listen to K and X
in the afternoons, and the people used to listen to
K and X. It's how I met Vin Scully. He
(40:45):
was a regular listener of mine before I had the
courage to screw up the whatever it was that required
I required before I introduced myself to Vin Scully and
he said, I listened to you every afternoon. I thought
I'd done something to offend you. We had extraordinary audiences.
And of course, as I said, the station had been
on the air in various guyses as a talk station,
(41:07):
as a comedy station, as a rock and roll station
since the thirties, and as the home for Jack Benny,
so it had a cachet in Los Angeles that was
just tremendous. Los Angeles was an underrated broadcasting town with
people who had been on the air in television. As
I always tell the story of my late friend Stan Chambers,
(41:27):
that he was there the day KTLA Channel five signed
on in nineteen forty seven, went through every job in
the place, including news director, and eventually before he retired,
he was working alongside his own grandson, who is still
a reporter and an excellent one in this business. Based
in San Diego, Jamie Stan was there at KTLA for
(41:48):
like one hundred and forty four years, and he was
going out on stories at ten o'clock at night every
night the week he retired. So there were long lived,
longevity kind of guys, and they became very familiar to
the audience. So the phone ringing in the kN X
newsroom sometimes in I guess the early eighties, maybe the
late seventies. I forget my timing on the making of
(42:09):
the second Godfather film, I guess still late seventies. But
the phone rings and Kelly answers it sports like that,
and then he says, nice to talk to you, mister Coppola.
What can I do for you? And what mister Copplo
wanted was he wanted Tom Kelly to research, produce, and
(42:31):
record and hand him a tape of the play by
play of the USC Notre Dame football game from I
guess nineteen sixty one two. I looked this up once,
and of course, advancing in my own age and not
really being able to see anything at the moment, as
(42:52):
alluded to earlier, I don't remember what I found. I
think it was nineteen sixty two. What he wanted was
like half an hour's worth of play by play, actual
literal play by play of that football game, so that
the actor Lee Strasberg playing Hyman Roth could be watching
it in his home outside Miami when Michael Corleone comes
(43:16):
and visits him. And I might add that the actor
who played Michael Corleoni, who was not Robert de Niro,
who was the other one, used to live in the
same building I did, and I used to see him
all the time, and he was about three feet tall,
and he had a dog who was about six feet tall.
So I already met him, and I never met Robert DeNiro.
(43:36):
So he wanted Corleone to have this meeting with Hyman Roth.
Francis Ford Coppola, did I have too many hymns in
this statement? He wanted him to have the game on
in the background. But one of the things that makes
and few people recognize this, my father did, and he
was the first one to point it out to me.
(43:57):
And I find, to my great surprise to this day,
fifty years later, nearly after the success of the Godfather films,
that many people don't recognize this as one of the great, great,
understated but important components to the spectacular nature and the genuineness,
(44:18):
the resilience, the very similitude of the Godfather films. Coppola
thought that the more background details that he got that
were historically accurate to the day he was pretending to
take you to, whether you knew anything about the historical
record of that date or not, the more that he
got exactly right, the better the film would be. My
(44:39):
father pointed this out to me not long after he
bought the first VCR I had ever seen. This is
in nineteen seventy seven. It costs two thousand dollars apiece,
and the blank tapes were twenty dollars. Bootleg versions of
popular films were one hundred dollars. Real versions of videos
of films were two hundred dollars. The Godfather was two
(45:01):
hundred dollars. Porn was two hundred dollars. Bad movies were
two hundred dollars. Needless to say, they didn't sell a
lot of movies. But my dad got a bootleg version
of The Godfather Part two and he called me in
one day as he was watching it out in our
living room. I guess I was home from Cornell. It
(45:22):
was the winter break. I remember it being very cold,
and my dad had frozen. It had paused the video
of Godfather Part two, in which de Niro is standing
there on the street in New York in nineteen oh four,
whenever it is nineteen oh six, just before he kills
(45:44):
the mafia leader and makes begins his assent to running
the families of New York. And my dad says, you
got to see this. I spent time in the public
library here in Hastings the other day to check this out.
I had a feeling this was true, and it's true.
Do you see the window of the grocery store behind
(46:06):
him in this tight shot? What do you see in
the window? I said, it looks like a poster for
a fight, an advertisement for a boxing match at Madison
Square Garden. Not an uncommon sight in nineteen oh four,
or in my own youth or in years thereafter here
in New York. And there it was somebody, kid, somebody
(46:26):
versus somebody junior. All the boxers of the days were
either John L. Sullivan Junior or kid John L. Sullivan.
That was the joke. It was, you know, kid Sullivan
versus Sullivan Junior for the championship of the Sullivan Division.
Referee John M. Sullivan in any event. My dad said,
(46:47):
I went and looked this up. That fight actually happened
on that date at Madison Square Garden. That is the
kind of detail this man brings to these films. That's
why they're so good. Because you may never notice that
you are actually seeing sort of time to time travel here,
but the story seems legit because the background to it
(47:08):
is legit. He said, I don't know if that helps
you in what you're doing in your career, but maybe
you should think about that, and I said I will,
and I still am. So this was why Francis Ford
Koppola called my colleague Tom Kelly one day at KNX
and said, would you do this for me? I want
you to research it. I know there's no videotape of
(47:31):
the game. I know there's no copy unless you have
one audio tape of the game, but I will give
you fifty thousand dollars to go and research. However. You
can research it in the newspapers at the USC Sports
Information Office, however you could research it. I want you
to go and research it and produce for me a
(47:54):
real to reel tape with half an hour of this
game as you would have called it. And Kelly goes,
I can do that, not a problem. Excuse me. I
can do that, not a problem, he said. But I don't.
I don't need the cash. Is there any way you
could give me one millionth of a point of the
film or something joking like that, And Coppola says, frankly,
(48:18):
this job is worth more like one hundred thousand dollars,
but I don't have it, not for something like this.
They won't let me spend the money. If you can
clear this where I wind up paying you five hundred
dollars in cash and it shows on the books that
I paid you five hundred dollars in cash, I will
give you zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero
(48:38):
zero one percent of the profits of this film, a
microscopic number estimated to be worth maybe maybe long term,
one hundred thousand dollars Godfather Part two. And Kelly, who
had been in Los Angeles long enough and had done
enough part time gigs in television and full time gigs
in television and cameos in movies and TV series to
(49:00):
know exactly how much zero point zero zero zero zero
one percent of the profits of a film or TV
series might be and what it would be at minimum said, Okay,
when do you need it? Kelly said, he took a
couple of days off, went into the library of the
Sports Information Office and the Athletic department at usc where
(49:21):
he obviously had entree as the play by play man
for both football and basketball, and he wrote down every
detail he could and went into a studio and recorded it.
He may have even recorded it at KNX, and everybody
just said, what is Kelly doing in there? Well, listen carefully.
We can hear him coming through the soundproof windows as
(49:41):
you can hear him at home doing this whatever he's doing.
And he said he went to Koppola's office and handed
him that tape, and Coppola listened to a couple of
minutes and said, this is exactly what I need. Here's
your five hundred dollars sign here. You now have zero
points zero zero, zero one percent or whatever it was
of the profits of Godfather too for doing this for
(50:01):
me and keeping it off the books and helping me
with my idea. It partners and producers in the studio
and everybody else who would never understand why I need
that play by play of that game in the background
that nobody will notice. It will only be full volume
for maybe five seconds in the whole film, but it's
got to be there, so Strasbourg and Pacino can can
(50:26):
be in that space and it helps the actors too.
And Kelly goes well to himself and he told me
this later, I don't care if this guy's nuts. I
just got zero point zero zero zero zero one percent
of the profits of the sequel to The Godfather. And
so what Tom Kelly was explaining to me where he
didn't really care how much he worked, that it was
(50:47):
nice to work. He liked to work. It was his
job and it was his calling, and he enjoyed it,
and he liked the hours, and he didn't mind not
being on television and the radio. Work would take care
of nearly all of his expenses, but his main income
was that zero point zero zero zero one percent of
all profits from The Godfather. Because he even now, and
it would have been five ten years later after Godfather
(51:09):
Part two came out, he said that he had never
had a year so far that with the advent of
VHS tapes being available and of course the rebroadcasts on
television and cable and things like that, that weren't really
definable in nineteen seventy eight, or whenever he signed this
deal and made this tape of this football game. Between
(51:31):
all of those sources of income, to say nothing of
the theatrical re releases of the film, and the time
that Koppla cut it all together again to make it
chronologically sequential and issued it again and made more hundreds
of millions of dollars. Tom Kelly said that having agreed
to take five hundred dollars in cash and the rest
and a promise, he had never made less than one
hundred thousand dollars a year from thirty minutes of recording
(51:55):
and two days worth of work on a subject. He
was already an expert. For one hundred thousand dollars a year,
That's what I'm remembering at It may have been more,
it may have been a little less, but I remember
it was in six figures. Good God. That was his
source of income. He said, it's my retirement fund, and
I don't even have to retire. So I always wanted
(52:18):
to tell that story, and I was reminded of it
because not Coppola, who I haven't met, but Scorsese, who
I haven't met, was sitting next to me, and no,
he was not sitting next to de Niro, and that
somehow is my story of my lunch with Ellie Mestaal
(52:47):
just wanted to cheer things up a little bit, given
the fact that it's my neighborhood in which the guy
got shot, signaling the start of a new era of
the key word in American politics being duck. Anyway, I've
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
(53:08):
for listening. Let me see if I can read this.
I'm now reminded of a Genesis video Land of Illusion
maybe which they have puppets, British puppets, and there's a
British puppet of Bob Hope and he's reading his catchphrase
I gotta tell you off Q cards only. His vision
(53:29):
is so bad that every Q card has one word
on it, and one word only. I feel like I
need that for these scripts. I'm reading off a piece
of paper that's got like two hundred and sixty four
point type. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, I know
by heart that they're the musical directors. Have Countdown. They arranged,
(53:49):
produced and performed most of our music, and mister Shanelle
was on orchestration and keyboards mister Ray was on the guitars,
the bass, and the drums. The producer is credited as
Tko Brothers, which was something Brian suggested once. That's him
and Shaneil and me. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(54:12):
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Other music was arranged and performed by the group Noah
Horns Allowed and continuing the musical theme. My announcer was
my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything else was as ever
my fault. My excuse is I can't really read. Still,
(54:35):
I'm fine. Full checkup of the eyes later in the week.
The dogs are fine. In fact, three of them have
joined me in producing this show. Kit is sitting here
in front of me, Stevie is here, Ted is here.
Rose is outside because she's a contrarian. In fact, I
think she's watching Godfather Part two at the moment. This
(54:58):
part about the football game is really good. One hundred
thousand dollars a year forever, it's probably more now anyway.
That's countdown for today, just one thousand. This I have
to read five hundred and four days until the scheduled
(55:20):
end of the lame duck presidency of the very lame Trump.
Probably the next scheduled countdown will be Thursday. As always,
bulletins as the news warrants, and my eyeballs permit, till
next time, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. I did want to add something here
(55:49):
if you're still listening. The moment, this is how well
trained and knowledgeable and smart my dogs are. The moment
I said good luck, just there, Stevie, who had been
reclining gracefully in front of me, stood up like, oh
good are we going to eat now? Because good luck
he's finished. These are smart dogs. Countdown with Keith Olreman
(56:20):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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