Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. We
Speaker 1: need a Walter cronkit moment from the New York Times.
Speaker 1: The New York Times needs one day, one day soon,
Speaker 1: one day now, to devote the entirety of the front
Speaker 1: page to one headline and one editorial signed by the
Speaker 1: publisher Sealzburger, and the editor con and the key columnists,
Speaker 1: and the important correspondence headlined Trump Imperils Democracy, sub headlined
Speaker 1: your life at Stake and he is insane. I'll get
Speaker 1: to the trial and Michael Cohen and how they got
Speaker 1: what they needed from him, which was a headline in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post with the word calmly in it. But
Speaker 1: first we need a Walter Cronkite moment from the New
Speaker 1: York Times. And instead we get the backup, backup, backup, backup,
Speaker 1: election reporters, backup, trying to be witty as Trump crashes
Speaker 1: and burns intellectually, morally and phonetically, and as his whores
Speaker 1: like Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott try to erase the
Speaker 1: bright lines of democracy while they think we are not
Speaker 1: watching them, and as his jihadists try to sabotage the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election. The Times needs its Walter Cronkite
Speaker 1: moment too, like Cronkite shocking the nation out of much
Speaker 1: of its Vietnam delusion, Like Cronkite personally moving Watergate to
Speaker 1: the front burner, the Times needs its Cronkite moment to
Speaker 1: save itself. We need a Times Cronkite moment to just
Speaker 1: add to our dwindling chances of saving this democracy. Saturday,
Speaker 1: Jump went to a Philadelphia area seaside resort called Wildwood,
Speaker 1: drew maybe ten thousand cultists, eleven thousand lied and had
Speaker 1: the Republican mayor there lie and say it was eighty thousand.
Speaker 1: He talked, he complained, He complained that immigrant students don't
Speaker 1: speak English, and immediately afterwards he said something like Borden
Speaker 1: in Riviv. And he said something else like carried Daudite.
Speaker 1: By right, he claimed the president between Ford and Reagan
Speaker 1: was named Jimmy Conners. He said the Chinese were preparing
Speaker 1: to invade Beijing, which is their own capital. He insisted
Speaker 1: the entire country was grateful that he killed off Roe v. Wade.
Speaker 1: He thanked by name the Supreme Court justices who gutted
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade. He suddenly invoked the fictional Cannibal character
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter, seemed to praise Hannibal Lector, claimed the character
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter was dead and got the name of the
Speaker 1: movie wrong, and then insisted all immigrants are Hannibal Lecter.
Speaker 1: And all of that was after he was introduced by
Speaker 1: some immigrant who called him President Chump, and the New
Speaker 1: York Times story by a sixth stringer named Michael Gold
Speaker 1: mentioned none of that. This was what editor Joe CON's
Speaker 1: writer told consumers of the most influential news organization in America. Quote.
Speaker 1: After a long and often tense week in his criminal
Speaker 1: trial in Manhattan, Trump took part in a time honored
Speaker 1: ritual enjoyed by countless New Yorkers. In need of a break,
Speaker 1: he went to the shore. Oh how clever Michael Gold.
Speaker 1: The New York Times could save a lot of money
Speaker 1: by firing all of its political reporters and simply asking
Speaker 1: the fictional Twitter writer Doug J. Balloon of New York
Speaker 1: Times pitchpot fame to write all of its leads because
Speaker 1: they are now sounding exclusively like the Times pitch bot
Speaker 1: clunky attempts at wit that don't quite land. Trump has
Speaker 1: renounced his New York residence. He is thus not a
Speaker 1: New Yorker, Michael Gold. Wildwood is not a destination for
Speaker 1: New Yorkers anyway. It's for Philadelphians. And he is the
Speaker 1: greatest criminal in the nation's history. Michael Gold. He is
Speaker 1: not in need of a break. He is in need
Speaker 1: of a lifetime prison sentence. This occurred over a weekend
Speaker 1: in which three of Trump's most fierce, most dishonest, most
Speaker 1: anti democracy supporters in the Senate went on national television
Speaker 1: and said sure they would accept the outcome of the
Speaker 1: election so long as Trump won. The Times headline about
Speaker 1: that was Vance says he would accept the election results
Speaker 1: with a caveat, which sounds like he's wearing a tie
Speaker 1: with a caveat, a lovely floral caveat. Yet it was
Speaker 1: also a weekend in which a small newsroom called the
Speaker 1: Bucks County Beacon wrote about how Trump's sewer rats are
Speaker 1: openly subverting the election today, not twenty twenty, not twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, the one in November quote. The RNC and
Speaker 1: its allies have already sued in five states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Speaker 1: and Nevada, to challenge their voter roles, accuracy, and in
Speaker 1: turn voter's credentials. In Georgia, a republican bill empowering mass
Speaker 1: challenges of voter registrations was signed into law on May seventh.
Speaker 1: More importantly, the Beacon also reveals the existence of something
Speaker 1: on the right wing social media site Telegram called the
Speaker 1: Election Education Channel, which is encouraging and setting the stage
Speaker 1: four legal and extra judicial challenges to every single stage
Speaker 1: of every presidential vote count inconceivably every single precinct in
Speaker 1: this country. The kind of Sidney Powell Jenna ellis legal
Speaker 1: quicksand we saw after the twenty twenty election, only while
Speaker 1: the votes are still being counted, and immediately thereafter in
Speaker 1: every county in this country, to create chaos and genuine danger.
Speaker 1: The Times. The Times has reported none of that. It
Speaker 1: has instead let Maggie Haberman dismiss as hearsay Michael Cohen's
Speaker 1: first hand recounting of what Trump told him about not
Speaker 1: being on the market for long. If Milania dumped him,
Speaker 1: and if Haberman doesn't know the legal definition of here,
Speaker 1: say get rid of her. And The Times made room
Speaker 1: for an op ed bashing Joe Biden written by Mark
Speaker 1: Penn a dishonest right wing polster who has been posing
Speaker 1: as a Democrat for at least twenty years, and it
Speaker 1: made room for a report on the upcoming attempts to
Speaker 1: sabotage the election by the Republicans. No, a radio shock
Speaker 1: jock named Charlemagne the God, a reactionary who does nothing
Speaker 1: but take sides, and they pronounced he is someone The
Speaker 1: Times fell for it quote who won't take sides? We
Speaker 1: need a Walter Cronkite moment out of the New York Times.
Speaker 1: If the reference eludes you, First of all, congratulations on
Speaker 1: your youth. Then to explain briefly for all of the
Speaker 1: almost biblical invocations of his supposed impartiality and the use
Speaker 1: of the name Walter Cronkite as a substitute for complete
Speaker 1: impartiality in reporting. The three biggest moments in the career
Speaker 1: of the great CBS newsman were when he barely stopped
Speaker 1: himself from crying while reporting the assassination of President Kennedy.
Speaker 1: When he burst through the constraints of his job as
Speaker 1: the anchor of the CBS Evening News to present fully
Speaker 1: formed but fully opinionated commentaries, first on Vietnam and then
Speaker 1: four years later on Watergate. In February of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam, and he spent a week
Speaker 1: there talking to people on the record and off, and
Speaker 1: he went back to his desk, and on February twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, he delivered an extraordinary closing editorial after
Speaker 1: a long report on our status in Vietnam. His editorial
Speaker 1: began with, we have been too often disappointed by the
Speaker 1: optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington
Speaker 1: to have faith any longer in the silver linings they
Speaker 1: find in the darkest clouds. His commentary ended with it
Speaker 1: is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational
Speaker 1: way out then will be to negotiate not as victors,
Speaker 1: but as an honorable people who lived up to their
Speaker 1: pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.
Speaker 1: President Lyndon Johnson was not watching Walter Cronkite live that night,
Speaker 1: but Bob Scheffer insists Johnson told him he did see clips,
Speaker 1: and Schaeffer and Bill Moyers insist the President did then
Speaker 1: say something like if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America,
Speaker 1: and Johnson soon after then announced he was not going
Speaker 1: to run for reelection in October nineteen seventy two. Cronkite
Speaker 1: may have topped himself at a time when only the
Speaker 1: Washington Post was giving Nixon's Watergate scandal daily coverage. Yes,
Speaker 1: the New York Times was largely asleep at the switch
Speaker 1: then too. At that point, Walter Cronkite devoted roughly half
Speaker 1: of the editorial content time of two editions of the
Speaker 1: CBS Evening News just to the one story to Watergate,
Speaker 1: fourteen minutes out of what was basically a twenty two
Speaker 1: minute newscast on Friday, October twenty seventh, and what was
Speaker 1: cut down to eight minutes due to the rets of
Speaker 1: the Nixon administration and the pleas of Walter Cronkite's terrified bosses.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, October thirty first, Walter Cronkite did not f around.
Speaker 1: We need that out of the New York Times, and
Speaker 1: we need it now. And if the Times does not
Speaker 1: have a Walter Cronkite moment in it, they need to
Speaker 1: get everybody out of their building and then implode that building,
Speaker 1: because the Times is simply now mocking the idea of
Speaker 1: responsible American journalism and Also, I know that area. I
Speaker 1: used to work a block away at sixth and fortieth.
Speaker 1: The City of New York could really use that lot
Speaker 1: for parking. And no, I'm not expecting a Walter Cronkite
Speaker 1: moment from the New York Times. The New York Times
Speaker 1: does not make mistakes, let alone correct them. Don't you
Speaker 1: know that, By the way, if you missed it as
Speaker 1: the Times did, what follows is a mashup of Trump's
Speaker 1: now constant indecipherability and Trump on President Jimmy Connors, and
Speaker 1: Trump on the late Great Hannibal Lecter, and then Trump
Speaker 1: walking away from the microphones yesterday when an astute reporter
Speaker 1: at the trial asked him, Hannibal Lecter, we'll play this
Speaker 1: and then we'll go to court. President Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump, We're going to evict this man, the worst president
Speaker 2: by far.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Connors is Jimmy. Jimmy Connors is good.
Speaker 3: He's also happy.
Speaker 1: Jimmy is a very happy man, both of them. And
Speaker 1: they don't speak English.
Speaker 2: They're sitting in chairs listening to a teacher talking English
Speaker 2: and they don't speak English.
Speaker 1: And it won't mean Biden's burden if silence of the
Speaker 1: lamb has anyone ever seen.
Speaker 2: A silence of the lync the late Great Hannibal Elector.
Speaker 1: He is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a
Speaker 1: friend for dinner. Remember the last saying, excuse me, I'm
Speaker 1: about to have a friend for dinner. Is this poor
Speaker 1: doctor walked by? I'm about to have a friend for dinner.
Speaker 2: But Hannibal Elector, congratulations, the late Great Hannibal Lector.
Speaker 1: No reason to put any of that madness in the times.
Speaker 1: What I'd have to leave out the Jersey Shore references.
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen calmly describes Trump's hush money instructions, reads the
Speaker 1: headline in the Washington Post today. The sub headline quotes, Trump,
Speaker 1: just do it. That's what the prosecution needed out of Cohen,
Speaker 1: and it needs it again out of him today and
Speaker 1: especially whenever the cross examination begins. It needs him making
Speaker 1: more self abnegating jokes about angry even for me. It
Speaker 1: needs him testifying, as he did yesterday, that he was
Speaker 1: there in Trump Tower days before Trump was sworn in
Speaker 1: as President of the United States, with Alan Weiselberg reviewing
Speaker 1: a handwritten document with Trump to repay Cohen for the
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels hush money and how they would hide it
Speaker 1: amid legal fees, and testimony that Trump said smart individuals
Speaker 1: had told him Trump to pay the one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars to Stormy Daniels, and that Trump told
Speaker 1: him he knew if the Daniels story got out it
Speaker 1: would be a disaster for the campaign that it needs
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen producing one outstandingly sleazy quote from Trump per
Speaker 1: day on the stand, like he did yesterday about the
Speaker 1: time Cohen asked Trump about the impact on his wife,
Speaker 1: Milania if the story got out, and Trump said, don't worry.
Speaker 1: How long do you think I'll be on the market for?
Speaker 3: Not long?
Speaker 1: That's the quote Haberman of The Times falsely dismissed as hearsay,
Speaker 1: and the quote that underscores all of us who have
Speaker 1: viewed the latest of the many Trump quote marriages unquote
Speaker 1: as exactly what Trump clearly viewed it as a contract
Speaker 1: negotiated with terms dictated by the market. How long do
Speaker 1: you think I'll be on the market for? And all
Speaker 1: of it that Cohen testified to and testifies to today
Speaker 1: and in the cross examination accompanied by receipts, metaphorical receipts
Speaker 1: and literal ones. Trial notes in passing. Trump wanted some
Speaker 1: distinguished Republicans to show up and show solidarity, but he
Speaker 1: could only get Tommy Tuberville, JD. Vance and Nicole Mally
Speaker 1: attackus OH and Brenna Bird. Brenna Bird is the Attorney
Speaker 1: General of Iowa who was there in court, who should
Speaker 1: be disbarred, because whatever you think of this case or
Speaker 1: this defendant, you cannot be the head of criminal enforcement
Speaker 1: in any state and show up in court to kiss
Speaker 1: the ass of a defendant in another state. It is disqualifying.
Speaker 1: Senators Vance and Tuberville do not have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: They have long since disqualified themselves. They caught Trump sleeping
Speaker 1: again in court, and somebody finally aptly compared this to
Speaker 1: his alertness during the Egene Carroll trial. Vance stayed only
Speaker 1: for the morning session yesterday, and then he and Tubberville
Speaker 1: blew town and Vance, violating court rules, evidently was tweeting
Speaker 1: from his phone in the courtroom. I saw a media
Speaker 1: report a few days ago. He wrote that Trump looked
Speaker 1: like he was falling asleep or board or something. The
Speaker 1: obvious narrative they're trying to sell is, yeah, Biden is
Speaker 1: mentally unfit. But this other guy's bad too. It's an
Speaker 1: absurd narrative. I'm thirty nine years old and I've been
Speaker 1: here for twenty six minutes and I'm about to fall asleep. Unquote.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Sonny, but how does your failed mental health
Speaker 1: help Trump. It's like saying I'm jd Vance and I
Speaker 1: have multiple chins. That shows that Trump is in the
Speaker 1: best possible health. This scumbag Tubberville meanwhile went out to
Speaker 1: a propaganda conference with the media and said that the
Speaker 1: people in the court were quote, supposedly American citizens. Supposedly
Speaker 1: American citizens. He segued right from that into an insult
Speaker 1: towards the district attorney, and of course what he was
Speaker 1: saying was now, well, that was code for, hey, this
Speaker 1: Alvin bradguy is black. Today, Vivek Ramaswami will be there
Speaker 1: with Trump if Ramaswami can get his hair done in time.
Speaker 1: And ABC News reports that Junior Trump has gone to
Speaker 1: visit Peter Navarro in federal prison, and I look at
Speaker 1: it this way, good practice for Junior for once Dad
Speaker 1: goes there. Last point, the nice thing about this nightmare
Speaker 1: is that Trump and his defense team and his cultists
Speaker 1: and his Republican supporters have so little to work with
Speaker 1: that they always telegraph their response because generally speaking, they
Speaker 1: can only find one response per crisis. And the response
Speaker 1: to Michael Cohen is he's a liar. He lied, He's
Speaker 1: a convicted liar. The jury can't trust a liar. America
Speaker 1: can't trust a liar. Leave a side. That liar might
Speaker 1: as well be Trump's actual middle name. But say this
Speaker 1: long enough to Cohen and they expect him to blow
Speaker 1: up in the witness box. Say this long enough to
Speaker 1: the fascists and they'll forget that Cohen was convicted of
Speaker 1: lying on Trump's behalf. Say this long enough, and maybe
Speaker 1: we'll all forget that. If we disqualified everybody who has
Speaker 1: ever lied for Donald Trump, we had to wipe out
Speaker 1: about ninety nine percent of the Republican Party, wouldn't we Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you hear it or not, but
Speaker 1: I've got a lovely sinus infection working and the voice
Speaker 1: is beginning to go, and I needed about an hour
Speaker 1: to record this opening segment. So I'm going to go
Speaker 1: lie down in a moment and hope for the best.
Speaker 1: But before that happens, yesterday, a DVD literally fell off
Speaker 1: a shelf, and I swear it was of the outtakes
Speaker 1: from one of my favorites from the old This is
Speaker 1: Sports Center commercials, and I'm going to play you the
Speaker 1: audio from it and tell you the backstory of how
Speaker 1: we re created the scene from Animal House when John
Speaker 1: Belushi grabs the guitar out of the folk singer's hands
Speaker 1: and smashes the guitar against a wall. Only an our
Speaker 1: vision of it. The folk singer was the then soccer
Speaker 1: star now soccer commentator Alexei Lalas, and an our vision
Speaker 1: of it. The John Belushi part was played by me.
Speaker 1: That's next. This is Countdown, El Kabong. This is Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Oberman. Just to hit on this editiontive countdown,
Speaker 1: the Alexi Lalas guitar smashing, This is Sports Center commercial
Speaker 1: and the outtakes I just found after thirty years. First
Speaker 1: Dogs in Knee, You can help. Every dog has its day.
Speaker 1: Big Day today. In the effort to try to stop
Speaker 1: shelters from killing healthy, adoptable dogs in California, my friend
Speaker 1: Elaine Boosler, actress, comedian, singer, recently arrested at Dodger Stadium
Speaker 1: for trying to use her ticket to get into the game.
Speaker 1: She will be lobbying in the Capitol in Sacramento alongside
Speaker 1: the sponsors of a bill, the Shelter Transparency Bill AB
Speaker 1: two two sixty five. The goal is to get California
Speaker 1: Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks to advance that bill out
Speaker 1: of committee. The bill would increase the chances of dogs
Speaker 1: in shelters to be saved rather than killed, and it
Speaker 1: would also save shelters millions of dollars in expenses what
Speaker 1: they now spend heartbreakingly to kill adoptable animals and dispose
Speaker 1: of their bodies. Elaine Boosler is on social media with
Speaker 1: how you can help with emails or phone calls, and
Speaker 1: she says she will post video and good news or
Speaker 1: I'll handcuff myself to the state Capitol. It's my thing
Speaker 1: now unquote. So look for Elaine Boosler's accounts bs ler
Speaker 1: and help support the California Shelter Transparency Bill. Elaine, thanks you,
Speaker 1: and I thank you now things I promised not to tell.
Speaker 1: And it was nineteen ninety four and they just had
Speaker 1: the first Soccer World Cup ever held in the United
Speaker 1: States and Alexei Lalas was the folk hero of the
Speaker 1: plucky American team, and we put them in a This
Speaker 1: is Sports Center commercial. And there's a long, great story
Speaker 1: to this. I will tell you in a moment, but
Speaker 1: first listen to what I've found. It is a DVD
Speaker 1: with the out take. Now, I didn't do this twice.
Speaker 1: It's two separate angles of it. I might add. In
Speaker 1: the second angle, when I hit the guitar against the wall,
Speaker 1: the fret of the thing flew directly into the lens
Speaker 1: of the backup camera that was on the floor. I
Speaker 1: couldn't do that again in a billion years. Please enjoy.
Speaker 1: If you don't recognize me, I'm the one grunting. It's okay.
Speaker 2: I still love you, man. It's okay, I still love
Speaker 2: you man.
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety four Soccer World Cup did not really
Speaker 1: do that much for American soccer, which, as you know,
Speaker 1: is the sport of the future in this country and
Speaker 1: always will be. But it did make a lot of
Speaker 1: Americans into fans of European soccer clubs, especially the British ones.
Speaker 1: But for a while, Alexi Lalas, with his shoulder length,
Speaker 1: reddish blonde hair and billy goat beard and anti establishment
Speaker 1: vibe was on the front burner of American sports, and
Speaker 1: he made quite a nice career out of it as
Speaker 1: a commentator on soccer on TV. But back then, naturally, ESPN,
Speaker 1: launching its surrealist fake documentary commercial series, wanted him to
Speaker 1: be in it, and sure enough he came to Bristol
Speaker 1: and Hank Perlman devised a bit in which Gary Miller,
Speaker 1: our anchor who was himself a soccer immortal for his
Speaker 1: soccer breakdown which I've played to you, you know, John, Luca, Palyuka,
Speaker 1: the Mother, etc. Gary would be sitting at a desk
Speaker 1: in the sports Center newsroom, as atop the adjoining desk,
Speaker 1: Alexi Lalas sat cross legged in sunglasses, osifizing on relaxation
Speaker 1: and finally playing on his guitar. Michael Rowe the boat ashore.
Speaker 1: At that point the commercial turned into one of the
Speaker 1: classic scenes from John Belushi's film Animal House. Another sportscaster
Speaker 1: was to storm into the newsroom, pull the guitar out
Speaker 1: of Alexei Lalas's hands and smash it against a cubicle
Speaker 1: wall and emit a loud primal grunt as he did so,
Speaker 1: and then hand Lalas back whatever was left of the guitar,
Speaker 1: and like Belushi in the movie, say sorry, Well, Hank
Speaker 1: had a sportscaster in mind for that role, and guess
Speaker 1: who it was me? So picture that in your mind
Speaker 1: as I play what it sounded like. And then I
Speaker 1: have what I think is a really good backstory to
Speaker 1: the filming of this. This is SportsCenter SportsCenter commercial, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you all afternoon.
Speaker 3: About the darkness, Michael, for time's sake, the word sorry
Speaker 3: didn't make it.
Speaker 1: So the backstory and it's out of chronological order. The
Speaker 1: guitar that Alexei Lawis was playing was not the one
Speaker 1: I smashed. There was an exact duplicate that had been bought.
Speaker 1: It had been taken apart, it had been sawed, and
Speaker 1: basically it was put back together with scotch tape. It
Speaker 1: would hold together long enough for him to scrum a
Speaker 1: few sour notes on it, and then for me to
Speaker 1: grab it and smash it. They were confident it would
Speaker 1: not fly apart until I hit the cubicle wall with it,
Speaker 1: but they still told me to simply grab it, not
Speaker 1: yanked out of his hands, or I might be left
Speaker 1: holding the neck of the guitar. And Alexey holding the
Speaker 1: rest of it. It was especially problematic because we only
Speaker 1: had the one prop guitar. That's right, We made the
Speaker 1: business end of that commercial in one take. This is
Speaker 1: SportsCenter campaign not only freakly achieved something approaching genius levels
Speaker 1: of originality and creativity, but they were all done cheaper
Speaker 1: than local news promos. In Burlington, Vermont in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: we often shot three of these commercials in one day,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until the second series of ads did
Speaker 1: the SportsCenter anchors who start in one or two or
Speaker 1: three even get credit for a day off. In one
Speaker 1: of them, Charlie Sneiner is trying to get his tape
Speaker 1: of highlights back from the Harlem Globetrotters who are passing
Speaker 1: it around like a basketball, and he says, can he
Speaker 1: have a little help? Then I'm typing away at my
Speaker 1: computer and I say, sure, Charlie, and I don't even
Speaker 1: look at him, let alone stop typing, let alone give
Speaker 1: him any help. And that's done because the commercial was
Speaker 1: shot in the area right behind my desk, because nobody
Speaker 1: was working there that day except me, and it was
Speaker 1: around five PM, and I was, in fact sitting at
Speaker 1: my desk writing the eleven PM Sports Center script, and
Speaker 1: the original commercial script did not call for me to
Speaker 1: even be in Charlie's commercial. But on the fly the
Speaker 1: writer said, hey, Keith, can you give us one line?
Speaker 1: And I said, as long as I can keep writing,
Speaker 1: and they said perfect. By the way, Charlie did the
Speaker 1: commercial around five o'clock or so and then went and
Speaker 1: anchored the six thirty PM Sports Center. The spot we
Speaker 1: did where hockey legend Gordy Howe beats me up while
Speaker 1: I am trying to read through a script also shot
Speaker 1: at my desk, also on a day I was anchoring
Speaker 1: the show, and that was my real script. Anyway, back
Speaker 1: to alex A. Lallis and the guitar, so we only
Speaker 1: had the one prop guitar, and so we only had
Speaker 1: the one take, and we were shooting it in the
Speaker 1: actual Sports Center newsroom of course, in fact, they were
Speaker 1: remodeling the real newsroom to accommodate the launch of the
Speaker 1: new ESPN News network, so this was the temporary, even
Speaker 1: more crowded than usual newsroom. So the cameraman and the
Speaker 1: producer and the writer and I walked through how they
Speaker 1: thought it would work best since I would have to
Speaker 1: weave past people who were really doing their jobs and
Speaker 1: going to other desks and talking to people and stuff.
Speaker 1: They had two cameras in the little hallway that constituted
Speaker 1: the temporary newsroom's northern border, and they put a third,
Speaker 1: smaller camera on the floor where they guessed that a
Speaker 1: piece of the guitar might land after I smashed it.
Speaker 1: See if you can get the fret or something to
Speaker 1: go here, The producer said, that would make a great shot.
Speaker 1: I asked him how in the hell I was supposed
Speaker 1: to do that since we couldn't even practice the smash,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, honestly, I don't know. Telepathy. Maybe
Speaker 1: that was the other salient part of the backstory, since
Speaker 1: we only had the one take and we wouldn't need
Speaker 1: to be doing a dry run because they didn't want
Speaker 1: the guitar to fall apart in my hands. I would
Speaker 1: say less than half the people crowded into the temporary
Speaker 1: newsroom had any idea that when I came in, i
Speaker 1: was in the commercial let alone, that I was going
Speaker 1: to actually and loudly destroy a guitar by smashing it
Speaker 1: against a low cubicle wall, even if the guitar has
Speaker 1: been pre broken and taped back together as that one was.
Speaker 1: It is still going to make a lot of noise. Wait,
Speaker 1: I said to my friend Hank, who wrote it. You're
Speaker 1: not warning anybody, are you, you little devil. Hank got
Speaker 1: a gleeful, evil glazed look in his eyes. No, isn't
Speaker 1: that great. So they filmed the closeups of Gary, and
Speaker 1: they filmed the closeups of Alexi, and then they set
Speaker 1: me up to enter from a vestibule through two swinging
Speaker 1: doors with windows in them, which was along the periphery
Speaker 1: of the temporary newsroom. Then a right turn, and then
Speaker 1: about no, No, No, fifteen twenty feet to where Alexei and
Speaker 1: Gary were still sitting. My target for exactly where I
Speaker 1: should hit the guitar was clearly marked on the cubicle wall,
Speaker 1: and they even put marks on the carpet of where
Speaker 1: a couple of the practice walks had shown would give
Speaker 1: me the best chance at a solid stance. When I
Speaker 1: swung the guitar and sent it el kabonging to its doom,
Speaker 1: and nobody ever said quiet or roll or here we go.
Speaker 1: They told people in the room that they were just
Speaker 1: shooting some cover angles on Gary and Alexi, and people
Speaker 1: could say or move whatever and wherever they wanted to,
Speaker 1: just so long they didn't get away the cameras. Then
Speaker 1: they just tapped the desks for Alexa and Gary to start,
Speaker 1: and the producer waved to me and in I went,
Speaker 1: trying to channel John Belushi when he takes the guitar
Speaker 1: away from Stephen Bishop on the stairs of the Front
Speaker 1: House and Animal House. I furrowed my brow and I
Speaker 1: tried to fake some venom towards Alexei Lalas. I found
Speaker 1: the emotion as I came through the doors. I kept
Speaker 1: thinking that since I had been eight years old, I
Speaker 1: had heard people call soccer the sport of the future
Speaker 1: here and I was now thirty seven, and I was
Speaker 1: damn tired of hearing it. Lalas was scrumming on the
Speaker 1: nearly prop guitar. It made a sick sound. I took
Speaker 1: my strides, I hit the marks. I grabbed the guitar
Speaker 1: by the neck with my right hand and simultaneously Alexey
Speaker 1: let go, and then with both hands, I swung the
Speaker 1: guitar back over my head and smashed it right on
Speaker 1: the mark. As you heard Michael.
Speaker 3: Show.
Speaker 1: The SportsCenter newsroom promptly went silent for several seconds. The
Speaker 1: reaction was identical to what it would have been had
Speaker 1: there been no commercial being made and no cameras present,
Speaker 1: and I had just walked in and destroyed somebody's guitar,
Speaker 1: which I guess a lot of people expect that I
Speaker 1: might do someday, because even a lot of the people
Speaker 1: who were surprised were not surprised surprised. Craig Wax, the
Speaker 1: skinny research guy, can be seen in the finished commercial,
Speaker 1: which is on YouTube, for a second far left, just
Speaker 1: staring at me like, yeah, well, we always knew Keys
Speaker 1: would do something like that. After I'd destroyed the guitar,
Speaker 1: and I have to say, I did it really well.
Speaker 1: I kept moving for the plan until I walked back
Speaker 1: through the swinging doors and out of shot. The director
Speaker 1: shouted cut. I walked back in, and the crew gave
Speaker 1: me a round of applause, and a couple of them
Speaker 1: were cheering out of all proportion. Even if I had
Speaker 1: done is good of a job, as I thought, come here,
Speaker 1: come here. The cameraman kept saying, come here. That extra
Speaker 1: camera on the floor. They backed the videotape up from it,
Speaker 1: and they showed it to me. When I smashed the guitar,
Speaker 1: the fretboard, the actual wood and metal piece on the
Speaker 1: neck flew off and not only landed near the third
Speaker 1: camera's lens, it hit it on the fly and it
Speaker 1: stuck there. They were as happy as if they were
Speaker 1: engineers imploding a building for the first time and it
Speaker 1: had fallen exactly as they had hoped. Plus, they showed
Speaker 1: me the playback from the first camera, and there was
Speaker 1: an assignment desk editor with her back to the action
Speaker 1: on the phone, completely unaware of what was happening or
Speaker 1: even that they were rolling film and videotape, and she
Speaker 1: literally jumped several inches out of her seat of her chair.
Speaker 1: But to me, the best part of this thing is
Speaker 1: Gary Miller. Even if you know a loud noise is coming,
Speaker 1: it is quite the effort to not flinch a little
Speaker 1: when it happens basically right over your shoulder. I mean,
Speaker 1: ask the little kid in the movie North By Northwest
Speaker 1: where Iva Marie Saint shoots Carrie Grant and he sticks
Speaker 1: his fingers in his ears because it's take thirty seven
Speaker 1: and he knows the noise is coming. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: aware of it just for the possibility that somebody will
Speaker 1: screw it up like me, and debris will fly into
Speaker 1: the back of your head. But if you watch Gary
Speaker 1: Miller in this Sports Center commercial, he doesn't even blink,
Speaker 1: just a little deadpan head jerk. It's perfect. What also
Speaker 1: amazes me is that we got all this done in
Speaker 1: twenty four seconds of running time. Alexei goes on about negativity.
Speaker 1: I have to do something about it. He plays enough
Speaker 1: of the song that you recognize it. You got a
Speaker 1: shot at cheerleaders incongruously in the middle of the background.
Speaker 1: I appear from nowhere, move over there, smash the guitar
Speaker 1: while roaring spectacularly. I give him back the neck of
Speaker 1: the thing. The only thing missing is that shot from
Speaker 1: the fret bar flying into camera three. They explained they
Speaker 1: didn't have the extra two seconds scene. I remember enjoying
Speaker 1: doing this so much that I asked them for the
Speaker 1: front of the body of the guitar, and I had
Speaker 1: Alexi sign it to me on the spot. It hung
Speaker 1: framed in my various offices for about fifteen years. In
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, I was leaving the recording of Stephen Colbert's
Speaker 1: final episode for Comedy Central. I was one of one
Speaker 1: hundred guests, and I went out onto the street to
Speaker 1: find a cab home and I got one, and in
Speaker 1: getting into it a near he ran into Alexei Lalas,
Speaker 1: who was one of the other one hundred guests. I laughed,
Speaker 1: He laughed, and he said, and I don't even have
Speaker 1: my guitar with me. And one last note, I doubt
Speaker 1: this will be of any practical use to you, But
Speaker 1: I must say, as somebody who was accorded this rare privilege,
Speaker 1: not only of doing this, but of doing this with impunity,
Speaker 1: and doing this to applause. If you are trying to
Speaker 1: health an event, any frustrations or anger in your life,
Speaker 1: smashing a guitar against a workplace cubicle wall is exactly
Speaker 1: as satisfying as you would expect it would be.
Speaker 2: Okay, I still love you, man.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John
Speaker 1: Phillips Chanel arranged, produced and performed most of our music.
Speaker 1: Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums,
Speaker 1: and mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards. It
Speaker 1: was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of
Speaker 1: the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by no horns allowed.
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our
Speaker 1: satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
Speaker 1: best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my
Speaker 1: friend Howard Fineman, and everything else was pretty much my fault.
Speaker 1: Let's countdown for this the one hundred and seventy sixth
Speaker 1: day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty fifth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first
Speaker 1: attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Speaker 1: Use the legal system such as it is, Use the
Speaker 1: mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens, use
Speaker 1: the not regularly given elector objection option. Use the campaign
Speaker 1: to stop him from doing it again while we still can.
Speaker 1: The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Again, I'm going to
Speaker 1: label that as probable game time decision till the next one.
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple pots,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.