June 23, 2023 • 34 mins
EPISODE 234: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: He’s behaved like a lot of things before but until now Trump has NEVER sounded so desperately scared. “CONGRESS WILL HOPEFULLY NOW LOOK AT THE EVER CONTINUING WITCH HUNTS AND ELECTION INTERFERENCE” it began.“CONGRESS, PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE POLITICAL WITCH HUNTS,” he begs. All caps. “THE ONLY WAY THEY CAN WIN IS TO CHEAT. STOP THEM NOW!,” he pleads. ALSO all caps. It’s everything but “Mommy I’m scared. They caught me.” What caused this? I mean, apart from the insanity? Via Discovery, he’s received much of the Department of Justice evidence supporting the 37 counts against him, including all the audio tapes – the vainglorious interviews he gave which are apparently peppered with references to documents and secrets and I-can’t-tell-you-this-but-here-goes. Plus: if he didn’t before, HE now knows WHO testified against him and what they said.
There is another Sam Alito All-Expenses-Paid-Vacation scandal. It is not nearly as startling and quid pro quo-ish as taking a 100-thousand dollar private jet trip to Alaska courtesy of a Hedge Fund Guy and then years later voting for a Supreme Court judgment that gave Hedge Fund Guy two billion, 400 hundred million. CNN got on-the-record confirmation from the director of the Notre Dame University Religious Liberty Initiative that her group did INDEED pay the traveling expenses for Alito to go to its conclave in Rome last July and give a speech mocking anybody who dared criticize him. No laws were broken, only the basic tenets of judicial honesty. The Notre Dame University Religious Liberty Initiative has a legal clinic, and since its founding in 2020 it has filed a series of “Friend Of The Court” briefs on cases being heard by… the Supreme Court. Happily, Sam Alito always has another hair he can split. Quote: “My understanding is that Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative has a number of components, only one of which is a clinic that, like the legal clinics at many other law schools, files amicus briefs in the Supreme Court. I was not invited to speak in Rome by the CLINIC.”
And Marjorie Taylor Greene has extended the “Marjorie Taylor Greene called Lauren Boebert a quote “Little Bitch” unquote” story another day. She was good enough to explain to Semafor News WHY she called Lauren Boebert a quote “LITTLE BITCH” unquote. “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.” Greene re-told the story as witnesses had broken it to The Daily Beast: Anna Paulina Lunatic was talking about impeachment when Boebert came over to Greene to complain about Greene’s recent remarks. “I told her exactly what I think about her.”
B-Block (15:10) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Oh cool two more Republican presidential candidates. Moms For Liberty backs down, then backs down again, after quoting Hitler about how to own children and thus the future. Jeff Zucker's CNN journey could go from getting fired to buying the place. Or, since it's in The New York Post: maybe not. (18:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Canadian Member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux addresses his nation's crisis. He wants an "official grievance" filed against Taylor Swift for not coming to Canada on her next tour. Why don't you try The World Court At The Hague? The lesson of the lost Titanic Submersible? Charlie Kirk says it's don't hire black pilots. And there are bigots and cowards and homophobes. But if you FOLD to homophobes for money and pretend you're not folding to them but doing it to protect the people you just abandoned, you are worse than all the kinds of homophobes put together. And that is National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman.
C-Block (26:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His bizarre but compelling story of a handyman with an accent and his own pet thunderstorms: "The Black Magic of Barney Haller."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. He's
behaved like a lot of things before, but until now,
Trump has never sounded so desperately scared. Quote. Congress will
(00:29):
hopefully now look at the ever continuing witch hunts and
election interference it began. Congress, please investigate the political witch hunts.
He begs, all caps. The only way they can win
is to cheat. Stop them now, he pleads, also all caps.
It is everything except mommy, I'm scared. They caught me.
(00:55):
What caused this? Yesterday? I mean, apart from the insanity.
Via discovery, Trump received much of the Department of Justice
evidence supporting the thirty seven against him. We know what
happened this week. It was probably Wednesday. It included all
the audio tapes, the vain, glorious interviews he gave, which
are apparently peppered with references to documents and secrets. And
(01:17):
I can't tell you this, but here goes anyway. Plus,
if he didn't before, he now knows who testified against
him and what they said, Mark Meadows. And all I
can tell you is my own experience in what was
just small potatoes compared to this, I sued al Gore's
(01:37):
TV network for fifty million. They sued me back. Much
of the case hinged on how many times I used
a given word in my emails. I assumed I had
not used it at all. The discovery came in my
own emails. It turned out I'd used it like ninety
four times. That was my Well, if it's big enough,
I'll just take the settlement moment. And I wasn't under
(02:01):
indictment or guilty of anything. Even for somebody rooted firmly
in a fantasy world of his own creation, seeing what
they have on him must be destabilizing. And remember dementia,
Jay Trump starts each day pre destabilized. Congress, please and
(02:21):
stop them now. And on Thursday, Trump even circled back
to where we began on this case. And he also
circled back to the day he first opened Pandora's political box.
The documents' indictments are quote election interferenced against me on
perfectly legal boxes where I have no doubt that information
(02:42):
is being secretly planted, Which means that those documents that
Trump owns that were his property, that he had the
perfect right to keep and are perfectly legal, and they're
all to classified and even if they weren't, they're still his.
Now they are all planted again. And then there's the
(03:04):
other circle, back to the original campaign platform, lock her Up. Yesterday,
Trump again insisted in an interview he would indict his opponents,
but very fairly, of course, and that that's why they're
doing this to him, to prevent him from being re
elected and indicting them. This is the way his mind
(03:26):
doesn't work. Back at the investigation, The Guardian meanwhile confirmed
what has been pretty obvious, at least the first part
has been quote. Federal prosecutors investigating Trump's retention of national
security material were examining evidence within weeks of the FBI
search of Mari Lago last year that he might have
handled classified documents at his Bedminster club in New Jersey,
(03:49):
according to two people close to the matter on quote,
the conclusion I think is kind of new. Searches were
made at Bedminster and nothing was found, and clarity arrived
when his whole beautiful mind explanation came into view. That
Trump is a kind of sophisticated pack rat, but not
your traditional hoarder. Trump does not just pile up the
(04:10):
mementos and the classified documents and the secret plans for
war against Iran. He takes them around with him, apparently
from mary Lago to Bedminster and then back to marri
Lago again. Hence that continuing prospect that he may be
indicted anew in New Jersey by Jack Smith for revealing
the details of the secret documents there, even though the
(04:32):
documents were or are in Florida since we last looked
in on Trump. In this interlude between indictment sets, there
does seem to have been an increase in the paranoia
and a decrease in the energy, and not just for him,
but also for his sickophants. For eight long years, I
have wondered, maybe you have two if the wear and
(04:54):
tear of all this lying and scheming and evil stuff
doing would ever affect Trump the way it would affect
a normal person. It's very easy to I continuously if
the lies never have to sync up. Thus your personal
papers that you own and you declassified can also be
plants at the same time, and you don't waste one
(05:16):
calorie of energy trying to get these sundry lies to
line up correctly. However, some of the supporters are seeing
stuff or wearing down themselves for the first time. Trump
posted an all over the map video yesterday. In it,
he called Asa Hutchinson Ada and acted like everybody got
(05:36):
what the joke was behind the insult. The right wing
BS artist Ian Miles Chong then tweeted, quote, Trump just
released a bizarre statement. Not sure if it makes much sense. Well,
it's an evergreen tweet obviously, but you get my point.
And then Mark Levin, the Falsetto voice radio host, posted
(05:58):
a news clip and wrote, why are all the fat
GOP guys like Christy Hogan and Barr Trump and DeSantis haters? Wait?
Why are the fat GOP guys like Christy Hogan and
Bar Trump and DeSantis haters? So, Mark, you're saying Trump
(06:20):
is fat? There is another sam Alito all expenses paid
vacation scandal. It is not nearly as startling and quid
pro quo ish as taking a one hundred thousand dollars
private jet trip to Alaska courtesy of a hedge fund
guy and then voting for a Supreme Court judgment that
(06:40):
gives hedge fund guy two billion, four hundred million dollars.
But CNN got an on the record confirmation about this
one from the director of the Notre Dame University Law
School Religious Liberty Initiative that her group did indeed pay
the traveling expenses for Alito to go to its conclave
in Rome last July and give a speech there mocking
(07:02):
anybody who dared to criticize him. No laws were broken,
because there are no laws governing Supreme Court justices, only
the basic tenets of you know, judicial honesty. The Notre
Dame University Law School Religious Liberty Initiative has a legal clinic,
and since its founding in twenty twenty, it has filed
a series of Friend of the Court briefs on cases
(07:24):
being heard by the Supreme Court. Happily, Sam, Alito always
has another legal hair he can split in his own defense. Quote.
My understanding is that the Notre Dame Law Schools Religious
Liberty Initiative has a number of components, only one of
which is a clinic that, like the legal clinics at
(07:45):
many other law schools, files amicus briefs in the Supreme Court.
I was not invited to speak in Rome by the clinic. Unquote. Hell,
that's all right, then, Sam. Obviously, the foremost problem you
and I see here is the things that look like
bribes smell like bribes, sound like bribes, but legally are
(08:08):
not bribes. But there is a subtler problem in the
background too. That Alito speech in Rome the one that's
okay because the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative
paid for it. But the Notre Dame Law School Religious
Liberty Initiative Legal clinic is the one that files all
the briefs to the Supreme Court. Well, it also contained
an amazing bit of theocratic proselytizing in it. It stunned me,
(08:31):
then it stuns me to this day.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm reminded of an experience I had a number of
years ago in a museum in.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Berlin.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
One of the exhibits was a rustic wooden cross. An
affluent woman, a well dressed woman, and a young boy
were looking at this exhibit, and the young boy turned
to the woman, presumably his mother.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And said, who is that man?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
My memory has stuck in my mind as a harbinger
of what may light had.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
For our culture. Why son, that man murtyring himself on
the cross is Sam Alito? Can't you tell? And the
third headline today, I am honestly indebted to Marjorie Taylor
Barney Rubbell white supremacist Karen Green, and boy, could you
(09:31):
have gotten great odds that you would never hear me
say that in my life. But who was it, after
all who extended the quote Marjorie Taylor Green called Lauren
Bobert a quote little bitch unquote story yet another day?
Why it's Marjorie Taylor Green who has extended the Marjorie
Taylor Green called Lauren Bobert a quote little bitch unquote
(09:55):
story another day. That's who she was good enough to
explain to Semaphore News why she called Lauren Bobert a
quote lit be unquote quote she has genuinely been a
nasty little bitch to be unquote. Green retold the story
as witnesses had broken it to The Daily Beast and
(10:17):
a Paulina lunatic was talking about impeachment when Bobert came
over to Green to complain about Green's recent remarks about impeachment.
I told her exactly what I think about her. They
then argued over who had the biggest impeachment, and Green
claims she told Bobert to shut up, and of course
asked about this by CNN afterwards, Bobert replied, quote I'm
(10:37):
not in middle school like Bobert wouldn't know anything about
middle school. So to recap this update on the Marjorie
Taylor Green called Lauren Bobert a quote little bitch unquote story,
Marjorie Taylor Green tells Semaphore News apparently official, she did
call Lauren Bobert quote little bitch unquote. That's sway. It
is Friday, June Walter Cronk. Okay, this is where I'll
(11:04):
drop it. I promise no more quoting Green calling Bobert
a Bobert. I promise, I'm dropping it right now. It's
falling out of my hands right now. That's it. We're done.
I'm not gonna I'm not going to do it anymore.
(11:50):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. If anybody can advance the Green
Bobert b story, there's five bucks in it for you.
Also of interest Jeff Zucker to buy CNN. Zucker, I
have an idea for your new eight PM show. Let
me just it this way. That's next. This is countdown.
This his countdown with Keith Olbooman. Postscripts to the news,
(12:20):
some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions, Dateline Washington
one more Republican presidential candidate Will Heard. Will Heard the
political satirist. Oh no, no, no, that's Will Durst. Will
Heard was a congressman from Texas, and before that he
(12:41):
was in the CIA. Great resume. Meanwhile, Florida Senator Rick
Scott is reportedly looking at the weakness of the Dessantis
campaign and thinking of jumping in because the guy who
openly announced plans to cut Social Security and Medicare and
he looks like Voldemort from Harry Potter is the kind
of reasonable alternative to Trump that America seeks. Tell me
(13:03):
more about the other. One dateline Hamilton County, Indiana, the
local chapter of the fascist group Moms for Liberty, kind
of gave the game away. The group, which has been
trying to take over school boards nationwide to stop any
references to LGBTQ issues and erase all criticisms of white
people in history classes, launched a new online newsletter and
(13:26):
volume one page one upper right just before the masthead
a standalone quote, white lettering on a blue background, reading simply,
he alone, who owns the youth gains the future. Adolf Hitler.
Version two of that from Moms for Hitler. A Moms
for Liberty was Oops, we forgot to mention we're against
(13:48):
that and against Hitler, and no, see it's the American
government that is Hitler. And uh wait, we'll be back
to you with version three of this in a moment.
Version three was we condemn Adolf Hitler's actions, we should
not have quoted him in our newsletter and express our
deepest apology. Version four will be the moms for Hitler,
Liberty outside School singing, Deutschland, Deutschland, uber Alis and Dyline.
(14:14):
New York. It's quite a headline in the New York
Post quoting speculation that my former boss, the former CNN
boss Jeff Zucker, is a candidate to buy CNN from
Warner Bros. Discovery, where they've been on quite a role
recently cratering it and cratering HBO whereas it now calls
itself Max in the Network Witness relocation program, and this
(14:38):
week they went after Turner Classic Movies. The idea that
Zucker could get fired one year by CNN and then
wind up owning the place eighteen months later is intriguing
and pleasing on several levels, and it sure couldn't be
worse than what they have now. But you should note
that The New York Post also in the same story,
reports that Comcast might buy Paramount and then sell CBS
(15:02):
to Warner Bros. And Warner Bros. With merge CBS with CNN,
or sell CNN in order to buy CBS, or or
Zucker could buy CBS because well, because it's not easy
to pad these speculative newspaper articles out to the requisite
twelve paragraphs. Still Ahead Fridays with Thurber. They are all
(15:37):
funny stories, but some Theerber stories are silly stories, and
some Theurbers are cynical stories. But at least one is
a scary story, The Black Magic of Barney Holler. Ahead first,
the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning
Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's persons. In severld the
Bronze to Madd Senero, member of the Canadian Parliament representing
(16:00):
part of Edmonton. He has raised the issue none dare as.
He has written to the Speaker of the House of
Commons and demanded action quote it has come to buy
attention to. Despite much anticipation, Taylor Swift's Eras tour has
neglected to include any Canadian dates or locations, as she
released her international dates, which includes stops throughout Asia and Europe.
(16:24):
First of all, that's really badly written. Secondly, Genero, with
the support of two other members of the Canadian Conservative Party,
says he is filing a quote official grievance, although quote
I don't know how one files an official grievance. And
if that was not unseerious enough for you, this chuckleheaded
idea is not even original. Earlier in the week, some
(16:45):
Australian politicians said they are filing grievances because Swift is
only playing Sydney and Melbourne and not peth in Brisbane.
You should all get her indicted by the World Court
at the Hague. A nice twenty year prison term will
show her not to offend. Edmonton and Brisbane runner up
(17:07):
Charlie Kirk, right wing, mega funded, megaheaded troll. I swear
each time I see video of him, his head is
a little bit bigger than it was before, and I'm
not sure if it's inflated or it's stuffed. Well, you
knew this take was coming. It's not a surprise. It's
still grotesque. Kirk says the Titanic tragedy tourists were killed
(17:30):
by wokeness, but he takes it one step further. First,
Kirk blasted the Daily Beast for having reported that the
founder of the ocean Gate company was a frequent Republican donor,
as if that's like a super relevant thing, right, These
people are repugnant, repulsive, and disgusting for publishing an article
like that. To be honest, I kind of agreed with
(17:51):
Kirk up till that point, but he could not take
yes for an answer. His next words, wait for it here. Quote.
It is, however, separate to say that do you get
your best in life? Do you get excellence if you
care about things that don't don't matter? The CEO of
ocean Gates says he was choosing and selecting his personnel
based on not wanting to have fifty year old white guys.
(18:14):
Then you could make the argument, albeit rather cruel and blunt.
He killed himself and his customers with wokeness. Unquote. Is
that twice as bad as that which Kirk had criticized?
Yes it is, but wait, he went for four times
as bad. Quote. Let this be a warning when we
say that we want to hire more black pilots, hold on,
(18:37):
slow down. People could die if you embrace the poison
of wokeness unquote. You know, watch out for that wokeness.
Stick to the racism. Racism is always safe for you, Charlie,
there it is. Can you tell he just hired the
writer producer who got fired by Tucker Carlson for too
much racist posting. Oh, I don't like him, he's too
(18:57):
racist for me. But our winners Commissioner Gary Beckman, and
the National Hockey League, you may recall, after several years
at the forefront of inclusion and charity of all kinds,
the NHL suddenly got scared last winter when a Russian
player on the Philadelphia Flyers refused to wear a Pride
Night jersey for the ten minute warm up before the game.
(19:19):
No slogans on the jersey, there's no group names, there
are no support gayness, there's nothing on it, just letters
and numbers in a rainbow pattern. And then the jerseys
are auctioned off for charity because the players wore them
and they had the players' names on them and one
guy wouldn't wear it. Soon after, a Russian in Minnesota
(19:39):
demanded out, then one in New York, then a couple
of religious nuts in Florida, and now Commissioner Bettman announces
that the league will not wear Pride night jerseys because quote,
it's become a distraction. He announces this during Pride Month. Nor,
he says, will they have Heritage night jerseys, nor Military
(20:03):
night jerseys. Let's see a that, nor hockey fights Cancer
Knights jerseys, nor any other cause night jerseys worn in pregame.
Oh oh, the league will still make the jerseys and
they'll still have the Knights players, just won't wear the jerseys.
That way, the league can still claim it's having those
nights and supporting inclusion, when in fact it will destroy
(20:26):
the auction value of those jerseys, and thus the charities
will be the ones who suffer financially. But the league,
which is doing this because of one reason, and one
reason only, fear of protest and boycott by the fascists
and the evangelical homophobes in this country and in Canada,
the league will not suffer financially because it caved. Gary
(20:48):
Bettman caved. Gary Betman gave in to the bigots, and
the league can still say hockey is for everyone, even
though now it isn't. And if you're dropping the low
key subtle symbol in which the National Hockey League was
telling LGBTQ fans and players and others they were welcomed
(21:10):
and safe at hockey games. Guess squad, They will now
know they are not welcomed or safe. And Gary Bettman
is worse than a homophobe because he has surrendered to
homophobes for money and pretended he is not a spineless scumbag.
Gary Bettman, commissioner of the National Hockey League and spineless
(21:34):
scumbag and the team owners who went along with him
two days worst persons in the world to the number
(21:54):
one story on the Countdown and It's Fridays with Thurber,
And only occasionally did the great American humorist bend towards
the supernatural. Lots OF's characters, like his fictionalized version of
his own mother, claimed to get messages from beyond the
grave and stuff like that, but rarely did Thurber ever
go a cult in the first person. This is not
(22:18):
true in one of my all time favorites of his stories,
The Black Magic of Barney Haller, in which a slight
accent turns into something that is just right up against
the line of being actually a little scary but still hilarious.
The Black Magic of Barney Haller by James Thurber. It
(22:41):
was one of those hot days on which the earth
is uninhabitable, even as early as ten o'clock in the morning,
even on the hill where I live, under the dark maples.
The long porch was hot, and the wicker chair I
sat in complained hotly. My coffee was beginning to wear off,
and with it the momentary illusion it gives that things
are right and life is good. There were sultry mutterings
(23:05):
of thunder. I had a quick feeling that if I
looked up from my book, I would see Barney Holler.
I looked up, and there he was, coming along the road,
lightning playing about his shoulders, thunder following him like a dog.
Barney is, or was, my hired man. He is strong
(23:30):
and amiable, sweaty and dependable, slowly and heavily confident, but
he is also eerie. He traffics with the devil. His
ears twitch when he talks, but it isn't so much
that as the things he says. Once in late June,
when all of a moment, sabers began to flash brightly
(23:52):
in the heavens and bowling balls rumbled, I took refuge
in the barn. I always have a feeling that I
am going to be struck by lightning and either riven
like an old apple tree, or left with a foot
that aches. In rainy weather and a habit of painting,
these things happen. Barney came in not to escape the
storm to which he is or pretends to be indifferent,
(24:15):
but to put the sigh the way. Suddenly, he said
the first of those things that made me, when I
was with him, faintly creepy. He pointed at the house.
Once I said, this boat come down to rock, He said,
it is phenomena like that of which I stand in
constant dread, boats coming down rocks, people being teleported, statues
(24:38):
dripping blood, old regrets, and dreams in the form of
luna moths fluttering against the windows at midnight. Of course,
I finally figured out what Barney meant, or what I
comforted myself with believing he meant something about a bolt
coming down the lightning rod on the house, a commonplace
and utterly natural thing. I should have dismissed it, but
(25:02):
it had its effect on me. Here was a stolid man,
smelling of hay and leather, who talked like somebody out
of Charles Fort's books, or like a traveler back from
oz And all the time the lightning was zigging and
zagging around him. On this hot morning, when I saw
(25:22):
Barney coming along with his faithful storm trudging behind him,
I went back frowningly to my copy of Swan's Way.
I hope that Barney, seeing me absorbed in a book,
would pass by without saying anything. I read. I myself
seemed actually to have become the subject of my book,
A church a quartet, the rivalry between Francis the First
(25:44):
and Charles the Fifth. I could feel Barney standing looking
at me, but I didn't look at him this morning.
By and by, said Barney, I go hunt grocer's and
d voods. That's fine, I said, and turned a page
and pretended to be engrossed in what I was reading.
(26:05):
Barney walked on. He had wanted to talk some more,
but he walked on after a paragraph where two his
words began to come between me and the words in
the book. Bime by, I go hunt grotches in dvoods.
If you are susceptible such things, it is not difficult
to visualize grotches. They fluttered into my mind, ugly little
(26:30):
creatures about the size of whipperwills, only covered with blood
and honey, and the scrapings of church bells, grotches. Who
and what I wondered, really was this thing in the
form of a hired man that kept anointing me ominously
In passing with abra cadabra. Barney didn't go toward the
(26:55):
woods at once. He weeded the corn, He picked apple
boughs off the lawn. He knocked a yellowjacket's nest down
out of a plum tree. It was raining now, but
he didn't seem to notice it. He kept looking at
me out of the corner of his eye, and I
kept looking at him out of the corner of my eyebod. Dime,
is it, beneeze? He called to me. Finally, I put
(27:15):
down my book and sauntered out to him, When you
go for those grotches, I said, firmly, I'll go with you.
I was sure he wouldn't want me to go. I
was right. He protested that he could get the grotches himself.
I'll go with you, I said, stubbornly. We stood looking
at each other, and then abruptly, just to give him
(27:37):
something to ponder over, I quoted, I'm going out to
clean the pasture spring. I'll only stop to take the
leaves away and wait to watch the water clear. I may,
I shan't be gone long. You come too. It wasn't,
I realized, very good abercadabra, but it served. Barney looked
(27:59):
at me in a puzzled way. Yes, he said, vaguely.
It's five minutes of twelve, I said, remembering he had asked.
Then we go, he said, And we trudged through the
rain over to the orchard fence and climbed that, and
opened a gate and went out into the meadow that
slopes up to the woods. I had a prefiguring of
(28:20):
Barney at some proper spot deep in the woods, prancing
around like a goat, casting off his false nature, shedding
his hired man's garments, dropping his teutonic accent, repeating diabolical phrases,
conjuring up grotches. It was a great slash of lightning
(28:40):
and along bumping of thunder. As we reached the edge
of the woods, I turned and fled, glancing over my shoulder,
I saw Barney standing and staring after me. It turned
out on the face of it to be as simple
as the boat that came down the rock. Grotches were
crotches crouched saplings, which he cut down to use a
(29:04):
supports under the peach boughs, because in bearing time they
become so heavy with fruit that there was danger of
the branches snapping off. I saw Barney later putting the
crotches in place. We didn't have much to say to
each other. I can see now that he was beginning
to suspect me too. About six o'clock next evening, I
(29:27):
was alone in the house and sleeping upstairs. Barney rapped
on the door of the front porch. I knew it
was Barney because he called to me. I woke up slowly.
It was dark for six o'clock. I heard rumblings and
soft flickerings. Barney was standing at the front door with
his storm at heel. I had the conviction that it
(29:49):
wasn't storming anywhere except around my house. There couldn't, without
the intervention of the Devil or one of his agents,
be so many lightning storms in one neighborhood. I had
been dreaming of Proost and the church at com and
meadowlands dipped in tea, and the rivalry between Francis the
First and Charles the fifth. My head whirled and I
(30:11):
didn't get up. Barney kept on wrapping. He called out again.
There was a flash followed by a sharp splitting sound.
Now I leaped up this time. I thought he is
here to get me. I had a notion that he
was standing at the door, barefooted, with a wreath of
grape leaves around his head, and a wild animal's skin
(30:34):
slung over his shoulder. I didn't want to go down,
but I did. He was as usual, solid, amiable, dressed
like a hired man. I went out onto the porch
and looked at the improbable storm now on in all
of its fury. This is getting pretty bad, I said meaningly.
Barney looked at the rain placidly well. I said, irritably,
(30:55):
what's up? Barney turned his little squinty blue eyes on me.
We go to the gaddock now and become warbs, he said,
the hell we do? I thought to myself quickly. I
was uneasy. I was you might even say terrified, but
I determined not to show it. If he began to
(31:17):
chant incantations or to make obscene signs, or if he
attempted to sling me over his shoulder. I resolved to
plunge right out into that storm, lightning it all, and
run to the nearest house. I didn't know what they
would think at the nearest house when I burst in
upon them, or what I would tell them, but I
didn't intend to accompany this amiable looking fiend to any
(31:38):
garrick and become a warb. I tried to persuade myself
that there was some simple explanation that warbs would turn
out to be as innocuous as boats on rocks and
grotches in Davoudes. But the conviction gripped me in the
growling of the thunder that here, at last was the
(31:58):
moment when Barney Holler, or whoever he was, had chosen
to get me. I walked toward the steps that led
to the lawn and turned and faced him grimly. Listen,
I barked, Suddenly, did you know that even when it
isn't brillig I can produce slythe toes? Did you happen
(32:18):
to know that the Momrath never lived that could outgrabe me? Yeah?
And furthermore, I can become anything I want to, even
if I were a warb. I wouldn't have to keep
on being one if I didn't want to. I can
become a playing card at will too. Once I was
the jack of clubs, only I forgot to say my
glasses off, and some guy recognized me. I. Barney was
(32:39):
backing slowly away toward the petunia box at one end
of the porch. His little blue eyes were wide. He
saw that I had him. I think I go now,
he said, and he walked out into the rain. The
rain followed him down the road. I have a new
hired man now. Barney never came back to work for
(33:01):
me after that day. Of course, I figured out finally
what he meant about the garrick and the wharves. He
had simply got horribly mixed up in trying to tell
me that he was going up to the garrett and
clear out the wasps, of which I have thousands. The
new hired man is afraid of them. Barney could have
(33:22):
scoop them up in his hands and thrown them out
a window without getting stung. I am sure he trafficked
with the devil, but I am sorry I let him go.
(33:46):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here The credits. Most of the music
was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanel. The Countdown musical directors, Guitars, bass and drums
by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip
Shaneil and produced by Tko Brothers. Toven's elections have been
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
(34:09):
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And
performed by the ESPN Philharmonic Orchestra. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and ninety
(34:31):
ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him again
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday
till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production
(34:53):
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. He's
behaved like a lot of things before, but until now,
Trump has never sounded so desperately scared. Quote. Congress will
(00:29):
hopefully now look at the ever continuing witch hunts and
election interference it began. Congress, please investigate the political witch hunts.
He begs, all caps. The only way they can win
is to cheat. Stop them now, he pleads, also all caps.
It is everything except mommy, I'm scared. They caught me.
(00:55):
What caused this? Yesterday? I mean, apart from the insanity.
Via discovery, Trump received much of the Department of Justice
evidence supporting the thirty seven against him. We know what
happened this week. It was probably Wednesday. It included all
the audio tapes, the vain, glorious interviews he gave, which
are apparently peppered with references to documents and secrets. And
(01:17):
I can't tell you this, but here goes anyway. Plus,
if he didn't before, he now knows who testified against
him and what they said, Mark Meadows. And all I
can tell you is my own experience in what was
just small potatoes compared to this, I sued al Gore's
(01:37):
TV network for fifty million. They sued me back. Much
of the case hinged on how many times I used
a given word in my emails. I assumed I had
not used it at all. The discovery came in my
own emails. It turned out I'd used it like ninety
four times. That was my Well, if it's big enough,
I'll just take the settlement moment. And I wasn't under
(02:01):
indictment or guilty of anything. Even for somebody rooted firmly
in a fantasy world of his own creation, seeing what
they have on him must be destabilizing. And remember dementia,
Jay Trump starts each day pre destabilized. Congress, please and
(02:21):
stop them now. And on Thursday, Trump even circled back
to where we began on this case. And he also
circled back to the day he first opened Pandora's political box.
The documents' indictments are quote election interferenced against me on
perfectly legal boxes where I have no doubt that information
(02:42):
is being secretly planted, Which means that those documents that
Trump owns that were his property, that he had the
perfect right to keep and are perfectly legal, and they're
all to classified and even if they weren't, they're still his.
Now they are all planted again. And then there's the
(03:04):
other circle, back to the original campaign platform, lock her Up. Yesterday,
Trump again insisted in an interview he would indict his opponents,
but very fairly, of course, and that that's why they're
doing this to him, to prevent him from being re
elected and indicting them. This is the way his mind
(03:26):
doesn't work. Back at the investigation, The Guardian meanwhile confirmed
what has been pretty obvious, at least the first part
has been quote. Federal prosecutors investigating Trump's retention of national
security material were examining evidence within weeks of the FBI
search of Mari Lago last year that he might have
handled classified documents at his Bedminster club in New Jersey,
(03:49):
according to two people close to the matter on quote,
the conclusion I think is kind of new. Searches were
made at Bedminster and nothing was found, and clarity arrived
when his whole beautiful mind explanation came into view. That
Trump is a kind of sophisticated pack rat, but not
your traditional hoarder. Trump does not just pile up the
(04:10):
mementos and the classified documents and the secret plans for
war against Iran. He takes them around with him, apparently
from mary Lago to Bedminster and then back to marri
Lago again. Hence that continuing prospect that he may be
indicted anew in New Jersey by Jack Smith for revealing
the details of the secret documents there, even though the
(04:32):
documents were or are in Florida since we last looked
in on Trump. In this interlude between indictment sets, there
does seem to have been an increase in the paranoia
and a decrease in the energy, and not just for him,
but also for his sickophants. For eight long years, I
have wondered, maybe you have two if the wear and
(04:54):
tear of all this lying and scheming and evil stuff
doing would ever affect Trump the way it would affect
a normal person. It's very easy to I continuously if
the lies never have to sync up. Thus your personal
papers that you own and you declassified can also be
plants at the same time, and you don't waste one
(05:16):
calorie of energy trying to get these sundry lies to
line up correctly. However, some of the supporters are seeing
stuff or wearing down themselves for the first time. Trump
posted an all over the map video yesterday. In it,
he called Asa Hutchinson Ada and acted like everybody got
(05:36):
what the joke was behind the insult. The right wing
BS artist Ian Miles Chong then tweeted, quote, Trump just
released a bizarre statement. Not sure if it makes much sense. Well,
it's an evergreen tweet obviously, but you get my point.
And then Mark Levin, the Falsetto voice radio host, posted
(05:58):
a news clip and wrote, why are all the fat
GOP guys like Christy Hogan and Barr Trump and DeSantis haters? Wait?
Why are the fat GOP guys like Christy Hogan and
Bar Trump and DeSantis haters? So, Mark, you're saying Trump
(06:20):
is fat? There is another sam Alito all expenses paid
vacation scandal. It is not nearly as startling and quid
pro quo ish as taking a one hundred thousand dollars
private jet trip to Alaska courtesy of a hedge fund
guy and then voting for a Supreme Court judgment that
(06:40):
gives hedge fund guy two billion, four hundred million dollars.
But CNN got an on the record confirmation about this
one from the director of the Notre Dame University Law
School Religious Liberty Initiative that her group did indeed pay
the traveling expenses for Alito to go to its conclave
in Rome last July and give a speech there mocking
(07:02):
anybody who dared to criticize him. No laws were broken,
because there are no laws governing Supreme Court justices, only
the basic tenets of you know, judicial honesty. The Notre
Dame University Law School Religious Liberty Initiative has a legal clinic,
and since its founding in twenty twenty, it has filed
a series of Friend of the Court briefs on cases
(07:24):
being heard by the Supreme Court. Happily, Sam, Alito always
has another legal hair he can split in his own defense. Quote.
My understanding is that the Notre Dame Law Schools Religious
Liberty Initiative has a number of components, only one of
which is a clinic that, like the legal clinics at
(07:45):
many other law schools, files amicus briefs in the Supreme Court.
I was not invited to speak in Rome by the clinic. Unquote. Hell,
that's all right, then, Sam. Obviously, the foremost problem you
and I see here is the things that look like
bribes smell like bribes, sound like bribes, but legally are
(08:08):
not bribes. But there is a subtler problem in the
background too. That Alito speech in Rome the one that's
okay because the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative
paid for it. But the Notre Dame Law School Religious
Liberty Initiative Legal clinic is the one that files all
the briefs to the Supreme Court. Well, it also contained
an amazing bit of theocratic proselytizing in it. It stunned me,
(08:31):
then it stuns me to this day.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'm reminded of an experience I had a number of
years ago in a museum in.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Berlin.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
One of the exhibits was a rustic wooden cross. An
affluent woman, a well dressed woman, and a young boy
were looking at this exhibit, and the young boy turned
to the woman, presumably his mother.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And said, who is that man?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
My memory has stuck in my mind as a harbinger
of what may light had.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
For our culture. Why son, that man murtyring himself on
the cross is Sam Alito? Can't you tell? And the
third headline today, I am honestly indebted to Marjorie Taylor
Barney Rubbell white supremacist Karen Green, and boy, could you
(09:31):
have gotten great odds that you would never hear me
say that in my life. But who was it, after
all who extended the quote Marjorie Taylor Green called Lauren
Bobert a quote little bitch unquote story yet another day?
Why it's Marjorie Taylor Green who has extended the Marjorie
Taylor Green called Lauren Bobert a quote little bitch unquote
(09:55):
story another day. That's who she was good enough to
explain to Semaphore News why she called Lauren Bobert a
quote lit be unquote quote she has genuinely been a
nasty little bitch to be unquote. Green retold the story
as witnesses had broken it to The Daily Beast and
(10:17):
a Paulina lunatic was talking about impeachment when Bobert came
over to Green to complain about Green's recent remarks about impeachment.
I told her exactly what I think about her. They
then argued over who had the biggest impeachment, and Green
claims she told Bobert to shut up, and of course
asked about this by CNN afterwards, Bobert replied, quote I'm
(10:37):
not in middle school like Bobert wouldn't know anything about
middle school. So to recap this update on the Marjorie
Taylor Green called Lauren Bobert a quote little bitch unquote story,
Marjorie Taylor Green tells Semaphore News apparently official, she did
call Lauren Bobert quote little bitch unquote. That's sway. It
is Friday, June Walter Cronk. Okay, this is where I'll
(11:04):
drop it. I promise no more quoting Green calling Bobert
a Bobert. I promise, I'm dropping it right now. It's
falling out of my hands right now. That's it. We're done.
I'm not gonna I'm not going to do it anymore.
(11:50):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. If anybody can advance the Green
Bobert b story, there's five bucks in it for you.
Also of interest Jeff Zucker to buy CNN. Zucker, I
have an idea for your new eight PM show. Let
me just it this way. That's next. This is countdown.
This his countdown with Keith Olbooman. Postscripts to the news,
(12:20):
some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions, Dateline Washington
one more Republican presidential candidate Will Heard. Will Heard the
political satirist. Oh no, no, no, that's Will Durst. Will
Heard was a congressman from Texas, and before that he
(12:41):
was in the CIA. Great resume. Meanwhile, Florida Senator Rick
Scott is reportedly looking at the weakness of the Dessantis
campaign and thinking of jumping in because the guy who
openly announced plans to cut Social Security and Medicare and
he looks like Voldemort from Harry Potter is the kind
of reasonable alternative to Trump that America seeks. Tell me
(13:03):
more about the other. One dateline Hamilton County, Indiana, the
local chapter of the fascist group Moms for Liberty, kind
of gave the game away. The group, which has been
trying to take over school boards nationwide to stop any
references to LGBTQ issues and erase all criticisms of white
people in history classes, launched a new online newsletter and
(13:26):
volume one page one upper right just before the masthead
a standalone quote, white lettering on a blue background, reading simply,
he alone, who owns the youth gains the future. Adolf Hitler.
Version two of that from Moms for Hitler. A Moms
for Liberty was Oops, we forgot to mention we're against
(13:48):
that and against Hitler, and no, see it's the American
government that is Hitler. And uh wait, we'll be back
to you with version three of this in a moment.
Version three was we condemn Adolf Hitler's actions, we should
not have quoted him in our newsletter and express our
deepest apology. Version four will be the moms for Hitler,
Liberty outside School singing, Deutschland, Deutschland, uber Alis and Dyline.
(14:14):
New York. It's quite a headline in the New York
Post quoting speculation that my former boss, the former CNN
boss Jeff Zucker, is a candidate to buy CNN from
Warner Bros. Discovery, where they've been on quite a role
recently cratering it and cratering HBO whereas it now calls
itself Max in the Network Witness relocation program, and this
(14:38):
week they went after Turner Classic Movies. The idea that
Zucker could get fired one year by CNN and then
wind up owning the place eighteen months later is intriguing
and pleasing on several levels, and it sure couldn't be
worse than what they have now. But you should note
that The New York Post also in the same story,
reports that Comcast might buy Paramount and then sell CBS
(15:02):
to Warner Bros. And Warner Bros. With merge CBS with CNN,
or sell CNN in order to buy CBS, or or
Zucker could buy CBS because well, because it's not easy
to pad these speculative newspaper articles out to the requisite
twelve paragraphs. Still Ahead Fridays with Thurber. They are all
(15:37):
funny stories, but some Theerber stories are silly stories, and
some Theurbers are cynical stories. But at least one is
a scary story, The Black Magic of Barney Holler. Ahead first,
the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning
Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's persons. In severld the
Bronze to Madd Senero, member of the Canadian Parliament representing
(16:00):
part of Edmonton. He has raised the issue none dare as.
He has written to the Speaker of the House of
Commons and demanded action quote it has come to buy
attention to. Despite much anticipation, Taylor Swift's Eras tour has
neglected to include any Canadian dates or locations, as she
released her international dates, which includes stops throughout Asia and Europe.
(16:24):
First of all, that's really badly written. Secondly, Genero, with
the support of two other members of the Canadian Conservative Party,
says he is filing a quote official grievance, although quote
I don't know how one files an official grievance. And
if that was not unseerious enough for you, this chuckleheaded
idea is not even original. Earlier in the week, some
(16:45):
Australian politicians said they are filing grievances because Swift is
only playing Sydney and Melbourne and not peth in Brisbane.
You should all get her indicted by the World Court
at the Hague. A nice twenty year prison term will
show her not to offend. Edmonton and Brisbane runner up
(17:07):
Charlie Kirk, right wing, mega funded, megaheaded troll. I swear
each time I see video of him, his head is
a little bit bigger than it was before, and I'm
not sure if it's inflated or it's stuffed. Well, you
knew this take was coming. It's not a surprise. It's
still grotesque. Kirk says the Titanic tragedy tourists were killed
(17:30):
by wokeness, but he takes it one step further. First,
Kirk blasted the Daily Beast for having reported that the
founder of the ocean Gate company was a frequent Republican donor,
as if that's like a super relevant thing, right, These
people are repugnant, repulsive, and disgusting for publishing an article
like that. To be honest, I kind of agreed with
(17:51):
Kirk up till that point, but he could not take
yes for an answer. His next words, wait for it here. Quote.
It is, however, separate to say that do you get
your best in life? Do you get excellence if you
care about things that don't don't matter? The CEO of
ocean Gates says he was choosing and selecting his personnel
based on not wanting to have fifty year old white guys.
(18:14):
Then you could make the argument, albeit rather cruel and blunt.
He killed himself and his customers with wokeness. Unquote. Is
that twice as bad as that which Kirk had criticized?
Yes it is, but wait, he went for four times
as bad. Quote. Let this be a warning when we
say that we want to hire more black pilots, hold on,
(18:37):
slow down. People could die if you embrace the poison
of wokeness unquote. You know, watch out for that wokeness.
Stick to the racism. Racism is always safe for you, Charlie,
there it is. Can you tell he just hired the
writer producer who got fired by Tucker Carlson for too
much racist posting. Oh, I don't like him, he's too
(18:57):
racist for me. But our winners Commissioner Gary Beckman, and
the National Hockey League, you may recall, after several years
at the forefront of inclusion and charity of all kinds,
the NHL suddenly got scared last winter when a Russian
player on the Philadelphia Flyers refused to wear a Pride
Night jersey for the ten minute warm up before the game.
(19:19):
No slogans on the jersey, there's no group names, there
are no support gayness, there's nothing on it, just letters
and numbers in a rainbow pattern. And then the jerseys
are auctioned off for charity because the players wore them
and they had the players' names on them and one
guy wouldn't wear it. Soon after, a Russian in Minnesota
(19:39):
demanded out, then one in New York, then a couple
of religious nuts in Florida, and now Commissioner Bettman announces
that the league will not wear Pride night jerseys because quote,
it's become a distraction. He announces this during Pride Month. Nor,
he says, will they have Heritage night jerseys, nor Military
(20:03):
night jerseys. Let's see a that, nor hockey fights Cancer
Knights jerseys, nor any other cause night jerseys worn in pregame.
Oh oh, the league will still make the jerseys and
they'll still have the Knights players, just won't wear the jerseys.
That way, the league can still claim it's having those
nights and supporting inclusion, when in fact it will destroy
(20:26):
the auction value of those jerseys, and thus the charities
will be the ones who suffer financially. But the league,
which is doing this because of one reason, and one
reason only, fear of protest and boycott by the fascists
and the evangelical homophobes in this country and in Canada,
the league will not suffer financially because it caved. Gary
(20:48):
Bettman caved. Gary Betman gave in to the bigots, and
the league can still say hockey is for everyone, even
though now it isn't. And if you're dropping the low
key subtle symbol in which the National Hockey League was
telling LGBTQ fans and players and others they were welcomed
(21:10):
and safe at hockey games. Guess squad, They will now
know they are not welcomed or safe. And Gary Bettman
is worse than a homophobe because he has surrendered to
homophobes for money and pretended he is not a spineless scumbag.
Gary Bettman, commissioner of the National Hockey League and spineless
(21:34):
scumbag and the team owners who went along with him
two days worst persons in the world to the number
(21:54):
one story on the Countdown and It's Fridays with Thurber,
And only occasionally did the great American humorist bend towards
the supernatural. Lots OF's characters, like his fictionalized version of
his own mother, claimed to get messages from beyond the
grave and stuff like that, but rarely did Thurber ever
go a cult in the first person. This is not
(22:18):
true in one of my all time favorites of his stories,
The Black Magic of Barney Haller, in which a slight
accent turns into something that is just right up against
the line of being actually a little scary but still hilarious.
The Black Magic of Barney Haller by James Thurber. It
(22:41):
was one of those hot days on which the earth
is uninhabitable, even as early as ten o'clock in the morning,
even on the hill where I live, under the dark maples.
The long porch was hot, and the wicker chair I
sat in complained hotly. My coffee was beginning to wear off,
and with it the momentary illusion it gives that things
are right and life is good. There were sultry mutterings
(23:05):
of thunder. I had a quick feeling that if I
looked up from my book, I would see Barney Holler.
I looked up, and there he was, coming along the road,
lightning playing about his shoulders, thunder following him like a dog.
Barney is, or was, my hired man. He is strong
(23:30):
and amiable, sweaty and dependable, slowly and heavily confident, but
he is also eerie. He traffics with the devil. His
ears twitch when he talks, but it isn't so much
that as the things he says. Once in late June,
when all of a moment, sabers began to flash brightly
(23:52):
in the heavens and bowling balls rumbled, I took refuge
in the barn. I always have a feeling that I
am going to be struck by lightning and either riven
like an old apple tree, or left with a foot
that aches. In rainy weather and a habit of painting,
these things happen. Barney came in not to escape the
storm to which he is or pretends to be indifferent,
(24:15):
but to put the sigh the way. Suddenly, he said
the first of those things that made me, when I
was with him, faintly creepy. He pointed at the house.
Once I said, this boat come down to rock, He said,
it is phenomena like that of which I stand in
constant dread, boats coming down rocks, people being teleported, statues
(24:38):
dripping blood, old regrets, and dreams in the form of
luna moths fluttering against the windows at midnight. Of course,
I finally figured out what Barney meant, or what I
comforted myself with believing he meant something about a bolt
coming down the lightning rod on the house, a commonplace
and utterly natural thing. I should have dismissed it, but
(25:02):
it had its effect on me. Here was a stolid man,
smelling of hay and leather, who talked like somebody out
of Charles Fort's books, or like a traveler back from
oz And all the time the lightning was zigging and
zagging around him. On this hot morning, when I saw
(25:22):
Barney coming along with his faithful storm trudging behind him,
I went back frowningly to my copy of Swan's Way.
I hope that Barney, seeing me absorbed in a book,
would pass by without saying anything. I read. I myself
seemed actually to have become the subject of my book,
A church a quartet, the rivalry between Francis the First
(25:44):
and Charles the Fifth. I could feel Barney standing looking
at me, but I didn't look at him this morning.
By and by, said Barney, I go hunt grocer's and
d voods. That's fine, I said, and turned a page
and pretended to be engrossed in what I was reading.
(26:05):
Barney walked on. He had wanted to talk some more,
but he walked on after a paragraph where two his
words began to come between me and the words in
the book. Bime by, I go hunt grotches in dvoods.
If you are susceptible such things, it is not difficult
to visualize grotches. They fluttered into my mind, ugly little
(26:30):
creatures about the size of whipperwills, only covered with blood
and honey, and the scrapings of church bells, grotches. Who
and what I wondered, really was this thing in the
form of a hired man that kept anointing me ominously
In passing with abra cadabra. Barney didn't go toward the
(26:55):
woods at once. He weeded the corn, He picked apple
boughs off the lawn. He knocked a yellowjacket's nest down
out of a plum tree. It was raining now, but
he didn't seem to notice it. He kept looking at
me out of the corner of his eye, and I
kept looking at him out of the corner of my eyebod. Dime,
is it, beneeze? He called to me. Finally, I put
(27:15):
down my book and sauntered out to him, When you
go for those grotches, I said, firmly, I'll go with you.
I was sure he wouldn't want me to go. I
was right. He protested that he could get the grotches himself.
I'll go with you, I said, stubbornly. We stood looking
at each other, and then abruptly, just to give him
(27:37):
something to ponder over, I quoted, I'm going out to
clean the pasture spring. I'll only stop to take the
leaves away and wait to watch the water clear. I may,
I shan't be gone long. You come too. It wasn't,
I realized, very good abercadabra, but it served. Barney looked
(27:59):
at me in a puzzled way. Yes, he said, vaguely.
It's five minutes of twelve, I said, remembering he had asked.
Then we go, he said, And we trudged through the
rain over to the orchard fence and climbed that, and
opened a gate and went out into the meadow that
slopes up to the woods. I had a prefiguring of
(28:20):
Barney at some proper spot deep in the woods, prancing
around like a goat, casting off his false nature, shedding
his hired man's garments, dropping his teutonic accent, repeating diabolical phrases,
conjuring up grotches. It was a great slash of lightning
(28:40):
and along bumping of thunder. As we reached the edge
of the woods, I turned and fled, glancing over my shoulder,
I saw Barney standing and staring after me. It turned
out on the face of it to be as simple
as the boat that came down the rock. Grotches were
crotches crouched saplings, which he cut down to use a
(29:04):
supports under the peach boughs, because in bearing time they
become so heavy with fruit that there was danger of
the branches snapping off. I saw Barney later putting the
crotches in place. We didn't have much to say to
each other. I can see now that he was beginning
to suspect me too. About six o'clock next evening, I
(29:27):
was alone in the house and sleeping upstairs. Barney rapped
on the door of the front porch. I knew it
was Barney because he called to me. I woke up slowly.
It was dark for six o'clock. I heard rumblings and
soft flickerings. Barney was standing at the front door with
his storm at heel. I had the conviction that it
(29:49):
wasn't storming anywhere except around my house. There couldn't, without
the intervention of the Devil or one of his agents,
be so many lightning storms in one neighborhood. I had
been dreaming of Proost and the church at com and
meadowlands dipped in tea, and the rivalry between Francis the
First and Charles the fifth. My head whirled and I
(30:11):
didn't get up. Barney kept on wrapping. He called out again.
There was a flash followed by a sharp splitting sound.
Now I leaped up this time. I thought he is
here to get me. I had a notion that he
was standing at the door, barefooted, with a wreath of
grape leaves around his head, and a wild animal's skin
(30:34):
slung over his shoulder. I didn't want to go down,
but I did. He was as usual, solid, amiable, dressed
like a hired man. I went out onto the porch
and looked at the improbable storm now on in all
of its fury. This is getting pretty bad, I said meaningly.
Barney looked at the rain placidly well. I said, irritably,
(30:55):
what's up? Barney turned his little squinty blue eyes on me.
We go to the gaddock now and become warbs, he said,
the hell we do? I thought to myself quickly. I
was uneasy. I was you might even say terrified, but
I determined not to show it. If he began to
(31:17):
chant incantations or to make obscene signs, or if he
attempted to sling me over his shoulder. I resolved to
plunge right out into that storm, lightning it all, and
run to the nearest house. I didn't know what they
would think at the nearest house when I burst in
upon them, or what I would tell them, but I
didn't intend to accompany this amiable looking fiend to any
(31:38):
garrick and become a warb. I tried to persuade myself
that there was some simple explanation that warbs would turn
out to be as innocuous as boats on rocks and
grotches in Davoudes. But the conviction gripped me in the
growling of the thunder that here, at last was the
(31:58):
moment when Barney Holler, or whoever he was, had chosen
to get me. I walked toward the steps that led
to the lawn and turned and faced him grimly. Listen,
I barked, Suddenly, did you know that even when it
isn't brillig I can produce slythe toes? Did you happen
(32:18):
to know that the Momrath never lived that could outgrabe me? Yeah?
And furthermore, I can become anything I want to, even
if I were a warb. I wouldn't have to keep
on being one if I didn't want to. I can
become a playing card at will too. Once I was
the jack of clubs, only I forgot to say my
glasses off, and some guy recognized me. I. Barney was
(32:39):
backing slowly away toward the petunia box at one end
of the porch. His little blue eyes were wide. He
saw that I had him. I think I go now,
he said, and he walked out into the rain. The
rain followed him down the road. I have a new
hired man now. Barney never came back to work for
(33:01):
me after that day. Of course, I figured out finally
what he meant about the garrick and the wharves. He
had simply got horribly mixed up in trying to tell
me that he was going up to the garrett and
clear out the wasps, of which I have thousands. The
new hired man is afraid of them. Barney could have
(33:22):
scoop them up in his hands and thrown them out
a window without getting stung. I am sure he trafficked
with the devil, but I am sorry I let him go.
(33:46):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here The credits. Most of the music
was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanel. The Countdown musical directors, Guitars, bass and drums
by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip
Shaneil and produced by Tko Brothers. Toven's elections have been
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
(34:09):
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And
performed by the ESPN Philharmonic Orchestra. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and ninety
(34:31):
ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him again
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday
till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production
(34:53):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, Visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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