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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Because

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Speaker 1: of the danger, because of the threats, because of his

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Speaker 1: mental illnesses, because of his terrorism, because of the hate

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Speaker 1: he has enabled and validated in this country, we sometimes

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Speaker 1: forget that at his core, elderly first offender J Trump

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Speaker 1: is a moron. The headline from his first return to

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Speaker 1: the scene of the coup crime on January sixth was

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Speaker 1: quoting Punchbawl News, Trump to House Republicans, Milwaukee, where we

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Speaker 1: are having our convention is a horrible city. More on

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Speaker 1: Trump's extraordinary self inflicted cluster f momentarily. But there was

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Speaker 1: actually something bigger at those meetings in Washington, or at

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Speaker 1: least there was supposed to be. Trump and Speaker Mike

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Speaker 1: Johnson are cooking up a plot to somehow nullify Trump's

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Speaker 1: thirty four convictions in the Stormy Daniels election interference case.

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Speaker 1: What Trump intended to talk to them about, and who

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Speaker 1: knows if he remembered, and who knows if the whole

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Speaker 1: Milwaukee stuff and the Hannibal Lecter stuff and the rest

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Speaker 1: of it was just a smoke screen to provide cover

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Speaker 1: for this weight. I'm giving Trump way too much credit

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Speaker 1: aren I. What Trump intended to talk to the House

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Speaker 1: Republicans about was summarized by a May thirty first phone

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Speaker 1: call reported by Politico. It took place hours after his

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Speaker 1: conviction here in New York, in which he screamed and

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Speaker 1: swore F bombs and S bombs and MF bombs into

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Speaker 1: the phone that quote, we have to overturn this unquote

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Speaker 1: At the other end, little mister holier than thou himself,

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Speaker 1: the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, if that is

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Speaker 1: your real name, and Johnson agreed with Trump, we have

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Speaker 1: to overturn this. House Republicans are developing a series of

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Speaker 1: schemes to somehow have the legislative branch retroactively overrule the

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Speaker 1: judicial branch. Whatever the actual plan turns out to be,

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Speaker 1: it will translate as somehow making Trump's conviction illegal and

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Speaker 1: erasing it whatever they have in mind. That was what

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Speaker 1: the Washington meeting yesterday was supposed to be about. Trump

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Speaker 1: cannot be guilty because to be guilty is to be wrong,

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Speaker 1: and Trump cannot accept that he is wrong. He cannot

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Speaker 1: ever accept that he cannot function. If he tried to

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Speaker 1: accept that the back of his head would blow off.

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Speaker 1: There is no constitutional way to quote overturn this, none

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Speaker 1: if the rest of the Constitution does not prevent such

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Speaker 1: a thing. Article one, section nine makes it illegal to

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Speaker 1: make a federal law that is ex post facto, that

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Speaker 1: makes something retroactively illegal. Article one, section ten makes it

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Speaker 1: illegal to make such a state law retroactive. That's not

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Speaker 1: stopping them political reports. Johnson and Trump have spoken repeatedly

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Speaker 1: since May thirty first about we have to overturn this,

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Speaker 1: and Johnson is trying. Not only did holding the attorney

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Speaker 1: general and contempt of Congress barely pass on Wednesday, but

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Speaker 1: a bill to allow presidents charged at the state level

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Speaker 1: to move their cases to federal court is still in

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Speaker 1: committee after fifteen months. And anyway, it could not be retroactive.

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Speaker 1: And even if it theoretically applied to the Georgia prosecution,

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Speaker 1: guess what, it would not pass the Senate and it

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Speaker 1: would not avoid a presidential veto. Oh, and it's un constitutional.

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Speaker 1: A defunding of the special prosecutor is still being proposed,

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Speaker 1: as if the DOJ couldn't get around that, and as

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Speaker 1: if the special prosecutor in Washington has anything to do

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Speaker 1: with the state case in New York, all of which

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Speaker 1: would ordinarily be reassuring. They are tilting at windmills, except

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Speaker 1: for the implications. For now, the implications are mostly a

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Speaker 1: mental image of Trump and Johnson pinioned to a butterfly

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Speaker 1: display arms and legs flailing in mid air, touching nothing.

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Speaker 1: But the implications for a Trump Napoleonic return to power, well,

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Speaker 1: those are far more ominous. If Trump is elected for

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Speaker 1: Congress or the White House or somebody to overturn Trump's conviction,

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Speaker 1: even then, his conviction in a state court, his conviction

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Speaker 1: from last may to do that, they would have to

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Speaker 1: overturn the Constitution. But of course they'd never try that.

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Speaker 1: So now the fun stuff again. Punch Bowl News quote

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Speaker 1: Trump to House Republicans, Milwaukee, where we are having our convention,

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Speaker 1: is a horrible city, CNN. The former president called Milwaukee

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Speaker 1: quote horrible. New York Times. Trump repeatedly disparaged the city

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Speaker 1: of Milwaukee. Wisconsin Congress and Glenn Groffman, who was in

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Speaker 1: the room. He was concerned about the election in Milwaukee.

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Speaker 1: Groffman is wrong, says Wisconsin congresson Derrek van Orden, the

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Speaker 1: one with the brain problem. Trump was specifically referring to

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Speaker 1: the crime the crime rate in Milwaukee. You're both wrong,

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Speaker 1: says Wisconsin congress and Bryan's Style. I was in the room, Trump,

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Speaker 1: Tump did not say this. No, Wisconsin Congressman Brian's Style,

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Speaker 1: you're wrong, he did say it, says Wisconsin Congressman Brian Style.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't talking about the city. He was talking about

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Speaker 1: specific issues in the city that Republican congressmen. Brian's style

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Speaker 1: is a liar, says Brian Style. By the way, his

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Speaker 1: name is spelled steel, as in stop the steel, stop

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Speaker 1: the style. Three Wisconsin congressmen, four different stories, none of

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Speaker 1: which successfully cover up what Trump said about Milwaukee. And Trump, well,

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Speaker 1: he held another news conference, the kind where you don't

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Speaker 1: take questions, so it's not really a news conference, is it?

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Speaker 1: The kind where you simply blink so fast and so

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Speaker 1: uncontrollably that it looks like you're sending Morse code. And

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Speaker 1: Trump made it easy to figure out what he really

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Speaker 1: told House Republicans. He said America is a bad democracy.

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Speaker 1: He said the world scorns us. He said America is

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Speaker 1: not special. So he trashed Milwaukee while trashing the rest

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Speaker 1: of us.

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Speaker 2: Right now, it's not special. Right now, it's being scorned

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Speaker 2: and being used as an example of when they look

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Speaker 2: at the crime on the streets, when they look at

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Speaker 2: all of the problems that we have, they're using us

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Speaker 2: as a bad example of democracy, and they're getting away

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Speaker 2: with murder, and we're not going to let it happens.

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Speaker 1: Back to the Milwaukee part Milwaukee, where Trump's fascist Republicans

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Speaker 1: begin their convention a month from tomorrow, even if he

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Speaker 1: is unavoidably detained at Rikers Island at the time. Milwaukee's mayor,

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Speaker 1: Cavalier Johnson, responded by metaphorically kicking Trump in his tiny

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Speaker 1: little cavalier Donald Trump, let's talk about things that he

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Speaker 1: thinks are horrible. All of us live through his presidency.

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Speaker 1: So right back at you, buddy. Good work, Mayor Johnson. Now,

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Speaker 1: please can't until the Republican Convention's permits. Seems like a

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Speaker 1: simple solution. It is very possible that Trump crapping over

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Speaker 1: Milwaukee was not the worst thing he said, and not

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Speaker 1: the most insane thing he said, and not the most

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Speaker 1: self damaging thing he said yesterday. Also from a source

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Speaker 1: in the room to punch bowl from Trump to House Republicans,

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Speaker 1: close to exact quote, Nancy Pelosi's daughter is a wacko.

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Speaker 1: Her daughter told me, if things were different, Nancy and

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Speaker 1: I would be perfect together. There's an age difference, though, Well,

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Speaker 1: he's right about that. There is an age difference. Pelosi

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Speaker 1: is eighty four, and Trump has begun to act like,

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Speaker 1: you know how old he is. He's two hundred and six.

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Speaker 1: Christine Pelosi, one of the Pelosi daughters, says, none of

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Speaker 1: this is true. Nobody said this to him, Nobody's talked

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Speaker 1: to him. I'm shocked. I'm shocked he had another hallucination,

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Speaker 1: or he's lying about it, or he had a hallucination

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Speaker 1: and is lying about it. I'm shocked, I tells you.

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Speaker 1: But cutting through this, what did Trump actually just tell

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Speaker 1: us here? Nancy Pelosi's daughter is a wacko. Her daughter

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Speaker 1: told me, if things were different, Nancy and I would

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Speaker 1: be perfect together. What he tells us he wants to

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Speaker 1: sleep with Nancy Pelosi, that he wants to make her

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Speaker 1: the fourth Missus, elderly first defender Jay Trump? What is

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Speaker 1: the message? Why was that message delivered to Washington Republican leaders? Sir,

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Speaker 1: this is a Senate. Also on a dryer topic, a

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Speaker 1: series of reporters advise that Trump is now obsessed with

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Speaker 1: tariffs on imported goods, all imported goods, and that he

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Speaker 1: told Republicans in Washington yesterday at at least one of

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Speaker 1: those meetings, that he wants so many tariffs that they

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Speaker 1: could then discontinue all income taxes. Apart from the fact

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Speaker 1: that that would turbocharge inflation, it would shift the tariff

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Speaker 1: or tax burden to low income Americans. The economist Paul

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Speaker 1: Krugman calculates that in order to bring to the Treasury

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Speaker 1: the equivalent of what it now gets from income taxes,

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Speaker 1: the average tariff would be the average would be one

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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty three percent, So like a four dollars

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Speaker 1: Swiss toboler owned bar would cost nine dollars and thirty

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Speaker 1: two cents. Could Trump's return to the scene of his

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Speaker 1: coup crime have gone any worse yesterday? You bet. Trump's

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Speaker 1: bizarre remark I played about how bad our democracy is,

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Speaker 1: how other countries point to us as an example of

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Speaker 1: bad democracy, his almost daily insistence that the Democrats are

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Speaker 1: the threat to democracy, but He's not a threat to democracy.

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Speaker 1: Clearly he did not get the memo. San Ansdannie O'Sullivan

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Speaker 1: reported at the exact hour Trump was in with the

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Speaker 1: House hostages that the Republican Party is trying to de

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Speaker 1: emphasize the word democracy and to try to start getting

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Speaker 1: people to call this country not a democracy but a republic. Now,

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Speaker 1: this started years ago as an actual kind of philosophical debate,

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Speaker 1: with of course, a voting suppression subject. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: commoners do not get to vote in a republic. But

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Speaker 1: as O'Sullivan notes, it has become now solely about neutralizing

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Speaker 1: the claim that Trump is a threat to democracy. If

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Speaker 1: there's no democracy, how could somebody be a threat to it?

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Speaker 1: So Trump keeps saying the word democracy, and he's doing

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Speaker 1: the opposite of what his enablers are trying to protect him.

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Speaker 1: With the protectors who do not realize that the rest

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Speaker 1: of us can also say Trump is a threat to

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Speaker 1: the republic or and hear me out on this. I

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Speaker 1: know it's outlandish, open your minds for just a second,

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Speaker 1: hear me out. We could say Trump is a threat

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Speaker 1: to America and one more of all the things in

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Speaker 1: the world. For what's left of Trump's mind to fixate

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Speaker 1: on how is this his choice? Sin? And reporting that

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Speaker 1: to the Republicans, Trump once again invoked Hannibal Lecter. Nice guy,

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Speaker 1: he said again he even had he said again a

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Speaker 1: friend over for dinner, and that friend's name was Electro Shark. Seriously,

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Speaker 1: there is an all encompassing reality at play here, and

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Speaker 1: it comes into focus more clearly with every passing day.

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Speaker 1: It is incumbent upon the Biden campaign and every legitimate

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Speaker 1: new organization in this country to make this a central

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Speaker 1: issue of this campaign. It may have no choice, but

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Speaker 1: it does need to push the point to whatever degree

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Speaker 1: he had not already done so previously. Donald Trump is

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Speaker 1: losing his mind, and that means that metaphorically, the Republican Party,

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Speaker 1: in the immortal and immortally terrifying phrase of the World

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Speaker 1: War One General Eric van Ludendorff, the Republican Party is

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Speaker 1: shackled to a corpse. Back to Trump and the courts,

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Speaker 1: in this case, the Supreme Theocratic Court. Hey, it's our

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Speaker 1: summer sale now accepting bribes at twenty percent off. It

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Speaker 1: did not rule on Trump's imaginary Hannibal Lecter told me

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Speaker 1: while we were in that horrible city Milwaukee yesterday, idea

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Speaker 1: of presidential immunity. More Supreme Court rulings today. They did

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Speaker 1: go nine nothing on the no brainer mifipristone case, ruling

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Speaker 1: that the people who sued had no standing to sue.

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Speaker 1: But the coverage of this that the Court protected the

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Speaker 1: abortion pill yesterday again underscores how little American news organizations

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Speaker 1: and employees understand about the topics they are covering. I

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Speaker 1: understand how to edit the tape, and they understand how

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Speaker 1: to light the shot correctly, but they don't understand to

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Speaker 1: read past the third paragraph where it says there is

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Speaker 1: a more substantial case again Smith of pristone coming to

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court within weeks, and there is, of course

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Speaker 1: the prospect of using the nineteenth century Comstock Act to

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Speaker 1: prevent shipping that drug, to say nothing of what a

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Speaker 1: Trump dictatorship would do to it. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: in an irony of timing, as the court ruled, Gallup

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Speaker 1: was issuing new polling showing that nearly one third of

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Speaker 1: all American voters identify as single issue abortion voters. One

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Speaker 1: third they will vote only for candidates who share their

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Speaker 1: views on the legality and regulation of abortion. And guess what,

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Speaker 1: eight percent will only vote for anti abortion candidates, but

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Speaker 1: twenty three percent will only vote for pro choice candidates.

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Speaker 1: Mister President, you should be able to do something with that.

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Speaker 1: And you know what else, happened while the court was

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Speaker 1: pretending it was some kind of I don't know, what's

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Speaker 1: the term, to be, some kind of oh yeah, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: While the court was pretending it was some kind of court,

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Speaker 1: Harlan Crowe narked on that giant pile of shit with glasses.

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Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, who still

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Speaker 1: won't do anything about this, announced that in exchange for

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Speaker 1: his committee ending its investigation as it pertains to Harlan Crow,

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Speaker 1: Crow has turned over seven years of documents and information

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Speaker 1: about Clarence Thomas, and in that info was revealed at

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Speaker 1: least three more private jet trips that Crowe provided to

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Speaker 1: Thomas that Thomas did not report. May twenty seventeen Missouri

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Speaker 1: to Montana to Texas, March twenty nineteen, Washington to Georgia

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Speaker 1: to Washington, June twenty twenty one, Washington to San Jose,

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Speaker 1: and of course don't forget June twenty twenty four private

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Speaker 1: bus provided by Harlan Crowe for Harlan Crow to throw

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Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas under and two campaign notes. Quinnipiac polling, Trump

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Speaker 1: leads Biden by a point among registered voters between the

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Speaker 1: ages of eighteen and thirty four. According to exit polls,

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Speaker 1: Biden won the young vote younger really it was eighteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty nine's. In twenty twenty, he won that group

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Speaker 1: by twenty four points. He is losing to a roughly

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Speaker 1: equivalent group by one point. So where is the Biden ad?

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Speaker 1: Based on the Washington Post story we headlined here the

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Speaker 1: other day that Trump is floating a military draft, floating

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Speaker 1: a mandatory military prep class and a mandatory military aptitude

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Speaker 1: exam for every high school student for everybody eighteen or

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Speaker 1: nineteen or twenty, or you don't graduate and your school

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Speaker 1: doesn't get federal funds. We dropped this story because Trump

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Speaker 1: lied and denied it. Secretary of Defense proposed this a draft.

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Speaker 1: He proposed it under his own signature Inside Project twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five, the Trump planned to turn the country into

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Speaker 1: his dictatorship. Where are the other news stories about this?

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Speaker 1: Where are the ads and comic relief? To save the moment?

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Speaker 1: Newt Gingrich, who was basically celebrating his twenty sixth year

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Speaker 1: of unemployment, went on Sean Hannity's propaganda prostitution show and

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Speaker 1: announced that Vice President Kamala Harris is quote really shallow,

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Speaker 1: uneducated and uneducatable person. I just want to double check here.

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Speaker 1: Is that the same Newt Gingrich who once claimed five

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Speaker 1: six years ago that the New York City subway system

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Speaker 1: was used only by quote, elites said, the same Newt

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Speaker 1: Gingrich who, before he got run out of Washington by

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Speaker 1: the members of his own political party, back when he

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Speaker 1: was still Speaker of the House, once decided that the

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Speaker 1: following sequence of events would occur and let that be

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Speaker 1: revealed to the veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew, who then mentioned

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Speaker 1: it on Meet the Press that he would impeach Bill Clinton,

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Speaker 1: and then the new president Al Gore, would pardon Bill Clinton,

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Speaker 1: and then he would impeach Al Gore for pardoning Bill Clinton,

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Speaker 1: and that would make guess who President of the United

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Speaker 1: States the Speaker of the House. Oh, by the way,

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Speaker 1: you know who the Speaker of the House was Newt Gingrich.

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Speaker 1: That Newt Gingrich, And instead he impeached Clinton, and the

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Speaker 1: impeachment lost by a landslide in the Senate. And the

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Speaker 1: only person, after all of the impeaching business, the only

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Speaker 1: person in the whole thing who wound up actually losing

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Speaker 1: his job, was Newt Gingrich. That Newt Gingrich, the idiot,

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Speaker 1: white trash, unemployable Nut Gingrich, That Newt gingriche calling the

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Speaker 1: Vice President of the United States, calling anybody else in

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Speaker 1: the world shallow and uneducated, that Newt Gangridge. Okay, just checking.

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Speaker 1: Also of interest here, Oh no, Lauren Bobert's been caught

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Speaker 1: illegally vaping in public again. Oh no, miss Bobert. This

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Speaker 1: is exactly the way it started last time. Get a

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Speaker 1: hold of yourself, or at least of some guys sitting

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Speaker 1: next to you. That's next. This is Countdown. This is

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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Obleman still ahead of us on this

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Speaker 1: all new edition of Countdown. An excerpt from James Thurber's

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Speaker 1: only non fiction book, his profile of the founder of

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Speaker 1: the New Yorker magazine, Harold Ross, which includes in the

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Speaker 1: chapter I will read you a quoach from a New

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Speaker 1: Yorker writer that is one of the five or ten

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Speaker 1: best things I have ever heard said in human history.

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Speaker 1: I hope I didn't oversell it first. That rarest events

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Speaker 1: on a recorded program A. This just in from Puck News.

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Speaker 1: It came in after I finished up the A Block.

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Speaker 1: It reports that Trump has suddenly started taking prison as

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Speaker 1: a serious possibility, dovetailing with what I did mention in

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Speaker 1: the A block about this desperate plot to get Congress

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Speaker 1: to overturn his conviction. Trump, quoting Puck News, has been

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Speaker 1: peppering friends and as with more specific questions. In particular,

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Speaker 1: I've been told he's been asking what kind of jail

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Speaker 1: do you think they'll send me? To say? Is Shawshank

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Speaker 1: still open? Tuck quotes CNN's Ellie Honig, who is wrong

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Speaker 1: about forty to fifty percent of the time, that he

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Speaker 1: Trump would literally go upstate, possibly at the Putnam County

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Speaker 1: Correctional in Carmel, New York, near the Connecticut border between

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Speaker 1: Mayopack and Brewster. My folks and I used to go

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Speaker 1: to some kind of lake at Mayopack, possibly late Mayopack.

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Speaker 1: Putnam Correctional is like halfway on the drive between here

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Speaker 1: and ESPN. Hey wait, I never thought of that before.

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Speaker 1: Halfway between here in ESPN. A new Thurber ahead, but first,

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Speaker 1: as ever, there are still more new idiots to talk

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Speaker 1: about the daily roundup of the men and women we

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Speaker 1: celebrate as the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens

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Speaker 1: who constitute today's worst persons. In the world, the Bronze

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Speaker 1: the worst British Prime Minister Rishie Sunak well until July fourth,

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Speaker 1: anyway or earlier, not one day, not one event in

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Speaker 1: his snap election campaign has gone without disaster for him.

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Speaker 1: Remember he announced the snap election and the moment he

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Speaker 1: said it, it started to rain and he didn't even

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Speaker 1: have a hat. Anyway. He was interviewed by the network

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Speaker 1: ITV and he brought up how his parents had made

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Speaker 1: a lot of sacrifices when he was a child to

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Speaker 1: guarantee their priority for him education. And the interviewer knowing

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Speaker 1: that Sunac went to a private boarding school and then

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Speaker 1: another private school, and that his father was a doctor

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Speaker 1: and his mom owned a pharmacy, and he did not

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Speaker 1: grow a poor really middle class and the interviewer said like,

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Speaker 1: what did you give up? And Sunak did not answer. Quote,

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Speaker 1: we used to live in this tiny, old tumble down

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Speaker 1: house with the great big holes in the roof. House.

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Speaker 1: You were lucky to live in a house. We used

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Speaker 1: to live in one room, all twenty six of us,

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Speaker 1: no furniture off the floor was missing. We're all uttle

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Speaker 1: together in one corner of for fear fool And you

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Speaker 1: were lucky to have a room. We used to have

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Speaker 1: to live in the corridor. We used to dream of

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Speaker 1: living in a corridor. I had to get up in

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Speaker 1: the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour

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Speaker 1: before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison,

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Speaker 1: work twenty nine hours a day down mill and pay

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Speaker 1: mill owner for the permission to come to work. And

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Speaker 1: when we got home, our dad would kill us and

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Speaker 1: dance about on our graves singing allelujah. Oh and you

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Speaker 1: try to tell the young people of today that they

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Speaker 1: won't believe you. No, Rishie Sunac did not say that

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Speaker 1: he did not do the famous Monty Python Marty Feldman

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Speaker 1: comedy sketch, which is probably funnier in the original English.

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Speaker 1: The Prime Minister instead explained that he was deprived as

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Speaker 1: a child because quote, they will be all sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: There'll be all sorts of things that I would have

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Speaker 1: wanted as a kid that I couldn't have. Famously, sky TV,

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Speaker 1: so that was something that we never had growing up. Actually,

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Speaker 1: sky TV when Sunak was growing up was kind of

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Speaker 1: like the British HBO when HBO had a lot of

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Speaker 1: sports on it. Still, oh, you poor poor man, you

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Speaker 1: must still cry yourself to sleep every night, Noice Guy TV.

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Speaker 1: As a kid, did you sue your parents? Have you

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Speaker 1: cut them off without any contact for the entirety of

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Speaker 1: your adult life? Oh no, no, Sky TV. It's like

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Speaker 1: they didn't feed you for five years. Oh, it would

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Speaker 1: have been better if what dad would kill us in

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Speaker 1: duns about our graves singing anelujah. I'll stop now, the

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Speaker 1: runner up worser, Mark Penn, Oh no, I won't stop now.

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Speaker 1: Mark Penn the one time human being who now runs

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Speaker 1: the Harvard Harris Pole and is a Trump deep state psychopath.

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Speaker 1: So the next time you see the Harvard Harris Pole,

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Speaker 1: you will understand what crap it is, because you'll understand

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Speaker 1: what crap he is. After Jim Jordan weaponized the Judiciary

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Speaker 1: Committee to smear the Attorney General Merrick Garland. As if

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Speaker 1: one needed to smear Merrick Garland, this idiot and former

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Speaker 1: human being, Mark Penn wrote quote is the most political

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Speaker 1: and partisan attorney general in history. You know Bill Barr

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Speaker 1: is still alive, He's going to be really offended by this.

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Speaker 1: Garland is the most political and partisan attorney general in history.

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Speaker 1: He's in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer a lawful,

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Speaker 1: a legitimate subpoena for an audio tape that the transcript

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Speaker 1: has been released, but he will likely throw it in

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Speaker 1: the wastebasket while he prosecutes former Executive Department officials for

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Speaker 1: less his response attack Congress. He should simply turn over

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Speaker 1: the tape as the country has a right to see

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Speaker 1: and hear it. Well, it's an audio tape, so you

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Speaker 1: can go see it if you want to. Penn, Holy cow,

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Speaker 1: We actually used to let this guy advise people like

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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton and Ed Koch crying out lod I hope

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Speaker 1: he's gotten a cat scan recently. Of course, Penn is

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Speaker 1: just angry because everybody still blames him for blowing Hillary

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Speaker 1: Clinton's lead in the two thousand and eight Democratic primaries,

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Speaker 1: largely because he did that by adopting a Republican style

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Speaker 1: ad campaign that turned everybody off but our winner. Good

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Speaker 1: Old Lauren Bobert, the most famous audience member in the

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Speaker 1: history of the live stage version of Beetlejuice, was spotted

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Speaker 1: on Wednesday night at the Annual Congressional Baseball Game. Was

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Speaker 1: she playing? Oh no, she only goes bowling? No. Bobert

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Speaker 1: was in the stands at Nationals Park in DC, wearing

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Speaker 1: a maga hat to keep her brain from falling out,

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Speaker 1: and vaping, vaping in the stands, which is against the

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Speaker 1: smoking policy at Nationals Park. You might just recall I

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Speaker 1: think I may have mentioned it. I don't think I

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Speaker 1: cut it out of the show. That night that miss

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Speaker 1: Bobert was escorted out of the live performance of Beetlejuice

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Speaker 1: in Colorado for vaping during the performance and then for

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Speaker 1: checking her dates performance. Evidently, at the Congressional ball game

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Speaker 1: she was alone, although I hear that she attended because

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Speaker 1: somebody told her there would be a lot of pine

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Speaker 1: talk are at the game, which she could use to

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Speaker 1: improve her grip. Lauren, what a pair of hands? Bobert?

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Speaker 1: Two days, worst person. And it's Friday, so time for

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Speaker 1: Fridays with Thurber. And it's interesting that, like many of

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Speaker 1: the great writers in American and other nations histories, James

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Speaker 1: Thurber never really wrote a book. Certainly not a novel,

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Speaker 1: certainly not a comedic novel. His My Life in Hard

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Speaker 1: Times is a series of embellished anecdotes. It's great, it's

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Speaker 1: a great read, it's book length, it's not really one narrative.

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Speaker 1: And when I say he never wrote a book. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he never wrote a real fictional book. He did write

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Speaker 1: a book, The Years with Ross, his profile, his interpretation

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Speaker 1: of Harold Ross, who was the founder of the New

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Speaker 1: Yorker magazine, and probably even with the perspective of an

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Speaker 1: additional sixty years that James Thurber did not have in

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Speaker 1: his life, still probably the least likely person you would

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Speaker 1: have picked out of world history to have founded the

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Speaker 1: New Yorker magazine. The book is called The Years with Ross.

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Speaker 1: It was serialized in the Atlantic magazine, and the best part,

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Speaker 1: including one of my favorite quotations in history in human history,

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Speaker 1: was in the May nineteen fifty eight issue of The Atlantic,

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Speaker 1: the seventh part of James Thurber's series The Years with

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Speaker 1: Ross by James Thurber. So many people have told me

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Speaker 1: that Harold Ross was a simple mechanism, and so many

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Speaker 1: others have assured me that he was a complex character.

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Speaker 1: It is small wonder that I dreamed the other night

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Speaker 1: that he was both complified and simplicated. There are those

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00:31:15,795 --> 00:31:18,595
Speaker 1: who contend that the multiple editor of The New Yorker

426
00:31:18,955 --> 00:31:22,115
Speaker 1: never stepped off the elevator on his office floor without

427
00:31:22,195 --> 00:31:26,755
Speaker 1: putting on an invisible military uniform. He was accused of

428
00:31:26,795 --> 00:31:30,395
Speaker 1: having a secret respect for rigid military discipline in spite

429
00:31:30,395 --> 00:31:35,235
Speaker 1: of his waggish and scallow waggish experiences in the AEF.

430
00:31:36,555 --> 00:31:40,395
Speaker 1: His frequent and profane denunciations of all top brass were

431
00:31:40,435 --> 00:31:45,995
Speaker 1: supposed to cover a sneaking admiration for General Headquarters Red Tape.

432
00:31:46,235 --> 00:31:48,035
Speaker 1: I can't go along with this, if only because I

433
00:31:48,035 --> 00:31:50,675
Speaker 1: am unable to dispel the image of Ross as the

434
00:31:50,835 --> 00:31:54,355
Speaker 1: jittery skipper of a schooner out of Coleridge, a ship's

435
00:31:54,435 --> 00:31:56,995
Speaker 1: master with more than a dash of mutineer in him,

436
00:31:57,515 --> 00:31:59,475
Speaker 1: When he is not that figure in my nightmares. He

437
00:31:59,555 --> 00:32:02,995
Speaker 1: is an awe shocks farm boy from Colorado trying to

438
00:32:03,115 --> 00:32:09,395
Speaker 1: land a nineteen hundred biplane in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

439
00:32:09,435 --> 00:32:13,595
Speaker 1: When as Private H. W. Ross he was editor of

440
00:32:13,635 --> 00:32:17,715
Speaker 1: The Stars and Stripes, the situation was more Comeric Opera

441
00:32:17,795 --> 00:32:21,635
Speaker 1: than American Army. He was once put in the guardhouse

442
00:32:21,635 --> 00:32:27,355
Speaker 1: for some insubordination by Captain Guy T. Visnisky, but he

443
00:32:27,395 --> 00:32:29,395
Speaker 1: had to be released or the newspaper could not have

444
00:32:29,395 --> 00:32:33,635
Speaker 1: been got out. As editor, he could give orders to

445
00:32:33,715 --> 00:32:38,355
Speaker 1: Captain Franklin P. Adams and to Sergeant Alexander Wolcott, who

446
00:32:38,395 --> 00:32:41,955
Speaker 1: once called him in Paris the best editor in the world.

447
00:32:43,835 --> 00:32:47,115
Speaker 1: Where and how he finally learned his obsessive reverence for

448
00:32:47,315 --> 00:32:51,115
Speaker 1: order and organization, nobody will ever know for sure. Although

449
00:32:51,115 --> 00:32:54,035
Speaker 1: he was always scornful of American big business and big

450
00:32:54,075 --> 00:32:57,715
Speaker 1: business men, he talked constantly of running this place like

451
00:32:57,795 --> 00:33:02,115
Speaker 1: any other business office. He was vociferous in his contempt

452
00:33:02,115 --> 00:33:04,715
Speaker 1: for the way most metropolitan newspapers were run by. And

453
00:33:04,755 --> 00:33:07,635
Speaker 1: I always felt that his urge to tear down walls

454
00:33:07,915 --> 00:33:11,715
Speaker 1: and set up a central desk was an unconscious tendency

455
00:33:11,995 --> 00:33:15,755
Speaker 1: to create a vast city room with everyone in full

456
00:33:15,795 --> 00:33:19,315
Speaker 1: sight of everyone else. I go on feeling this in

457
00:33:19,355 --> 00:33:22,755
Speaker 1: the face of his continual scoffing at all things intramurally

458
00:33:22,835 --> 00:33:26,595
Speaker 1: journalistic in any writer's copy. He didn't want any stories

459
00:33:26,595 --> 00:33:29,915
Speaker 1: by reporters and ex reporters about their work on newspapers.

460
00:33:30,075 --> 00:33:33,195
Speaker 1: It makes me self conscious, he would say. And he

461
00:33:33,235 --> 00:33:36,115
Speaker 1: went so far once as to insist when I used

462
00:33:36,515 --> 00:33:39,675
Speaker 1: city room in a talk story, that it'd be changed

463
00:33:39,675 --> 00:33:45,635
Speaker 1: to the room where the reporters write their stories. Whatever

464
00:33:45,675 --> 00:33:48,835
Speaker 1: the origin of his driving desire for order and organization

465
00:33:48,955 --> 00:33:51,715
Speaker 1: may have been, it's satisfied two of his deepest needs.

466
00:33:52,195 --> 00:33:56,795
Speaker 1: Something to keep trying for and something to keep grousing about.

467
00:33:58,115 --> 00:34:00,635
Speaker 1: When I was in Columbus, Ohio, in the summer of

468
00:34:00,715 --> 00:34:04,395
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, on vacation and on my way out

469
00:34:04,435 --> 00:34:07,755
Speaker 1: of job of running the magazine, I got a six

470
00:34:07,915 --> 00:34:13,915
Speaker 1: word note from Andy White that read Thurber the new

471
00:34:13,995 --> 00:34:19,275
Speaker 1: passing system. White the new passing system, typed on an

472
00:34:19,395 --> 00:34:22,955
Speaker 1: enclosed piece of paper, went like this. White passes to Levick,

473
00:34:23,315 --> 00:34:27,795
Speaker 1: who passes to Ross. I have no copy at hand,

474
00:34:27,835 --> 00:34:30,115
Speaker 1: and it may be that I have left out one

475
00:34:30,155 --> 00:34:32,795
Speaker 1: of the passes. Perhaps it went like this. White passes

476
00:34:32,875 --> 00:34:36,075
Speaker 1: to Barnes, who passes to Levick, who passes to Ross.

477
00:34:37,555 --> 00:34:40,155
Speaker 1: If there was a Barnes, he has long since passed

478
00:34:40,155 --> 00:34:42,675
Speaker 1: and been forgotten. Sometimes I wake up at night and

479
00:34:42,755 --> 00:34:45,835
Speaker 1: chant to myself. White passes to Tinker, who passes to Evers,

480
00:34:45,835 --> 00:34:51,115
Speaker 1: who passes the Chance who passes to Ross. This old system,

481
00:34:51,395 --> 00:34:55,675
Speaker 1: indicating the official route for notes and comment from White's

482
00:34:55,715 --> 00:35:00,435
Speaker 1: typewriter to Ross's desk, was one of one hundred similar

483
00:35:00,475 --> 00:35:04,675
Speaker 1: systems devised by distraught executive editors in a feudal effort

484
00:35:04,995 --> 00:35:11,595
Speaker 1: to set Ross's organization conscious mind at rest. These systems

485
00:35:11,635 --> 00:35:14,915
Speaker 1: formed what Stanley Walker who later got involved in them,

486
00:35:14,955 --> 00:35:20,835
Speaker 1: called the rigmaroles. The man who had thought up a

487
00:35:20,835 --> 00:35:24,355
Speaker 1: way to reroot comments so that Ross wouldn't worry about

488
00:35:24,355 --> 00:35:28,355
Speaker 1: it's getting lost between Andy's office and his was named

489
00:35:28,355 --> 00:35:31,355
Speaker 1: William Levick. He lasted about as long as I had

490
00:35:31,395 --> 00:35:35,795
Speaker 1: in the untenable job of mastermind and whipping boy to

491
00:35:35,915 --> 00:35:40,875
Speaker 1: Harold Ross. Levick's final frantic response to the editor's demand

492
00:35:40,875 --> 00:35:44,075
Speaker 1: for a method of keeping track of everything was an

493
00:35:44,195 --> 00:35:48,715
Speaker 1: enormous sheet of cardboard six feet by four divided into

494
00:35:48,795 --> 00:35:54,875
Speaker 1: at least eight hundred squares, with fine hand lettering in

495
00:35:54,955 --> 00:35:57,955
Speaker 1: each of them, covering all phases of the scheduling of

496
00:35:57,995 --> 00:36:05,115
Speaker 1: departments and other office rigmaroles. This complicated caricature of system,

497
00:36:05,715 --> 00:36:10,395
Speaker 1: this concentration of all known procedural facts, hung on a

498
00:36:10,435 --> 00:36:14,195
Speaker 1: wall of the talk meeting room until one day it

499
00:36:14,315 --> 00:36:19,395
Speaker 1: fell down of its own weight. Ross had stared at

500
00:36:19,435 --> 00:36:22,795
Speaker 1: it now and then without saying anything. When it crashed,

501
00:36:22,795 --> 00:36:27,235
Speaker 1: he told his secretary, get rid of that thing. I

502
00:36:27,235 --> 00:36:30,435
Speaker 1: suppose this was also what he said about a sign

503
00:36:30,515 --> 00:36:32,315
Speaker 1: I made at the time and hung on a wall

504
00:36:32,395 --> 00:36:36,275
Speaker 1: near the elevators. Alterations going on as usual during business.

505
00:36:41,155 --> 00:36:44,395
Speaker 1: Bill Levick, one of the few men Ross always called

506
00:36:44,395 --> 00:36:46,315
Speaker 1: by his first name in the office, had been a

507
00:36:46,355 --> 00:36:48,955
Speaker 1: friend and colleague of the editor in his San Francisco

508
00:36:48,995 --> 00:36:53,275
Speaker 1: newspaper days. He had greatly impressed Ross at that time

509
00:36:53,315 --> 00:36:56,635
Speaker 1: by his calm and efficient direction of a staff of reporters.

510
00:36:56,635 --> 00:37:00,555
Speaker 1: One night, when some disaster struck the city, Levick, as

511
00:37:00,635 --> 00:37:03,275
Speaker 1: I remember it, had been night city editor of the paper.

512
00:37:03,795 --> 00:37:06,675
Speaker 1: His calmness and efficiency, which had stood up under disaster,

513
00:37:07,035 --> 00:37:11,595
Speaker 1: did not long stand up under Ross's continual badgering and heckling.

514
00:37:12,715 --> 00:37:14,955
Speaker 1: After he gave up the hopeless task of trying to

515
00:37:14,995 --> 00:37:17,475
Speaker 1: please Ross in the big job, he did not leave

516
00:37:17,715 --> 00:37:20,835
Speaker 1: like most of the others, but became the art makeup man.

517
00:37:22,435 --> 00:37:24,955
Speaker 1: He was unhappy in that role too, because he didn't

518
00:37:25,075 --> 00:37:29,595
Speaker 1: like artists and thought most of their drawings were silly.

519
00:37:30,395 --> 00:37:34,115
Speaker 1: You're the only cartoonists that can spell, he once told me. Sourly.

520
00:37:36,035 --> 00:37:39,635
Speaker 1: A new Tottery Graybeard says he saw Levic one day

521
00:37:39,675 --> 00:37:43,315
Speaker 1: in the office with tears in his eyes. Tears of

522
00:37:43,395 --> 00:37:46,475
Speaker 1: fury or frustration were not infrequent in some of the

523
00:37:46,515 --> 00:37:49,515
Speaker 1: men who worked for Ross, but Levick could be tough too,

524
00:37:49,555 --> 00:37:53,035
Speaker 1: and his faint, gentle smile could turn cold when Ross

525
00:37:53,075 --> 00:37:55,875
Speaker 1: backed him into a corner. One day, the editor went

526
00:37:55,955 --> 00:37:59,395
Speaker 1: up in flames because of the similarity and proximity of

527
00:37:59,395 --> 00:38:02,035
Speaker 1: two drawings in the front of the book, But instead

528
00:38:02,075 --> 00:38:05,275
Speaker 1: of bawling Levick out himself, he sent his secondcretary to

529
00:38:05,315 --> 00:38:10,035
Speaker 1: the makeup man with a sharp reprimand Levick took a

530
00:38:10,155 --> 00:38:13,475
Speaker 1: swing at the fella, and when Ross sent the young

531
00:38:13,515 --> 00:38:17,755
Speaker 1: man back with an even sharper message, knocked him down, resigned,

532
00:38:17,995 --> 00:38:23,715
Speaker 1: went away, and was not seen again. Bill Levick died

533
00:38:23,755 --> 00:38:25,955
Speaker 1: a few years later, somewhere in New Jersey, out of

534
00:38:25,995 --> 00:38:27,995
Speaker 1: work and down on his luck. And I told Ross

535
00:38:28,035 --> 00:38:30,755
Speaker 1: about it. He was genuinely saddened, and the news depressed

536
00:38:30,795 --> 00:38:34,675
Speaker 1: him for days. I didn't treat him right, goddamn it,

537
00:38:34,915 --> 00:38:40,235
Speaker 1: he told me. But he kept calling me sir, and

538
00:38:40,315 --> 00:38:42,595
Speaker 1: standing there mocking me and grinning at me. He called

539
00:38:42,635 --> 00:38:49,275
Speaker 1: me that sur thing. He called Wolcott foolish. He would say,

540
00:38:49,595 --> 00:38:52,195
Speaker 1: foolish is late with his copy this week for shouts

541
00:38:52,235 --> 00:38:56,915
Speaker 1: and murmurs. He kept saying, skeed for schedule and picks

542
00:38:57,155 --> 00:39:01,795
Speaker 1: for drawings. All he cared about was his goddamn pianola rolls.

543
00:39:02,355 --> 00:39:05,835
Speaker 1: He had millions of them. Anything else in his house.

544
00:39:06,835 --> 00:39:09,035
Speaker 1: You don't play the p andol every night unless there's

545
00:39:09,075 --> 00:39:13,035
Speaker 1: something the matter with you. He even edited the damn rolls,

546
00:39:13,235 --> 00:39:17,115
Speaker 1: pasting them up with tissue paper, collaborating with guys like Beethoven.

547
00:39:18,915 --> 00:39:20,675
Speaker 1: He was a good man. Now. I was fond of him.

548
00:39:21,155 --> 00:39:25,755
Speaker 1: They didn't belong here. I thought of asking him, who does?

549
00:39:26,715 --> 00:39:28,555
Speaker 1: But I just went away and left him with his

550
00:39:28,635 --> 00:39:33,675
Speaker 1: memories and miseries. When a system fell down, Ross was

551
00:39:33,755 --> 00:39:36,555
Speaker 1: usually dejected until he or somebody else thought up a

552
00:39:36,595 --> 00:39:39,395
Speaker 1: new one. But once in a while the mutineer in

553
00:39:39,515 --> 00:39:43,195
Speaker 1: him took over. He was gleeful if the falling down

554
00:39:43,275 --> 00:39:46,595
Speaker 1: or pushing over of a system disturbed or tangled up

555
00:39:46,635 --> 00:39:51,675
Speaker 1: the business department, those guys upstairs. Once, when a rebuilt

556
00:39:51,715 --> 00:39:55,035
Speaker 1: typewriter I've been using broke down, I phoned the Underwood

557
00:39:55,075 --> 00:39:59,435
Speaker 1: company at noon, ordered its most expensive machine, and charged

558
00:39:59,475 --> 00:40:03,435
Speaker 1: it to the New Yorker. The typewriter, delivered at the

559
00:40:03,435 --> 00:40:06,115
Speaker 1: office two hours later, was held up by the alert

560
00:40:06,155 --> 00:40:08,715
Speaker 1: business office, and a deputy was sent to Ross with

561
00:40:08,755 --> 00:40:11,555
Speaker 1: the complaint that I had got the machine without authorization

562
00:40:11,715 --> 00:40:17,275
Speaker 1: or the signing of any requisition slips. The typewriter had

563
00:40:17,275 --> 00:40:19,675
Speaker 1: been hidden from me in the art stock room, but

564
00:40:19,755 --> 00:40:21,795
Speaker 1: an office boy told me where it was, and I

565
00:40:21,995 --> 00:40:28,395
Speaker 1: went and got it. The whole illegal procedure delighted Ross.

566
00:40:29,115 --> 00:40:32,075
Speaker 1: It's the only direct action there's been around here in years,

567
00:40:33,035 --> 00:40:35,395
Speaker 1: he yelled at the nervous man from the business department,

568
00:40:35,675 --> 00:40:40,435
Speaker 1: I'll okay it, and he grabbed pencil and paper and

569
00:40:40,515 --> 00:40:44,555
Speaker 1: okayed it. When he found out that I was in

570
00:40:44,595 --> 00:40:47,355
Speaker 1: the habit of going to the supply stock room, getting

571
00:40:47,355 --> 00:40:50,275
Speaker 1: in with a pass key, and taking whatever I wanted paper,

572
00:40:50,355 --> 00:40:55,115
Speaker 1: paper clips, typewriter ribbons, pencils, and wire baskets, he sauntered

573
00:40:55,155 --> 00:40:59,115
Speaker 1: into my office and asked, how do you get your supplies?

574
00:41:00,915 --> 00:41:05,275
Speaker 1: I told him, and he went away grinning. A monthly

575
00:41:05,395 --> 00:41:09,435
Speaker 1: checkup by the business office had shown a discrepancy in

576
00:41:09,515 --> 00:41:12,475
Speaker 1: supplies on hand, and again someone had complained to the editor,

577
00:41:12,475 --> 00:41:16,395
Speaker 1: and he had suspected me. I was thwarted for a while,

578
00:41:16,435 --> 00:41:19,875
Speaker 1: and the guys upstairs installed new locks on all the doors,

579
00:41:20,035 --> 00:41:22,875
Speaker 1: But I smuggled the master key to a locksmith and

580
00:41:22,955 --> 00:41:27,315
Speaker 1: had a dozen keys made from it. I told Ross

581
00:41:27,315 --> 00:41:30,195
Speaker 1: about that myself, adding that I had given a few

582
00:41:30,235 --> 00:41:34,155
Speaker 1: of the extra keys to girls I knew for souvenirs.

583
00:41:34,755 --> 00:41:39,275
Speaker 1: Ross didn't believe that, even though it was true. The

584
00:41:39,315 --> 00:41:42,275
Speaker 1: heartiest laugh of the mutinous Skipper came from the day

585
00:41:42,435 --> 00:41:44,675
Speaker 1: I found out and told him that the master key

586
00:41:44,715 --> 00:41:48,395
Speaker 1: to the former system of locks had been retained and

587
00:41:48,515 --> 00:41:52,395
Speaker 1: hung on a hook beside the new one. I showed

588
00:41:52,435 --> 00:41:55,075
Speaker 1: it to him. Attached to it was a small wooden

589
00:41:55,115 --> 00:41:58,475
Speaker 1: plaque on which someone had printed in India ink master

590
00:41:58,755 --> 00:42:05,675
Speaker 1: key and under that doesn't work. Ross told the story

591
00:42:05,875 --> 00:42:10,035
Speaker 1: all over town. It represented to him not merely the

592
00:42:10,075 --> 00:42:13,915
Speaker 1: bewilderment of some office boy, but the total inefficiency of

593
00:42:13,995 --> 00:42:18,795
Speaker 1: the business department, which had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

594
00:42:21,315 --> 00:42:26,155
Speaker 1: After Levick came Arthur Samuels, out of an advertising agency

595
00:42:26,635 --> 00:42:29,875
Speaker 1: with previous experience as a newspaper reporter and a magazine

596
00:42:29,875 --> 00:42:33,115
Speaker 1: promotion man. Art Samuels, who had been a member of

597
00:42:33,155 --> 00:42:36,715
Speaker 1: the Cottage Club and the Triangle Club in his Princeton days,

598
00:42:36,915 --> 00:42:39,995
Speaker 1: was a close friend and idol of another Princeton man,

599
00:42:40,835 --> 00:42:45,795
Speaker 1: Raoul Fleischmann. By the way, that was Ross's business partner.

600
00:42:45,915 --> 00:42:49,475
Speaker 1: I Olderman should add, Raoul Fleischmann put the money up

601
00:42:49,515 --> 00:42:52,875
Speaker 1: for the New Yorker to continue, and any friend and

602
00:42:52,995 --> 00:42:54,995
Speaker 1: idol of Fleischman, who was the chief backer of the

603
00:42:54,995 --> 00:42:58,235
Speaker 1: magazine was a target for Ross's slings and arrows and

604
00:42:58,355 --> 00:43:02,715
Speaker 1: doomed from the start. Raoul once told me Art is

605
00:43:02,755 --> 00:43:05,835
Speaker 1: one of the funniest men in the world on two martinis.

606
00:43:06,915 --> 00:43:09,675
Speaker 1: When I mentioned this praise to Ross, he said, I

607
00:43:09,715 --> 00:43:11,635
Speaker 1: guess I always got to parties when he was on

608
00:43:11,715 --> 00:43:18,995
Speaker 1: his third or left before he finished his first. Samuels

609
00:43:18,995 --> 00:43:21,715
Speaker 1: had taken over one of the largest New Yorker offices

610
00:43:21,755 --> 00:43:25,435
Speaker 1: and furnished it with rugs, large handsome bridge lamps, and

611
00:43:25,515 --> 00:43:28,995
Speaker 1: other fancy appointments that must have brought Ross's disapproving tongue

612
00:43:29,275 --> 00:43:33,115
Speaker 1: out of his mouth when he first beheld this change.

613
00:43:33,155 --> 00:43:36,635
Speaker 1: He himself liked a plain newspaper type office. I don't

614
00:43:36,675 --> 00:43:40,715
Speaker 1: want to look like the editor of Vanity Fair. Samuels

615
00:43:40,755 --> 00:43:42,955
Speaker 1: lasted until just after he came back from a six

616
00:43:42,995 --> 00:43:46,275
Speaker 1: week leave in Europe. I learned later that Ross had

617
00:43:46,315 --> 00:43:48,595
Speaker 1: intended to fire him while he was abroad, but he

618
00:43:48,675 --> 00:43:51,715
Speaker 1: put it off until Art's ship was back in the

619
00:43:51,755 --> 00:43:56,115
Speaker 1: harbor of New York. Then, just before Samuels disembarked, he

620
00:43:56,155 --> 00:43:58,715
Speaker 1: got a telegram from Ross telling him he was through.

621
00:43:59,995 --> 00:44:02,395
Speaker 1: Late that afternoon, the editor called me into his office.

622
00:44:02,475 --> 00:44:04,115
Speaker 1: He was sitting with his head in his hands, and

623
00:44:04,155 --> 00:44:08,075
Speaker 1: he said, Samuels was just in here bawling the holy

624
00:44:08,155 --> 00:44:11,555
Speaker 1: hell out of me. No man would have fired him

625
00:44:11,555 --> 00:44:15,235
Speaker 1: the way I did. I guess I could tell he

626
00:44:15,315 --> 00:44:18,755
Speaker 1: had taken quite a verbal lashing, and he was to

627
00:44:18,795 --> 00:44:23,595
Speaker 1: get others later. Hell and High Voices broke loose in

628
00:44:23,635 --> 00:44:26,675
Speaker 1: his office when Jeffrey Heilman gave him a verbal going over,

629
00:44:26,675 --> 00:44:29,395
Speaker 1: which no doubt Ross had coming to him. Some weeks

630
00:44:29,435 --> 00:44:31,795
Speaker 1: after that, Ross held up a Hellman piece so long

631
00:44:31,835 --> 00:44:33,995
Speaker 1: that Catherine White said to him one day at a

632
00:44:33,995 --> 00:44:36,955
Speaker 1: talk meeting, why haven't you put the Heilman piece through?

633
00:44:37,675 --> 00:44:41,435
Speaker 1: We all think it's very good. Ross turned this over

634
00:44:41,475 --> 00:44:44,395
Speaker 1: in his mind for ten seconds and then said, he

635
00:44:44,515 --> 00:44:48,195
Speaker 1: called me a liar, picking one of the least provocative

636
00:44:48,195 --> 00:44:52,835
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey's descriptions of him. He bought the Heilman place

637
00:44:52,915 --> 00:44:56,595
Speaker 1: that day. It was a basic fact of Ross's nature

638
00:44:56,635 --> 00:44:59,555
Speaker 1: that he really respected. No man who didn't at one

639
00:44:59,595 --> 00:45:01,835
Speaker 1: time or another fight back and yell him down. I

640
00:45:01,875 --> 00:45:03,915
Speaker 1: had many a yelling bout with him in his office,

641
00:45:03,915 --> 00:45:06,555
Speaker 1: but we always ended up on good, even affectionate terms.

642
00:45:07,675 --> 00:45:09,675
Speaker 1: One day, ten years ago, he and William Shawn were

643
00:45:09,675 --> 00:45:11,675
Speaker 1: trying to explain to me what they thought was the

644
00:45:11,675 --> 00:45:13,395
Speaker 1: matter with a couple of pieces I had written in

645
00:45:13,395 --> 00:45:17,115
Speaker 1: a series on soap operas, and Ross snapped out of

646
00:45:17,155 --> 00:45:21,515
Speaker 1: his heart, no, out of his ulcers. Yes, if you

647
00:45:21,595 --> 00:45:26,515
Speaker 1: could see, you would know what we mean. That sent

648
00:45:26,595 --> 00:45:30,195
Speaker 1: me rocketing into the higher reaches of lurid damnation of

649
00:45:30,435 --> 00:45:34,435
Speaker 1: all editors. He said he was sorry, and he was,

650
00:45:35,275 --> 00:45:37,595
Speaker 1: but he never immediately got over the effects of one

651
00:45:37,595 --> 00:45:40,075
Speaker 1: of our yelling spells. That noon, I was having lunch

652
00:45:40,115 --> 00:45:42,955
Speaker 1: at the Algonquin with my wife and daughter, then sixteen,

653
00:45:43,355 --> 00:45:46,875
Speaker 1: when Ross came over to our table. We talked amiably

654
00:45:46,915 --> 00:45:49,755
Speaker 1: for a while, and then he spurted something happens to

655
00:45:49,835 --> 00:45:52,555
Speaker 1: Jim once a month that makes him carry on like

656
00:45:52,595 --> 00:45:59,475
Speaker 1: a woman. This indelicate illusion was remarkable in a man

657
00:45:59,715 --> 00:46:02,635
Speaker 1: as self conscious as a choir boy in the presence

658
00:46:02,635 --> 00:46:07,195
Speaker 1: of women, and embarrassed to death if anyone then made

659
00:46:07,235 --> 00:46:13,235
Speaker 1: a reference to the functional. My daughter had met him

660
00:46:13,235 --> 00:46:15,395
Speaker 1: first when she was only nine, and he was in

661
00:46:15,435 --> 00:46:18,435
Speaker 1: one of his most blustery moods. I asked her afterward

662
00:46:18,515 --> 00:46:21,115
Speaker 1: what she thought of him, and she said, he's gruff,

663
00:46:21,555 --> 00:46:24,635
Speaker 1: but I'm not afraid of him. She might have been

664
00:46:24,635 --> 00:46:31,475
Speaker 1: speaking for her sex. In general, thorn Smith doesn't properly

665
00:46:31,515 --> 00:46:33,755
Speaker 1: belong in any New Yorker, or for that matter, any

666
00:46:33,795 --> 00:46:36,875
Speaker 1: other category. But he underwent a stretch of torture, both

667
00:46:36,915 --> 00:46:38,875
Speaker 1: give and take, as a member of the staff. During

668
00:46:38,915 --> 00:46:41,715
Speaker 1: the winter of nineteen twenty nine nineteen thirty. I had

669
00:46:41,715 --> 00:46:44,795
Speaker 1: brought him in and introduced him to Ross, saying that

670
00:46:45,195 --> 00:46:47,915
Speaker 1: he had given up an advertising job to write a book.

671
00:46:47,915 --> 00:46:50,795
Speaker 1: It must have been the stray lamb and found himself

672
00:46:50,835 --> 00:46:55,315
Speaker 1: unable to get work. Thorn Smith, straight out of Wonderland,

673
00:46:55,715 --> 00:46:59,595
Speaker 1: looked like a cousin of the White Rabbit and completely befuddled.

674
00:46:59,595 --> 00:47:03,155
Speaker 1: Harold Ross, the editor, took him on, though mainly I

675
00:47:03,195 --> 00:47:05,875
Speaker 1: am sure, because he had ed did a service magazine

676
00:47:05,915 --> 00:47:10,395
Speaker 1: during World War One, a Navy publication called Broadside. The

677
00:47:10,515 --> 00:47:15,475
Speaker 1: two men disparate, if there were ever a disparity, talked

678
00:47:15,515 --> 00:47:18,115
Speaker 1: about the stars and stripes and a mutual acquaintance who

679
00:47:18,115 --> 00:47:22,835
Speaker 1: had been on the wartime army gas attack. Everything went

680
00:47:22,915 --> 00:47:25,675
Speaker 1: wrong though, between Ross and thorn who once didn't show

681
00:47:25,755 --> 00:47:28,715
Speaker 1: up for a week. You ought to know where he is.

682
00:47:29,195 --> 00:47:33,875
Speaker 1: Ross told me he's your responsibility. I said that Smith

683
00:47:34,035 --> 00:47:37,715
Speaker 1: was God's responsibility. Not mine or any man's. When he

684
00:47:37,755 --> 00:47:40,755
Speaker 1: finally did appear, Ross said, why didn't you telephone and

685
00:47:40,915 --> 00:47:45,275
Speaker 1: say you're sick. Thorn had a lovely answer to that.

686
00:47:46,275 --> 00:47:49,275
Speaker 1: The telephone was in the hall, and there was a

687
00:47:49,395 --> 00:47:54,995
Speaker 1: draft The New Yorker had in a special file at

688
00:47:54,995 --> 00:47:57,675
Speaker 1: that time, a snack of profiles that needed editing before

689
00:47:57,715 --> 00:47:59,675
Speaker 1: they could be used, and Smith had been given an

690
00:47:59,675 --> 00:48:02,515
Speaker 1: office and told to try his hand at fixing them up.

691
00:48:03,435 --> 00:48:06,915
Speaker 1: It didn't work out. He can't use a typewriter, or

692
00:48:06,955 --> 00:48:10,995
Speaker 1: if he can, he won't, Ross told me. And then,

693
00:48:11,035 --> 00:48:15,235
Speaker 1: with dramatic voice and gestures, he sits out there writing

694
00:48:15,235 --> 00:48:22,115
Speaker 1: on fool's cap with a quill pen by candlelight. I asked,

695
00:48:23,115 --> 00:48:26,275
Speaker 1: you have me there, said Ross, Where the hell did

696
00:48:26,275 --> 00:48:30,435
Speaker 1: you find him? Anyway? I didn't find him, I said,

697
00:48:30,835 --> 00:48:35,515
Speaker 1: God sent him to you. Smith departed soon after that

698
00:48:35,635 --> 00:48:38,075
Speaker 1: to join the other poor little lambs who had gone astray.

699
00:48:39,035 --> 00:48:40,875
Speaker 1: It was only the other day I found out that

700
00:48:40,915 --> 00:48:44,115
Speaker 1: he had once written on fool's cap, but with modern

701
00:48:44,195 --> 00:48:48,675
Speaker 1: fountain pen, an entire talk department which was never used.

702
00:48:49,835 --> 00:48:52,915
Speaker 1: Ross must have put him up to that. Secretly, I

703
00:48:53,075 --> 00:48:57,635
Speaker 1: counted among my sorrows and literature's losses that his talk

704
00:48:57,715 --> 00:49:03,435
Speaker 1: department is nowhere to be found. James m. Kin was

705
00:49:03,475 --> 00:49:06,235
Speaker 1: a puzzle to Ross, who all men puzzled him to

706
00:49:06,235 --> 00:49:09,515
Speaker 1: some degree, but thorn Smith and jim Kin were much

707
00:49:09,555 --> 00:49:13,475
Speaker 1: too much for his understanding. We called him dizzy Jim.

708
00:49:13,755 --> 00:49:17,915
Speaker 1: An old timer told me recently, you were daffy Jim.

709
00:49:18,755 --> 00:49:21,515
Speaker 1: It seems that Cain liked to work on the floor

710
00:49:22,395 --> 00:49:24,675
Speaker 1: where there was a lot of room, and used to

711
00:49:24,715 --> 00:49:29,115
Speaker 1: put the talk department together down there. He once lifted

712
00:49:29,195 --> 00:49:31,355
Speaker 1: high the hearts of Andy and Catherine White at a

713
00:49:31,355 --> 00:49:34,315
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day dinner at his apartment by putting the turkey

714
00:49:34,795 --> 00:49:39,315
Speaker 1: platter and all on the floor and carving it blandly,

715
00:49:39,355 --> 00:49:41,275
Speaker 1: going on with the story he was telling, and he

716
00:49:41,355 --> 00:49:45,915
Speaker 1: told stories exceeding well. Jim Kaine was not at The

717
00:49:45,955 --> 00:49:48,155
Speaker 1: New Yorker long, only a few months, but the memory

718
00:49:48,155 --> 00:49:50,915
Speaker 1: of him has not dwindled there. When he got the

719
00:49:50,955 --> 00:49:52,675
Speaker 1: hell out, he didn't want to see Ross or The

720
00:49:52,715 --> 00:49:55,435
Speaker 1: New Yorker ever. Again, I don't blame him for leaving

721
00:49:55,515 --> 00:49:58,195
Speaker 1: any mention of it out of the piece about him

722
00:49:58,235 --> 00:50:00,915
Speaker 1: and Who's who he had been on The Baltimore American,

723
00:50:01,315 --> 00:50:04,315
Speaker 1: The Baltimore Sun, The New York world, and he was

724
00:50:04,355 --> 00:50:07,555
Speaker 1: at on one time a professor of journalism at Saint

725
00:50:07,675 --> 00:50:11,595
Speaker 1: John's College in Annapolis, where he had been born. Cain

726
00:50:11,795 --> 00:50:14,915
Speaker 1: must have known Ross in France when he was editor

727
00:50:14,955 --> 00:50:20,235
Speaker 1: of the seventy ninth Divisions Lorraine Cross. Jim is a

728
00:50:20,235 --> 00:50:23,315
Speaker 1: big man, and Ross was always a little wary of

729
00:50:23,395 --> 00:50:26,195
Speaker 1: big men. Once, when he got into a hassle with

730
00:50:26,275 --> 00:50:29,795
Speaker 1: Joel Sayer over a projected profile on Ross's detective friend

731
00:50:29,875 --> 00:50:33,835
Speaker 1: Raymond Schindler, they editor said to me, Jesus, your friend

732
00:50:34,035 --> 00:50:39,195
Speaker 1: Sayir is a big guy. My researches and reflections have

733
00:50:39,275 --> 00:50:42,075
Speaker 1: turned up the interesting truth that of all the miracle men,

734
00:50:43,675 --> 00:50:47,795
Speaker 1: all were short of physical stature, except Cain and Ralph Ingersoll,

735
00:50:48,875 --> 00:50:50,515
Speaker 1: and maybe one or two others out of the more

736
00:50:50,515 --> 00:50:53,355
Speaker 1: than thirty. I am over six feet myself, but when

737
00:50:53,435 --> 00:50:56,795
Speaker 1: Ross and I tangled, I weighed only one fifty. I

738
00:50:56,835 --> 00:50:59,715
Speaker 1: have reached one eighty six. Now, await alas, I'll never

739
00:50:59,755 --> 00:51:02,155
Speaker 1: be able to throw around in Ross's office during a

740
00:51:02,195 --> 00:51:07,075
Speaker 1: monthly yelling spell. In nineteen thirty one, my daughter had

741
00:51:07,115 --> 00:51:10,315
Speaker 1: about seven months to go before she was born. When

742
00:51:10,315 --> 00:51:12,515
Speaker 1: her mother and I bought a house a mile outside

743
00:51:12,555 --> 00:51:16,235
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and Ross pretended to be frightened when

744
00:51:16,235 --> 00:51:21,235
Speaker 1: he heard about my plans to live in the country. Timid,

745
00:51:21,315 --> 00:51:24,035
Speaker 1: as usual about taking up personal matters with a man

746
00:51:24,195 --> 00:51:27,475
Speaker 1: face to face, he assigned Cain the task of trying

747
00:51:27,515 --> 00:51:31,795
Speaker 1: to dissuade me from moving out of the city. Jim

748
00:51:31,835 --> 00:51:34,875
Speaker 1: had approached the subject gingerly in my office, saying only

749
00:51:34,915 --> 00:51:37,395
Speaker 1: a couple of sentences that I recognized at once as

750
00:51:37,435 --> 00:51:41,235
Speaker 1: bearing the stamp of a Ross panic. When he suddenly

751
00:51:41,235 --> 00:51:45,035
Speaker 1: stood up and said, this is none of my business

752
00:51:45,595 --> 00:51:48,715
Speaker 1: or Ross's either. I'm sorry I mentioned it. Live where

753
00:51:48,755 --> 00:51:53,555
Speaker 1: you want to and the way you want to. One

754
00:51:53,635 --> 00:51:56,635
Speaker 1: day Jim had sent on to Ross some manuscript of

755
00:51:56,635 --> 00:51:58,795
Speaker 1: which the editor could make neither head nor tail. He

756
00:51:58,835 --> 00:52:02,715
Speaker 1: sent it back to Cain with a memo attached that

757
00:52:02,875 --> 00:52:10,235
Speaker 1: is still in existence. It read, what is the signifigance

758
00:52:10,435 --> 00:52:15,795
Speaker 1: of it all? Anyway? That is the misspelling of significance

759
00:52:15,835 --> 00:52:17,795
Speaker 1: as I remembered it for twenty five years. But as

760
00:52:17,795 --> 00:52:20,195
Speaker 1: you will see, I was wrong. Just before Jim left,

761
00:52:20,315 --> 00:52:24,235
Speaker 1: he had the memo framed in leather and presented to

762
00:52:24,275 --> 00:52:28,035
Speaker 1: his successor, Bernard A. Bergman, who still has it. I

763
00:52:28,075 --> 00:52:30,075
Speaker 1: wrote him a few weeks ago to check the spelling

764
00:52:30,115 --> 00:52:35,755
Speaker 1: of the big word, and got this reply sign ig

765
00:52:36,835 --> 00:52:45,595
Speaker 1: if a and ce sick. Harold Ross's spelling was often grotesque.

766
00:52:45,835 --> 00:52:48,275
Speaker 1: He was always looking up words, he questioned in copy

767
00:52:48,355 --> 00:52:50,155
Speaker 1: he was reading, but he never seemed to doubt his

768
00:52:50,275 --> 00:52:52,955
Speaker 1: own accuracy. In all the years I knew him, he

769
00:52:53,035 --> 00:52:57,635
Speaker 1: never got prodigal right. He spelled it prodigal and pronounced

770
00:52:57,635 --> 00:53:03,315
Speaker 1: it as if it were spelled prod goal. It was

771
00:53:03,355 --> 00:53:05,435
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty four, to get back to Jim Caine

772
00:53:05,675 --> 00:53:09,075
Speaker 1: that he brought out The Postman Always Rings twice. I

773
00:53:09,115 --> 00:53:11,235
Speaker 1: once asked Ross if he had read it, and he said,

774
00:53:11,355 --> 00:53:14,715
Speaker 1: wouldn't be my kind of stuff. I have no doubt

775
00:53:14,715 --> 00:53:16,355
Speaker 1: that if he had started reading it, he would have

776
00:53:16,355 --> 00:53:18,755
Speaker 1: put it down, thus becoming the only reader in the

777
00:53:18,755 --> 00:53:22,115
Speaker 1: country able to do that. He didn't even try to

778
00:53:22,115 --> 00:53:25,635
Speaker 1: read a Farewell to Arms and dismiss that novel with

779
00:53:26,155 --> 00:53:28,795
Speaker 1: I understand the hero keeps getting in bed with women,

780
00:53:29,235 --> 00:53:34,435
Speaker 1: and the war wasn't fought that way. I have a

781
00:53:34,475 --> 00:53:37,635
Speaker 1: recent letter from Bernard Bergmann about Ross that ends he

782
00:53:37,675 --> 00:53:39,475
Speaker 1: was a great man. I wish I could have been

783
00:53:39,475 --> 00:53:42,755
Speaker 1: close to him, but I never was. Bergmann lasted almost

784
00:53:42,835 --> 00:53:45,955
Speaker 1: two years beginning in nineteen thirty one. He quit because

785
00:53:45,995 --> 00:53:49,195
Speaker 1: Francis Bellamy had appeared on the scene, and Burgee was

786
00:53:49,235 --> 00:53:52,075
Speaker 1: wise enough to realize the newcomer was to become the

787
00:53:52,155 --> 00:53:55,555
Speaker 1: new genius. The old ritual firing and hiring was about

788
00:53:55,555 --> 00:54:00,035
Speaker 1: to begin once more after Bellamy disappeared in his time

789
00:54:00,155 --> 00:54:05,315
Speaker 1: and turn he smoked cigars was Ross's epitaph for this victim.

790
00:54:05,555 --> 00:54:08,915
Speaker 1: The editor phoned Bergman, who had just left the Philadelphia Record,

791
00:54:09,035 --> 00:54:12,115
Speaker 1: and tried to get him to come back. He rambled

792
00:54:12,155 --> 00:54:14,595
Speaker 1: on in his loud voice about the job of editorial

793
00:54:14,675 --> 00:54:17,795
Speaker 1: publishing whenever that meant, and the rebirth of his conviction

794
00:54:17,835 --> 00:54:22,195
Speaker 1: that Bergmann could handle certain tough problems in the office.

795
00:54:22,355 --> 00:54:27,035
Speaker 1: Bergmann said, that's just what I was doing, and he laughed,

796
00:54:27,715 --> 00:54:33,795
Speaker 1: and Ross laughed too, and they both hung up laughing. Bergmann,

797
00:54:33,955 --> 00:54:37,155
Speaker 1: like me, went to Ohio State, helped edit the Daily Lantern,

798
00:54:37,235 --> 00:54:39,915
Speaker 1: and was a reporter on the Columbus Dispatch. We had

799
00:54:39,955 --> 00:54:43,515
Speaker 1: been friends since nineteen fifteen, and I persuaded Ross to

800
00:54:43,595 --> 00:54:47,035
Speaker 1: hire him to supervise the talk of the town. Ross

801
00:54:47,075 --> 00:54:49,555
Speaker 1: had finally found out after years of hit and miss

802
00:54:49,795 --> 00:54:52,475
Speaker 1: what manner of man and writer I was. But I

803
00:54:52,515 --> 00:54:56,155
Speaker 1: don't think he ever knew anything about Bergmann. A man's

804
00:54:56,355 --> 00:55:00,155
Speaker 1: past dropped away and his life began anew when he

805
00:55:00,195 --> 00:55:03,395
Speaker 1: went to work for the New Yorker. Bergie had been

806
00:55:03,435 --> 00:55:07,035
Speaker 1: a regimental sergeant major in World War One, a newspaper

807
00:55:07,075 --> 00:55:10,235
Speaker 1: reporter and editor, and a New York press agent. In

808
00:55:10,355 --> 00:55:14,555
Speaker 1: high school in Chillicothe, Ohio, nearly fifty years ago, Bergmann

809
00:55:14,635 --> 00:55:18,395
Speaker 1: organized a four piece orchestra to play for Saturday night

810
00:55:18,515 --> 00:55:23,555
Speaker 1: dances at the Knights of Pytheas Club. His clarinetist Bergmann

811
00:55:23,595 --> 00:55:25,995
Speaker 1: played the violin and played it well, was a youngster

812
00:55:26,075 --> 00:55:29,555
Speaker 1: named Theodore Friedman, whom Bergmann paid two dollars and a

813
00:55:29,635 --> 00:55:31,635
Speaker 1: half a night until he let him go because he

814
00:55:31,795 --> 00:55:35,155
Speaker 1: jazzed up everything, did funny things with a plug hat,

815
00:55:35,435 --> 00:55:40,355
Speaker 1: and disconcerted the other boys. A decade later, Theodore Friedman,

816
00:55:40,555 --> 00:55:45,755
Speaker 1: alias Ted Lewis was earning one hundred and ten thousand

817
00:55:45,835 --> 00:55:50,395
Speaker 1: dollars a week the Palace, the Zigfield Follies, the Zigfield Roof,

818
00:55:50,595 --> 00:55:54,155
Speaker 1: and Bergmann was his press agent for a long time.

819
00:55:54,195 --> 00:55:57,435
Speaker 1: Starting about nineteen twenty eight, Bergie had contributed to Talk

820
00:55:57,515 --> 00:56:01,395
Speaker 1: of the Town the best items and suggestions of any outsider,

821
00:56:01,755 --> 00:56:04,515
Speaker 1: and when Ross asked me, after the vanishing of Ingersoll,

822
00:56:05,115 --> 00:56:08,155
Speaker 1: Raymond Holden, Ogden, Nash and several others, if I knew

823
00:56:08,155 --> 00:56:10,995
Speaker 1: a good man for talk. I brought Bergmann in and

824
00:56:11,035 --> 00:56:15,035
Speaker 1: he was hired. I had asked Ross to promised me

825
00:56:15,115 --> 00:56:18,395
Speaker 1: that he would not elevate Bergmann to the Genius chair,

826
00:56:18,875 --> 00:56:22,475
Speaker 1: and he said he wouldn't, but he did. I'm gonna

827
00:56:22,475 --> 00:56:24,795
Speaker 1: give Bergmann a crack at that job, he told me.

828
00:56:24,995 --> 00:56:28,075
Speaker 1: I think he can run the magazine. Don't say anything

829
00:56:28,115 --> 00:56:32,435
Speaker 1: about it, though, cause I haven't told him yet. I

830
00:56:32,555 --> 00:56:36,355
Speaker 1: left the room, giving the door a good slam. I

831
00:56:36,435 --> 00:56:38,515
Speaker 1: hated to lose the man who had brought to talk

832
00:56:38,795 --> 00:56:41,795
Speaker 1: facts and anecdotes about a dozen New Yorkers whose careers

833
00:56:42,035 --> 00:56:47,155
Speaker 1: fascinated Harold Ross, the g whiz guy. They included Jake Volk,

834
00:56:47,395 --> 00:56:51,075
Speaker 1: the building wrecker, Lewis Marshall, an eccentric millionaire lawyer who

835
00:56:51,195 --> 00:56:53,635
Speaker 1: rode to work on the L train and back home

836
00:56:53,675 --> 00:56:58,235
Speaker 1: on the subway, George and Ira Gershwin, and George Grause,

837
00:56:58,835 --> 00:57:02,955
Speaker 1: the German artist with whom Bergmann and I once had dinner. Grasse,

838
00:57:03,155 --> 00:57:05,675
Speaker 1: I told Ross wanted to meet the New Yorker artist

839
00:57:06,195 --> 00:57:11,755
Speaker 1: whose work began where the other cartoonists left off, well

840
00:57:11,835 --> 00:57:18,235
Speaker 1: did he, Ross asked, He meant me, I said, shyly, hogwash,

841
00:57:18,995 --> 00:57:22,795
Speaker 1: said Ross, who didn't believe a word of it. The

842
00:57:22,875 --> 00:57:25,555
Speaker 1: day that Ross promoted Bergmann, I sat outside his office

843
00:57:25,555 --> 00:57:29,155
Speaker 1: and eavesdropped. Bergmann got the works, the whole rigmarole from

844
00:57:29,475 --> 00:57:33,475
Speaker 1: you gotta hold the artist's hands through. I'm, by god

845
00:57:33,595 --> 00:57:37,435
Speaker 1: gonna keep sex out of this office to I want

846
00:57:37,475 --> 00:57:42,155
Speaker 1: to run this place like any other business office. I

847
00:57:42,195 --> 00:57:45,155
Speaker 1: got up in disgust, went to the men's room and

848
00:57:45,235 --> 00:57:47,115
Speaker 1: put up the window because it was a hot day.

849
00:57:48,075 --> 00:57:50,115
Speaker 1: I heard the door open and closed behind me, but

850
00:57:50,155 --> 00:57:52,195
Speaker 1: I didn't see what it was. Then I went out

851
00:57:52,235 --> 00:57:57,115
Speaker 1: and met Bergmann coming down the hall. Ross's secretary just

852
00:57:57,155 --> 00:57:58,955
Speaker 1: came in and said, you were going to kill yourself

853
00:57:58,955 --> 00:58:01,195
Speaker 1: in the men's room, he told me. Ross turned to

854
00:58:01,195 --> 00:58:04,395
Speaker 1: me and said, that's my life. Do something about it.

855
00:58:06,435 --> 00:58:09,115
Speaker 1: Bergmann had one great failure and at least one great

856
00:58:09,155 --> 00:58:11,555
Speaker 1: triumph at the New Yorker. His failure lay in his

857
00:58:11,595 --> 00:58:15,955
Speaker 1: inability to build a fake partition by means of which

858
00:58:16,235 --> 00:58:21,195
Speaker 1: Ross could get to the men's room unseen and ungreeted

859
00:58:21,875 --> 00:58:26,235
Speaker 1: in the halls. Nobody else could have designed such a

860
00:58:26,315 --> 00:58:30,075
Speaker 1: crazy partition either, and the dilemma wasn't solved until someone

861
00:58:30,115 --> 00:58:37,115
Speaker 1: suggested he have a lavatory built just off his office. Well,

862
00:58:37,195 --> 00:58:41,075
Speaker 1: I'll be damned, Ross must have said when this simple

863
00:58:41,115 --> 00:58:44,275
Speaker 1: way out of embarrassment was presented to his astonished mind.

864
00:58:45,075 --> 00:58:48,515
Speaker 1: The lavatory was installed, and it not only saved Ross

865
00:58:48,555 --> 00:58:52,435
Speaker 1: the torture of being spoken to by employees, but it

866
00:58:52,515 --> 00:58:58,635
Speaker 1: eliminated uncomfortable dialogue with writers and editors in the men's room.

867
00:59:00,835 --> 00:59:03,555
Speaker 1: As an aside, here comes the line I mentioned one

868
00:59:03,555 --> 00:59:07,075
Speaker 1: of my favorite quote in human history. I hope you're

869
00:59:07,115 --> 00:59:13,475
Speaker 1: ready to resume. Once standing trow to trow with John Mosher,

870
00:59:14,435 --> 00:59:20,675
Speaker 1: Ross grumbled, why aren't you writing any more casuals? Because

871
00:59:20,715 --> 00:59:26,955
Speaker 1: I have lost the slight fancy that sustained me. Mosher

872
00:59:27,035 --> 00:59:30,755
Speaker 1: explained it was the kind of Mosher retort that left

873
00:59:30,835 --> 00:59:34,395
Speaker 1: Ross flabbergasted, and he was miserable when he had nothing

874
00:59:34,515 --> 00:59:39,755
Speaker 1: to say. Bergman's great triumph was the hiring of Alvid Johnston,

875
00:59:39,795 --> 00:59:43,355
Speaker 1: and I'll let him retell that story himself. When I

876
00:59:43,435 --> 00:59:47,155
Speaker 1: first took over the me job managing editor, Ross said

877
00:59:47,195 --> 00:59:49,275
Speaker 1: he had been trying to get Alva Johnston to come

878
00:59:49,315 --> 00:59:51,275
Speaker 1: full time to the New Yorker for a long while,

879
00:59:51,555 --> 00:59:54,115
Speaker 1: but Alva always refused, said he was too old to

880
00:59:54,195 --> 00:59:56,355
Speaker 1: change his field. He was a reporter and he didn't

881
00:59:56,355 --> 00:59:59,835
Speaker 1: want to take a chance on magazines. Ross said to

882
00:59:59,875 --> 01:00:01,315
Speaker 1: me that if I could get Alva to come to

883
01:00:01,355 --> 01:00:04,115
Speaker 1: the New Yorker, that's all I'd ever have to do.

884
01:00:05,955 --> 01:00:08,635
Speaker 1: How much did you offer him, I asked, Oh, we

885
01:00:08,755 --> 01:00:14,475
Speaker 1: never discussed salary. Ross said, well, let's offer him three

886
01:00:14,555 --> 01:00:19,675
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a week. I said, uh, that's double what

887
01:00:19,755 --> 01:00:24,795
Speaker 1: he's getting on the New Harold Tribune. And I said,

888
01:00:24,915 --> 01:00:27,555
Speaker 1: if we offer him a lot of money, he just

889
01:00:27,595 --> 01:00:33,195
Speaker 1: won't be able to turn it down. Bergmann, you're a genius.

890
01:00:33,315 --> 01:00:38,355
Speaker 1: Ross said, I never thought of offering him money. So

891
01:00:38,515 --> 01:00:40,075
Speaker 1: I made a date with Alba. I told him we

892
01:00:40,115 --> 01:00:41,995
Speaker 1: guarantee him three hundred dollars a week. I can still

893
01:00:41,995 --> 01:00:44,555
Speaker 1: see Alba turning pale, standing up and saying, gee, I

894
01:00:44,595 --> 01:00:47,235
Speaker 1: have to think that over. I went back to Ross

895
01:00:47,235 --> 01:00:51,115
Speaker 1: and told him we got Alva. We had to That incident,

896
01:00:51,195 --> 01:00:53,835
Speaker 1: certainly important in the history of The New Yorker, showed

897
01:00:53,955 --> 01:00:59,475
Speaker 1: Ross's occasional naive and charming impracticality. Although he was the

898
01:00:59,515 --> 01:01:05,035
Speaker 1: world's greatest quoted words are Bergmann's. Harold Ross's laws of

899
01:01:05,115 --> 01:01:08,675
Speaker 1: Bergmann was William Randolph Hurst's gain, where the former New

900
01:01:08,755 --> 01:01:10,635
Speaker 1: Yorker editor was hired to build up the New York

901
01:01:10,675 --> 01:01:15,275
Speaker 1: Americans Daily March of Events page, known to the printers

902
01:01:15,315 --> 01:01:18,795
Speaker 1: as the Highbrow Page. And build it up he did.

903
01:01:18,835 --> 01:01:21,195
Speaker 1: A Few months later, Ross ran into him somewhere and said,

904
01:01:21,555 --> 01:01:23,795
Speaker 1: you're causing a lot of excitement at the New Yorker

905
01:01:23,835 --> 01:01:26,075
Speaker 1: and worry too, I guess, but keep it up. I

906
01:01:26,235 --> 01:01:29,275
Speaker 1: like it. I don't see how he could have liked it,

907
01:01:29,315 --> 01:01:32,035
Speaker 1: because Bergmann had signed up, among others, for one or

908
01:01:32,075 --> 01:01:36,275
Speaker 1: two columns a week, Bob Benchley, Frank Sullivan, Clarence Day,

909
01:01:36,315 --> 01:01:40,435
Speaker 1: Ogden Nash, and Jim Kaine. He also got stuff from H. L.

910
01:01:40,555 --> 01:01:43,635
Speaker 1: Menken and Oliver Herford, which Ross would have liked for

911
01:01:43,675 --> 01:01:47,395
Speaker 1: The New Yorker. I did some columns for the Highbrow

912
01:01:47,435 --> 01:01:51,195
Speaker 1: Page and quite a lot of drawings. The appearance of

913
01:01:51,235 --> 01:01:55,195
Speaker 1: my drawings there caused Ross to pass the buck to

914
01:01:55,275 --> 01:01:59,195
Speaker 1: someone who passed someone else, who passed it to Catherine White,

915
01:01:59,275 --> 01:02:00,955
Speaker 1: who wrote me a note asking me if I had

916
01:02:00,995 --> 01:02:03,595
Speaker 1: not broken my New Yorker contract by not first letting

917
01:02:03,635 --> 01:02:06,755
Speaker 1: the art meeting see my drawings for the New York American.

918
01:02:07,875 --> 01:02:09,955
Speaker 1: The New Yorker, in fact, had seen them all and

919
01:02:10,035 --> 01:02:14,195
Speaker 1: turned them all down. I passed this fact to Catherine,

920
01:02:14,195 --> 01:02:15,875
Speaker 1: who passed it to someone else, who passed it to

921
01:02:15,915 --> 01:02:21,515
Speaker 1: someone who passed it to Ross. My drawings ceased appearing

922
01:02:21,555 --> 01:02:23,955
Speaker 1: in The American when Bergmann got a note from old

923
01:02:24,035 --> 01:02:29,115
Speaker 1: Hurst himself which read, stop running those dogs on your page.

924
01:02:30,275 --> 01:02:34,595
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have them peeing on my cheapest rug. In

925
01:02:34,675 --> 01:02:37,315
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, the Old Man stopped Cane's columns too,

926
01:02:37,675 --> 01:02:39,995
Speaker 1: over Bergmann's protest that Jim was one of the best

927
01:02:39,995 --> 01:02:44,595
Speaker 1: and most popular American writers. Hearst's final note on this

928
01:02:44,755 --> 01:02:49,755
Speaker 1: matter read, get rid of Cain. I thought Abel had

929
01:02:49,795 --> 01:02:58,235
Speaker 1: done it. Sorry he failed the years with Ross, wherein

930
01:02:58,315 --> 01:03:03,275
Speaker 1: I learned that someone in the same millennium in which

931
01:03:03,315 --> 01:03:09,035
Speaker 1: I lived said the phrase I had lost the slight

932
01:03:09,315 --> 01:03:25,955
Speaker 1: fancy that sustains me. I've done all the damage I

933
01:03:25,955 --> 01:03:28,515
Speaker 1: can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors

934
01:03:28,555 --> 01:03:31,515
Speaker 1: Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced and performed

935
01:03:31,515 --> 01:03:34,395
Speaker 1: most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass

936
01:03:34,435 --> 01:03:37,635
Speaker 1: and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and

937
01:03:37,675 --> 01:03:40,715
Speaker 1: it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some

938
01:03:40,755 --> 01:03:44,355
Speaker 1: of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.

939
01:03:44,835 --> 01:03:47,675
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Ulderman theme from ESPN two,

940
01:03:47,995 --> 01:03:51,475
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our

941
01:03:51,635 --> 01:03:54,315
Speaker 1: satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the

942
01:03:54,355 --> 01:03:57,435
Speaker 1: best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend

943
01:03:57,515 --> 01:04:00,515
Speaker 1: Larry David, and everything else was pretty much my fault.

944
01:04:01,275 --> 01:04:03,355
Speaker 1: So that's countdown for this, the one hundred and forty

945
01:04:03,395 --> 01:04:06,915
Speaker 1: sixth day on till the twenty twenty four presidential election,

946
01:04:07,395 --> 01:04:11,315
Speaker 1: and the two hundred and fifty fifth day since convicted

947
01:04:11,755 --> 01:04:17,475
Speaker 1: fell in first time elderly offender Donald Trump's first attempted

948
01:04:17,515 --> 01:04:20,875
Speaker 1: coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.

949
01:04:21,275 --> 01:04:24,715
Speaker 1: Use the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system,

950
01:04:25,115 --> 01:04:28,515
Speaker 1: use presidential immunity if it happens, to stop him from

951
01:04:28,515 --> 01:04:33,795
Speaker 1: doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled

952
01:04:33,835 --> 01:04:37,155
Speaker 1: countdown is Tuesday. I'll leave a caveat that it might

953
01:04:37,235 --> 01:04:39,915
Speaker 1: not happen. Two of the dogs are going in for

954
01:04:40,075 --> 01:04:43,515
Speaker 1: dentals on Monday, and I may be focused entirely on

955
01:04:43,555 --> 01:04:45,475
Speaker 1: them for the whole day, but I'll try to put

956
01:04:45,515 --> 01:04:48,635
Speaker 1: something out on Tuesday morning. Boltons is the news warrants

957
01:04:48,835 --> 01:04:51,755
Speaker 1: till the next one. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon,

958
01:04:51,835 --> 01:04:54,915
Speaker 1: good night, and I have lost the slight fancy that

959
01:04:55,075 --> 01:05:15,275
Speaker 1: sustains me. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.

960
01:05:15,555 --> 01:05:20,875
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

961
01:05:20,995 --> 01:05:22,955
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.