December 8, 2022 • 36 mins
EPISODE 91: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Ludicrous or imminent, Trump and his minions are planning some sort of violent revolution, something not unlike what has percolated in Germany these last few years. Yesterday, the Germans had the presence of mind to recognize insurrection and mass violence and terrorism and revolution when they saw it. WE damn well better do the same - and fast. The Germans sent 3,000 police and Special Forces troops to arrest 25 coup plotters who planned to attack their capitol, assassinate the chancellor, take over the government. (3:00) Lost in the Trump/QAnon bluster, nobody is saying the obvious: to "terminate" the constitution or just part of it, Trump will have to foment violence. Even in the Trumpian fantasy, Biden and the military don't just stand aside because somebody decides Trump is right (7:44) This is what Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar and failed governor candidate Kari Lake endorsed yesterday. ARREST THEM. (10:53) And Trump continues to meet with plotters. The latest? A QAnon/Pizzagate lunatic named Liz Crokin, at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday night.
B-Block (16:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Chestnut in New York (16:52) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: More stolen classified docs in Trump's possession; SCOTUS may actually NOT legitimize 'Independent Legislature Theory'; Putin has a 'Noah's Ark'? (20:17) IN SPORTS: The NHL's most goals in a game record is threatened, and there are more baseball signings. (22:01) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jesse Watters decides girls want alcohol, the Virginia restaurant that stood up to the Bible-thumping bigots, and Sean "D-Day in December" Spicer.
C-Block (26:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is 42 years since the night John Lennon was murdered in New York. Impossibly, one of only two times I was ever a rock disc jockey, it was at the exact hour Lennon was killed. The air check of the show still exists, and it re-tells the nightmare as it unfolds in real time.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Before dawn yesterday, the German government sent three thousand police
(00:27):
officers and special forces troops to the homes of more
than two dozen Q and ON fascists in eleven different
German states and arrested them for a terrorist plot to
attack the Reichstag, assassinate the Chancellor, sabotage the national electricity grid,
initiate a national purge, and overthrow the German Federal Republic.
And we need to do this here now, because ordinarily
(00:51):
I'd be damned to take advice on how to protect
freedom from my German cousins. But history has taught them
what to do when insurrection looms, and evidently it has
not taught us. A Republican recern from Arizona, already implicated
in the January sixth coup, and the defeated Republican candidate
(01:11):
for governor in the same state, both yesterday after he
tried to deny he had ever suggested it endorsed Trump's
plan to terminate the Constitution. A former Trump ambassador meantime,
questioned the German arrests and implied they and January six
were government stings of some kind, and it underscores something
(01:32):
we seem unwilling to address in this country. Whatever Trump
claims to have meant terminate the Constitution or just terminate
clauses of the Constitution, What do you think he is
implying and what do you think his cultists are understanding?
Would be the actual practical process of that? What follows
(01:55):
the quote termination of all rules, regulations and articles. Exactly
who is to decide it is time to quote throw
the presidential election results oft and declare the rightful winner?
Is there some fantasy within a fantasy that if Trump
just posts this sedition often enough, and if Paul Gossar
(02:17):
endorses it, and if Carrie Lake says she agrees with it,
President Biden and Vice President Harris will simply resign or
are politely asked to leave office, so that Trump, having
been declared the rightful winner by the people who bought
the most pillows from michae Lindell, can be sworn in
(02:38):
in their place. And those who elected Biden and those
who didn't but believe in representative American government and the
military loyal to the commander in chief, they would simply say, sure,
come on down. Don This insanity is not based on
some kind of illegal, unconstitutional, but peaceful process to regain
(03:02):
the White House without being elected. Donald Trump could achieve
it only by forcing President Biden out, and that flatly
would require violence, lethal force or the threat of lethal force,
a coup, a terrorist plot that would presumably involve an attack,
(03:23):
another attack on our version of the Reichstag the capital,
destroying the power grid, or taking over mass media or both,
and assassinating the president or other elected leaders or both.
Trump's social media post about constitutional termination is not some
ultimate expression of his ego, some conviction that at his
(03:47):
word the political sees will part and he will be anointed.
It is a call to violently overthrow the Constitution of
the United States, to violently overthrow the government of the
United States, to violently overthrow the president of the United States.
The Germans saw this exact plot developing in their own country,
(04:12):
and because there are still those alive they're old enough
to have seen it work there, they threw three thousand
cops and special forces at it, and they raided a
German military barracks where participants in the terrorist plot are
still serving in the federal armed forces, and they revealed
that a sitting judge who had been swallowed up by
(04:32):
q and On was to become Justice Minister in the
new dictatorship, which was to be headed by the seventy
one year old descendant of pre Nazi minor German nobility
who was counting on backing from Russia. Quote. Members of
the organization were aware, reads the official statement released by
(04:52):
the German prosecutor that this goal can only be achieved
through the use of military means and violence against state representatives.
This also included commissioning killings. Well, what the hell do
you think Trump and his fascists have in mind here?
(05:13):
What did they have in mind on January six getting
Elon Musk to run a Twitter poll for them should
Biden resign and turn over the government to Donnie We
are already aware of the q and On presence in
police forces and in the military of the United States.
We are already aware of TRUMPUS lunatics in the House
(05:35):
of Representatives. We're already aware of the Oath Keepers and
the Proud Boys and the other militias who were the
little better coordination would have unleashed an attack with military
grade weapons on the Capitol two years ago. Next month,
and just last weekend we saw somebody shoot up just
(05:56):
two power substations in North Carolina and leave an entire
county blacked out for nearly a week. The Germans have
acted and us. The Speaker presumptive of the House of Representatives,
is planning to put the Arizona Congressman Paul goes Are
(06:17):
back on the committee assignments, which were stripped after his
role in the Big Lie and January six. Goes Are
who yesterday tweeted a screenshot of Trump's terminate the Constitution
post and added quote, I support and agree with the
former president. Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure. Unprecedented cure, Gosar
(06:43):
means guns and bloodshed and sabotage and sedition and revolution
and summary executions. And it does not matter if he
has a diseased mind and he hallucinates. There are thousands
of people with weapons at the ready, willing to reduce
(07:04):
this country two ashes if they can, for the sake
of their racism and fascism and the poisoning of their
minds by Trump and Q and on the Germans put
there Paul goes Are behind bars yesterday and sent their
special forces to put him there. Our Paul Goes are
(07:25):
deleted his tweet. Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure, without explanation
or comment. Arrest him, and while you are in Arizona.
A massive voter fraud of this type in magnitude allows
for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even
(07:48):
those found in the Constitution. I agree with them on that.
Can you imagine our founding fathers, what they went through
to help bring about this great nation, seeing what happened
in it's really seeing what's happening now in just saying Okay, well,
I guess it didn't go our way, and I guess
they cheated. We know they rigged the elections, and they
(08:11):
put in a bumbling fool who doesn't even have the
mental posity to run this country. Okay, just get over it.
We'll just let the loser take the White House. I
don't think that would happen. President Trump is saying, we
are in unprecedented times, and unprecedented measures are necessary. Arrest
carry Lake. She shouldn't be hard to find. Just look
(08:32):
for a webcam with a gauze filter on top of
another gauze filter, on top of another gauze filter. On
top of the camera lens. Again, our refusal to recognize
that the only way Carry Lake and Paul Gozar and
Donald Trump could terminate the Constitution or just any part
(08:52):
of the Constitution and install him in power now would
necessitate mass violence. Our refusal to recognize that only emboldens
those who would happily turn to such violence, and gives
them more time to prepare such violence. Is there any
other conclusion? Did Trump flinch at the violence of January six?
(09:15):
Did he even condemn the threat to hang his own
vice president? Just Monday, Trump tried to back away from
the terminate the Constitution post, but on Tuesday, at Mari Lago,
Trump hosted another Q and On lunatic named Liz Croaken,
the woman who taught Marjorie Taylor Green about Q and On.
(09:37):
He posed with Liz Croaken. He had Liz Croakin talked
to the crowd. He didn't hesitate as she and others
posted videos of him and Croakin and the two of
them together. He didn't push back when she claimed that
while she was at Mari Lago Tuesday, she discussed the
pizza Gate fantasy, which has sustained quan On and this
mass psychosis since its beginnings. He didn't flinch when another attendee,
(10:01):
the former right wing congressional candidate from Florida, Darlene's Swapper,
took pictures at the Q and On event at Mari
Lago with Sarah Palin and Michael Flynn. There may be
zero percent chance of this viper's nest succeeding in overthrowing
the government of the United States, or even coming close
(10:22):
to it in a million years. Let us hope so,
but let us stop relying on hope. Let us stop
kidding ourselves. These are the January six coup plotters, and
Trump is the creature who inspired it all. They are
(10:44):
not hoping for some sort of peaceful transition of power
next week. They already proved that on January six, ludicrous
or imminent, or somewhere in between. Trump and his minions
are planning some sort of violent revolution, something not unlike
what had percolated in Germany these last few years. The
(11:07):
Germans had the presence of mind to recognize insurrection and
mass violence and terrorism and revolution when they saw it,
and we damn well better do the same, and fast
(11:33):
still ahead for the fourth separate time. More secret government
documents have been found in Trump's possession. But this time
that's got to be it, right. Vladimir Putin has reportedly
built Noah's Ark. Well, Noah's Ark is what it sounds like.
If he is overthrown because of the disaster in Ukraine,
he gets on board and he floats away to some
(11:54):
other country. Yesterday, December seven was a date that will
live in infamy or if you used to be Trump's
press secretary, it was the anniversary of the Allied invasion
of Normandy during World War Two. Seriously, Sean Spicer. And
today December eight is its own anniversary of great sadness,
(12:16):
the death of John Lennon, as remembered by a guy
who was very unexpectedly on the air that night as
a rock and roll disc jockey. Me, that's next. This
is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
(12:41):
on countdown. Five goals in a little over half a
hockey game, when the all time record is seven and
you have all that time left to get there. What
do you think happened? And this is a terrible anniversary.
John Lennon was murdered forty two years ago tonight, and
him probably for one of only two times in my life,
(13:01):
I was on the air as a disc jockey as
it happened, and the air check of that show still exists.
First in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog
in need. You can help. Every dog has its day.
Chestnut is in bad shape, but he's a fighter. He
has been found on the streets alone by Rescue Dogs
Rock of New York. He is so infected, probably from
(13:24):
drinking contaminated water on the streets, that his hair is
all but gone. He'll need as much as twelve weeks
of antibiotics and constant medicated baths. Rescue Dogs is doing
a fundraiser for him on Cudley. You can find Chestnut
there on Cudley or look for him on my Twitter feeds.
Your donation or just a retweet can make all the
difference in the world. I thank you, and Chestnut thanks you.
(14:00):
Post Scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions. Date line in West Palm Beach, Florida. Nobody's
saying what they were, but lawyers have found at least
two more classified items in Trump's possession. These according to
the Washington Post, we're in a storage unit in Florida
and were immediately turned over to the FBI. The Trump
team had hired an outside firm to search Trump locations
(14:23):
besides Mari Lago, after a federal judge demanded the lawyers
at test that they had complied fully with the subpoena
in May to turn over any classified materials Trump may
have purloined. You still have to check the first hole
at the Bedminster golf course. I'm just telling you Dateline,
the Supreme Court, we may have a surprise coming in
the ruling and the independent State Legislature theory case in
(14:46):
which North Carolina claims its courts have no say over
what it legislature decides to do about federal elections and
congressional maps and the like. Witnesses to the arguments in
More versus Harper before the Supreme Court say there were
three camps. The three liberals flatly opposed Alito, Gorsuch, and
Thomas flatly in favor, but unexpectedly Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh,
(15:11):
and Chief Justice Roberts tacking towards the middle and some
kind of middle road which would still favor the state
courts but permit occasional appeals to federal courts. Day Line
Moscow A former Putin speechwriter posted on telegram that yeah,
his old boss is aware that there is a new,
unplanned possible outcome in Ukraine, that Russia could collapse or
(15:34):
at minimum Putin could be overthrown. Putin, he says, has
a plan called Noah's Ark, and the original version of
this would have spirited Putin and his henchmen to China,
but now they say they're looking instead at Margarita Island
in Venezuela. Thank you, Nancy Faust, Dateline, Washington, January six.
(16:11):
Committee Chairman Benny Thompson puts something down in concrete. He
says they want to release their final report and vote
on criminal referrals two weeks from yesterday. On the one
and Dateline Washington, after police came to the home of
Ted Cruz, who aid his daughter during some private distress,
Megan McCain wrote, there's a special hell being a teenage girl.
(16:32):
When you're dead is a famous Republican politician and you're
in middle high school. Leave the entire Cruise family alone
and just send prayers. That is the correct sentiment, except
for one detail. In somebody made a joke about the
then eighteen year old Chelsea Clinton at a fundraiser. The
joke was, do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so
(16:52):
ugly because Janet Reno is her father. That joke was
made by Megan's father, John McCain. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(17:18):
check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith in sports.
This is why records stay records. The mark for the
most goals in the National Hockey League game is seven
by Joe Malone of the Quebec Bulldogs in nineteen twenty,
but modern records six by Sid how of the Red
(17:40):
Wings and then after expansion Red Barons of the Night
Blues and Darryl Sittler of the nineteen seventy six maple Leaves.
With roughly four minutes to play in the second period
at Columbus last night, Buffalo's range E Giant Tage Thompson
scored his fifth goal of the game. He had four
in the first period alone, four minutes of the second
period and all of the third period remaining, and he
(18:04):
didn't score again. Baseball, so Aaron Judge did resign with
the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants. They
are not happy. The Giants thought they had a deal.
Well that's settled, but what about Arson Judge. Two big
signings last night, the Japanese outfielder Massa Taka Yoshida agreed
to a ninety million, five year deal with the Red
Sox for the Oricx Buffaloes. Last year, Yoshida struck out
(18:27):
just forty one times in five eight trips to the plate,
So Yoshida in the American League will need to start
swinging wildly and foolishly. The Bosox also ain't. Former Dodgers
and Braves closer Kenneley Jansen and the Cardinals signed catcher
Wilson Contreras away from the Cubs because Cubs ownership has
realized you Cubs fans will go anyway just to see
(18:50):
the ballpark, no matter how bad they make. The team
had the anniversary of the murder of John Lennon as
it played out during a second and last time I
ever spent any time as a rock and roll disc jockey. First,
the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning
(19:12):
Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world.
The Bronze Jesse Waters of Fox Nudes. For the amount
of time that these clowns talk about grooming and pedophilia.
The things they themselves say once again suggest this is
all projection. Talking about the merits of smoking marijuana, Jesse
(19:35):
Waters said, quote, girls don't dig it. This is when
Judge Janine Piro replied, why do you say girls don't
dig it? And Waters then said girls don't like the scene.
They don't like the scene. And Pierro, who for once
was not the dumbest one in the studio, asked what
(19:56):
about alcohol, and Waters replied, girls like the alcohol scene. Lebrons.
The Family Foundation a Richmond based anti l g B
t Q and Bible thumping crackpot outlet. It had a
dessert reception scheduled on November thirty that Metzker Bar and
(20:17):
Butchery in Virginia. About ninety minutes before it was to begin,
the owners called Family Foundation and said, your reservation is canceled.
They explained they don't serve bigots. Family Foundation claims it
was discriminated against, like this was the segregated South in
their terms, but legal experts say no, since the outlet
was deliberately involved in actions against members of the community,
(20:38):
they were denied service not because of who they are,
but because of what they actually did. But our winner.
Sean Spicer today is D Day, he tweeted yesterday. It
only lives in infamy if we remember and share the
story of sacrifice with the next generation. Hashtag D Day.
(20:59):
Sean Spicer was either six months and two days off
because what America calls D Day is June five, or
he's commemorating Imperial Japan's D Day December seven. And you
wonder why it was so easy for him to lie
as Trump's Press secretary, Sean Yesterday, December seven is a
(21:20):
day of infamy? Or hey, what day was the fourth
of July? On Spicer two Day's worst person and the
one to the number one story on the countdown. And
(21:47):
these career stories and anniversaries are usually happy ones, or
at least delightfully unhappy. Not this one. Forty two years
ago tonight, John Lennon was murdered, shot and killed as
he greeted his fans outside his New York home as
he always did, just as he was resuming his career,
just as he was finding the piece he had always sought,
(22:08):
just as he was flowering anew in the city he
had come to love. And I was on the air
that night as a disc jockey at a rock station.
I was never a disc jockey. I think I did
it three times at my college radio station, once in
an emergency when I was running the place one summer
and there was literally nobody else to do the overnight
(22:28):
show except for me and the venerable engineer John Hill,
who had a voice so low and gravilly that could
only be heard by about humans. And I had graduated
in nineteen seventy nine, but on Monday December eighth, nine eighty,
I was back at Cornell visiting my friends who were
still there, many of them people I had trained who
were now in charge of the student owned commercial radio
(22:51):
station w v b r FM. One of them was
the news director Mike McNeil, and he and I figured
the best way to hang out for a while was
to do the late music show together ten PM to
two am. He spun the records and played the commercials
and I did the disc jockey patter. It wasn't especially
good or bad. I remember a listener calling in early
(23:12):
in the show to say I sounded like don Imus,
and I said thank you, and he said that's not
a compliment. And then it happened, and we were rolling
tape on the show. This is I think about eleven
ten eleven fifteen or so. The shooting had happened around ten.
Steely Dan on w v b R FM time Out
(23:34):
of My Mind sad news from New York tonight. Police
say that former Beatle John Lennon was shot at his
home on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Police spokesman says Lennon
was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, his condition unknown. At this point.
The spokesman says a suspect is in custody, but other
than that shred of information, we have no other details
(23:54):
available to repeat. John Lennon was shot at his home
and taken to the hospital. His detail his condition unknown
at this point. We really don't know anything else about it.
If we do, we will let you know. As I
said that night, we had no other information. There's no Internet,
there's no cable news. Well there was CNN, they just
(24:16):
signed on. The radio station didn't have it. We had
one functioning TV there and the three major networks, one
of them was carrying Monday Night football. Anyway, there was
no wall to wall coverage on radio. There were no
live reports from the scene on radio or television. There
was just a United Press international teletype machine clattering away
in a corner of an empty newsroom in a nearly
(24:38):
deserted radio station, late on a Monday night. But mind you,
this was the top rated station in a town that
had a university and a huge college, and probably thirty
thousand students, and most of them in their dorms or
apartments as finals had just begun to loom. The only
noises beside the music we were playing in that studio
(25:02):
were all the phones ringing all the time, all asking
the same question, This couldn't be true, Tell me it
isn't true. Save a trade together at Triangle, the bookshop
of College Town. As we mentioned before, we don't know
his condition, We don't know the circumstances. But the report
from New York is that tonight at his home on
Manhattan's Upper West Side, John Lennon need was to say,
(25:24):
the former beatle and star in his own rights, was shot.
He's been taken to the hospital, where his condition is
at this point unknown. Will attempt to keep you updated
as we get the information. Here. Mike McNeil and I
settled in for a long night of worry and communal
solemnity because it wasn't possible. John Lennon was dead. Why
would anybody shoot John Lennon? Why would our society? How
(25:48):
could my city let somebody walk up and shoot and
kill John Lennon. It couldn't happen. We got all the
Beatles albums out of the library, all the Lenin albums out,
and we played the songs that moved us most, and
I selected in my Life, And then I ran out
to the U p. I machine and all the bullets
and bells were going off, and I knew what the
(26:10):
bulletin said before I got to the machine and read it.
I got back to the microphone, just as in my
life was ending. The bitterness of that irony struck me
then and has not left me now for forty two years.
(26:34):
John Lennon is dead. Report from New York is now
that John Lennon, who was shot three times outside his
home in Manhattan's Upper West Side, has died of his injuries.
We have no further information. When I guess nothing is
necessary after that John and John Lennon, with the Beatles
in my life before that starting over, and imagine for
(26:55):
all this time I have wondered why McNeil and I
just went on with the music show. We kept playing
the commercials, some of them I had to read. I've
of course it dawns on me. Now, of course we
went on with it. We were in shock. We were grasping,
like everybody who had heard the news, for the normal,
even the crassly commercial normality of commercials. We did not
(27:20):
even yet go all Beatles FM. At about a quarter
to twelve, the news tonight from New York again, as
we mentioned before, that John Lennon is dead, having been
shot outside his home. Now the who I listened to
this tape. It's a small cassette, it is worn with
the years. It is from so many years ago, and
(27:43):
I wish there was more feeling in my voice, more tribute.
And then I remember what in real time, my goal
was to keep from crying on the air. Years later,
I was at ESPN when our colleague Tom Mees died.
He drowned in a swimming pool. There were forty of
us working on the six PM Sports Center that night.
(28:04):
We were all veterans and professionals. I wrote and narrated
Tom's obituary, and not one of us was clearheaded enough
to think that we should start the program with the
news of his passing every newscast from New York to
Boston did exactly that. But you do not think in
such times as tragedy envelopes you you react. W v
(28:27):
b R FM in Ithaca, Keith Alderman here and as
we have been besieged by phone calls here at the station,
it is true. John Lennon was shot and killed tonight
in New York. He was apparently either outside or inside
or leaving or entering his home, the Dakota Hotel in Manhattan,
and he was shot three times. The police say that
(28:48):
they have a suspect in the killing. They give no
other details. The spokesman for the police did say that
it was not a robbery and that apparently Lennon was
killed by a deranged person. And again we have no
other details. John Lennon shot about an hour ago and
was taken to the hospital in critical condition where he now.
In memory of John Lennon, Gradually we shook ourselves into
(29:10):
trying to provide something to the listeners beyond simply repeating
that grim news again and again. There was an irony
here that I recognized. At the time, I had literally
just left the radio network I had worked for since
graduating to join a new network called r k O.
I was in fact taking a few days off between
the two jobs and spending them with my old school friends.
(29:30):
Just before I left, the RKO Radio network had conducted
a long, sit down interview with John Lennon. When I
left the building, they were editing it into a special
John Lennon had also done a lengthy interview with Playboy,
and at some point in the evening somebody came into
the radio station with a copy of that interview. W
(29:54):
v b RFM at twenty eight minutes past twelve o'clock
at night, Keith Olberman here, and as you've probably heard
by now, John Lennon was shot and killed tonight and
New York. It's the timing of it. I guess the
timing of a shooting is never appropriate, but the timing
of this one is awfully strange. Just in this month's
(30:14):
edition of the Playboy magazine, there's a very in depth
interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, And between now
and later on we'll be reading you a couple of
quotations from the interview. The first one we thought was
appropriate at this time is John Lennon talking about himself
as a child, and he says in the interview, surrealism
(30:36):
had a great effect on me because then I realized
that my imagery and my mind was an insanity, that
if it was insane, I belong in an exclusive club
that sees the world in those terms. Surrealism to me
is reality. Psychic vision, to me is reality. Even as
a child, when I looked at myself in the mirror,
when I was twelve thirteen, I used to literally trance
out into alpha. I didn't know what it was called.
(30:58):
Then I found out years later there's a name for
those conditions. But I would find myself seeing hallucinatory images
of my face is changing and becoming cosmic and complete.
It caused me to always be a rebel. This thing
gave me a chip on the shoulder. But on the
other hand, I wanted to be loved and accepted. Part
of me would like to be accepted by all facets
of society and not be this loudmouth, lunatic musician. But
(31:20):
I cannot be what I'm not. John Lennon dead Tonight. Finally,
more than an hour after the news came in of
John Lennon's death, we began to get some information from
the scene. In another weird twist, my old station at
Cornell had just signed up as an affiliate for the network.
I was just about to join r k OH and
(31:42):
we would now rely on its correspondence people. I would
spend the next two years working with for the Grim News.
We have more information now on the shooting death of
John Lennon tonight. John Lennon shot and killed in front
of his home on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He was
getting out of a limousine. Apparently. They say he was
(32:02):
shot at least five times. He was forty. Police said
Lennon was shot at about eleven PM and he died
in the emergency room at the Roosevelt Hospital in New York,
and his wife, Yoko Ono, was with him when he died.
Correspondent Rich Raymond was at the US. Dr Stephen Lynn,
the emergency room services director here Roosevelt Hospital, said that
John Lennon was dead on arrival from seven gunshot wounds
(32:25):
in his chest and back. He said that Lennon had
massive blood loss and it was probably dead from the
moment the shots hit him. Doctor Lynn said that Yokoo
accompanied John to the hospital. Doctor Lynne gave her the
news that John was dead. She was very distraught and
found it hard to believe that's, corresponded Rich Raymond in
New York. A police spokesman added that a suspect is
(32:48):
in custody, but that there were no other details available
at of the circumstances of the shooting. The spokesman said
that it was not a robbery, that the person who
shot Lennon was most likely deranged, and there was a
witness to this, and he says that a man in
his mid thirties with what he described as almost a
smirk on his face, gunned down the singer as Lennon
and his wife and several other people walked into the
(33:09):
vestibule of the apartment building where the Lennon's lived in
New York. The witness says that residents of the hotel
told him that the man had been seen in the
vestibule for hours before the shooting, and according to the
same witness, the man just walked out and shot John Lennon.
Lennon celebrated his fortieth birthday on October nine, and he
of course just released his new album Double Fantasy, Made
of Course with Yo Kohno, and that was supposed to
(33:32):
be a comeback for the two of them. In his
interview with Playboy Magazine this month, John Lennon explained something
about that song. He says, or said, the images were
from Alice in Wonderland. It was Alice in the boat.
She's buying an egg and it turns into Humpty dumpty.
The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep,
and the next minute they're rowing in a rowing boat somewhere.
(33:54):
And I was visualizing that. There was also the image
of the female who would someday come and save me,
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes who would come out of
the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I
hadn't met Yoka yet, so maybe it should be Yoko
in the sky with diamonds w v b r FM.
The Playboy magazine article UH The interview with John Lennon
(34:16):
and Yoko Ono ended with a question from the interviewer
about John Lennon's eighties dream, and he answered, will you
make your own dream? That's the Beatles story, isn't it.
That's Yoko's story. That's what I'm saying. Now, produce your
own dream if you want to say, perdue, peruce, peru,
rather go, say Peru. It's quite possible to do anything,
but not to put it on the leaders and the
(34:37):
parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, or
John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus
Christ to come and do it for you. You have
to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and
mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can
point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various
books that are now called holy and worshiped for the
cover of the book and not for what it says.
(34:59):
But the instructions are all there for all to see,
have always been and always will be. There's nothing new
under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome, and
people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up,
you can wake you up. I can't cure you, you
can cure you. The interviewer then asks what is that
that keeps people from accepting that message, and John Lennon said,
(35:19):
it's fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is,
and to be frightened of it is what sends everybody
is scurring around, chasing dreams illusions, wars, peace, love, hate,
all that, it's all illusion. Unknown is what it is,
except that it's unknown, and it's plain sailing. Everything is unknown,
then you're ahead of the game. That's what it is, right.
John Lennon may have provided his own epitaph in that
(35:42):
comment in Playboy magazine. This is w v b r
FM Ithaca. I would love to be able to conclude
this with some insight, some meaning about what happened that night,
just as I wanted to conclude this with some insight
forty two years ago on that show. There is no
(36:03):
insight to be ad. The murder of John Lennon did
not make sense to me, then it does not make
sense to me. Now it will never make sense to me.
This is Countdown. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(36:24):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Before dawn yesterday, the German government sent three thousand police
(00:27):
officers and special forces troops to the homes of more
than two dozen Q and ON fascists in eleven different
German states and arrested them for a terrorist plot to
attack the Reichstag, assassinate the Chancellor, sabotage the national electricity grid,
initiate a national purge, and overthrow the German Federal Republic.
And we need to do this here now, because ordinarily
(00:51):
I'd be damned to take advice on how to protect
freedom from my German cousins. But history has taught them
what to do when insurrection looms, and evidently it has
not taught us. A Republican recern from Arizona, already implicated
in the January sixth coup, and the defeated Republican candidate
(01:11):
for governor in the same state, both yesterday after he
tried to deny he had ever suggested it endorsed Trump's
plan to terminate the Constitution. A former Trump ambassador meantime,
questioned the German arrests and implied they and January six
were government stings of some kind, and it underscores something
(01:32):
we seem unwilling to address in this country. Whatever Trump
claims to have meant terminate the Constitution or just terminate
clauses of the Constitution, What do you think he is
implying and what do you think his cultists are understanding?
Would be the actual practical process of that? What follows
(01:55):
the quote termination of all rules, regulations and articles. Exactly
who is to decide it is time to quote throw
the presidential election results oft and declare the rightful winner?
Is there some fantasy within a fantasy that if Trump
just posts this sedition often enough, and if Paul Gossar
(02:17):
endorses it, and if Carrie Lake says she agrees with it,
President Biden and Vice President Harris will simply resign or
are politely asked to leave office, so that Trump, having
been declared the rightful winner by the people who bought
the most pillows from michae Lindell, can be sworn in
(02:38):
in their place. And those who elected Biden and those
who didn't but believe in representative American government and the
military loyal to the commander in chief, they would simply say, sure,
come on down. Don This insanity is not based on
some kind of illegal, unconstitutional, but peaceful process to regain
(03:02):
the White House without being elected. Donald Trump could achieve
it only by forcing President Biden out, and that flatly
would require violence, lethal force or the threat of lethal force,
a coup, a terrorist plot that would presumably involve an attack,
(03:23):
another attack on our version of the Reichstag the capital,
destroying the power grid, or taking over mass media or both,
and assassinating the president or other elected leaders or both.
Trump's social media post about constitutional termination is not some
ultimate expression of his ego, some conviction that at his
(03:47):
word the political sees will part and he will be anointed.
It is a call to violently overthrow the Constitution of
the United States, to violently overthrow the government of the
United States, to violently overthrow the president of the United States.
The Germans saw this exact plot developing in their own country,
(04:12):
and because there are still those alive they're old enough
to have seen it work there, they threw three thousand
cops and special forces at it, and they raided a
German military barracks where participants in the terrorist plot are
still serving in the federal armed forces, and they revealed
that a sitting judge who had been swallowed up by
(04:32):
q and On was to become Justice Minister in the
new dictatorship, which was to be headed by the seventy
one year old descendant of pre Nazi minor German nobility
who was counting on backing from Russia. Quote. Members of
the organization were aware, reads the official statement released by
(04:52):
the German prosecutor that this goal can only be achieved
through the use of military means and violence against state representatives.
This also included commissioning killings. Well, what the hell do
you think Trump and his fascists have in mind here?
(05:13):
What did they have in mind on January six getting
Elon Musk to run a Twitter poll for them should
Biden resign and turn over the government to Donnie We
are already aware of the q and On presence in
police forces and in the military of the United States.
We are already aware of TRUMPUS lunatics in the House
(05:35):
of Representatives. We're already aware of the Oath Keepers and
the Proud Boys and the other militias who were the
little better coordination would have unleashed an attack with military
grade weapons on the Capitol two years ago. Next month,
and just last weekend we saw somebody shoot up just
(05:56):
two power substations in North Carolina and leave an entire
county blacked out for nearly a week. The Germans have
acted and us. The Speaker presumptive of the House of Representatives,
is planning to put the Arizona Congressman Paul goes Are
(06:17):
back on the committee assignments, which were stripped after his
role in the Big Lie and January six. Goes Are
who yesterday tweeted a screenshot of Trump's terminate the Constitution
post and added quote, I support and agree with the
former president. Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure. Unprecedented cure, Gosar
(06:43):
means guns and bloodshed and sabotage and sedition and revolution
and summary executions. And it does not matter if he
has a diseased mind and he hallucinates. There are thousands
of people with weapons at the ready, willing to reduce
(07:04):
this country two ashes if they can, for the sake
of their racism and fascism and the poisoning of their
minds by Trump and Q and on the Germans put
there Paul goes Are behind bars yesterday and sent their
special forces to put him there. Our Paul Goes are
(07:25):
deleted his tweet. Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure, without explanation
or comment. Arrest him, and while you are in Arizona.
A massive voter fraud of this type in magnitude allows
for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even
(07:48):
those found in the Constitution. I agree with them on that.
Can you imagine our founding fathers, what they went through
to help bring about this great nation, seeing what happened
in it's really seeing what's happening now in just saying Okay, well,
I guess it didn't go our way, and I guess
they cheated. We know they rigged the elections, and they
(08:11):
put in a bumbling fool who doesn't even have the
mental posity to run this country. Okay, just get over it.
We'll just let the loser take the White House. I
don't think that would happen. President Trump is saying, we
are in unprecedented times, and unprecedented measures are necessary. Arrest
carry Lake. She shouldn't be hard to find. Just look
(08:32):
for a webcam with a gauze filter on top of
another gauze filter, on top of another gauze filter. On
top of the camera lens. Again, our refusal to recognize
that the only way Carry Lake and Paul Gozar and
Donald Trump could terminate the Constitution or just any part
(08:52):
of the Constitution and install him in power now would
necessitate mass violence. Our refusal to recognize that only emboldens
those who would happily turn to such violence, and gives
them more time to prepare such violence. Is there any
other conclusion? Did Trump flinch at the violence of January six?
(09:15):
Did he even condemn the threat to hang his own
vice president? Just Monday, Trump tried to back away from
the terminate the Constitution post, but on Tuesday, at Mari Lago,
Trump hosted another Q and On lunatic named Liz Croaken,
the woman who taught Marjorie Taylor Green about Q and On.
(09:37):
He posed with Liz Croaken. He had Liz Croakin talked
to the crowd. He didn't hesitate as she and others
posted videos of him and Croakin and the two of
them together. He didn't push back when she claimed that
while she was at Mari Lago Tuesday, she discussed the
pizza Gate fantasy, which has sustained quan On and this
mass psychosis since its beginnings. He didn't flinch when another attendee,
(10:01):
the former right wing congressional candidate from Florida, Darlene's Swapper,
took pictures at the Q and On event at Mari
Lago with Sarah Palin and Michael Flynn. There may be
zero percent chance of this viper's nest succeeding in overthrowing
the government of the United States, or even coming close
(10:22):
to it in a million years. Let us hope so,
but let us stop relying on hope. Let us stop
kidding ourselves. These are the January six coup plotters, and
Trump is the creature who inspired it all. They are
(10:44):
not hoping for some sort of peaceful transition of power
next week. They already proved that on January six, ludicrous
or imminent, or somewhere in between. Trump and his minions
are planning some sort of violent revolution, something not unlike
what had percolated in Germany these last few years. The
(11:07):
Germans had the presence of mind to recognize insurrection and
mass violence and terrorism and revolution when they saw it,
and we damn well better do the same, and fast
(11:33):
still ahead for the fourth separate time. More secret government
documents have been found in Trump's possession. But this time
that's got to be it, right. Vladimir Putin has reportedly
built Noah's Ark. Well, Noah's Ark is what it sounds like.
If he is overthrown because of the disaster in Ukraine,
he gets on board and he floats away to some
(11:54):
other country. Yesterday, December seven was a date that will
live in infamy or if you used to be Trump's
press secretary, it was the anniversary of the Allied invasion
of Normandy during World War Two. Seriously, Sean Spicer. And
today December eight is its own anniversary of great sadness,
(12:16):
the death of John Lennon, as remembered by a guy
who was very unexpectedly on the air that night as
a rock and roll disc jockey. Me, that's next. This
is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
(12:41):
on countdown. Five goals in a little over half a
hockey game, when the all time record is seven and
you have all that time left to get there. What
do you think happened? And this is a terrible anniversary.
John Lennon was murdered forty two years ago tonight, and
him probably for one of only two times in my life,
(13:01):
I was on the air as a disc jockey as
it happened, and the air check of that show still exists.
First in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog
in need. You can help. Every dog has its day.
Chestnut is in bad shape, but he's a fighter. He
has been found on the streets alone by Rescue Dogs
Rock of New York. He is so infected, probably from
(13:24):
drinking contaminated water on the streets, that his hair is
all but gone. He'll need as much as twelve weeks
of antibiotics and constant medicated baths. Rescue Dogs is doing
a fundraiser for him on Cudley. You can find Chestnut
there on Cudley or look for him on my Twitter feeds.
Your donation or just a retweet can make all the
difference in the world. I thank you, and Chestnut thanks you.
(14:00):
Post Scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions. Date line in West Palm Beach, Florida. Nobody's
saying what they were, but lawyers have found at least
two more classified items in Trump's possession. These according to
the Washington Post, we're in a storage unit in Florida
and were immediately turned over to the FBI. The Trump
team had hired an outside firm to search Trump locations
(14:23):
besides Mari Lago, after a federal judge demanded the lawyers
at test that they had complied fully with the subpoena
in May to turn over any classified materials Trump may
have purloined. You still have to check the first hole
at the Bedminster golf course. I'm just telling you Dateline,
the Supreme Court, we may have a surprise coming in
the ruling and the independent State Legislature theory case in
(14:46):
which North Carolina claims its courts have no say over
what it legislature decides to do about federal elections and
congressional maps and the like. Witnesses to the arguments in
More versus Harper before the Supreme Court say there were
three camps. The three liberals flatly opposed Alito, Gorsuch, and
Thomas flatly in favor, but unexpectedly Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh,
(15:11):
and Chief Justice Roberts tacking towards the middle and some
kind of middle road which would still favor the state
courts but permit occasional appeals to federal courts. Day Line
Moscow A former Putin speechwriter posted on telegram that yeah,
his old boss is aware that there is a new,
unplanned possible outcome in Ukraine, that Russia could collapse or
(15:34):
at minimum Putin could be overthrown. Putin, he says, has
a plan called Noah's Ark, and the original version of
this would have spirited Putin and his henchmen to China,
but now they say they're looking instead at Margarita Island
in Venezuela. Thank you, Nancy Faust, Dateline, Washington, January six.
(16:11):
Committee Chairman Benny Thompson puts something down in concrete. He
says they want to release their final report and vote
on criminal referrals two weeks from yesterday. On the one
and Dateline Washington, after police came to the home of
Ted Cruz, who aid his daughter during some private distress,
Megan McCain wrote, there's a special hell being a teenage girl.
(16:32):
When you're dead is a famous Republican politician and you're
in middle high school. Leave the entire Cruise family alone
and just send prayers. That is the correct sentiment, except
for one detail. In somebody made a joke about the
then eighteen year old Chelsea Clinton at a fundraiser. The
joke was, do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so
(16:52):
ugly because Janet Reno is her father. That joke was
made by Megan's father, John McCain. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(17:18):
check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith in sports.
This is why records stay records. The mark for the
most goals in the National Hockey League game is seven
by Joe Malone of the Quebec Bulldogs in nineteen twenty,
but modern records six by Sid how of the Red
(17:40):
Wings and then after expansion Red Barons of the Night
Blues and Darryl Sittler of the nineteen seventy six maple Leaves.
With roughly four minutes to play in the second period
at Columbus last night, Buffalo's range E Giant Tage Thompson
scored his fifth goal of the game. He had four
in the first period alone, four minutes of the second
period and all of the third period remaining, and he
(18:04):
didn't score again. Baseball, so Aaron Judge did resign with
the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants. They
are not happy. The Giants thought they had a deal.
Well that's settled, but what about Arson Judge. Two big
signings last night, the Japanese outfielder Massa Taka Yoshida agreed
to a ninety million, five year deal with the Red
Sox for the Oricx Buffaloes. Last year, Yoshida struck out
(18:27):
just forty one times in five eight trips to the plate,
So Yoshida in the American League will need to start
swinging wildly and foolishly. The Bosox also ain't. Former Dodgers
and Braves closer Kenneley Jansen and the Cardinals signed catcher
Wilson Contreras away from the Cubs because Cubs ownership has
realized you Cubs fans will go anyway just to see
(18:50):
the ballpark, no matter how bad they make. The team
had the anniversary of the murder of John Lennon as
it played out during a second and last time I
ever spent any time as a rock and roll disc jockey. First,
the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning
(19:12):
Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world.
The Bronze Jesse Waters of Fox Nudes. For the amount
of time that these clowns talk about grooming and pedophilia.
The things they themselves say once again suggest this is
all projection. Talking about the merits of smoking marijuana, Jesse
(19:35):
Waters said, quote, girls don't dig it. This is when
Judge Janine Piro replied, why do you say girls don't
dig it? And Waters then said girls don't like the scene.
They don't like the scene. And Pierro, who for once
was not the dumbest one in the studio, asked what
(19:56):
about alcohol, and Waters replied, girls like the alcohol scene. Lebrons.
The Family Foundation a Richmond based anti l g B
t Q and Bible thumping crackpot outlet. It had a
dessert reception scheduled on November thirty that Metzker Bar and
(20:17):
Butchery in Virginia. About ninety minutes before it was to begin,
the owners called Family Foundation and said, your reservation is canceled.
They explained they don't serve bigots. Family Foundation claims it
was discriminated against, like this was the segregated South in
their terms, but legal experts say no, since the outlet
was deliberately involved in actions against members of the community,
(20:38):
they were denied service not because of who they are,
but because of what they actually did. But our winner.
Sean Spicer today is D Day, he tweeted yesterday. It
only lives in infamy if we remember and share the
story of sacrifice with the next generation. Hashtag D Day.
(20:59):
Sean Spicer was either six months and two days off
because what America calls D Day is June five, or
he's commemorating Imperial Japan's D Day December seven. And you
wonder why it was so easy for him to lie
as Trump's Press secretary, Sean Yesterday, December seven is a
(21:20):
day of infamy? Or hey, what day was the fourth
of July? On Spicer two Day's worst person and the
one to the number one story on the countdown. And
(21:47):
these career stories and anniversaries are usually happy ones, or
at least delightfully unhappy. Not this one. Forty two years
ago tonight, John Lennon was murdered, shot and killed as
he greeted his fans outside his New York home as
he always did, just as he was resuming his career,
just as he was finding the piece he had always sought,
(22:08):
just as he was flowering anew in the city he
had come to love. And I was on the air
that night as a disc jockey at a rock station.
I was never a disc jockey. I think I did
it three times at my college radio station, once in
an emergency when I was running the place one summer
and there was literally nobody else to do the overnight
(22:28):
show except for me and the venerable engineer John Hill,
who had a voice so low and gravilly that could
only be heard by about humans. And I had graduated
in nineteen seventy nine, but on Monday December eighth, nine eighty,
I was back at Cornell visiting my friends who were
still there, many of them people I had trained who
were now in charge of the student owned commercial radio
(22:51):
station w v b r FM. One of them was
the news director Mike McNeil, and he and I figured
the best way to hang out for a while was
to do the late music show together ten PM to
two am. He spun the records and played the commercials
and I did the disc jockey patter. It wasn't especially
good or bad. I remember a listener calling in early
(23:12):
in the show to say I sounded like don Imus,
and I said thank you, and he said that's not
a compliment. And then it happened, and we were rolling
tape on the show. This is I think about eleven
ten eleven fifteen or so. The shooting had happened around ten.
Steely Dan on w v b R FM time Out
(23:34):
of My Mind sad news from New York tonight. Police
say that former Beatle John Lennon was shot at his
home on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Police spokesman says Lennon
was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, his condition unknown. At this point.
The spokesman says a suspect is in custody, but other
than that shred of information, we have no other details
(23:54):
available to repeat. John Lennon was shot at his home
and taken to the hospital. His detail his condition unknown
at this point. We really don't know anything else about it.
If we do, we will let you know. As I
said that night, we had no other information. There's no Internet,
there's no cable news. Well there was CNN, they just
(24:16):
signed on. The radio station didn't have it. We had
one functioning TV there and the three major networks, one
of them was carrying Monday Night football. Anyway, there was
no wall to wall coverage on radio. There were no
live reports from the scene on radio or television. There
was just a United Press international teletype machine clattering away
in a corner of an empty newsroom in a nearly
(24:38):
deserted radio station, late on a Monday night. But mind you,
this was the top rated station in a town that
had a university and a huge college, and probably thirty
thousand students, and most of them in their dorms or
apartments as finals had just begun to loom. The only
noises beside the music we were playing in that studio
(25:02):
were all the phones ringing all the time, all asking
the same question, This couldn't be true, Tell me it
isn't true. Save a trade together at Triangle, the bookshop
of College Town. As we mentioned before, we don't know
his condition, We don't know the circumstances. But the report
from New York is that tonight at his home on
Manhattan's Upper West Side, John Lennon need was to say,
(25:24):
the former beatle and star in his own rights, was shot.
He's been taken to the hospital, where his condition is
at this point unknown. Will attempt to keep you updated
as we get the information. Here. Mike McNeil and I
settled in for a long night of worry and communal
solemnity because it wasn't possible. John Lennon was dead. Why
would anybody shoot John Lennon? Why would our society? How
(25:48):
could my city let somebody walk up and shoot and
kill John Lennon. It couldn't happen. We got all the
Beatles albums out of the library, all the Lenin albums out,
and we played the songs that moved us most, and
I selected in my Life, And then I ran out
to the U p. I machine and all the bullets
and bells were going off, and I knew what the
(26:10):
bulletin said before I got to the machine and read it.
I got back to the microphone, just as in my
life was ending. The bitterness of that irony struck me
then and has not left me now for forty two years.
(26:34):
John Lennon is dead. Report from New York is now
that John Lennon, who was shot three times outside his
home in Manhattan's Upper West Side, has died of his injuries.
We have no further information. When I guess nothing is
necessary after that John and John Lennon, with the Beatles
in my life before that starting over, and imagine for
(26:55):
all this time I have wondered why McNeil and I
just went on with the music show. We kept playing
the commercials, some of them I had to read. I've
of course it dawns on me. Now, of course we
went on with it. We were in shock. We were grasping,
like everybody who had heard the news, for the normal,
even the crassly commercial normality of commercials. We did not
(27:20):
even yet go all Beatles FM. At about a quarter
to twelve, the news tonight from New York again, as
we mentioned before, that John Lennon is dead, having been
shot outside his home. Now the who I listened to
this tape. It's a small cassette, it is worn with
the years. It is from so many years ago, and
(27:43):
I wish there was more feeling in my voice, more tribute.
And then I remember what in real time, my goal
was to keep from crying on the air. Years later,
I was at ESPN when our colleague Tom Mees died.
He drowned in a swimming pool. There were forty of
us working on the six PM Sports Center that night.
(28:04):
We were all veterans and professionals. I wrote and narrated
Tom's obituary, and not one of us was clearheaded enough
to think that we should start the program with the
news of his passing every newscast from New York to
Boston did exactly that. But you do not think in
such times as tragedy envelopes you you react. W v
(28:27):
b R FM in Ithaca, Keith Alderman here and as
we have been besieged by phone calls here at the station,
it is true. John Lennon was shot and killed tonight
in New York. He was apparently either outside or inside
or leaving or entering his home, the Dakota Hotel in Manhattan,
and he was shot three times. The police say that
(28:48):
they have a suspect in the killing. They give no
other details. The spokesman for the police did say that
it was not a robbery and that apparently Lennon was
killed by a deranged person. And again we have no
other details. John Lennon shot about an hour ago and
was taken to the hospital in critical condition where he now.
In memory of John Lennon, Gradually we shook ourselves into
(29:10):
trying to provide something to the listeners beyond simply repeating
that grim news again and again. There was an irony
here that I recognized. At the time, I had literally
just left the radio network I had worked for since
graduating to join a new network called r k O.
I was in fact taking a few days off between
the two jobs and spending them with my old school friends.
(29:30):
Just before I left, the RKO Radio network had conducted
a long, sit down interview with John Lennon. When I
left the building, they were editing it into a special
John Lennon had also done a lengthy interview with Playboy,
and at some point in the evening somebody came into
the radio station with a copy of that interview. W
(29:54):
v b RFM at twenty eight minutes past twelve o'clock
at night, Keith Olberman here, and as you've probably heard
by now, John Lennon was shot and killed tonight and
New York. It's the timing of it. I guess the
timing of a shooting is never appropriate, but the timing
of this one is awfully strange. Just in this month's
(30:14):
edition of the Playboy magazine, there's a very in depth
interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, And between now
and later on we'll be reading you a couple of
quotations from the interview. The first one we thought was
appropriate at this time is John Lennon talking about himself
as a child, and he says in the interview, surrealism
(30:36):
had a great effect on me because then I realized
that my imagery and my mind was an insanity, that
if it was insane, I belong in an exclusive club
that sees the world in those terms. Surrealism to me
is reality. Psychic vision, to me is reality. Even as
a child, when I looked at myself in the mirror,
when I was twelve thirteen, I used to literally trance
out into alpha. I didn't know what it was called.
(30:58):
Then I found out years later there's a name for
those conditions. But I would find myself seeing hallucinatory images
of my face is changing and becoming cosmic and complete.
It caused me to always be a rebel. This thing
gave me a chip on the shoulder. But on the
other hand, I wanted to be loved and accepted. Part
of me would like to be accepted by all facets
of society and not be this loudmouth, lunatic musician. But
(31:20):
I cannot be what I'm not. John Lennon dead Tonight. Finally,
more than an hour after the news came in of
John Lennon's death, we began to get some information from
the scene. In another weird twist, my old station at
Cornell had just signed up as an affiliate for the network.
I was just about to join r k OH and
(31:42):
we would now rely on its correspondence people. I would
spend the next two years working with for the Grim News.
We have more information now on the shooting death of
John Lennon tonight. John Lennon shot and killed in front
of his home on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He was
getting out of a limousine. Apparently. They say he was
(32:02):
shot at least five times. He was forty. Police said
Lennon was shot at about eleven PM and he died
in the emergency room at the Roosevelt Hospital in New York,
and his wife, Yoko Ono, was with him when he died.
Correspondent Rich Raymond was at the US. Dr Stephen Lynn,
the emergency room services director here Roosevelt Hospital, said that
John Lennon was dead on arrival from seven gunshot wounds
(32:25):
in his chest and back. He said that Lennon had
massive blood loss and it was probably dead from the
moment the shots hit him. Doctor Lynn said that Yokoo
accompanied John to the hospital. Doctor Lynne gave her the
news that John was dead. She was very distraught and
found it hard to believe that's, corresponded Rich Raymond in
New York. A police spokesman added that a suspect is
(32:48):
in custody, but that there were no other details available
at of the circumstances of the shooting. The spokesman said
that it was not a robbery, that the person who
shot Lennon was most likely deranged, and there was a
witness to this, and he says that a man in
his mid thirties with what he described as almost a
smirk on his face, gunned down the singer as Lennon
and his wife and several other people walked into the
(33:09):
vestibule of the apartment building where the Lennon's lived in
New York. The witness says that residents of the hotel
told him that the man had been seen in the
vestibule for hours before the shooting, and according to the
same witness, the man just walked out and shot John Lennon.
Lennon celebrated his fortieth birthday on October nine, and he
of course just released his new album Double Fantasy, Made
of Course with Yo Kohno, and that was supposed to
(33:32):
be a comeback for the two of them. In his
interview with Playboy Magazine this month, John Lennon explained something
about that song. He says, or said, the images were
from Alice in Wonderland. It was Alice in the boat.
She's buying an egg and it turns into Humpty dumpty.
The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep,
and the next minute they're rowing in a rowing boat somewhere.
(33:54):
And I was visualizing that. There was also the image
of the female who would someday come and save me,
a girl with kaleidoscope eyes who would come out of
the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I
hadn't met Yoka yet, so maybe it should be Yoko
in the sky with diamonds w v b r FM.
The Playboy magazine article UH The interview with John Lennon
(34:16):
and Yoko Ono ended with a question from the interviewer
about John Lennon's eighties dream, and he answered, will you
make your own dream? That's the Beatles story, isn't it.
That's Yoko's story. That's what I'm saying. Now, produce your
own dream if you want to say, perdue, peruce, peru,
rather go, say Peru. It's quite possible to do anything,
but not to put it on the leaders and the
(34:37):
parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, or
John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus
Christ to come and do it for you. You have
to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and
mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can
point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various
books that are now called holy and worshiped for the
cover of the book and not for what it says.
(34:59):
But the instructions are all there for all to see,
have always been and always will be. There's nothing new
under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome, and
people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up,
you can wake you up. I can't cure you, you
can cure you. The interviewer then asks what is that
that keeps people from accepting that message, and John Lennon said,
(35:19):
it's fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is,
and to be frightened of it is what sends everybody
is scurring around, chasing dreams illusions, wars, peace, love, hate,
all that, it's all illusion. Unknown is what it is,
except that it's unknown, and it's plain sailing. Everything is unknown,
then you're ahead of the game. That's what it is, right.
John Lennon may have provided his own epitaph in that
(35:42):
comment in Playboy magazine. This is w v b r
FM Ithaca. I would love to be able to conclude
this with some insight, some meaning about what happened that night,
just as I wanted to conclude this with some insight
forty two years ago on that show. There is no
(36:03):
insight to be ad. The murder of John Lennon did
not make sense to me, then it does not make
sense to me. Now it will never make sense to me.
This is Countdown. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(36:24):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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