December 8, 2023 • 46 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 87: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Dictator-On-Day-One Trump continues to measure the windows for the new curtains in his White House, and I don’t know if that has been PROCESSED on the fascist side or if we have properly done so on the, you know, Non-Dictatorship Side but it is increasingly obvious that Trump is increasingly confident that he will seize power next year.
That is the ONLY possible explanation for what he has now done: leaking, to the gullible and willing stenographers from Axios Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei for publication yesterday, a set of choices for his administration that would make Jair Bolsonaro blush: Vice President Tucker Carlson, Chief of Staff Steve Bannon, CIA Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Stephen Miller, or Attorney General Mike Davis, or Attorney General J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Tom Cotton, Secretary of Denial Kari Lake, Secretaries-of-to-be-announced Kristi Noem, Byron Donalds, Johnny McEntee, and of course Secretary of Lecterns Sarah Huckabee.
We will never fully now, not even after the autopsy, what PRECISELY is wrong with Trump’s brain but it seems clear that whatever it is one of its symptoms is that he must convince himself that he IS winning, WILL win, will ALWAYS win. Jack Smith is right and he IS a serial election denier but it’s deeper than that: at his advanced age and with his advanced diseases, if he ever believed he was defeated, he would die – figuratively or maybe literally. So the greatest relief he could possibly have would be to believe, 334 days before it happens, that he has already won the 2024 election and that is how he is behaving and I’m not sure WHAT to do with that but it HAS to make him sloppy and vulnerable and better minds than ours can problem figure out which soft spot on his head to PUSH.
What VALUE is there in saying “here’s Tucker Carlson: psychopathic white supremacist whose career stability makes Keith Olbermann’s look like that of Bob Cratchit – I’m going to put him in government. Along with Kari Lake, whose highest elected office was weekend weather-girl in Rock Island.” It’s the kind of things you do NOT to rally your base and NOT to scare your opponents but because you really can’t STOP yourself from doing them, and suddenly you are more convinced than ever than you can get away with them.
And if that isn’t a motto for the entire Trump Nazi Party I don’t know what is.
PLUS: Matt Gaetz is about to get Robespierred, J.D. Vance wants to get a head start on prosecutor writers. And competing January 6 Truthers fight it out over whose bullshit is true.
(17:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: MAGA Congresswoman McClain makes a fool of herself but not as much as would-be MAGA Congressman Philip Sean Grillo does. The NFL coach who really doesn't have to "hand it to" the 9/11 plotters. Poor Nick Fuentes and Vivek Ramaswamy pushing white supremacy without realizing that if the Trumpers run out of brown immigrants, the next people they'll purge will be... Fuentes and Ramaswamy.
B-Block (33:31) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Mr. Preble Gets Rid Of His Wife
C-Block (43:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A Box To Hide In
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio Greetings
from Weimar, America, where Dictator on day one Trump continues
(00:28):
to measure the windows for the new curtains in his
vices howls. And I don't know if that has been
processed on the fascist side of this equation, or if
we have properly done so on the non dictator on
day one side, but it is increasingly obvious that Trump
is increasingly confident that he will seize power next year
(00:51):
and getting increasingly sloppy about what he tells us about
that time. That is the only possible explanation for what
he has now done, leaking to the gullible and willing
stenographers from Axios Mike and Jim Vanda High for a
publication yesterday a set of choices for his administration that
would make Jayre Bolsonaro blush, Vice President Tucker Carlson, Chief
(01:18):
of Staff Steve Bannon, CIA Director Cash Patel, Attorney General
Stephen Miller or Attorney General Mike Davis or Attorney General
j d Vance, Secretary of Defense Tom Cotton, Secretary of
Denial Carry Lake, Secretaries of to be announced Leader Christy
Nome Byron Donald's Johnny mcintee and of course Secretary of
(01:41):
Lecturn's Sarah Huckabee. I mean, it begins to sound like
the leaders of the Republican Party of Springfield during the
Simpsons meeting in their underground layer Dracula Sideshow, Bob carry Lake,
Tom Cotton, Mister Burns, Fat Tony, and of course George H. W.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Sadly, the Trump plan and this leak to Axios only
sounds like comedy. Not only is Trump suddenly so emboldened
that he's thrown out names that absolutely no normal person
could permit to serve anything but hot dogs from a
street cart, to name people whose appointments could be stopped
(02:23):
or thwarted at least by a Democratic Senate, thus energizing
campaign efforts for that to name a bunch of thugs,
and moreover, a lot of people who have lost a
lot of races. But it can't be coincidence that several
people on that list have also just done things that
must have felt real good to them, but which knocked
(02:43):
down basically to zero their chances of recovering from whatever
the f is wrong with them. I mean Tucker Carlson,
who has in just the last eighteen years charmed and
been hired by and then within at the most six
years fired by escorted from the bill by all three
(03:06):
cable news networks plus PBS. Tucker Carlson went on Twitter
last night with Alex Jones and embraced nine to eleven
Trutherism as I played you on Wednesday, Bannon and Patel
went on and insisted they will jail whoever they please, reporters, Democrats,
whoever they don't like. And in case you thought they
weren't serious, they said again, We're serious. And then they
(03:28):
threatened to put Joe Scarborough in jail, which is, to
be fair, not where I would start, except maybe on
a personal level. And Vance, who has done literally nothing
since being elected to the Senate except add a few
chins to his collection, is not waiting until Trump drags
off what he last night called maggot Haggerman. He is
(03:50):
a master of satire, isn't he. Vance read a Washington
Post column, well had it read to him, in which
an editor at large named Robert Kagan said if Trump
wins next year, that the best response from free America
would quote come from the governors of predominantly democratic states
such as California and New York through a form of nullification.
(04:11):
States with democratic governors and state houses could refuse to
recognize the authority of a tyrannical government. That is always
an option in our federal system. Vance, who you need
to remind yourself, may be completely inert, but is still
in the Senate, then leaked to Fox that he has
(04:32):
written to the Attorney General and the Secretary of State
demanding to know by January sixth when the DOJ will
investigate this. Kagan of the Post for quote potential violations
of laws that prohibit quote open rebellion against the United States,
along with the political violence that would inevitably follow. Matt's
of course, is an idiot, a performative idiot who's not
(04:55):
that good at performing. Who reminds me of me. Me
in nineteen seventy nine in a once a week government
class in in which we all played roles in a
fictional community, and obviously I wanted to be the journalists,
so they assigned me counselman. I didn't want to be counselman.
I was too lazy to do anything. So I realized
(05:16):
quickly that I could manipulate the journalists in the class.
By sticking to this rule, whatever happens, issue a press
release claiming credit for it or blaming somebody else for it.
I got an a Vance is going a little further.
He included the Secretary of State in this hysterical pearl
clutching Cornell Government four oh one press release because the
(05:39):
op ed's author is married to Under Secretary of State
for Political Affairs, Victoria Newland. So Vance wants her security
clearance reviewed. Quote in light of her husband's call for
rebellion against the United States. Again, Vance is a moron.
He looks like a constipated moron. He is advocating punishing
(06:00):
writers for writing. He is a writer. But I've got
two cheat codes for him on this, JD. If you
really want to push this. Victoria Newland's sister used to
have the seats in the front row at Yankee Stadium
next to mine, and so I used to go to
(06:23):
her with some of the games and share the tickets.
And I sat next to her a couple of times.
And she once ran a restaurant in town where me
and my then girlfriend, who is now a prominent political
magazine writer, we dined.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
She brought us breadsticks. JD. It's all part of the conspiracy.
Gotta be a conspiracy there, mister Check's notes, Secretary of Lumber. Also,
the op ed itself misses a much juicier solution to
(07:01):
a Trump restoration Blue States nullifying great Blue States, stopping
the sending of our tax money to the federal fascist government.
Three weeks of that, no money coming in from the
Blue States, and Trump would have to sell his blood
to Octapharma Plasma in Tacoma Park, Maryland, just to meet
(07:23):
White House payroll. Back to the point, we will never
fully know, not even after the autopsy, what precisely is
wrong with Trump's brain, but it seems clear that whatever
it is, one of the symptoms is that he must
convince himself that he is winning, that he will win,
(07:43):
that he will always win. Jack Smith is right, Trump
is a serial election denier. But it's deeper than that.
At his advanced age and with his advanced diseases, if
he ever believed he was defeated, he would die, maybe
not literally, but certainly figuratively. So the greatest relief he
(08:05):
could possibly have in life would be to firmly believe
three hundred and thirty four days before it happens that
he has already won the twenty twenty four election, and
that is how he is behaving that. I'm not sure
what to do with that, but it has to make
him sloppy and vulnerable, and better minds than yours and
(08:26):
mind can figure out which soft spot on his head
to push first. It continues in court. Trump invented the
nonsensical presidential immunity, then demanded Judge Chutkin dismiss the subversion
case because of it. She ruled against him. He not
only appealed, but last night had his lawyer's right that
(08:47):
while he appeals, she has to suspend everything in the
case quote. All current deadlines must be held in abeyance
until at minimum this motion is resolved. President Trump will
proceed based on that understanding and the authorities set forth
here in absent further order at the court's stall. It's strategic.
(09:08):
It could push even the Smith DC trial past the
election if it works. But it's with the extra unnecessary
dollops of arrogance they are writing. He will ignore the
judge unless the George orders him not to ignore her,
at which point he will ignore her order. It's stupid
(09:29):
and bitchy. It's like saying, I only want to be
called President Trump ever again. So I'm changing my first
name to president. So then if I win, you have
to call me president President Trump. His lines up with
what his staffer Alisa Farras said the other day that
it ain't just you and me quote, it's kind of remarkable.
(09:52):
I've been watching the clips from Trump's visit to Iowa,
and I'm stunned, having spent a lot of time with
him in twenty twenty and years before, he is slowing down.
There's a lack of sharpness in what he's saying and
a lack of clarity. Well, it's not just slowing down.
It's not taking any time at all to keep your
(10:14):
darker secrets secret. The banter over Dictator on Day one
with Hannity was an example of that. Why say that?
It's as John Lecarre wrote in Tinker Taylor's Soldier Spy,
when his friend postulates to George Smiley that the Russian
spymaster is fireproof. He is not fireproof because he's a fanatic.
(10:36):
One day, that lack of moderation will be his downfall.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's the point. Trump has stopped making any effort of
any semblance of any moderation. It is now almost unconceivable
that he could ever actually do anything to destroy himself.
But remember, to destroy himself, he only has to destroy
the confidence of about fifty thousand Key voters who were
(11:02):
going to vote for him. It's like this latest leak
to Axios, what value is there in saying, here's Vice
President Tucker Carlson, psychopathic white supremacist with a crazy laugh,
whose career stability makes Keith Olderman's look like that of
Bob Cratchett. I'm gonna put them in government, along with
(11:27):
Carrie Lake, whose highest elected office was weekend weather girl
in Rock Island, Illinois. It's the kind of things you
do not do to rally your base, nor to scare
your opponents, but because you really can't stop yourself from
(11:48):
doing them and you really really want to. Suddenly you
are more convinced than ever that you can get away
with them. And if that is not a description of
the entire Trump Nazi Party, I don't know what it is. Meantime,
(12:09):
Matt Gates may be available for Trump's wish list or
for kids parties. He has become a walking human target.
USA today last night reporting Republicans are thinking of expelling
him to They quoted one Republican representative anonymously. There were
a number of people who voted to expel Santos with
the express intent of thinking through the precedent there on
(12:32):
what happens next. There was a lot of forethought about
that precedent and what would happen when a report on
Gates comes out. A report shortly after the USA Today story,
CNN produced evidence that the report, the investigation into Gates
and Miners, is still alive. The Chairman and ranking member
(12:56):
have authorized staff to conduct an interview, reads a document.
CNN got an interview with a witness, Bye Felicia. Every
Robespierre eventually meets his guillotine. And meanwhile, as to the
guy Gates put into the speakership, Mike Johnson is having
(13:20):
an episode. I think that's the word, an episode. He
told a Christian Nationalist meeting the other night that he
is Moses. Mike Johnson, come on down, You're the next
(14:14):
contestant on the rougeous nut.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Isn't right?
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Thank you, Nancy Faus, mister speaker. That wasn't God. It's
a tumor. By the way. Mike Johnson followed up his
revelation that he's Moses. Hey, ma, get this guy, He's Moses.
He followed up his revelation that he's Moses by trying
(14:43):
to hold up AID to Israel and blackmail the Senate
with it. If you're Moses, boy, there's the desert, get wandering.
See you in twenty sixty three. And comic relief from
January sixth. Alan Hosteedder, a former police chief. Everybody seems
(15:03):
surprised by the gets eleven years for January sixth. He
brought an array of lethal weapons, took a car rather
than a plane so he could bring hatchets and the like,
took them with him to the Capitol, but is now
insisting it was an inside job. Thousands of plants. The
(15:24):
leader of the oathkeepers a plant. He took an eighteen
year sentence as part of being a government plant, and
then finally it happened. Nutjob meets nutjob. Before sentencing, Hosteader
explains that Ashley Babbitt was not shot and isn't dead,
and guests who was waiting for him in the hallway
(15:45):
not either than Ashley Babbitt's mother quote, I assure you
she is dead. What the F is it? You're trying
to say, to which Hosteedder answered, was she cremated? Regrettably,
Ashley Babbitt's mother did not reply, was your brain cream
(16:27):
the sound of box takata? We think it's box tikata. Anyway,
it means it's time for the daily roundup of the
miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
two days worse persons in the world worse a tie.
I'm just gonna play this first one. It's not just
Congresswoman Lisa McClain of Michigan Maga idiot. It's Congresswoman Lisa
(16:50):
McClain of Michigan Maga idiot, trying to explain how proud
she is to be MAGA and then making a mega
idiot of herself.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So as one of your so called Magapublicans, who again
I don't apologize for because under Maga Republican leadership, I
might remind everybody, crime was down. Inflation, excuse me, crime
was up, Crime was down under the last administration. Clearly
(17:26):
crime was down.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Thank you, congresswoman for that clear and convincing elucidation. Now
for almost anybody else, that would have been the highlight
of Congresswoman Lisa McClain's idiocy, but last year she publicly
claimed that Trump caught Osama bin Laden, so she has many,
many years of quality self owning idiocy ahead of her,
(17:52):
while she's still only tied for the up and coming
would be Congressman Philip Seawan Grillo's aspirations of being worst
person in the world. He is running to succeed George
Santos as the rep from the third District of New York.
The Democrats yesterday chose former Congressman Tom squaz and planned
to spend about eleventy billion to regain that seat. But
(18:14):
as to Grillow and the Republicans, he may not be
the nominee because he has another job. And when I
say job, I mean he's probably gonna be busy going
to prison. Mister Grillow was found guilty on Tuesday of
this week on a felon account of obstruction of an
official proceeding, And by this point in the plot you
can probably guess which official proceeding. That's right. Grillow broke
(18:38):
into the Capitol on January sixth, went in several different times.
Once went in through a broken window, recorded videos of himself,
and was interviewed by others to explain, quote, I'm here
to stop the steal. It's our effing house. But even
for one of Trump's slaves, mister Grillow would be Republican
congressman is pretty effing stupid. At his trial, in his defense,
(19:02):
he explained that he thought he was authorized break into
the Capitol. And better still, Grillo testified that he didn't
realize how serious what he did was because he didn't
know that the capital was where Congress met.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I know what a surprise, and and.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And Prior to January sixth, mister Grillo was the New
York State Republican leader for the New York twenty fourth
Assembly District, which is in Queen's next to Q Gardens.
A Republican party official didn't know where Congress meant running
for Congress, and if he were nominated and elected to
(19:48):
succeed George Santos, he'd still be only like the fifteenth
or sixteenth thumbest Republican in there. The runner up were
Sir Buffalo Bill's head coach Sean McDermott, who confirmed in
a Tiere news conference yesterday that the media report is true.
He did reference nine one eleven in a team meeting
in twenty nineteen, in an attempt to motivate the bills.
(20:10):
According to the substack go Long, what in fact McDermott
did was quote cited the hijackers as a group of
people who were all able to get on the same
page to orchestrate attacks to perfection unquote key not long
after nine to eleven two sports figures that we heard of,
(20:31):
at least one of them, the late Hall of Fame
football coach Bobby Bowden used nine to eleven tried to
within a sports context. The ex general manager of the
Cincinnati rech Jim Bowden said, the baseball players Union, as
it contemplated a two thousand and two strike, might as
well fly the planes into the towers, is what he said.
The football coach, same spelling, different pronunciation, thought that the
(20:54):
let's roll chant attributed to Flight ninety three passenger Todd
Beemer would be a great motto for his football team
because that guy that plane when they was fixing to dad,
you see where he went with this, I thought then,
and I think now both of them and Boden not
only apologized for it years later, but he actually apologized
(21:16):
to me, and we did a couple of games together
on ESPN Radio, Boden said some therapy had showed to
him that he was using the analogy and treating it
so lightheartedly because bluntley, he was trying to minimize how
scared he was after nine to eleven. I think both
of those guys were suffering from nine to eleven post
traumatic stress disorder. In fact, truth be told, I think
(21:38):
most of America in two thousand and one suffered from
post traumatic stress disorder, and ninety nine percent of the
victims have never gotten any treatment, which may be why
we are where we are today. People forget, I mean
the people at HBO sure forgot. But Bill Maher got
fired from his nightly ABC talk show when a week
(22:00):
after the attacks, he said that in this equation, the
Americans had quote been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from
two thousand miles away while quote staying in the airplane
when it hits the building. Say what you want about it.
It's not cowardly, unquote, but the Bills coach mister McDermott
(22:20):
did this in twenty nineteen. I think the reaction to
what he has now admitted to is best summed up
by the famous tweet by the social media absurdist drill
quote issuing correction on a previous post of mind regarding
the terror group Isle you do not under any circumstances
quote got a hand it to them, unquote. But our
(22:42):
winners the worst vive Aq Ramaswami and Nick Fuentes, white supremacists,
both of them. The stuff that would have gotten you
thrown out of American public life, even the Republican Party,
even what ten years ago the stuff is now what
(23:03):
makes you a national figure in the Republican fascist Trump
for King Party during the GOP debate Wednesday, and yes,
CNN has inexplicably announced it's going to televise two more
Republican debates in January, probably because they don't know what
to do now that the Charles Barkley gayls King Show
(23:25):
has premiered and somehow it did not draw three hundred
million viewers compared to none for MSNBC. During the last debate,
Ramaswami not only embraced the anti Semitic great replacement theory,
the paranoid psychosis that led to the mass shooting at
the Pittsburgh Synagogue, and he not only insisted that it
was not just a conspiracy theory, but quote a basic
(23:46):
statement of the Democratic Parties platform. But when the noted
anti Semite and racist Nick Fuentes tweeted a clip praising
Ramaswami for spewing his own bilge, Ramaswami retweeted Fuentes, Now, look,
Ramaswami is either a brain dead hate mond who has
one skill talking fast, talking fast, or he's just a
(24:10):
scheister con man Fuentes, it's a little easier. He's just
a piece of shit. But they do every time out
make me laugh darkly. But I'm still laughing because the
essence of the great replacement theory is that quote the
Jews unquote are arranging to replace all the white people
(24:30):
with quote third world voters, meaning Hispanics, Africans, people from
the Middle East, Asia, the Indian subcontinent. And I never
get over the fact that while Republicans and fascists and
other Trump slaves will cheer Ramswami and Fuentes as long
as Ramaswami and Fuentes are parroting this excuse for why
they the white folk failed at life, it has apparently
(24:53):
never occurred to Ramaswami or Fuentes that if their crowd
really does gain power and really does seal the border
and really does turn away the I don't know the
horror words that aren't there when the Trumpets are out
of immigrants to purge, when the ethnic cleansing is over,
(25:16):
You know, Nick, and Viveke, you do know who your
group is going to turn on next, right, because what
Trump wants here requires that there will always be an
other to persecute. And gentlemen, Nick, Viveke, I hate to
tell you this, but Viveke, your parents were born in India.
(25:37):
And Nick, you're a little vague on this, but you
have said your father's family is from Mexico. And sooner
or later, when they run out of new others to purge,
Trump will point over at you Viveke Ramaswami and you
Nick Fuentes and say, who are those brown guys? And
you'll all be surprised and shocked as they drag you
(26:00):
away by your feet, And the next thing you know,
you two will be in camps with the rest of us.
Viveq Ramaswami and Nick Fuentes, or as they would be
known in a trumpst America. By twenty twenty seven, twenty
twenty eight at the latest, Fresh Meat two days worse,
(26:21):
Parson ignored. Now, well, you may be wondering why we're
already done with poorest persons, and the commentary is over,
And the answer is, I have a thing called scintillating sotoma.
(26:42):
I think I once knew an exotic dancer named scintillating scirtoma.
It sounds weird, and it is weird halfway. It's not
usually really painful, and it's not that serious. And sometimes
it's called an ocular migraine. But while often connected to
a migraine by itself, it is nowhere near as debilitating
or upsetting as a migraine.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I've had those two.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
But what you get is a bright pattern in the
middle of your field of vision, usually in one eye,
and then it usually gets larger and larger, and it
will spread to both eyes, and in my case it
usually hits its peak and looks like like this kind
of radiating, brilliant white square that looks like this is
(27:22):
what it looks like, a glowing square zipper right in
the middle of everything. Watching a hockey game. There it
is right in the middle, about an inch square in
your field of vision, and it moves and it recedes,
and then it sometimes comes back. I mean, I had
friends in high school who would have paid good money
for hallucinations. This vivid it's brought on by the things
(27:46):
that bring on migraines, stress, blood flow problems, drugs, additives,
drugs you're allergic to, additives, you're allergic to the usual
range of stuff. Happily didn't really hurt, but seeing through
them is kind of difficult, at least for a half
an hour an hour or so, and they when they're gone,
they leave you exhausted. I mean, it feels like I've
(28:09):
been trying to lift weights with my head. The first
one I ever had was one night, about nine thirty
ten o'clock at Sports Center. I had written the script
and suddenly here comes this square, glowing box in the
middle of my vision. And I said, well, this is
a problem because I can't read the teleprompter and I
can't look down and read the script. I can't even
find the script. So I told the producer and I said, look,
(28:31):
let me try and lie down for half an hour.
And they went and they told Linda Kohane, who was
doing the two AM show, to get ready to do
the eleven PM show, and she screamed, but I can't
read Ko's copy, And happily I dozed off in a
dark room, and half an hour later it was fine,
and Linda Cohne said she was the happiest person on
earth anyway. I used to get them once every few years. Now, eh,
(28:54):
it's a couple a year maybe, but sometimes it's a
bunch in waves over a couple of days. And right
now I'm midwave. Obviously I've been reading the script here,
so there isn't one right there in the moment. Nothing
is scintillating right at the moment, especially this copy. But
I had time enough to be able to record this
and the opening of the show. So I've got two
(29:16):
editions of Friday with Thurber and if you want to
skip them, no worries, because I have just given you
the least amount of new Countdown that my conscience will
let me get away with. And now I'm going to
go lie down till it all goes away with the
observation that I wish that would work with Trump, Thurbernecks,
(29:37):
this is Countdown show.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
These are the stakes who would never abuse power as
retribution against anybody except.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
The day one, except what he's going to face, except
the day one he says, you're not going to be
a dictator. I said, no, no, no other than day one.
We must either love each other.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Or we must die.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home to the top
of the countdown and fridays with Thurber, and I am
not going to dare suggest to you that there isn't
(30:40):
at least something misogynistic about mister Prebble gets rid of
his wife. But the ultimate point of this short story,
so masterfully crafted by James Thurber, this matter of fact
style that almost makes you forget you are hearing about
a man trying to murder his wife, is in a
larger sense, about the fact that women are more successful
(31:02):
than men. This story, he does not compliment men, it
does not compliment women, It does not compliment human beings.
But it is still marvelous. Mister Preble Gets rid of
his Wife by James Thurber. Mister Prebble was a plump,
middle aged lawyer in Scarsdale. He used to kid with
(31:24):
his stenographer about running away with him. Let's run away together,
he would say, during a pause in dictation, alrighty, she
would say, One rainy Monday, afternoon, mister Prebble was more
serious about it than usual. Let's run away together, said
mister Preble. Alrighty, said his stenographer. Mister Prebble jingled the
(31:47):
keys in his pocket and looked out the window. My
wife would be glad to get rid of me, he said.
Would you give you a divorce, asked the stenographer. I
don't suppose so, he said. The stenographer laughed, you'd have
to get rid of your wife, she said. Mister Preble
(32:08):
was unusually silent at dinner that night. About half an
hour after coffee, he spoke, without looking up from his paper,
Let's go down in the cellar. Mister Prebble said to
his wife, what far? She said, not looking up from
her book. Oh, I don't know, he said. We uh
(32:29):
never go down in the cellar anymore the way we
used to. We never did go down in the cellar
that I remember, said missus Prebble. I could rest easy
the balance of my life if I never went down
in the cellar. Mister Preble was silent for several minutes.
Supposing I said, it meant a whole lot to me.
Began mister Prebble, what's come over you? His wife demanded.
(32:53):
It's cold down there and there's absolutely nothing to do.
We could pick up pieces of coal, said mister Prebble.
We might get up some sort of game with pieces
of coal. I don't want to, said his wife. Anyway,
I'm reading, listen, said mister Prebble, rising and walking up
(33:14):
and down. Why won't you come down in the cellar.
You can read down there as far as that goes.
There isn't a good enough light down there, she said.
And anyway, I'm not going to go down in the cellar.
You may as well make up your mind. That gee whiz,
said mister Prebble, kicking into the edge of a rug.
Other people's wives go down in the cellar. Why is
(33:36):
it you never want to do anything? I come home
worn out from the office, and you won't even go
down in the cellar with me. God knows, it isn't
very far. It isn't as if I was asking you
to go to the movies or someplace. I don't want
to go, shouted missus Prebble. Mister Prebble sat down on
the edge of a davenport. All right, all right, he said,
(34:02):
He picked up the newspaper again. I wish you'd let
me tell you more about it. It's kind of a surprise.
Well you quit harping on that subject, asked missus Prebble. Listen,
said mister Prebble, leaping to his feet, I might as
well tell you the truth instead of beating around the bush.
I want to get rid of you so I can
marry my stenographer. Is there anything especially wrong about that?
(34:25):
People do it every day. Love is something you can't control.
We've been all over that, said missus Prebble. I'm not
going to go all over that again. I just wanted
you to know how things are, said mister Prebble. But
you have to take everything so literally. Good Lord, do
(34:45):
you suppose I really.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Wanted to go down in the cellar and make up
some silly game with pieces of coal. I never believed
that for a minute, said missus Preble. I knew all
along you wanted to get me down there and bury me.
You can say that now after I told you, said
mister Prebble. But it would never have occurred to you
(35:07):
if I hadn't. You didn't tell me. I got it
out of you, said missus Prebble. Anyway, I'm always two
steps ahead of what you're thinking. You're never within a
mile of what I'm thinking, said mister Prebble. Is that
so I knew you wanted to bury me the minute
you got some foot in this house tonight, missus Prebble
held him with a glare. Now that's just plain damn exaggeration,
(35:31):
said mister Prebble, considerably annoyed. You knew nothing of the sort.
As a matter of fact, I never thought of it
till just a few minutes ago. It was in the
back of your mind, said missus Prebble. I suppose this
filing woman puts you up to it. You needn't get sarcastic,
said mister Prebble. I have plenty of people to file
(35:51):
without having her file. She doesn't know anything about this,
She isn't in on it. I was going to tell
her you'd gone to visit some friends and fell over
a cliff. She wants me to get a divorce. That's
a laugh, said missus Prebble. That's a laugh. You may
bury me, but you'll never get a divorce. She knows
(36:11):
that I told her that, said mister Prebble. I mean
I told her I'd never get a divorce. Oh, you
probably told her about burying me too, said missus Prebble.
That's not true, said mister Prebble, with dignity. That's between
you and me. I was never going to tell a soul.
You'd blab it to the whole world. Don't tell me,
(36:34):
said missus Prebble.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I know you. Mister Prebble puffed at his cigar. I
wish you were buried now it was all over with,
he said. Don't you suppose you would get caught, you
crazy thing? She said, They always get caught. Why don't
you go to bed. You're just getting yourself all worked
up over nothing. I'm not going to bed, said mister Prebble.
(36:55):
I'm going to bury you in the cellar. I got
my mind made up to it. I don't know how
I could make any plainer listen, cried missus Prebble, throwing
her book down. Will you be satisfied and shut up?
If I go down in the cellar. Can I have
a little peace if I go down in the cellar,
Will you let me alone?
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Then?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yes, said mister Prebble. But you spoil it by taking
that attitude. Sure, sure, I always spoil everything. I stop
reading right in the middle of a chapter. I'll never
know how the story comes out. But that's nothing to you.
Did I make you start reading that book, asked mister Prebble.
He opened the cellar door. Here you go first, said
(37:35):
missus Prebble, starting down the steps. It's cold down here.
You would think of this at this time of the year.
Any other husband would have buried his wife in the summer.
You can't arrange those things just whenever you want to,
said mister Prebble. That didn't fall in love with this
girl till late fall. Anybody else would have fallen in
love with her long before that. She's been around for years.
(37:56):
Why is it you always let other men get in
ahead of you? Mercy? But it's dirty down here. What
have you got down there? I was going to hit
you over the head with the sh shovel, said mister Prebble.
You were huh, said missus Prebble. We'll get that out
of your mind.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You want to leave a great, big clue right here
in the middle of everything. We're the first detective to
come snooping around. We'll find it. Come out in the
street and find some piece of iron or something. Something
doesn't belong to you, all right, said mister Prebble. But
there won't be any piece of iron in the street.
Women always expect to pick up a piece of iron anywhere.
(38:32):
If you look in the right place, you'll find it,
said missus Prebble. And don't be gone long, don't you
dare stopping at the cigar store. I'm not going to
stand down here in this cold cellar all night and freeze,
all right, said mister Prebble. I'll hurry and shut that
door behind you. She screamed after him.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Where were you born in a barn? Mister Preble gets
rid of his wife By James Thurber. It's been a
long week. And every time I find myself thinking it's
(39:13):
been a long week, I like to turn to my
book of James Thurber, and it's Fridays with Thurber. And
it's been a few Fridays since I've done any James Thurber.
And so let's start at the beginning. As I've mentioned
many times, I read this story first aloud in a
class in college in nineteen seventy nine, and a friend
of mine came up to me and said, you should
forget that sportscasting thing. You should read Thurber for a living,
(39:36):
And I said, yeah, that'll ever happen. This is for
some reason salvation for me, Catharsis, and every other emotion
that is appropriate after it has been a long week.
A Box to Hide In by James Thurber. I waited
(39:58):
till the large woman with the awful hat took up
her sack of groceries and went out, peering at the
tomatoes and the lettuce on her way. The clerk asked
me what mine was. Have you got a box, I asked,
A large box. I want a box to hide in.
(40:22):
You want a box, he asked, I want a box
to hide in. I said, what do you mean? He said,
you mean a big box? I said, I meant a
big box big enough to hold me. I haven't got
any boxes, he said, only cottons that cans come in.
I tried several other groceries and none of them had
(40:42):
a box big enough for me to hide in. And
there was nothing for it but to face life out.
I didn't feel strong, and I'd had this overpowering desire
to hide in a box for a long time.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Well, what do you mean you want to hide in
this box? One grocer asked me. It's a form of escape.
I told him, hiding in a box it circumscribes your
worries and the range of your anguish. You don't see
people either. How the hell do you eat when you're
in this box? Asked the grocer, How the hell do
(41:21):
you get anything to eat? I said I had never
been in a box and didn't know, but that that
would take care of itself. Well, he said, finally, I
haven't got any boxes, only some pasteboard curtains that cans
come in. It was the same every place. I gave
up when it got dark and the groceries closed, and
(41:43):
hid in my room again. I turned out the light
and lay on the bed. You feel better when it
gets dark. I could have hit in a closet, I suppose,
but people are always opening doors. Somebody would find you
in a closet. They would be startled, and you'd have
to tell them why you're in the closet. Nobody pays
(42:05):
attention to a big box lying on the floor. You
could stay in it for days and nobody'd think to
look in it, not even the cleaning woman. My cleaning
woman came the next morning and woke me up, and
I was still feeling bad. I asked her if she
(42:25):
knew where I could get a large box. How big
a box you want, she asked, I want a box
big enough for me to get inside of, I said.
She looked at me with big, dim eyes. There's something
wrong with her glands. She's awful, but she has a
big heart, which makes it worse. She's unbearable. Her husband
(42:49):
is sick, and her children are sick, and she is
sick too. I got to thinking how pleasant it would
be if I were in a box now and didn't
have to see her. I'd bet a box right there
in the room and she wouldn't know. I wondered, if
you had a desire to bark or laugh when someone
who does no walks by the box you were in,
(43:09):
maybe she would have a spell with her heart. If
I did, that would die right there. The officers and
the elevator man and mister Grammage would find us funny,
dog Gune, thing happened at the building last night. The
doorman would say to his wife, I led in this
woman to clean up tenf and she never come out.
See she's never in there more in an hour, but
she never come out.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
See. So when it got time for me to go
off duty, why, I says to credit who was on
the elevator. I says, what the hell you suppose this
happened to that woman cleans tenf? He says he didn't know.
He says he never seen her after he took her up.
So I spoke to mister Grammage about it. I'm sorry
to bother you, mister Grammage, I says, but there's something funny.
But that woman cleans tenf. So I told him so
(43:52):
he said we better have a look, and we all
three goes up and knuts on the door and rings
the bells sea and nobody answers. So he said we'd
have to walk in. So credit opened the door and
we walked in, and here was this woman cleans the apartment,
dead as a herring on the floor, and the gentleman
that lives there was in a box. The cleaning woman
(44:17):
kept looking at me. It was hard to realize she
wasn't dead. It's a form of escape, I murmured, wat say,
She asked, Dully, you don't know of any large packing boxes,
do you? I asked, now, I don't. She said, I
(44:40):
haven't found one yet, But I still have this overpowering
urge to hide in a box. Maybe it will go away,
maybe I'll be all right, maybe it will get worse.
It's hard to say A box to hide in. By
(45:01):
James Thurber, I've got all the damage I can do here.
Thank you for listening. Countdown has come to you from
the Vin Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire World
(45:25):
headquarters in New York Downtown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music,
mister Shanelle handling the orchestration in keyboards, mister Ray on
the guitars, bass and drums, and it was produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(45:46):
Sports music Curtesy of ESPN, Inc. Written by Mitch Warren Davis.
We call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. So that's countdown for this
one and sixty seventh day since dementia, Jay Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically government in the United States
(46:06):
use the Insurrection Act against him and them while we
still can. The next schedule Countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as
the news warrants and my eyeballs permit. Till then, I'm
scintillating Scatoma. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(46:29):
Countdown with Keith Olreman 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 Greetings
from Weimar, America, where Dictator on day one Trump continues
(00:28):
to measure the windows for the new curtains in his
vices howls. And I don't know if that has been
processed on the fascist side of this equation, or if
we have properly done so on the non dictator on
day one side, but it is increasingly obvious that Trump
is increasingly confident that he will seize power next year
(00:51):
and getting increasingly sloppy about what he tells us about
that time. That is the only possible explanation for what
he has now done, leaking to the gullible and willing
stenographers from Axios Mike and Jim Vanda High for a
publication yesterday a set of choices for his administration that
would make Jayre Bolsonaro blush, Vice President Tucker Carlson, Chief
(01:18):
of Staff Steve Bannon, CIA Director Cash Patel, Attorney General
Stephen Miller or Attorney General Mike Davis or Attorney General
j d Vance, Secretary of Defense Tom Cotton, Secretary of
Denial Carry Lake, Secretaries of to be announced Leader Christy
Nome Byron Donald's Johnny mcintee and of course Secretary of
(01:41):
Lecturn's Sarah Huckabee. I mean, it begins to sound like
the leaders of the Republican Party of Springfield during the
Simpsons meeting in their underground layer Dracula Sideshow, Bob carry Lake,
Tom Cotton, Mister Burns, Fat Tony, and of course George H. W.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Sadly, the Trump plan and this leak to Axios only
sounds like comedy. Not only is Trump suddenly so emboldened
that he's thrown out names that absolutely no normal person
could permit to serve anything but hot dogs from a
street cart, to name people whose appointments could be stopped
(02:23):
or thwarted at least by a Democratic Senate, thus energizing
campaign efforts for that to name a bunch of thugs,
and moreover, a lot of people who have lost a
lot of races. But it can't be coincidence that several
people on that list have also just done things that
must have felt real good to them, but which knocked
(02:43):
down basically to zero their chances of recovering from whatever
the f is wrong with them. I mean Tucker Carlson,
who has in just the last eighteen years charmed and
been hired by and then within at the most six
years fired by escorted from the bill by all three
(03:06):
cable news networks plus PBS. Tucker Carlson went on Twitter
last night with Alex Jones and embraced nine to eleven
Trutherism as I played you on Wednesday, Bannon and Patel
went on and insisted they will jail whoever they please, reporters, Democrats,
whoever they don't like. And in case you thought they
weren't serious, they said again, We're serious. And then they
(03:28):
threatened to put Joe Scarborough in jail, which is, to
be fair, not where I would start, except maybe on
a personal level. And Vance, who has done literally nothing
since being elected to the Senate except add a few
chins to his collection, is not waiting until Trump drags
off what he last night called maggot Haggerman. He is
(03:50):
a master of satire, isn't he. Vance read a Washington
Post column, well had it read to him, in which
an editor at large named Robert Kagan said if Trump
wins next year, that the best response from free America
would quote come from the governors of predominantly democratic states
such as California and New York through a form of nullification.
(04:11):
States with democratic governors and state houses could refuse to
recognize the authority of a tyrannical government. That is always
an option in our federal system. Vance, who you need
to remind yourself, may be completely inert, but is still
in the Senate, then leaked to Fox that he has
(04:32):
written to the Attorney General and the Secretary of State
demanding to know by January sixth when the DOJ will
investigate this. Kagan of the Post for quote potential violations
of laws that prohibit quote open rebellion against the United States,
along with the political violence that would inevitably follow. Matt's
of course, is an idiot, a performative idiot who's not
(04:55):
that good at performing. Who reminds me of me. Me
in nineteen seventy nine in a once a week government
class in in which we all played roles in a
fictional community, and obviously I wanted to be the journalists,
so they assigned me counselman. I didn't want to be counselman.
I was too lazy to do anything. So I realized
(05:16):
quickly that I could manipulate the journalists in the class.
By sticking to this rule, whatever happens, issue a press
release claiming credit for it or blaming somebody else for it.
I got an a Vance is going a little further.
He included the Secretary of State in this hysterical pearl
clutching Cornell Government four oh one press release because the
(05:39):
op ed's author is married to Under Secretary of State
for Political Affairs, Victoria Newland. So Vance wants her security
clearance reviewed. Quote in light of her husband's call for
rebellion against the United States. Again, Vance is a moron.
He looks like a constipated moron. He is advocating punishing
(06:00):
writers for writing. He is a writer. But I've got
two cheat codes for him on this, JD. If you
really want to push this. Victoria Newland's sister used to
have the seats in the front row at Yankee Stadium
next to mine, and so I used to go to
(06:23):
her with some of the games and share the tickets.
And I sat next to her a couple of times.
And she once ran a restaurant in town where me
and my then girlfriend, who is now a prominent political
magazine writer, we dined.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
She brought us breadsticks. JD. It's all part of the conspiracy.
Gotta be a conspiracy there, mister Check's notes, Secretary of Lumber. Also,
the op ed itself misses a much juicier solution to
(07:01):
a Trump restoration Blue States nullifying great Blue States, stopping
the sending of our tax money to the federal fascist government.
Three weeks of that, no money coming in from the
Blue States, and Trump would have to sell his blood
to Octapharma Plasma in Tacoma Park, Maryland, just to meet
(07:23):
White House payroll. Back to the point, we will never
fully know, not even after the autopsy, what precisely is
wrong with Trump's brain, but it seems clear that whatever
it is, one of the symptoms is that he must
convince himself that he is winning, that he will win,
(07:43):
that he will always win. Jack Smith is right, Trump
is a serial election denier. But it's deeper than that.
At his advanced age and with his advanced diseases, if
he ever believed he was defeated, he would die, maybe
not literally, but certainly figuratively. So the greatest relief he
(08:05):
could possibly have in life would be to firmly believe
three hundred and thirty four days before it happens that
he has already won the twenty twenty four election, and
that is how he is behaving that. I'm not sure
what to do with that, but it has to make
him sloppy and vulnerable, and better minds than yours and
(08:26):
mind can figure out which soft spot on his head
to push first. It continues in court. Trump invented the
nonsensical presidential immunity, then demanded Judge Chutkin dismiss the subversion
case because of it. She ruled against him. He not
only appealed, but last night had his lawyer's right that
(08:47):
while he appeals, she has to suspend everything in the
case quote. All current deadlines must be held in abeyance
until at minimum this motion is resolved. President Trump will
proceed based on that understanding and the authorities set forth
here in absent further order at the court's stall. It's strategic.
(09:08):
It could push even the Smith DC trial past the
election if it works. But it's with the extra unnecessary
dollops of arrogance they are writing. He will ignore the
judge unless the George orders him not to ignore her,
at which point he will ignore her order. It's stupid
(09:29):
and bitchy. It's like saying, I only want to be
called President Trump ever again. So I'm changing my first
name to president. So then if I win, you have
to call me president President Trump. His lines up with
what his staffer Alisa Farras said the other day that
it ain't just you and me quote, it's kind of remarkable.
(09:52):
I've been watching the clips from Trump's visit to Iowa,
and I'm stunned, having spent a lot of time with
him in twenty twenty and years before, he is slowing down.
There's a lack of sharpness in what he's saying and
a lack of clarity. Well, it's not just slowing down.
It's not taking any time at all to keep your
(10:14):
darker secrets secret. The banter over Dictator on Day one
with Hannity was an example of that. Why say that?
It's as John Lecarre wrote in Tinker Taylor's Soldier Spy,
when his friend postulates to George Smiley that the Russian
spymaster is fireproof. He is not fireproof because he's a fanatic.
(10:36):
One day, that lack of moderation will be his downfall.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's the point. Trump has stopped making any effort of
any semblance of any moderation. It is now almost unconceivable
that he could ever actually do anything to destroy himself.
But remember, to destroy himself, he only has to destroy
the confidence of about fifty thousand Key voters who were
(11:02):
going to vote for him. It's like this latest leak
to Axios, what value is there in saying, here's Vice
President Tucker Carlson, psychopathic white supremacist with a crazy laugh,
whose career stability makes Keith Olderman's look like that of
Bob Cratchett. I'm gonna put them in government, along with
(11:27):
Carrie Lake, whose highest elected office was weekend weather girl
in Rock Island, Illinois. It's the kind of things you
do not do to rally your base, nor to scare
your opponents, but because you really can't stop yourself from
(11:48):
doing them and you really really want to. Suddenly you
are more convinced than ever that you can get away
with them. And if that is not a description of
the entire Trump Nazi Party, I don't know what it is. Meantime,
(12:09):
Matt Gates may be available for Trump's wish list or
for kids parties. He has become a walking human target.
USA today last night reporting Republicans are thinking of expelling
him to They quoted one Republican representative anonymously. There were
a number of people who voted to expel Santos with
the express intent of thinking through the precedent there on
(12:32):
what happens next. There was a lot of forethought about
that precedent and what would happen when a report on
Gates comes out. A report shortly after the USA Today story,
CNN produced evidence that the report, the investigation into Gates
and Miners, is still alive. The Chairman and ranking member
(12:56):
have authorized staff to conduct an interview, reads a document.
CNN got an interview with a witness, Bye Felicia. Every
Robespierre eventually meets his guillotine. And meanwhile, as to the
guy Gates put into the speakership, Mike Johnson is having
(13:20):
an episode. I think that's the word, an episode. He
told a Christian Nationalist meeting the other night that he
is Moses. Mike Johnson, come on down, You're the next
(14:14):
contestant on the rougeous nut.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Isn't right?
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Thank you, Nancy Faus, mister speaker. That wasn't God. It's
a tumor. By the way. Mike Johnson followed up his
revelation that he's Moses. Hey, ma, get this guy, He's Moses.
He followed up his revelation that he's Moses by trying
(14:43):
to hold up AID to Israel and blackmail the Senate
with it. If you're Moses, boy, there's the desert, get wandering.
See you in twenty sixty three. And comic relief from
January sixth. Alan Hosteedder, a former police chief. Everybody seems
(15:03):
surprised by the gets eleven years for January sixth. He
brought an array of lethal weapons, took a car rather
than a plane so he could bring hatchets and the like,
took them with him to the Capitol, but is now
insisting it was an inside job. Thousands of plants. The
(15:24):
leader of the oathkeepers a plant. He took an eighteen
year sentence as part of being a government plant, and
then finally it happened. Nutjob meets nutjob. Before sentencing, Hosteader
explains that Ashley Babbitt was not shot and isn't dead,
and guests who was waiting for him in the hallway
(15:45):
not either than Ashley Babbitt's mother quote, I assure you
she is dead. What the F is it? You're trying
to say, to which Hosteedder answered, was she cremated? Regrettably,
Ashley Babbitt's mother did not reply, was your brain cream
(16:27):
the sound of box takata? We think it's box tikata. Anyway,
it means it's time for the daily roundup of the
miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
two days worse persons in the world worse a tie.
I'm just gonna play this first one. It's not just
Congresswoman Lisa McClain of Michigan Maga idiot. It's Congresswoman Lisa
(16:50):
McClain of Michigan Maga idiot, trying to explain how proud
she is to be MAGA and then making a mega
idiot of herself.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So as one of your so called Magapublicans, who again
I don't apologize for because under Maga Republican leadership, I
might remind everybody, crime was down. Inflation, excuse me, crime
was up, Crime was down under the last administration. Clearly
(17:26):
crime was down.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Thank you, congresswoman for that clear and convincing elucidation. Now
for almost anybody else, that would have been the highlight
of Congresswoman Lisa McClain's idiocy, but last year she publicly
claimed that Trump caught Osama bin Laden, so she has many,
many years of quality self owning idiocy ahead of her,
(17:52):
while she's still only tied for the up and coming
would be Congressman Philip Seawan Grillo's aspirations of being worst
person in the world. He is running to succeed George
Santos as the rep from the third District of New York.
The Democrats yesterday chose former Congressman Tom squaz and planned
to spend about eleventy billion to regain that seat. But
(18:14):
as to Grillow and the Republicans, he may not be
the nominee because he has another job. And when I
say job, I mean he's probably gonna be busy going
to prison. Mister Grillow was found guilty on Tuesday of
this week on a felon account of obstruction of an
official proceeding, And by this point in the plot you
can probably guess which official proceeding. That's right. Grillow broke
(18:38):
into the Capitol on January sixth, went in several different times.
Once went in through a broken window, recorded videos of himself,
and was interviewed by others to explain, quote, I'm here
to stop the steal. It's our effing house. But even
for one of Trump's slaves, mister Grillow would be Republican
congressman is pretty effing stupid. At his trial, in his defense,
(19:02):
he explained that he thought he was authorized break into
the Capitol. And better still, Grillo testified that he didn't
realize how serious what he did was because he didn't
know that the capital was where Congress met.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I know what a surprise, and and.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And Prior to January sixth, mister Grillo was the New
York State Republican leader for the New York twenty fourth
Assembly District, which is in Queen's next to Q Gardens.
A Republican party official didn't know where Congress meant running
for Congress, and if he were nominated and elected to
(19:48):
succeed George Santos, he'd still be only like the fifteenth
or sixteenth thumbest Republican in there. The runner up were
Sir Buffalo Bill's head coach Sean McDermott, who confirmed in
a Tiere news conference yesterday that the media report is true.
He did reference nine one eleven in a team meeting
in twenty nineteen, in an attempt to motivate the bills.
(20:10):
According to the substack go Long, what in fact McDermott
did was quote cited the hijackers as a group of
people who were all able to get on the same
page to orchestrate attacks to perfection unquote key not long
after nine to eleven two sports figures that we heard of,
(20:31):
at least one of them, the late Hall of Fame
football coach Bobby Bowden used nine to eleven tried to
within a sports context. The ex general manager of the
Cincinnati rech Jim Bowden said, the baseball players Union, as
it contemplated a two thousand and two strike, might as
well fly the planes into the towers, is what he said.
The football coach, same spelling, different pronunciation, thought that the
(20:54):
let's roll chant attributed to Flight ninety three passenger Todd
Beemer would be a great motto for his football team
because that guy that plane when they was fixing to dad,
you see where he went with this, I thought then,
and I think now both of them and Boden not
only apologized for it years later, but he actually apologized
(21:16):
to me, and we did a couple of games together
on ESPN Radio, Boden said some therapy had showed to
him that he was using the analogy and treating it
so lightheartedly because bluntley, he was trying to minimize how
scared he was after nine to eleven. I think both
of those guys were suffering from nine to eleven post
traumatic stress disorder. In fact, truth be told, I think
(21:38):
most of America in two thousand and one suffered from
post traumatic stress disorder, and ninety nine percent of the
victims have never gotten any treatment, which may be why
we are where we are today. People forget, I mean
the people at HBO sure forgot. But Bill Maher got
fired from his nightly ABC talk show when a week
(22:00):
after the attacks, he said that in this equation, the
Americans had quote been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from
two thousand miles away while quote staying in the airplane
when it hits the building. Say what you want about it.
It's not cowardly, unquote, but the Bills coach mister McDermott
(22:20):
did this in twenty nineteen. I think the reaction to
what he has now admitted to is best summed up
by the famous tweet by the social media absurdist drill
quote issuing correction on a previous post of mind regarding
the terror group Isle you do not under any circumstances
quote got a hand it to them, unquote. But our
(22:42):
winners the worst vive Aq Ramaswami and Nick Fuentes, white supremacists,
both of them. The stuff that would have gotten you
thrown out of American public life, even the Republican Party,
even what ten years ago the stuff is now what
(23:03):
makes you a national figure in the Republican fascist Trump
for King Party during the GOP debate Wednesday, and yes,
CNN has inexplicably announced it's going to televise two more
Republican debates in January, probably because they don't know what
to do now that the Charles Barkley gayls King Show
(23:25):
has premiered and somehow it did not draw three hundred
million viewers compared to none for MSNBC. During the last debate,
Ramaswami not only embraced the anti Semitic great replacement theory,
the paranoid psychosis that led to the mass shooting at
the Pittsburgh Synagogue, and he not only insisted that it
was not just a conspiracy theory, but quote a basic
(23:46):
statement of the Democratic Parties platform. But when the noted
anti Semite and racist Nick Fuentes tweeted a clip praising
Ramaswami for spewing his own bilge, Ramaswami retweeted Fuentes, Now, look,
Ramaswami is either a brain dead hate mond who has
one skill talking fast, talking fast, or he's just a
(24:10):
scheister con man Fuentes, it's a little easier. He's just
a piece of shit. But they do every time out
make me laugh darkly. But I'm still laughing because the
essence of the great replacement theory is that quote the
Jews unquote are arranging to replace all the white people
(24:30):
with quote third world voters, meaning Hispanics, Africans, people from
the Middle East, Asia, the Indian subcontinent. And I never
get over the fact that while Republicans and fascists and
other Trump slaves will cheer Ramswami and Fuentes as long
as Ramaswami and Fuentes are parroting this excuse for why
they the white folk failed at life, it has apparently
(24:53):
never occurred to Ramaswami or Fuentes that if their crowd
really does gain power and really does seal the border
and really does turn away the I don't know the
horror words that aren't there when the Trumpets are out
of immigrants to purge, when the ethnic cleansing is over,
(25:16):
You know, Nick, and Viveke, you do know who your
group is going to turn on next, right, because what
Trump wants here requires that there will always be an
other to persecute. And gentlemen, Nick, Viveke, I hate to
tell you this, but Viveke, your parents were born in India.
(25:37):
And Nick, you're a little vague on this, but you
have said your father's family is from Mexico. And sooner
or later, when they run out of new others to purge,
Trump will point over at you Viveke Ramaswami and you
Nick Fuentes and say, who are those brown guys? And
you'll all be surprised and shocked as they drag you
(26:00):
away by your feet, And the next thing you know,
you two will be in camps with the rest of us.
Viveq Ramaswami and Nick Fuentes, or as they would be
known in a trumpst America. By twenty twenty seven, twenty
twenty eight at the latest, Fresh Meat two days worse,
(26:21):
Parson ignored. Now, well, you may be wondering why we're
already done with poorest persons, and the commentary is over,
And the answer is, I have a thing called scintillating sotoma.
(26:42):
I think I once knew an exotic dancer named scintillating scirtoma.
It sounds weird, and it is weird halfway. It's not
usually really painful, and it's not that serious. And sometimes
it's called an ocular migraine. But while often connected to
a migraine by itself, it is nowhere near as debilitating
or upsetting as a migraine.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I've had those two.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
But what you get is a bright pattern in the
middle of your field of vision, usually in one eye,
and then it usually gets larger and larger, and it
will spread to both eyes, and in my case it
usually hits its peak and looks like like this kind
of radiating, brilliant white square that looks like this is
(27:22):
what it looks like, a glowing square zipper right in
the middle of everything. Watching a hockey game. There it
is right in the middle, about an inch square in
your field of vision, and it moves and it recedes,
and then it sometimes comes back. I mean, I had
friends in high school who would have paid good money
for hallucinations. This vivid it's brought on by the things
(27:46):
that bring on migraines, stress, blood flow problems, drugs, additives,
drugs you're allergic to, additives, you're allergic to the usual
range of stuff. Happily didn't really hurt, but seeing through
them is kind of difficult, at least for a half
an hour an hour or so, and they when they're gone,
they leave you exhausted. I mean, it feels like I've
(28:09):
been trying to lift weights with my head. The first
one I ever had was one night, about nine thirty
ten o'clock at Sports Center. I had written the script
and suddenly here comes this square, glowing box in the
middle of my vision. And I said, well, this is
a problem because I can't read the teleprompter and I
can't look down and read the script. I can't even
find the script. So I told the producer and I said, look,
(28:31):
let me try and lie down for half an hour.
And they went and they told Linda Kohane, who was
doing the two AM show, to get ready to do
the eleven PM show, and she screamed, but I can't
read Ko's copy, And happily I dozed off in a
dark room, and half an hour later it was fine,
and Linda Cohne said she was the happiest person on
earth anyway. I used to get them once every few years. Now, eh,
(28:54):
it's a couple a year maybe, but sometimes it's a
bunch in waves over a couple of days. And right
now I'm midwave. Obviously I've been reading the script here,
so there isn't one right there in the moment. Nothing
is scintillating right at the moment, especially this copy. But
I had time enough to be able to record this
and the opening of the show. So I've got two
(29:16):
editions of Friday with Thurber and if you want to
skip them, no worries, because I have just given you
the least amount of new Countdown that my conscience will
let me get away with. And now I'm going to
go lie down till it all goes away with the
observation that I wish that would work with Trump, Thurbernecks,
(29:37):
this is Countdown show.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
These are the stakes who would never abuse power as
retribution against anybody except.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
The day one, except what he's going to face, except
the day one he says, you're not going to be
a dictator. I said, no, no, no other than day one.
We must either love each other.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Or we must die.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home to the top
of the countdown and fridays with Thurber, and I am
not going to dare suggest to you that there isn't
(30:40):
at least something misogynistic about mister Prebble gets rid of
his wife. But the ultimate point of this short story,
so masterfully crafted by James Thurber, this matter of fact
style that almost makes you forget you are hearing about
a man trying to murder his wife, is in a
larger sense, about the fact that women are more successful
(31:02):
than men. This story, he does not compliment men, it
does not compliment women, It does not compliment human beings.
But it is still marvelous. Mister Preble Gets rid of
his Wife by James Thurber. Mister Prebble was a plump,
middle aged lawyer in Scarsdale. He used to kid with
(31:24):
his stenographer about running away with him. Let's run away together,
he would say, during a pause in dictation, alrighty, she
would say, One rainy Monday, afternoon, mister Prebble was more
serious about it than usual. Let's run away together, said
mister Preble. Alrighty, said his stenographer. Mister Prebble jingled the
(31:47):
keys in his pocket and looked out the window. My
wife would be glad to get rid of me, he said.
Would you give you a divorce, asked the stenographer. I
don't suppose so, he said. The stenographer laughed, you'd have
to get rid of your wife, she said. Mister Preble
(32:08):
was unusually silent at dinner that night. About half an
hour after coffee, he spoke, without looking up from his paper,
Let's go down in the cellar. Mister Prebble said to
his wife, what far? She said, not looking up from
her book. Oh, I don't know, he said. We uh
(32:29):
never go down in the cellar anymore the way we
used to. We never did go down in the cellar
that I remember, said missus Prebble. I could rest easy
the balance of my life if I never went down
in the cellar. Mister Preble was silent for several minutes.
Supposing I said, it meant a whole lot to me.
Began mister Prebble, what's come over you? His wife demanded.
(32:53):
It's cold down there and there's absolutely nothing to do.
We could pick up pieces of coal, said mister Prebble.
We might get up some sort of game with pieces
of coal. I don't want to, said his wife. Anyway,
I'm reading, listen, said mister Prebble, rising and walking up
(33:14):
and down. Why won't you come down in the cellar.
You can read down there as far as that goes.
There isn't a good enough light down there, she said.
And anyway, I'm not going to go down in the cellar.
You may as well make up your mind. That gee whiz,
said mister Prebble, kicking into the edge of a rug.
Other people's wives go down in the cellar. Why is
(33:36):
it you never want to do anything? I come home
worn out from the office, and you won't even go
down in the cellar with me. God knows, it isn't
very far. It isn't as if I was asking you
to go to the movies or someplace. I don't want
to go, shouted missus Prebble. Mister Prebble sat down on
the edge of a davenport. All right, all right, he said,
(34:02):
He picked up the newspaper again. I wish you'd let
me tell you more about it. It's kind of a surprise.
Well you quit harping on that subject, asked missus Prebble. Listen,
said mister Prebble, leaping to his feet, I might as
well tell you the truth instead of beating around the bush.
I want to get rid of you so I can
marry my stenographer. Is there anything especially wrong about that?
(34:25):
People do it every day. Love is something you can't control.
We've been all over that, said missus Prebble. I'm not
going to go all over that again. I just wanted
you to know how things are, said mister Prebble. But
you have to take everything so literally. Good Lord, do
(34:45):
you suppose I really.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Wanted to go down in the cellar and make up
some silly game with pieces of coal. I never believed
that for a minute, said missus Preble. I knew all
along you wanted to get me down there and bury me.
You can say that now after I told you, said
mister Prebble. But it would never have occurred to you
(35:07):
if I hadn't. You didn't tell me. I got it
out of you, said missus Prebble. Anyway, I'm always two
steps ahead of what you're thinking. You're never within a
mile of what I'm thinking, said mister Prebble. Is that
so I knew you wanted to bury me the minute
you got some foot in this house tonight, missus Prebble
held him with a glare. Now that's just plain damn exaggeration,
(35:31):
said mister Prebble, considerably annoyed. You knew nothing of the sort.
As a matter of fact, I never thought of it
till just a few minutes ago. It was in the
back of your mind, said missus Prebble. I suppose this
filing woman puts you up to it. You needn't get sarcastic,
said mister Prebble. I have plenty of people to file
(35:51):
without having her file. She doesn't know anything about this,
She isn't in on it. I was going to tell
her you'd gone to visit some friends and fell over
a cliff. She wants me to get a divorce. That's
a laugh, said missus Prebble. That's a laugh. You may
bury me, but you'll never get a divorce. She knows
(36:11):
that I told her that, said mister Prebble. I mean
I told her I'd never get a divorce. Oh, you
probably told her about burying me too, said missus Prebble.
That's not true, said mister Prebble, with dignity. That's between
you and me. I was never going to tell a soul.
You'd blab it to the whole world. Don't tell me,
(36:34):
said missus Prebble.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I know you. Mister Prebble puffed at his cigar. I
wish you were buried now it was all over with,
he said. Don't you suppose you would get caught, you
crazy thing? She said, They always get caught. Why don't
you go to bed. You're just getting yourself all worked
up over nothing. I'm not going to bed, said mister Prebble.
(36:55):
I'm going to bury you in the cellar. I got
my mind made up to it. I don't know how
I could make any plainer listen, cried missus Prebble, throwing
her book down. Will you be satisfied and shut up?
If I go down in the cellar. Can I have
a little peace if I go down in the cellar,
Will you let me alone?
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Then?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yes, said mister Prebble. But you spoil it by taking
that attitude. Sure, sure, I always spoil everything. I stop
reading right in the middle of a chapter. I'll never
know how the story comes out. But that's nothing to you.
Did I make you start reading that book, asked mister Prebble.
He opened the cellar door. Here you go first, said
(37:35):
missus Prebble, starting down the steps. It's cold down here.
You would think of this at this time of the year.
Any other husband would have buried his wife in the summer.
You can't arrange those things just whenever you want to,
said mister Prebble. That didn't fall in love with this
girl till late fall. Anybody else would have fallen in
love with her long before that. She's been around for years.
(37:56):
Why is it you always let other men get in
ahead of you? Mercy? But it's dirty down here. What
have you got down there? I was going to hit
you over the head with the sh shovel, said mister Prebble.
You were huh, said missus Prebble. We'll get that out
of your mind.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You want to leave a great, big clue right here
in the middle of everything. We're the first detective to
come snooping around. We'll find it. Come out in the
street and find some piece of iron or something. Something
doesn't belong to you, all right, said mister Prebble. But
there won't be any piece of iron in the street.
Women always expect to pick up a piece of iron anywhere.
(38:32):
If you look in the right place, you'll find it,
said missus Prebble. And don't be gone long, don't you
dare stopping at the cigar store. I'm not going to
stand down here in this cold cellar all night and freeze,
all right, said mister Prebble. I'll hurry and shut that
door behind you. She screamed after him.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Where were you born in a barn? Mister Preble gets
rid of his wife By James Thurber. It's been a
long week. And every time I find myself thinking it's
(39:13):
been a long week, I like to turn to my
book of James Thurber, and it's Fridays with Thurber. And
it's been a few Fridays since I've done any James Thurber.
And so let's start at the beginning. As I've mentioned
many times, I read this story first aloud in a
class in college in nineteen seventy nine, and a friend
of mine came up to me and said, you should
forget that sportscasting thing. You should read Thurber for a living,
(39:36):
And I said, yeah, that'll ever happen. This is for
some reason salvation for me, Catharsis, and every other emotion
that is appropriate after it has been a long week.
A Box to Hide In by James Thurber. I waited
(39:58):
till the large woman with the awful hat took up
her sack of groceries and went out, peering at the
tomatoes and the lettuce on her way. The clerk asked
me what mine was. Have you got a box, I asked,
A large box. I want a box to hide in.
(40:22):
You want a box, he asked, I want a box
to hide in. I said, what do you mean? He said,
you mean a big box? I said, I meant a
big box big enough to hold me. I haven't got
any boxes, he said, only cottons that cans come in.
I tried several other groceries and none of them had
(40:42):
a box big enough for me to hide in. And
there was nothing for it but to face life out.
I didn't feel strong, and I'd had this overpowering desire
to hide in a box for a long time.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Well, what do you mean you want to hide in
this box? One grocer asked me. It's a form of escape.
I told him, hiding in a box it circumscribes your
worries and the range of your anguish. You don't see
people either. How the hell do you eat when you're
in this box? Asked the grocer, How the hell do
(41:21):
you get anything to eat? I said I had never
been in a box and didn't know, but that that
would take care of itself. Well, he said, finally, I
haven't got any boxes, only some pasteboard curtains that cans
come in. It was the same every place. I gave
up when it got dark and the groceries closed, and
(41:43):
hid in my room again. I turned out the light
and lay on the bed. You feel better when it
gets dark. I could have hit in a closet, I suppose,
but people are always opening doors. Somebody would find you
in a closet. They would be startled, and you'd have
to tell them why you're in the closet. Nobody pays
(42:05):
attention to a big box lying on the floor. You
could stay in it for days and nobody'd think to
look in it, not even the cleaning woman. My cleaning
woman came the next morning and woke me up, and
I was still feeling bad. I asked her if she
(42:25):
knew where I could get a large box. How big
a box you want, she asked, I want a box
big enough for me to get inside of, I said.
She looked at me with big, dim eyes. There's something
wrong with her glands. She's awful, but she has a
big heart, which makes it worse. She's unbearable. Her husband
(42:49):
is sick, and her children are sick, and she is
sick too. I got to thinking how pleasant it would
be if I were in a box now and didn't
have to see her. I'd bet a box right there
in the room and she wouldn't know. I wondered, if
you had a desire to bark or laugh when someone
who does no walks by the box you were in,
(43:09):
maybe she would have a spell with her heart. If
I did, that would die right there. The officers and
the elevator man and mister Grammage would find us funny,
dog Gune, thing happened at the building last night. The
doorman would say to his wife, I led in this
woman to clean up tenf and she never come out.
See she's never in there more in an hour, but
she never come out.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
See. So when it got time for me to go
off duty, why, I says to credit who was on
the elevator. I says, what the hell you suppose this
happened to that woman cleans tenf? He says he didn't know.
He says he never seen her after he took her up.
So I spoke to mister Grammage about it. I'm sorry
to bother you, mister Grammage, I says, but there's something funny.
But that woman cleans tenf. So I told him so
(43:52):
he said we better have a look, and we all
three goes up and knuts on the door and rings
the bells sea and nobody answers. So he said we'd
have to walk in. So credit opened the door and
we walked in, and here was this woman cleans the apartment,
dead as a herring on the floor, and the gentleman
that lives there was in a box. The cleaning woman
(44:17):
kept looking at me. It was hard to realize she
wasn't dead. It's a form of escape, I murmured, wat say,
She asked, Dully, you don't know of any large packing boxes,
do you? I asked, now, I don't. She said, I
(44:40):
haven't found one yet, But I still have this overpowering
urge to hide in a box. Maybe it will go away,
maybe I'll be all right, maybe it will get worse.
It's hard to say A box to hide in. By
(45:01):
James Thurber, I've got all the damage I can do here.
Thank you for listening. Countdown has come to you from
the Vin Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire World
(45:25):
headquarters in New York Downtown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music,
mister Shanelle handling the orchestration in keyboards, mister Ray on
the guitars, bass and drums, and it was produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(45:46):
Sports music Curtesy of ESPN, Inc. Written by Mitch Warren Davis.
We call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. So that's countdown for this
one and sixty seventh day since dementia, Jay Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically government in the United States
(46:06):
use the Insurrection Act against him and them while we
still can. The next schedule Countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as
the news warrants and my eyeballs permit. Till then, I'm
scintillating Scatoma. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(46:29):
Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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