DA ALVIN BRAGG TO JUDGE: PRETEND TRUMP IS DEAD - 12.12.24

Trump's sentence could begin before he becomes sitting Dick. To President, Bragg's novel argument, pretend Trump is dead Merry Christmas. This is in Bragg's filing to Judge Wan Mershawan, who has to figure out something to do other than vacate the

guilty verdict some way out of this legal morass. Mershan himself helped to create a morass unique even for what has proved to be a laughably useless American system of justice, the envy of the world until it turned out you can defeat its entire purpose if you can simply put a dozen utterly corrupt alitos and canons and others in just the right positions within that system. And the solution

boils down to pretend Trump is dead. Not trying to make that happen, not wishing that happens, nothing like that. Just pretending Trump is dead, and it's in legal papers because bureaucracy abhors a vacuum. And if his conviction is not overturned or vacated, or his sentence can't be pronounced, or he can't be sent to Rikers Island, he's got to be something. And that's some would be legally pretend dead. The legalies itself actually isn't much more complicated than that.

This Court could adopt a remedy that some courts have followed in the abatement by death context, to terminate proceedings without vacating the jury verdict or dismissing indictment. Even if this Court were to believe it the mere pendency of the criminal proceeding we are somehow inconsistent with defenders' future official duties as president, Dismissal and vacating would still not

be warranted under the abatement doctrine. Courts have considered an analogous question of what to do with the jury verdict and indictment when further criminal proceedings are no longer possible because of the defendant's death, this court would likewise adopt one of the alternatives to abatement ab initio here in place of the extreme remedy of dismissal and vacatur that

defendant has proposed. Specifically, under the so called Alabama rule, when a defendant dies after he is found guilty but before the conviction becomes final through the appellate process, the court places in the record of the case a notation to the effect that the conviction removed the presumption of innocence,

but was neither affirmed nor reverse on appeal. Because the defendant died, it makes sense to borrow from the manner in which Court's address abatement, because many of defendant's arguments here parallel the arguments made in favor of dismissal and vacatur. Upon a defendant's death, he said it, I didn't. The essence of that is that you essentially freeze the case where it is trump convicted, appeal pending, and you let future events soart it out. You don't overturn the verdant,

you don't expunge it. You don't wrongly clear this slimy bastard elect. You simply stuff it over here in a kind of legal purgatory, a suspended animation. You'll come back to it if and when circumstances change and he stops being legally dead. Bluntly, Wan mare Sean will go down in American history if any more of it is written or permitted in our schools, as one of our greatest fools and greatest cowards, and greatest both sides. This enablers

the Merrick Garland of judges, if you will. So somebody here has to do something other than saying, oh, well,

the corrupt Supreme Court says corrupt presidents are immune. So I'll just go at the corrupt flow and overturn the verdict of an American jury made up of American citizens who sat there and stared at the devil in his fat, orange makeuped face for weeks on end, and spoke for the rest of us in this country and said, this asshole paid off a porn star to keep her as part of his extraordinary exertions to deceive the public and

get himself elected president of the United States. And we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Trump is corrupt. The jury was not the prosecution was not, the system was not. The judge now has to decide if he's corrupt or he's not. He can't do anything about his own stupidity, and he can't do anything about the million lies Trump has told to get elected again.

But he and we can do something legally meaningful and culturally symbolic, something like sticking an asterisk on a sports record obtained by cheating, something that Trump will always carry with him. Freeze the case exactly where it is, and do what Alvin Bragg suggests, Treat it like you would

if Trump We're dead. Merry Christmas. Not advocating for that, obviously, as I am not and previously have stated, I was not advocating for Luigi or any other guy sharing the name of a famous video game character assassinating CEOs five goddamned blocks from my home. I am an indictem convictim,

lock them up for life absolutist. On the other hand, as I said Monday, nothing about the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare by Luigi McDreamy or whatever his name is is more startling than wide swaths of the media writing nearly hysterical pieces about how the support or passive approval for what he did indicates some kind of breakdown in American society and is inconceivable and cannot in

any way be tolerated for a minute longer. There was a long magazine article yesterday blaming it on a communist philosopher from one hundred years ago as CEOs and those who worshiped them and cover them as if they were, you know, superstar human beings recoil from this as if it were another pope getting shot. I mean, sure, his company has done some bad things over the centuries, and millions have died as a result, but he's a good guy.

It's not like that's all his fault. These glorifiers of greed have so disconnected from reality that they have forgotten the essence of the definition of a corporation of the thing Brian Thompson was the CEO of of the thing Luigi Mangione was shooting. A corporation exists so that a group of people can spend their money without any of them being liable for any real moral or legal responsibility.

When people get killed or hurt or ripped off. If you are not at the Wall Street Journal or CNBC or any of the news organizations led by and run by and anchored by generations of people who have grown up in the era when the media has worshiped money and the people who make it for their own sake, it is impossible to conceive how corporations are viewed by people who don't own stocks. How many people have died

as the direct result of corporate criminality? And a second question, how many corporate executives have been given the death penalty in a court of law. The answer to the first question is a whole lot. The answer to the second question is none. Nobody even went to jail after the Titanic. Nobody went to jail after the Johnstown flood. Nobody went to jail after the Deep Water Horizon BP spill in

the Gulf. They charged two supervisors with manslaughter. End result, one of them pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act. Corporations are designed to ensure irresponsibility. If, as a disastrous Supreme Court misruling from the nineteenth century suggests, corporations are persons.

That person would be Trump, So please columnists, reporters, right wingers, business editors celebrating the guy who slowly choked a crazy man to death on the subway, spare me at least your shock that what might be a majority of Americans

is not getting that worked up about Luigi. When the legal system has failed, When in the case of the concept of the corporation, it has been designed to fail as badly as ours has failed, people are not only going to cheer vigilantes, they will fear that they have

nobody else to cheer. Four And oh, by the way, if you also can't figure out why the serial murderer of women Ted Bundy got hundreds of marriage proposals while on trial and probably while they were walking into the electric chair in nineteen eighty nine, just read some of the stuff online about Luigi. This is obviously lost on me, ladies,

But I'm not blaming you for our human biology. I am confident that if Luigi was Louise and was as apparently attractive, men of today would be writing the same things. But please, ladies, let's dial this down just a little, because anything you write that sounds like he's hot. I mean, I know, he murdered a guy, but he's hot is not as they say the flex that.

his FBI director and his Attorney general? Neon Noodle from the bugs? Bunny VERSI, Dick Tracy, if I have that right? This idea that he wouldn't order it is now being painted as some sort of concession by Trump. He won't order his law enforcement agencies to fabricate crimes and make up evidence against elected members of the House of Representatives who tried to expose his actual criminal and seditious attempt to overthrow the government. He'll just let others do it.

Fox headlined this a kinder, gentler Trump president elect taking a more moderate stance. Jason Miller says the reactions from Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and others wasn't necessary because the January sixth, Committee threat was taken out of context. Quoting him, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he's going to leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge, including Pam Bondi

and Cash Patel. Translation by way of current events analogy, Trump isn't going to shoot the CEO in the head. Some sick event working for Trump is going to shoot

the CEO in the head, because that's all right. Then Pam Bondi and Cash Battel would never do something they thought would please the Furer just to please the Furer, and Pam Bondi and Cash Pateel would never tell Trump in advance which elected officials and former elected officials and political opponents they were planning to jail like this was Syria. Just to pick an example on the confirmations front, Pete Hegseeth met with Senator Susan Collins for an hour. Shockingly enough,

she did not commit to anything. She says she wants to see a full FBI betting hag Seth has also gotten caught in a spectacular lie. Monday, he went on Hannity's Fascist Fallatio Hour and insisted that his comments had been misconstrued that quote, I somehow don't support women in the military. Some of our best warriors out there are women.

That remark came literally forty eight hours after he'd gone on somebody's podcast and said, quote, I am straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. There's a little wiggle room in between those two statements. You could probably fit something tiny between them, like heg

Seth's principles and morals. But honestly, whoever you are, if you say the one thing Saturday and then the other thing Monday, you are forcing us to circle back to that other question of how much you have been drinking and whether or not I need to calculate gallons into barrels. Murkowski's probably a no, Collins is a who knows. McConnell could vote no. Ernst was a no and might still be one and four nos. And Hegseth is meat still

Trump thug. Mike Davis said he would be happy to pay private investigators to dig dirt up on hesitant Republican senators, And suddenly you had Ernst balancing on this tightrope sounding like she was supporting Hegseeth or supporting the process or

supporting something without actually supporting him. Ernest is already being attacked as a rhino, already having questions raised about her divorce, and they've announced their primarying Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who once voted to impeach Trump, and before FBI Director Chris Ray said yesterday he would resign before the inauguration way

to obey in advance Chris. When Mike Rounds of South Dakota said he had no complaints against Ray, Charlie Kirk posted quote, Senator Rounds, you are up for reelection in twenty twenty six. If you vote against any of Trump's nominees, a primary challenge wouldn't be hard, just to remind her. Also a reminder that in a dictatorship, there's only one fewer. There are a lot of enforcers at a lot of bobblehead dolls nodding yes, but there's just the one feurer.

And as he sets chances of confirmation seemingly increase. The one I think is in the most trouble is Telsey Gabbard, and not because, as a Republican Senate aide told the news site The Hill, quote, behind closed doors, people think she might be compromised. Like it's not hyperbole. There are members of our conference who think she's a Russian asset unquote, as published by the Hill. But Gabbard's got another problem, which is there are Republicans who are worried that she

is not a Russian asset. The Wall Street Journal editorial Board and honest to God, if they all turned out to work in a bunker twenty eight feet under the Reich Chancellory in Berlin, I wouldn't be the least goddamned surprised. The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes quote the ugly criticism of Telsey Gabbard as a quote likely Russian asset. Representative W. Wasserman Schultz might convince Trump supporters that she's been maligned as President Trump was because she's on board

with his agenda. The truth, which has Republican senators concerned is the opposite. Miss Gabbart is on ample record as a dogmatic opponent of the policies that made mister Trump's first term foreign policy a success and that Democrats resisted. The former Democrat would be a risky fit as Director

of National Intelligence. So the fascist right is trying to sink Gabbard, and so are some Republican senators, and of course, our friends at the Daily Coasts published a cartoon about her, in which she is depicted as go and look at this. Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle last had lines. Just because his brains aren't leaking out his ears at a rally every Saturday lin during the campaign doesn't mean they're not

still leaking out his ears. Trump posted this, The Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the popular vote in future elections. They want all future presidential elections to be based exclusively on the electoral college exclamation point. All previous presidential elections have been based exclusively on the electoral college, and six weeks ago, Trump's henchmen were working to get around the popular vote if he lost in the swing states.

But now that he's won the popular vote by one point four percent, he has to try to remain the victim. And to remain the victim, he has to make the popular vote the subject of some imaginary democratic conspiracy, which brings us back to twenty twelve when Trump wanted to eliminate the electoral college. And if he will get that

amendment passed, I might actually help him on that. Finally, if you have not heard Junior's fiance or ex fiance or whatever, screaming Kim Gilfoyle has been nominated as ambassador to Greece gr e e Ce or time with Trump Junior would have made her an ambassador to Greece gr e a se. So the role of screaming Kim Gilfoyle is now being played by a woman named Bettina Anderson

and now on with the show. Also of interest here, a development in local politics in Fun City has just made me realize something I had completely forgotten about and not really tied together. But it just made me realize that between us, one of my exes and I may have inadvertently led to first Bill de Blasio and then Eric Adams becoming Mayor of New York City. Firstly, to

everyone in the universe, I express my most sincere apologies. Secondly, I know that the phrase one of my exes gives you no clue as to who I am talking about.

there's new Dateline Zurich. The Soccer World Cup for twenty thirty was awarded to six nations, for most of them Spain, but the twenty thirty four to one has been awarded to the nation with the greatest soccer playing tradition in the world, Saudi Arabia. Because everything is for sale, ask Trump. The good news is by then climate change could be bad enough for them to have to abandon the project

and maybe all of Saudi Arabia. Dateline New York rather remarkable development here in fun City where Anthony Wiener, the former congressman, and well he was RFK junior with the phones and the sex before there was an RFK junior with the phones and the sex. AnyWho, Anthony Wiener is again running for office. This time it is the New York City Council where he began his political career in in nineteen ninety two. This is Wiener's second comeback attempt.

Eleven years ago, he was not only running for mayor of New York, but he might have been the unlikely favorite for the Democratic nomination and thus almost automatic election. Then my girlfriend came home from her internship at the Wiener campaign and described to me, with extraordinary frustration the total chaos there, with Wiener saying he knew the names of all the interns, and saying that all of the girl interns were named Monica. He called the first one Monica,

the second one Monica. Then he called my girlfriend Monica, and how most of the volunteers and many of the staffers were only there just to get in good with Wiener's wife, Juma Abadin, in hopes of getting onto Hillary Clinton's upcoming presidential campaign. How did that workout for you? Anyway? My girlfriend said she was going to write this up as a guest post for the blog run by one

of her friends. I looked at her gently but patronized, and said, you are a witness to the best political New York story of the year, and you're going to put it on a blog you should be putting it in the Daily News or in the Post. Even She then asked, hell on earth she could actually put it in the Daily News or the Post? And I said,

I knew writers at the papers. Certainly they wouldn't mind contacting their editors with a story like that, But you have to write this up yourself first, so they don't just try to take your story and write it themselves and leave you out of it. You should use this as a career lever. Next thing, she knew the New York Daily News had bought her story written by her. I helped a little, nothing more really than moving a few paragraphs around and sharpening some of her already really sharp,

wonderfully bitter humor. But the editors insisted they needed a photo of her to go with it and find She said, just as long as you don't put it on the front page of the paper. Well, of course, she glammed up for the photo shoot, and after she got packed from it, I said, did you get it in writing that it won't be on the front page? Up at four am to take our dog to the we wi pad. I hopped onto my iPad and went to the Daily News website that had just updated, and I promptly woke

my girlfriend up. Guess what's on the front page of the Daily News. She responded to her photo with a mixture of horror and almost maniacal egotism. That sounds bad, It is, in fact the average response from the average reporter about almost anything big that happens to them. It is the fuel for all of them. Not long after the story and the photo and the front page, she

got a job offer from the Daily Beast. Then it was New York Magazine, then TV hits mostly on CNN, and then a book with her fiance, and then well, she kind of came full circle, didn't she, Because of course, this is Olivia Newsy I'm talking about, whose career started with a phone sex and explicit photos guy in Anthony Weener and has stalled, if not ended, with another phone

sex and explicit photo guy in RFK Junior. Oh, by the way, Anthony Wiener's twenty thirteen mayoral campaign, it didn't implode just because I said to Olivia, you're gonna put it in a blog. But we helped, and so the Democratic nomination for mayor that year went instead to Bill Deblasio. And he was such a bad mayor that New York voters didn't even recognize that the guy running to succeed him as the Democratic nominee was even worse. And his

name is Eric Adams. And bluntly, we'd be better off if New York's mayor were Anthony Wiener or any Wiener. So I can assure you without fear of contradiction, and for many different reasons, that is the last goddamn time I tamper with Olivia's blog posts, or that I tamper with who runs New York City.

need more than one lesson. That's a line from Citizen Kane that I just screwed up the Bronze worse Liliana Goodson, who has been sentenced to a year in jail in Australia Sydney. To be precise, only four months in full time custody. But still, I'll just read the account of this from the local papers. A US will who flew to Australia with a gold plated pistol worth about three thousand dollars in her luggage has been sentenced to a year in jail, despite claiming that she brought it with

her for protection. When asked at the airport if she was carrying any prohibited items with her, Goodson claimed she was not. The court was told quote what about the gun in your bag? She was asked by a customs officer. Goodson replied, oh yeah, I forgot about that. A review of Goodson's phone revealed she had searched online can I have a gun in my suitcase? And set a calendar injury with a note reminding her to quote put gun in suitcase. This is not exactly Luigi in effect?

haven't gotten to the punchline here. Miss Goodson, the court was previously told, had come to Australia to attend clown school. Well, at least she got that part accomplished. Magna cum laude the runners up worser Newsweek. Newsweek used to be a magazine, second in influence and journalistic standards in this country, to only like Time magazine among magazines. And well, it dawns on me, I'm going to have to explain to you

what magazines were news magazines anyway. Later, Newsweek has gone decidedly crappy over the last two decades, and it is decidedly far right crappy, and it's mostly an aggregation site. But it has accomplished something. It has beaten the Los Angeles Times and its owner doctor bad Haircut, who said he plans to install some kind of fairness grades to all the articles on his screw up a two car funeral. Newspaper Newsweek has now unveiled its own fairness grades with

a twist. We report, you decide the fairness meter. Newsweek is committed to journalism that is actual and fair. Our fairness meter allows readers to hold us accountable by rating an article's fairness in one of five ways. Unfair left cleaning the article presents a left cleaning perspective on the issue and does not include an opposing view. Mostly fair left leaning, which is the same thing, only it includes an opposing view. Fair the article presents a nonpartisan perspective

on the issue and includes opposing views. By the way, if any getting, any article anywhere is rated fair under this grading system, it will be the first in human history. So you're gonna let readers vote on. And by the way, there are more possibilities. They said five. There's unfair right leaning and mostly fair right leaning, which is an oxymoron.

But they're gonna let voters vote on. Readers become voters who vote on, in essence, what's true or not, depending on how much they agree with the political points of view of the article. Well, if anything is going to reflect America as we start twenty twenty five, that's pretty much it isn't it? But our winner speaking of letting them vote on it and leaning right. Elmo, somebody tweeted a report on homelessness, and he, of course being a fascist.

Now who is involved in the trump Ocracy, the kleptocracy, the trump kleptocracy. He lets milk everything out of this government. I can get my grubby little fingers on because I can't possibly have enough money, because the hole in my soul is too big to ever fill with anything. Elon Musk. That guy, he had to insist there is no such thing as homelessness. Quote. In most cases, the word homeless is a lie. It's usually a propaganda word for violent

drug addicts with severe mental illness. Actually, Elmo, the propaganda words we use for quote, violent drug addicts with severe mental illness, those propaganda words are members of the X management team, Elmo Leon. It only recently dawned on me. His skin is stretched so tight across his face. He looks like Jim Carrey in the movie The Mask. Musk two days other worse person at the world. Now to the number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic me and things I promised not to tell, and

I swear I thought I heard her say Carleton. This was also December in nineteen eighty five in Los Angeles, and if you've never spent Christmas in a warm metropolitan area for the first time in your life, you do not know what disorientation really is. I had just completed three months in my new job as the sports director

of Channel five in LA. I had spent most of November adjusting not only to it not getting cold, but to the fact that almost nobody else noticed that it was not getting cold, except one of our productions assistance who sprinted through the parking lot and up the stairs into the little bungalow on the KTLA lot in Hollywood, then housed our sports department. He shivered like a dog, shaking himself awake, and announced, my god, it's bitter out there.

no ramp up time for my work. I'd already won a couple of best Sportscaster awards, and then the top all news radio station was asking me to come over every afternoon and split the afternoon drive sportscasting shift with a guy who'd been on the air there literally for thirty years, who's one of the voices in the background and The Godfather Part two? And now somehow my producer, Ron Grelnick, and I were headed to the Beverly Wilshire

Hotel to go interview Mickey Mantle. For the average LA sportscaster, there really was and much reason to interview Mickey Mantle, which is why all of them at the bigger three network stations had turned down the offer of a sit down interview. But I was a New Yorker and had been three months earlier, and thus Mickey Mantle was my idol.

And moreover, when I became a baseball fan in nineteen sixty seven, my folks bought tickets specifically behind first base at Yankee Stadium because they had just moved Mantle there from the outfield. And as my dad said, when you are an old man, you will say the greatest thing you ever saw in baseball was Mickey Mantle. So you might as well see as much of him as you can. Well, I'm an old man now, and my dad was exactly right.

Mantle was on a tour publicizing some kind of hitting video and he would do one exclusive interview with an LA station at like exactly five pm on that night in December nineteen eighty five. And to get it you had to agree to give the video exactly one plug and ask him one question about it. But otherwise you could ask whatever you want. Un he had fifteen minutes. Then he was going out to dinner. Yeah, yeah, that

was it dinner. So Ron and I pulled up to the Beverly Wilshire in his car, and I had never been in, but I had walked past it a dozen times and I knew there was a new wing and an old wing. And as Ron tried to park, I tried to find the room where Mantle would be waiting for us, so I could be there to meet the camera crew that was joining us from some other shoot somewhere.

And also because he was Mickey Mantle. I had met him before, I had even interviewed him briefly for CNN, but nothing like this, nothing like a sit down interview, just me and him. The room number was something like eight ninety seven, could have been five ninety seven, could have been twelve ninety seven, but it was basically the highest number there could be on a given hotel floor. And I saw the elevator just pass the registration desk,

and up. I went to the eighth floor, and it was a deserted labyrinth, turn after turn, and nobody there. And then suddenly I turned a corner, and walking towards me was the most elegantly dressed older couple I had ever seen to that point or since. She was wearing a mink stole atop a beautiful gown, and she had a diamond necklace big enough to induce cramps. She had a piercing, glistening set of deep brown eyes. She looked to be in her mid to late fifties, but might

have been older. He was older, maybe eighty, but with a full head of thick and wiry hair. He was tall, thin, extraordinarily elegant in a perfect tuxedo. But all of this was overwhelmed, almost erased, by one fact that startles me still thirty seven years later. This man was wearing a cape. I'm pretty confident that I had never seen a man wearing a cape before, I know, I have not seen one since I have been looking. And yet it looked so good on him that I can recall briefly thinking, Keith,

maybe you should buy a cape. This couple was perfect. We seem to be the only people on the floor. The hallway wasn't all that wide. I said, good evening as I passed. She said good evening, and in so doing revealed a British accent, and he mumbled evening and revealed what sounded like the lingering minor aftermaths of a minor stroke. They walked their way, I walked mine, and my focus returned to finding Mickey Mantle in room eight

ninety seven. The numbers of the rooms I was passing were like eight eleven and eight fourteen, And after a few more turns of the labyrinth, that dawned on me that I must be in the old wing of the Beverly Wilshire, and the high numbers like eight ninety seven must have been in the new wing of the Beverly Wilshire.

I also noticed that I had not passed a doorway or a vestibule or some kind of connecting bridge to the new wing, so I had better make it back to the elevator and the lobby before Ron or the camera crew made the same mistake I had. Because Mickey Mantle was waiting my reversed course, I began to trot. After three or four more of these labyrinthine turns, I found, to my shock that the perfectly elegant older couple he was wearing a cape, was standing exactly where I had left them.

in the cape is my husband. He slowly extended a hand but shook mine vigorously. And I'm Joseph Carlton. Missus Carlton was very excited. I know Joe and I we really are not fans of the sports, but whenever we're at helme in Palm Springs. We make sure we stay up until the end of the ten o'clock news so we could watch you. Joe nodded and smiled in the cape. You know, so clearly enjoying yourself that we find ourselves enjoying it too. That's really quite remarkable. I was genuinely

touched and remain so I explained my dilemma. I treated them as you were supposed to treat viewers, gratefully and solicitously, and I asked them if they were going to the lobby, and if I might walk with them so I didn't get any further lost. We'd be delighted. I must ask you, mister fishman, who does the news on your program? Is that his real hair? She saw my shock at the question. Joe and I have often worn wigs, and we can't be certain. That means if it is a wig, it's

a good one. We reached the elevator bank and I pushed down. He was walking slowly. He must have had a stroke. Still, he was an imposing figure of a man, and not just because he was wearing a cape. As I steered them away from the subject of our anchorman's to pay and talked instead about my Mickey Mantle interview. I realized he looked extremely familiar, like I knew him. Joseph Carleton kept rolling the name over in my mind. And Patricia Carlton, who are they? The elevator light went

off and a very loud bell sounded. The doors opened, and there was my producer, Ron and the two man camera crew, and the reporter who had been with them on the previous story, Sam chu Lynn, who had stayed with him because he wanted to meet Mickey Mantle. And as I joked to my new friends Joe and Patricia Carlton, oh look, here's my camera crew, it's four members made no motion to even leave the elevator. They all looked dumb struck. Sam chu Lynn's eyes looked like they were

about to pop out of his head. I assumed this was because my new friend Joe was wearing a cape. Finally I got the crew to move. I held the door open so Joe and Patricia could get into the elevator. I actually said, such a pleasure to meet you, and of course, thank you so much for watching Channel five News at ten, and she smiled warmly, and he managed a quick wave and the doors closed, and only at that exact moment did it dawn on me where I knew him from the blood now drained from my face.

As I turned to talk to the camera crew and Ron and Sam, Uh, you guys knew who those two people were, right, Sam laughed at me. Of course I did, didn't you? And I sighed, oh my god. She said her name was Patricia Carleton and that was her husband, Joseph Carleton. And she said it that way because she's British, and that's how if you're British, you would say the name Cotton. She's Patricia Cotton and he's Joseph Cotton, who

was in Citizen Kane. I remember actually putting my hand on the wall, on my face in my other hand, I just met Joseph Cotton and I didn't recognize him. And the cameraman, Martin Klancy, who also often said things like this, said pretty stupid of you, huh? And I said, you know you have no idea how stupid. I mean, obviously I know who Joseph Cotton is. And Sam Chulin said, are you sure about that? I gave him a dirty look and I said, no, it's worse than this. In

nineteen forty eight. The president of the International Joseph Cotton Fan Club was my mother. There is a picture of that man with my mother from like thirty seven years ago at the Stork Club.

didn't recognize him. Mickey Mantle was busting my chops, as I said. I had met him before, even interviewed him before, but this was our first sit down and he was in a good mood, even expansive and playful, and at one point he stunned me. I said, I know you only have a couple of minutes left, So forgive me if I'm bringing up something that takes more than a couple of minutes. And he interrupted, and he said, take as much time as you need. I'm enjoying us talking.

So I asked him about this one subject, how he felt about what he did in his career, considering how injured he was. When he retired, Mickey Mantle was third all time in home he hit three hundred and ten times. He played in twelve World Series on one bad knee and one worse knee. Mantle got very reflective and self critical.

We use this SoundBite at the end of his obituary that I would do for ESPN a decade later if I'd known I was going to live so long, he told me, I would have taken better care of myself and done better. I said, well, he'd done pretty good. I could have done better.

And he laughed and he said no, and I showed it to him. I said, it's just a business card with like seven key words written on the back. If I think I might freeze up because I'm nervous because I'm interviewing Mickey Mantle, or I just met Joseph Cotton and I didn't recognize him, I make one of these cards. I hide it in the palm of my hand, and if I get stuck, I could just look down quickly and see one of the words and I've got the question.

I've got this card to remind me. Mickey Mantle's eyes glowed. But wait, he said, we're using these mics, and he pointed to the clip on on his shirt, so you don't have to hold mike. What do you do if you have to hold the mic like I'll have to in an interview after a ballgame, what if the card would fall out or you have to shake hands with the player. And I said, well, just write the words on your hand whichever hand is holding the mic, like below the thumb. Mickey Mantle looked at me as if

I had just given him the secret of eternal life. Wow, he said, that's great, I'm going to write this down. Thanks, and we were packed up, and he actually walked me to the hotel room door and gave me a double handed handshake. So it had been a big day, even if I didn't realize it was Joseph Cotton. Mickey Mantle had asked me for advice about anything. Somehow I had thought of something to tell him, and he was really happy about the advice, and of course this provided a punchline.

The following spring, we were in the studios at KTLA, watching on the satellite feed as the Yankees first cable telecast of the nineteen eighty six season ended, and sure enough they threw it down to Mickey Mantle on the field interviewing some player, and one of my producers said, oh, let's see if he remembers the lesson you gave him,

and another one said, here's your student, Mickey Mantle. And sure enough, after the first answer, Mickey Mantle pauses, and I know he can't remember what he wanted to ask that, And sure enough I see him cheat his look down slightly towards the hand holding the microphone. And the next thing I see he's kind of tilted the microphone sideways

and he's asking the question. But you can barely hear him because the mic is pointing off at a forty five degree angle, because he has written his key reminder words not below the thumb on the outside part of his hand, but on the palm side of his hand, and he's had to move the mic out of the way to read the words on the palm of his hand. And the producer says, ha ha, well, now Mickey Mantle hates you. It sounded like Carlton to me. Also, I've spent most of the last what now thirty nine years

wondering what happened to that cape. They'd like to have it framed on my wall somewhere. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thanks for listening. Ryan Ray and John Phillip shaneil the musical directors of Countdown Arrange produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration in keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. I don't believe they have warned capes. It was produced

by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust, who may have worn a cape. The sports music is the Oulderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. There are no capes Citty ESPN. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns allowed. My announcer was my friend Larry David. No cape, no fur.

Everything else was as ever my fault. That' for today, just fifteen hundred days until the scheduled end of the lame duck presidency of Trump scheduled. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always, boltins as the news warrants until next time, I'm Keith Aldremman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldreman is a production

of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.