NYC SHOOTING SUGGESTS NEW ERA OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE - 12.9.24

for political violence in the United States. I don't mean Brian Thompson was shot because he was a Republican or a Democrat, or a MAGA or a liberal. I mean I think we have reached a point where many people in this country think that voting and government and the law are meaningless and they have no other means of

influencing the culture without violence. I also don't want to leave the impression that I am somehow in favor of people shooting visitors here in fun City and then escaping along one of the routes on which I walk my dogs. I am just saying that something that started now more correctly, something that resumed no later than two thousand and eight something that was not satiated by Trump's fake populism, nor

anti woke, nor any of that crap. Something is now boiling over, as it has so many times in our American past. Caveat. We still don't know who shot him, never mind why this could be somebody else's husband for all we know. If so, then my point here is a little less relevant that I'm suggesting. But if you had to guess, you would say he was murdered by somebody who was not happy with something to do within

show currants. And of course you have to guess, because New York's eleven billion dollar paramilitarized police force needed two days to find the shooter's backpack where he stashed it a fourteen minute walk from the shooting, full of Monopoly money, and it took them three days to announce the manhunt was being extended to New Jersey and Connecticut, even though the guy went all the way uptown and was on a bus for New Jersey before they finished cleaning up

the crime scene. And by now he could have closed on his own house in Uruguay. Monopoly money. Somebody heard that and said, he's just playing with the cops now, And I answered, no, these are New York cops. The cops are playing with themselves three days to extend the search, possibly because it took NYPD at least a day to figure out where in New York this Central Park place was.

But back to my point, A historian named John Grinspan noted that in the half century starting with Lincoln's assassination, we had three presidents killed by guns. We had another ex president running to regain the office also shot. We had one impeachment, and two elections won by the loser of the popular vote. Anarchism, often violent terrorism, exploded, and after that half century ended. On September sixteenth, nineteen twenty, a horse drawn wagon parked across the street from the

headquarters of JP Morgan on Wall Street. It blew up. It sent shards of shrapnel into the crowds. Thirty killed immediately, ten later, hundreds of injuries never solved, probably anarchists. When I was a kid, President Kennedy was assassinated by a man whose bio, if you read it one way, paints him as a pro Russian leftist, and if you read it the other way, paints him as a virtual John Bircher. When I was eleven, the radical Weather Underground staged a

series of bombings. In the worst of them, they managed to blow up their own bomb making house on West eleventh Street, and they killed three of their own members. In nineteen sixty eight, an American assassinated Martin Luther King, and four years later another tried to assassinate the racist George Wallace after the shooter had given up trying to shoot Nixon. Lord knows if we will ever figure out why a Trump supporter shot at Trump last summer, but

he did. But the point is, throughout our history this country, we have sunk into stages in which political violence has had almost nothing directly to do with political parties or alignments, just a sense that political action by anybody in any direction no longer sufficed. You got a grievance, you throw a bomb. The most startling thing is that anybody is startled by the general reaction to the killing of the

insurance guy. I don't think anybody has done any polling on this, and I'm almost afraid to suggest it because I have a sinking feeling the number of those who approved of it, or didn't care or had no opinion that that number would exceed those who condemned the killing.

We have long since reached that point, I'm sure. Just to ratchet this up a little bit, all my embittered New Yorker sarcasm aside, it is now evident that one of the drawbacks to having fifty million conspiracy theories and how to shoot videos and assassination fantasies active online and in every entertainment venue, from video games to YouTube to musicals, the disadvantage to that is that the mayhem makers are getting better at it and the authorities are getting worse.

They could spend fifty billion a year on cops here every year, and you're not going to be able to protect every corporate fat cat that somebody hates. And as to the Secret Service, after the late eight years of near disasters with Trump and Biden alike, I think we all know what the secret is. The secret is the Secret Service is not very good at this. Fasten your

seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night. And as if on Q after the phrase it's going to be a bumpy night, here's Trump on NBC back from I don't know where where he goes to get stupider and crazier.

should be jailed threat by proxy. This is how the New York Times lied about what Trump said on NBC Where Things Stand. President elect Donald J. Trump said an interview with NBC's Meet the Press that aired on Sunday that he would not direct his administration to seek retribution against his political enemies, though he made clear he would like to see them punished. There continued to be a few scattered reporters alive and well and doing great work

within the New York Times. But as an institution, I now have to double check everything I read in the New York Times. It is sliding inexorably down towards being on a par with the Epoch Times, or worse still, the Los Angeles Times. In the same interview, Kristen Welker actually pushed back on some She asked Trump if he'd now try to unify the country by admitting he lost in twenty twenty and he said, why would I do that? And she said, because you lost, And he said, that's

your opinion. So you know where this world is headed, and where it's headed is towards President. Nathan Thrm Nathan Therm, Marty Short's priceless old SNL character who answered questions with deflections like I'm not being defensive. You should be defensive with that hairdoo, and is it him or is it me? It's him right now, eventually doing nothing but equivocating and waffling and plausibly denying, you know, saying nothing but stuff you can deny later or insist you got it right,

depending on how it actually turns out. Keep doing that and eventually you will trip yourself up. And Trump did it. He again insisted he can overrule birthright citizenship by executive order, and again said he will deport undocumented immigrants. And then, and almost nobody noticed this, he undercut all of that by actually suggesting Canada and Mexico should become states. No, in our country, the United States of America co starring Mexico and Canada.

other state of the Union. I hope somebody has told MAGA about Trump's new Mexico solution. Make it a state. That would mean there'd be two senators from Mexico. And let's calculate this together. New York twenty million people, twenty six congressmen and women, Mexico one hundred and thirty million people, and the rate is thirteen congressman per ten million residents. That it'd be Mexico gets one one hundred and sixty

nine congressional seats. Headline, Trump proposes giving Mexico one one hundred and sixty nine seats in the US House of Representatives. And we haven't even talked about those fifty three Canadian congressman. Oh, by the way, Trump continued to screwed up his own transition, and thank you for that, Pal. They still think they'll get Pete Hegseth confirmed, and that's debatable. The team trying to push his drunk ass over the finish line, says they have not found three no votes among all those

Republican senators. But the money quote about this is from Jony Ernst of Iowa, who was asked if even after a frank and thorough conversation with Heggy, she's not ready to vote yes because of the little alcoholism and sexual misconduct allegation stuff, and Senator Ernst replied, I think you are right, and then she gave the money quote. The vetting will continue, I am certain through the next month

or so until we approach that hearing date. Sounds like they've given up on the idea of the recess appointment and they're going to go for a hearing. But oh my god, another month of this, Another month of how drunk is Pete Hegseth today? Another month of Pete Hegseth saying well, if I'm named Secretary of Defense, I'll stop drinking. Oh my god, another month of this. Thank you. This

isn't Brett Kavanaugh. With Trump in charge of the FBI and able to stop further revelations before they happen, heg Seth is a tire fire, and Trump keeps buying him new white walls. Oh a nice typo President Moron Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more so than the fake news. What have you believe? He was a great student military state of mind. He will be a fantastic, high energy Secretary of Defense Defense,

one who leads to the Secretary of Defense Defense. Cheez, Trump. I mean, you do not have to actually translate your brain freezes into the written word. Just proofread these things once. Still, they might actually get him confirmed. Politico interviewed trumpest haacked Mike Davis, and I have to admire Mike Davis's willingness to explain how their side blackmails people before they actually

do the blackmailing in this case. Quote. In an interview with Playbook, Davis went further, threatening to hire private investigators to sift through the backgrounds of any potential senate GOP holdouts. The Article three project is very excited about this new standard that drinking and womanizing is disqualifying for public office. Davis tells Playbook, I'm very happy to hire investigators for senators and use that standard. Sure, because that works so

well with Matt Gates. Wait, no, it didn't work at all. Didn't work at all anyway, Please blackmail away, mister Davis. The more Republican damage against other Republicans the better. Meanwhile, big to do the other night. Rachel Campos Duffy, co host with the Secretary of Defense Designate, writes, so much fun at the Patriot Awards where at Donald Trump won the Patriot of the Year and topped off the night dancing YMCA to the crowd's delight. And there's a picture

of Judge Janine Pirot upright the punchline. Punchline is the producer of the Fox Nation Patriot Awards, where Trump surprisingly won Patriot of the Year. The producer of that is Pete Hegseeth's wife. Breaking news for both Trump and Tulsy Gabbard. Assad overthrown in Syria after an uprising that lasted well, lasted just a little longer than New York City bike insurance. Assassin was at large now granted asylum in Moscow by Putin.

So if you want to plan ahead, Trump and Gabbard remember Gabbard on this topic August eleventh, twenty sixteen, when it was still Twitter. It's time to end the illegal, counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad vote Tulsey eight eleven sixteen. Meanwhile, back on the Hill, off the record quote from the insider website The Hill about Tulsy Gabbard from what The Hill identifies as a Senate

Republican aid. The quote from the Senate Republican aid in the Hill quote behind closed doors, people think she might be compromised. Like it's not hyperbole. There are members of our conference who think she's a Russian asset. Unquote The Hill anonymous quote about Tulsy Gabbard. I mean about one hundred former senior US diplomats and intel and n set folk have urged the Senate that if Gabbard lasts to a Senate hearing on her nomination to be DNI, that

the hearings be closed door. Their plea includes the assertion that her past actions quote call into question her ability to deliver unbiased intelligence briefings to the President, Congress, and to the entire National security apparatus. Before a sad fell John Bolton said, if he did, Syrian government files on some Americans in the hands of the rebels could prove interesting,

you bet. And lastly, there is what must be described as nothing less than right wing panic about Biden preemptive pardons. Biden preemptive pardons. It is as if to them there was no previous understanding that anybody besides Trump could do what Trump has done. The idea that Mark Millie and Christopher ray Fauci everybody else might get whatever you did

or didn't do pardons is astonishing to them. The main questions on the right seem to be, well, we can just overrule it, right, and that can't be legal, But it's an admission of guilt. While they cheer on Trump's plan to pardon the January sixth domestic terrorists and don't worry about that admission of guilt. And I repeat what I have said before, I want ten million pardons. Ford and Nixon started this, Trump escalated it, Republicans built it.

This is the America you fascists wanted. This is the America you get. Hell, I'm going to increase my demands. Not only should President Biden preemptively pardon every elected Democrat of the last twenty years and every Trump critic and every media person, even Chris Salizza, but I think the president should now preemptively pardon every immigrant living in this country documented or not. No matter what, you don't like

that idea, mega you broke it, you bought it. Also of interest here in an all new edition of Countdown, and forgive me if I stumbled over a few words here and again the eye is still bob me. Well still come. Everybody gets a pardon, except Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzynski, who are back on the worst Person's list because they're worms. And I've even got a brand new

things I promised not to tell. We're getting to meet one of my favorite reporters turns into not meeting one of the greatest film directors of all time who was sitting behind me, and the reporter didn't tell me until after the director had left. Jesus H. Christ. Seriously, that's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith Olberman still ahead.

We will end on a lighter note. How my lunch with one of the best legal reporters in the country ended with him asking me if I'd noticed that the guy sitting behind me was America's greatest filmmaker who I always wanted to meet but still have not because I did not notice this, And the related story of how one of his rivals for that title, wound up paying somebody I knew something like a million dollars for the football TV play by play playing in the background in

just one scene from Godfather Part two, a rather intricate return in an all new episode of Countdown of a brand new things I promised not to tell first, believe it or not. Never mind the high and lighter notes, there's still new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimen who constitute today's other worst persons in the world Lebrons

worst Governor Jared Polis of Colorado Democrat. First he sucked up to Robert F. I'm not wearing pants Kennedy Junior. Then Polus went after President Biden for pardoning his own son. Now, having not given us enough reason to kick his term limited ass out of the Democratic Party, Polus is back to sucking up to RFK Junior. I truly believe that

RFK is not beholden to big Pharma. I think he's an independent voice, and I think he's somebody who means what he says when he cares about reducing chronic disease through better nutrition I might add Governor Polis that there'll be less chronic disease if more people die in childhood, because what Kennedy is doing will kill kids, and you're helping. By the way, Governor Polis is a libertarian. Libertarian means

you are free, free from intelligence. The runner up worser, one time Trump favorite and Florida Magas Starr and would be congressperson Laura No, my face has always looked like this. I haven't had any work done recently. What do you mean, I went to the college where they trained them, Loomer, She's how do I put this? She's not smart breaking, she posted on Twitter X for those of you who don't go there anymore, anti Trump. Democrat Congressman Representative Adam Schiff.

Adam Schiff, who is the top client of Judge Mershawn's daughter, just resigned from Congress so we can get an early start on running for the US Senate in California. Here's his resignation letter, effective December eighth. He's going to try to help the Democrats reclaim the Senate so they can impeach President Trump and help the Senate Dems obstruck President blah blah blah, blahlah blah BLA. Laura Lumer, who believes she is a force in politics, does not know B

that the Senate does not impeach. The House which she ran for impeaches. But more importantly, A, she has no idea that Adam Schiff resigned from Congress so he can assume his seat in the Senate because he was already elected senator from California in November. It was in all the papers, Laura, This, of course, presumes you can read. I'd like to introduce Laura Lumer to Governor Polis. I have a sense they'd have a lot to talk about.

But our winners, speaking of which, Jeff Bezos and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzhinsky, Scarborough doubling down on collaborating with the incoming fascist regime. At a New York Times breakfast for Billionaire or whatever it was, or short billionaires, whatever it was, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Bezos, as it was put in Oliver Darcy's newsletter. Asked by Sorkin about Trump's menacing rhetoric towards the news media, Bezos only replied that he would quote try to talk him out of that

idea that the press is the enemy. Earlier, Bezos said he was very proud of the decision that The Washington Post declined to make an endorsement in the High Stakes twenty twenty four race. Yes, I'm very proud that the paper I own and everybody there is my employee, and I would have fired them if they didn't do what I told them to do. Did what I told them to do. What a little weasel, this Amazon bastard turns

out to be. Going back to Oliver Darcy, Bezos rejected the notion that his decision to block his editorial boards planned endorsement of Kamala Harris created more distrust, saying he doesn't follow that logic. He claimed it was far from cowardly because we knew there would be the blowback in the form of a quarter million subscription cancelations. Let's dry that at Amazon Prime. As to Scarborough and missus Scarborough, whose great contribution to that program is to go. This

is also, I believe from the Darcy column. Fresh off their visit to Marri Lago, the host of Morning Joe last Wednesday rebuked guest David Frumm, who is still nominally a Republican, for a remark he made about Pete Hegseth's alleged drinking issues at Fox. There was an NBC report you will recall that Hegsith would show up to work with alcohol on his breath work at Fox. Frum said on MSNBC on Morning Day, if you're too drunk for

Fox News, you're very, very drunk. Indeed, in the same program, Missus Joe said Frum's remark was inappropriate, quoting the comment was a little too flip for this moment that we're in. She's referring, of course, to the moment in which she betrayed her audience and America by trying to sidling up to Trump again for the second time in eight years, after trying to decidle in between and trying to make money off pretending to be anti Trump. We just want

to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that's a good debate that we should have often. But right now, I just want to say there's a lot of good people that work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we want to leave it at that. You heard them bashing their own guests their own regular guests, a Republican on his own network, bashing his own network for a joke about HEG Sith that

actually understates the reality of the Hegseth situation. And moreover, the comments about Fox News, a sympathetic statement about Fixox News. Rashinsky and Scarborough are also collaborating with Fox News. This gives rise to the thought that has been sometimes right front of mind at MSNBC and elsewhere, dating back to at least two thousand and two, that Joey scars was really just auditioning for a job at Fox I mean

track his career. Sudden resignations still unexplained from Congress right after he was re elected, hired on by MSNBC's Phil Griffin as a sop to his own bosses, who threatened to fire Phil if he didn't find a fascist to put on the air. They put Joe Scarborough on a nighttime show called Scarborough Country, in which all Joe did was threatened Democrats and liberals and try to undermine everybody

else who worked at his own network. As things evolved and the network became successful by doing fewer shows like Scarborough, he was kept on as a counterbalance to me. On at least one occasion, he went in and told his bosses that, having violated a rule against criticizing other MSNBC he hosts in non MSNBC venues, if you did that,

you were to be suspended. He told Griffin and Me that if they suspended him for criticizing me, he would go public with it and say he had been suspended because he was a conservative and I was a liberal, and I and not Phil Griffin ran the network. This is quoting Phil Griffin quoting Joe Scarborough. So in any event, after I left, they kept him on as a sort

of middle of the road coffee clotch host. Then he became in twenty fifteen and sixteen an unofficial advisor to Donald Trump and a frequent host of Donald Trump and a sane washer before the term existed of Donald Trump. Then when Trump did not pick him to be vice president or offer him a job in his cabinet, he became anti Trump and called him hitler. I think he was probably still in the top one hundred people in media to call him hitler, lower them than me, but

he still did it. And then, of course he has now become a turncoat who actually traveled secretly to Mary Lago to beg for Trump's forgiveness and an interview. He then doubled down by having his useless wife apologized to Fox and criticizing the host favorite guest, David From the network's favorite sort of Republican guest, David From, for making a really good joke about how if you're too drunk

for Fox, you're really really drunk. It was a good joke and I applaud David From for it, And right now Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzhinsky are the symbols of a new network msnvsh Bezos, Scarborough, Virshinski, Marshall Tatan would be proud. Two days other worst War said he finally on the theory that we should close with something optimistic, because God knows, there isn't very much optimistic going on

at the moment, despite the holiday season. In things I promised not to tell, which is a total misnomer because I didn't promise anybody I wouldn't tell this, I had the pleasure on Thursday of having lunch with Ellie miss Stal, who I have mentioned before quoted many times about his extraordinarily good coverage of the Supreme Court, and I don't think it's a secret since he posted about it in social media and I posted about it. And I left this lunch thinking, why does this man not have his

own TV news show. I don't know if that's a compliment or a curse. In any event, we talked about the news and the dire situations we all face right now, but we also talked about our lives and histories, and I got talking about Lost Angelus and having worked there and having known somebody who worked for Coppola on the Godfather films. And then at the end of this lunch, he says to me, did you notice who was sitting

behind you in the adjoining booth? And I said no, I was talking to you, and he said, Martin Scorsese. And I said, you could have mentioned that. He said, well, how am I supposed to say to you Martin Scorsese's sitting behind you. When Martin Scorsese is sitting behind you, I said, text me, write me a note. I would love to have met him. I've never met him. I never met Coppola. I met lots of people, and I don't have any complaints about the number of people I

have met. Those Eh, those are probably it. I guess I would like to meet Robert de Niro, who was a great fan of the old TV show, And there are a couple of other people here and there, But you know, as I like to say, I met Jim Thorpe's Olympic roommate from nineteen twelve, and I was apparently a regular thing to watch on TV for the great

actor Joseph Cotton from Citizen Kane. And my friend Norman Lloyd, who lived to be one hundred and six, had worked with Wells and basically everybody between Wells and Amy Schumer in the industry, in the film industry, so I don't have any complaints about that, but it all brought me back to this story of talking about how I happened, by one remove to have known Coppola, or at least somebody I knew knew Coppla. And I've been meaning to

tell this story for a while. Ellie and I talked about my tenure in Los Angeles as a sportscaster, the first one I had two nineteen eighty five to nineteen ninety two, and one of my two or three jobs there was at KNX Radio, the all news station then in a heated rivalry with the other all news station which later went out of business, KFWB. But I worked at KNX, and it was an extraordinary place, perhaps journalistically as as good as anywhere else I've ever worked, probably

a little bit better. And the history there literally was on the walls. KNX had been in Los Angeles and been in that studio on Sunset Boulevard, Columbia's Square. They called it so long that the television studio in which I eventually worked used to be Jack Benny's live studio for his network radio show in the nineteen forties. And our makeup artist, Billy, once explained to me he had

been working in the building since the early forties. And I said, Billy, they didn't have television in this building. CBS didn't have a television station in Los Angeles till something like nineteen fifty one. He said, yeah, I used to work makeup in radio, And I said, how in the hell did that work? He goes, you don't know, you're too young. Something I don't hear much anymore. He said,

you're too young. Everybody used to The performers used to not only dress up in formal attire, often in tuxedos, at least in suits, but there was a live audience. The orientation for a radio show in nineteen forty eight, even as television began to come in, was not, oh, this is the easier version of television. We don't even have to wear any clothes, let alone a tucks. We can just get away with whatever we're wearing on the street. In those days, they dressed up and they had a

studio audience. The theory was essentially it was Broadway, only it was recorded it. It was even tenser than Broadway. People would hear this again. You had to give an even better presentation of yourself than you would if you were live somewhere in the theater. Your only advantage was, of course, if you screwed it up, they could do it over again, because there were transcriptions and recording, even

before there was audio tape. So Jack Benny, my friend Billy, used to make Jack Benny up so that the audience would see only the youngish looking Jack Benny, who of course always claimed to be thirty nine years old. The story I wanted to tell came from not that floor of the Columbia Square building, the television floor, as it were,

but the radio floor CANX Radio in LA. And it sort of circumnavigates back to Martin Scorsese and how I did not meet him on Thursday when I met Ellie Mestap because Ellie didn't say, that's Martin Scorsese sitting behind you, like you know. Okay, Here's how I knew Coppola by one remove. When they called me, and I'm referring today as the people at KNX Radio, which was an excellent all news radio station and still is. They suggested that I could come over there if I had time in

the afternoons. Since my job consisted at that point at Channel five in Los Angeles of only doing the sports on the ten o'clock news at night, I had a lot of time to prepare. Usually get into the TV station around three in the afternoon, and they said, would you like to split our afternoon radio sports updates here on KNX. We already have somebody doing them, but he wants to cut back a little and we like to

cut him back a little bit. And I went Tom Kelly and he said, this was roger Na Delby, assistant news director of the station, telling me this. He said, yes, you know him. I said, well, yeah, he's kind of well known even outside LA. So a few months after I got to Los Angeles and started on Channel five here, I was in the afternoons splitting the shift with Tom Kelly, who was legendary, and I would say there were many reasons he was legendaries, an excellent play by play man.

He had been a local sportscaster and had a similar arrangement that they were making for me on Channel eleven. He did the weeknight sports news on Channel eleven in LA. Just as I got there, they demoted him from that and he didn't do much television thereafter. But he was also in the afternoon drives slot at KNX, and he

did play by play of USC football and basketball. Chick Hearn, the legendary voice of the Los Angeles Lakers, actually was in LA before the Lakers moved to LA and did all the USC games, basketball and I think for years football, and he later did other sports. He did soccer play by play on television if you can imagine such a thing, and he did a bowling for dollars kind of show. He did lots of things before the Lakers, even though

he's remembered only for the Lakers. When the Lakers came to town, they wanted their guy, and it was Chick Hern and they hired him away essentially from USC and Tom Kelly got the job and became synonymous with USC sports on KNX on television for probably twenty years, to the point where he told me, and my impression of Tom Kelly, I can't really give it the full value. There are some who are who are born loud, some

who achieve loudness, some have loudness thrust upon them. I'm way louder as a broadcaster than I was the day I started in nineteen seventy five. And then there are those who are all three. Tom Kelly had a voice on him like you weren't actually hearing him over your radio. He was simply seeping through your walls. This was a problem in a newsroom where as we were ahead of the curve there at can X, we had already adopted computers, and they'd had them before I got there, but they

were in full use by nineteen eighty five. I don't think there was a typewriter left in the place downstairs. The television station used typewriters well into nineteen eighty nine. In any event, so you'd be sitting there was a fairly quiet environment, and the phone would ring and you'd hear this Kelly speaking, and Tom would conduct a conversation like that, only not as forced sounded, but with that

kind of volume. And I did move my mouth away from the mic, so you didn't hear that in full flower. But Tom Kelly was really loud, like this, like a PA system at a local Metropolitan Railroad station near you, only louder. So we used to joke about, how you know, Tom, it probably save you a little strain on your voice if you use a microphone instead. In any event, I like Tom. Tom was, I guess grudgingly okay with me

taking some money out of his pocket. But he explained that he had and would have until he died, a steady scream stream of income, noticed the Freudian slipped there about him screaming absolutely apt. Tom said he'd have this

steady stream of income until the day he died. Because one day after the success of Godfather, the movie produced by Francis Ford Coppola, he got a call directly from Francis Ford Coppola saying that he was a big usc fan and he used to listen to K and X in the afternoons, and the people used to listen to

K and X. It's how I met Vin Scully. He was a regular listener of mine before I had the courage to screw up the whatever it was that required I required before I introduced myself to Vin Scully and he said, I listened to you every afternoon. I thought I'd done something to offend you. We had extraordinary audiences.

And of course, as I said, the station had been on the air in various guyses as a talk station, as a comedy station, as a rock and roll station since the thirties, and as the home for Jack Benny, so it had a cachet in Los Angeles that was just tremendous. Los Angeles was an underrated broadcasting town with

people who had been on the air in television. As I always tell the story of my late friend Stan Chambers, that he was there the day KTLA Channel five signed on in nineteen forty seven, went through every job in the place, including news director, and eventually before he retired, he was working alongside his own grandson, who is still

a reporter and an excellent one in this business. Based in San Diego, Jamie Stan was there at KTLA for like one hundred and forty four years, and he was going out on stories at ten o'clock at night every night the week he retired. So there were long lived, longevity kind of guys, and they became very familiar to the audience. So the phone ringing in the kN X newsroom sometimes in I guess the early eighties, maybe the late seventies. I forget my timing on the making of

the second Godfather film, I guess still late seventies. But the phone rings and Kelly answers it sports like that, and then he says, nice to talk to you, mister Coppola. What can I do for you? And what mister Copplo wanted was he wanted Tom Kelly to research, produce, and record and hand him a tape of the play by play of the USC Notre Dame football game from I

guess nineteen sixty one two. I looked this up once, and of course, advancing in my own age and not really being able to see anything at the moment, as alluded to earlier, I don't remember what I found. I think it was nineteen sixty two. What he wanted was like half an hour's worth of play by play, actual literal play by play of that football game, so that the actor Lee Strasberg playing Hyman Roth could be watching it in his home outside Miami when Michael Corleone comes

and visits him. And I might add that the actor who played Michael Corleoni, who was not Robert de Niro, who was the other one, used to live in the same building I did, and I used to see him all the time, and he was about three feet tall, and he had a dog who was about six feet tall. So I already met him, and I never met Robert DeNiro. So he wanted Corleone to have this meeting with Hyman Roth. Francis Ford Coppola, did I have too many hymns in this statement? He wanted him to have the game on

in the background. But one of the things that makes and few people recognize this, my father did, and he was the first one to point it out to me. And I find, to my great surprise to this day, fifty years later, nearly after the success of the Godfather films, that many people don't recognize this as one of the great, great, understated but important components to the spectacular nature and the genuineness,

the resilience, the very similitude of the Godfather films. Coppola thought that the more background details that he got that were historically accurate to the day he was pretending to take you to, whether you knew anything about the historical record of that date or not, the more that he got exactly right, the better the film would be. My father pointed this out to me not long after he bought the first VCR I had ever seen. This is in nineteen seventy seven. It costs two thousand dollars apiece,

and the blank tapes were twenty dollars. Bootleg versions of popular films were one hundred dollars. Real versions of videos of films were two hundred dollars. The Godfather was two hundred dollars. Porn was two hundred dollars. Bad movies were two hundred dollars. Needless to say, they didn't sell a lot of movies. But my dad got a bootleg version of The Godfather Part two and he called me in one day as he was watching it out in our living room. I guess I was home from Cornell. It

was the winter break. I remember it being very cold, and my dad had frozen. It had paused the video of Godfather Part two, in which de Niro is standing there on the street in New York in nineteen oh four, whenever it is nineteen oh six, just before he kills the mafia leader and makes begins his assent to running the families of New York. And my dad says, you got to see this. I spent time in the public library here in Hastings the other day to check this out.

I had a feeling this was true, and it's true. Do you see the window of the grocery store behind him in this tight shot? What do you see in the window? I said, it looks like a poster for a fight, an advertisement for a boxing match at Madison Square Garden. Not an uncommon sight in nineteen oh four, or in my own youth or in years thereafter here in New York. And there it was somebody, kid, somebody

versus somebody junior. All the boxers of the days were either John L. Sullivan Junior or kid John L. Sullivan. That was the joke. It was, you know, kid Sullivan versus Sullivan Junior for the championship of the Sullivan Division. Referee John M. Sullivan in any event. My dad said, I went and looked this up. That fight actually happened on that date at Madison Square Garden. That is the kind of detail this man brings to these films. That's

why they're so good. Because you may never notice that you are actually seeing sort of time to time travel here, but the story seems legit because the background to it is legit. He said, I don't know if that helps you in what you're doing in your career, but maybe you should think about that, and I said I will, and I still am. So this was why Francis Ford Koppola called my colleague Tom Kelly one day at KNX and said, would you do this for me? I want

you to research it. I know there's no videotape of the game. I know there's no copy unless you have one audio tape of the game, but I will give you fifty thousand dollars to go and research. However. You can research it in the newspapers at the USC Sports Information Office, however you could research it. I want you to go and research it and produce for me a real to reel tape with half an hour of this game as you would have called it. And Kelly goes, I can do that, not a problem. Excuse me. I

can do that, not a problem, he said. But I don't. I don't need the cash. Is there any way you could give me one millionth of a point of the film or something joking like that, And Coppola says, frankly, this job is worth more like one hundred thousand dollars, but I don't have it, not for something like this.

They won't let me spend the money. If you can clear this where I wind up paying you five hundred dollars in cash and it shows on the books that I paid you five hundred dollars in cash, I will give you zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one percent of the profits of this film, a microscopic number estimated to be worth maybe maybe long term,

one hundred thousand dollars Godfather Part two. And Kelly, who had been in Los Angeles long enough and had done enough part time gigs in television and full time gigs in television and cameos in movies and TV series to know exactly how much zero point zero zero zero zero one percent of the profits of a film or TV series might be and what it would be at minimum said, Okay,

when do you need it? Kelly said, he took a couple of days off, went into the library of the Sports Information Office and the Athletic department at usc where he obviously had entree as the play by play man for both football and basketball, and he wrote down every detail he could and went into a studio and recorded it. He may have even recorded it at KNX, and everybody just said, what is Kelly doing in there? Well, listen carefully.

We can hear him coming through the soundproof windows as you can hear him at home doing this whatever he's doing. And he said he went to Koppola's office and handed him that tape, and Coppola listened to a couple of minutes and said, this is exactly what I need. Here's your five hundred dollars sign here. You now have zero points zero zero, zero one percent or whatever it was of the profits of Godfather too for doing this for me and keeping it off the books and helping me

with my idea. It partners and producers in the studio and everybody else who would never understand why I need that play by play of that game in the background that nobody will notice. It will only be full volume for maybe five seconds in the whole film, but it's got to be there, so Strasbourg and Pacino can can be in that space and it helps the actors too. And Kelly goes well to himself and he told me

this later, I don't care if this guy's nuts. I just got zero point zero zero zero zero one percent of the profits of the sequel to The Godfather. And so what Tom Kelly was explaining to me where he didn't really care how much he worked, that it was nice to work. He liked to work. It was his job and it was his calling, and he enjoyed it, and he liked the hours, and he didn't mind not

being on television and the radio. Work would take care of nearly all of his expenses, but his main income was that zero point zero zero zero one percent of

all profits from The Godfather. Because he even now, and it would have been five ten years later after Godfather Part two came out, he said that he had never had a year so far that with the advent of VHS tapes being available and of course the rebroadcasts on television and cable and things like that, that weren't really definable in nineteen seventy eight, or whenever he signed this

deal and made this tape of this football game. Between all of those sources of income, to say nothing of the theatrical re releases of the film, and the time that Koppla cut it all together again to make it chronologically sequential and issued it again and made more hundreds of millions of dollars. Tom Kelly said that having agreed to take five hundred dollars in cash and the rest and a promise, he had never made less than one hundred thousand dollars a year from thirty minutes of recording

and two days worth of work on a subject. He was already an expert. For one hundred thousand dollars a year, That's what I'm remembering at It may have been more, it may have been a little less, but I remember it was in six figures. Good God. That was his source of income. He said, it's my retirement fund, and

I don't even have to retire. So I always wanted to tell that story, and I was reminded of it because not Coppola, who I haven't met, but Scorsese, who I haven't met, was sitting next to me, and no, he was not sitting next to de Niro, and that somehow is my story of my lunch with Ellie Mestaal just wanted to cheer things up a little bit, given the fact that it's my neighborhood in which the guy got shot, signaling the start of a new era of

the key word in American politics being duck. Anyway, I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Let me see if I can read this. I'm now reminded of a Genesis video Land of Illusion maybe which they have puppets, British puppets, and there's a British puppet of Bob Hope and he's reading his catchphrase I gotta tell you off Q cards only. His vision is so bad that every Q card has one word on it, and one word only. I feel like I

need that for these scripts. I'm reading off a piece of paper that's got like two hundred and sixty four point type. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, I know by heart that they're the musical directors. Have Countdown. They arranged, produced and performed most of our music, and mister Shanelle was on orchestration and keyboards mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums. The producer is credited as Tko Brothers, which was something Brian suggested once. That's him

and Shaneil and me. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music was arranged and performed by the group Noah Horns Allowed and continuing the musical theme. My announcer was my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything else was as ever my fault. My excuse is I can't really read. Still,

I'm fine. Full checkup of the eyes later in the week. The dogs are fine. In fact, three of them have joined me in producing this show. Kit is sitting here in front of me, Stevie is here, Ted is here. Rose is outside because she's a contrarian. In fact, I think she's watching Godfather Part two at the moment. This part about the football game is really good. One hundred thousand dollars a year forever, it's probably more now anyway.

That's countdown for today, just one thousand. This I have to read five hundred and four days until the scheduled end of the lame duck presidency of the very lame Trump. Probably the next scheduled countdown will be Thursday. As always, bulletins as the news warrants, and my eyeballs permit, till next time, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. I did want to add something here if you're still listening. The moment, this is how well

trained and knowledgeable and smart my dogs are. The moment I said good luck, just there, Stevie, who had been reclining gracefully in front of me, stood up like, oh good are we going to eat now? Because good luck he's finished. These are smart dogs. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.