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

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Speaker 1: Trump has been anointed by Jesus, said the combat unit

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Speaker 1: commander to a room full of non commissioned officers on

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Speaker 1: Monday of this week quote to light the signal fire

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Speaker 1: in Iran to cause armageddon quote and mark his return

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Speaker 1: to Earth. Tell your troops, he said, because we may

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Speaker 1: be deployed to the Middle East soon. So don't be afraid,

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Speaker 1: because this is quote all part of God's divine plan unquote.

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Speaker 1: And Trump is just doing what the Book of Revelation

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Speaker 1: tells him to do. And conversion this and rapture that,

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Speaker 1: and holly war this and kaboom everything. Yes, you thought

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Speaker 1: Trump's Iran nightmare was just a disaster of biblical proportions,

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Speaker 1: turns out it's actually a disaster of biblical biblical proportions.

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Speaker 1: So if you've been wondering why, there have been by

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Speaker 1: my count, at least twenty seven different explanations just from

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Speaker 1: Trump just since last Saturday about why we are bombing

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Speaker 1: Iran and triggering uncontrollable chaos and rage driven retaliation by

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Speaker 1: everybody against everybody else, and why there was no evacuation

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Speaker 1: structure for Americans in the Middle East, and why our

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Speaker 1: idiot ambassador to Israel Huckabee is making jokes about embassy

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Speaker 1: staffers sheltering in place there, and how maybe while they

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Speaker 1: do they should procreate a nine months from now they

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Speaker 1: should name their newborns after him. Well, if you've been

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Speaker 1: wondering why there's your auntswer, you're right there. You need

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Speaker 1: twenty seven different explanations to cover up the fact not

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Speaker 1: that Trump himself went to war to precipitate biblical armageddon,

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Speaker 1: but the fact that there's a military commander who thinks

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Speaker 1: he did. Actually, it's worse than that. I'm sugarcoating it,

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Speaker 1: because sure it's bad that there is a combat unit

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Speaker 1: commander in our army, not in Isis or al Qaeda,

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Speaker 1: who reportedly invoked that whole wacky big Jim mcbob Billy

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Speaker 1: saal Hurock blowed up good, blowed up real good Biblical Armageddon.

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Speaker 1: Sure it's bad, but it gets worse because while we

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Speaker 1: would ordinarily dismiss commander Armageddon over here, at just one

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Speaker 1: of those lunatics quoting that fundamentalist evangelical rapture bullshit, the

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Speaker 1: insane delusion that Jesus will return but only after all,

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Speaker 1: the Jews are in Israel and they've been converted, and

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Speaker 1: the Middle East is cleansed, and there is a rapture.

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Speaker 1: While we could ordinarily dismiss him, this time, we can't

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Speaker 1: because Commander Armageddon is one of at least sixty American

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Speaker 1: military leaders from at least fifty different military venues who

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Speaker 1: have gone off their rockers in this way since Trump

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Speaker 1: decided to bomb first and ask questions later, And there

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Speaker 1: have been at least two hundred urgent, freaked out whistleblower

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Speaker 1: contacts about these lunatics from NCOs and regular troops. And

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Speaker 1: while that's also bad bad, it can get even worse still,

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Speaker 1: and in fact it has because the two hundred pleas

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Speaker 1: for help from active American service personnel in fifty or

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Speaker 1: sixty different American military installations, quoting sixty or more different

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Speaker 1: commanders and other officers. That was the total as of

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Speaker 1: yesterday morning, like twenty four plus hours ago. We don't

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Speaker 1: know yet what the number is right now. Well, sorry

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Speaker 1: to break it to you don't know where the units

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Speaker 1: are that are led by not just one Commander Armageddon,

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Speaker 1: but like a dozen of them, and a dozen Commander

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Speaker 1: end Times and two dozen Commander Apocalypses, and maybe the

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Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense War. I don't care if it rains

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Speaker 1: or freeze, as long as I got my bombs from Jesus. Again,

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Speaker 1: those totals are from yesterday morning. Your mileage may vary.

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Speaker 1: We don't know if these whack doodles with all the

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Speaker 1: guns and all the bombs are still somewhere here in

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Speaker 1: the US in support and readiness rolls, or if some

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Speaker 1: of them are on their way to Iran right now

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Speaker 1: or they're already, or if any of them are shining

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Speaker 1: out that wonderful gleam of absolute insanity in their eyes

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Speaker 1: in the Middle East, the one so masterfully captured not

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Speaker 1: just by my friend Marty Sheen as the insane mass

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Speaker 1: murderer president in the Dead Zone, but also by Sterling

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Speaker 1: Hayden as Brigadier General Jack d Ripper in Doctor Strangelove.

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Speaker 1: I deny them, my essence, Man Drake, gentlemen, you can't fight,

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Speaker 1: and here this is the war room, etc. Two hundred

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Speaker 1: warnings about sixty religious nuts on fifty installations or more,

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Speaker 1: all of them in key positions. As we start a

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Speaker 1: war in the Middle East for no good goddamned reason,

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Speaker 1: but at least twenty seven bad ones, only it's probably

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Speaker 1: way more than that, because if you thought Trump started

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Speaker 1: a war on behalf of Brigadier General Jesus Age Christ

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Speaker 1: last Saturday and the week that had followed had followed,

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Speaker 1: you'd probably find a lot more of your friends agree

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Speaker 1: with you. And they were just holding back until there

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Speaker 1: were some signs like maybe the Secretary of State saying

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Speaker 1: we bombed because we knew the Iranians were going to

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Speaker 1: bomb Israel and we couldn't let that happen. But then

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Speaker 1: Trump saying, no, Israel bombed because we told them the

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Speaker 1: Iranians were going to bomb us and they couldn't let

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Speaker 1: that happen. And Ambassador Huckabee saying he wants his staff

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Speaker 1: in Israel to make spect rapture babies because the missiles

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Speaker 1: are flying. Allelujah, hallelujah. Also, there are the emergency Bible studies.

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Speaker 1: I will quote from a report on this, THEFF that's

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Speaker 1: the organization taking in all of these emergency calls. THERFF

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Speaker 1: says it got other complaints to about commanders scheduling last

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Speaker 1: minute Bible study sessions, announcing them Saturday to be held

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Speaker 1: the following day. Commanders directed officers to spread the word.

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Speaker 1: The MRFF says it received fourteen complaints from service members

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Speaker 1: stationed at five different military installations. The complaints came from

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Speaker 1: three branches unquote three branches I presume, father, son, and

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Speaker 1: Holy Ghost. Okay, I've deliberately played cute with this terrifying

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Speaker 1: stuff to kind of spread the impact of the show

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Speaker 1: shock on your poor already very shocked cranium and having

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Speaker 1: hopefully gotten you to where you learn to stop worrying

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Speaker 1: and love the bomb. I will now give you the background,

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Speaker 1: the background to the how we know about this quote

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Speaker 1: Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal

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Speaker 1: fire in Iran to cause armagedda Nan Marquez returned to Earth.

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Speaker 1: Quote we know about those sixty officers are basically saying, Oh,

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Speaker 1: you think Trump's explanation for this war is insaying, hold

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Speaker 1: my water while I turn it into wine. I have

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Speaker 1: the all time Lulu right here. We know of this

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Speaker 1: because of an organization called MRFF Military Religious Freedom Foundation,

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Speaker 1: founded in two thousand and five when a former Air

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Speaker 1: Force officer and JAG named Mikey Weinstein decided that the

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Speaker 1: resurgence of religious extremism in the US military had to

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Speaker 1: at least be monitored and if possible, countered, because while

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Speaker 1: it had been present in our military, it only began

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Speaker 1: to surge after nine to eleven, And it really only

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Speaker 1: took off when Barack Obama was elected president because Muslim,

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Speaker 1: or maybe because Black, or maybe because Chicago. The religious

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Speaker 1: nuts really don't have to show the math of their

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Speaker 1: own insanity, do they. In any event, The RFF maintains

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Speaker 1: a portal for service personnel to report anonymously when the

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Speaker 1: commanders wig out like this one did anonymously obviously. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are guns here and people who fervently believe killing

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Speaker 1: on behalf of Jesus gets them bonus points in an

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Speaker 1: after life. The MRFF is almost stunningly neutral. It's a

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Speaker 1: nonprofit foundation, a good old fashioned five OHO one C three.

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Speaker 1: It says it has dealt with nearly one hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: members active duty, reserve, National Guard, cadets, midshipmen, Defense Department

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Speaker 1: VA personnel, people at each of the eighteen National Security Agents,

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Speaker 1: these Homeland Security, even THEROTC. They are not atheists, They

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Speaker 1: are not anti religion. They are anti religion being shoved

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Speaker 1: down your throat and used as an excuse to you know,

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Speaker 1: blow up the world. Their records indicate that ninety five

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Speaker 1: percent of those they have dealt with over the years

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Speaker 1: are self professed Christians, and the neutrality of the organization

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Speaker 1: is not just intentional, not just deliberate. It has sometimes

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Speaker 1: happened organically externally. Tragically, one of the members of their

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Speaker 1: first advisory board, Glen Dharty, died in the attack on

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Speaker 1: the consulate in Benghazi, an especially poignant reminder. Since each

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Speaker 1: hour this week, we have moved closer to reenacting Benghazi

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Speaker 1: at any of nearly twenty US consulates across the Middle East,

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Speaker 1: where we and our troops are not the flavor of

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Speaker 1: the month, and we were totally unprepared, and we left

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Speaker 1: them totally unprepared, to say nothing of all the civilians.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of Jesus, ask your enlisted men, did you

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Speaker 1: ever notice that army and armageddon start with the same

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Speaker 1: syllable huh huh. That can't be a coincidence. The MRFF

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Speaker 1: put out an advisory on Tuesday that rather dryly phrased

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Speaker 1: it quote. From Saturday morning through Monday night, similar complaints

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Speaker 1: about commanders in every branch of the military had been

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Speaker 1: logged by their outfit. That fact and those quotes got

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Speaker 1: to an independent reporter named Jonathan Larson. Now Here is

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Speaker 1: where I confess that, having read all this initially and

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Speaker 1: written all this and gone back and reread what I

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Speaker 1: had written, I still have this default setting of this's

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Speaker 1: got to be a gag, right, I mean, April Fools

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Speaker 1: Day is less than four weeks from now, or I

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Speaker 1: would be thinking that way except I used to work

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Speaker 1: with that journalist Jonathan Larson, who detailed this on his

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Speaker 1: sub stack. I worked with Jonathan at CNN in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and one and two thousand and two, and then

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Speaker 1: he rejoined me at MSNBC and Countdown a few years

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Speaker 1: after that, and by the time I left, he was

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Speaker 1: one of the little coterie of senior producers who actually

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Speaker 1: ran the place. And then he launched Chris Hayes's show,

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Speaker 1: and he had worked with Anderson Cooper and others at CNN.

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Speaker 1: His area of responsibility was always finding the stuff the

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Speaker 1: rest of Network News had not or had found and

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Speaker 1: would not touch, and then vet the hell out of

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Speaker 1: it before we put it on the air. So, if

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Speaker 1: I may be forgiven for showing my math here, my

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Speaker 1: mind went thusly, Oh way, he's got to be clickbait man.

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Speaker 1: Maybe not clickbait, but conspiracy theory. Well, maybe not conspiracy theory,

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Speaker 1: but exaggerations. Well, maybe not exaggerations, but oh it's Larsen.

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Speaker 1: Oh oh, then it's worse than it reads, because Jonathan

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Speaker 1: always used to go back and edit out all the

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Speaker 1: adjectives and ono modo poetica, and he'd roll his eyes

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Speaker 1: when I would quote doctor Strain or the dead Zone.

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Larson did not make this up. Therefore, I am

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Speaker 1: safe in saying the MRFF did not make this up. Therefore,

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Speaker 1: I don't think the one hundred and ten or two

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Speaker 1: hundred or two thousand authors of the complaints the MRFF

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Speaker 1: has made this up. These people are out there in

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Speaker 1: our military talking about armageddon. Trump probably didn't personally launch

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Speaker 1: his illegal, unconstitutional, and incredibly stupid attacks on Iran early

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Speaker 1: last Saturday morning, our time because he read it in

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Speaker 1: the Bible. Because he's never had a Bible in the

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Speaker 1: nightstand next to his bed. He's only had his copy

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Speaker 1: of Hitler's favorite speeches. That is literally true. Ask his

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Speaker 1: first wife, the one who's buried on the golf course.

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Speaker 1: He didn't bomb Iran to forcibly convert the Jews and

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Speaker 1: light the lamp or put the biscuit in the basket,

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Speaker 1: or whatever Commander Armageddon told his NCOs. He bombed Iran

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Speaker 1: because he had to find something to divert from the

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Speaker 1: Epstein cover up, his Epstein cover up, something that would

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Speaker 1: last longer than all the previous diversions he had tried,

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Speaker 1: which have each brought him less than a day. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Trump doesn't know what he's doing in Iran, and as

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Speaker 1: far as what's supposed to happen next, what's far worse

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Speaker 1: is he doesn't know why he's doing it. But as

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Speaker 1: to why he sent the bombers, it really is as

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Speaker 1: simple as it looks, tuned to a different station, more Iran,

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Speaker 1: less Epstein. This would be why he gave nineteen separate

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Speaker 1: phone interviews to reporters on Sunday alone, with nineteen different

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Speaker 1: explanations for this war. No, it isn't a war. We

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Speaker 1: just call it a war, but legally it's not a war.

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Speaker 1: But of course it's a war. To hit my limit

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Speaker 1: for film references, are they saying, is there a rational

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Speaker 1: explanation for why we're bombing Iran? No, of course not.

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Speaker 1: They're saying, how many different explanations are there for why

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Speaker 1: we're bombing Iran. The problem is if Trump, who at

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Speaker 1: this point really is the equivalent of a pretty large,

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Speaker 1: pretty intelligent cockroach, with all of a cockroach's survival skills

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Speaker 1: and its brilliant ability to perceive escalating threats, Trump really

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Speaker 1: is in survival mode over Epstein enough to blow up

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Speaker 1: the Middle East, just to survive Epstein, blow up the

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Speaker 1: Middle East and tank his two economic arguments the entire

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Speaker 1: chance the Republicans have in the midterms. Dow Jones over

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand, price of gas under three dollars. Oops. If

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Speaker 1: Trump is this paniced, is that much at his end game,

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Speaker 1: those around him have to have been able to see it. Plus,

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Speaker 1: there are those cadaverous patches on his right hand and

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Speaker 1: the new thing on the neck that looks like a

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Speaker 1: rope burn, And the best case scenario from his doctor

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Speaker 1: Vinnie Boombats appears to be that it's from some kind

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Speaker 1: of care for skin cancer. And more cheese has slid

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Speaker 1: off his ritz Cracker. The other day he did the

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Speaker 1: thing where he conflated his father and his grandfather. He

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Speaker 1: did that the other year he told the Chancellor of

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Speaker 1: Germany that his father was born in Germany. No, his

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Speaker 1: father was born here in fun City, New York, New York.

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Speaker 1: It was his grandfather who was born in Germany before

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Speaker 1: his grandfather fled Germany to avoid military service. I swear

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Speaker 1: unless unless his father really is his grandfather, my grandfather,

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Speaker 1: my father, my grandfather, my father. He's my father and

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Speaker 1: my grandfather. Okay, I'm now over my movie reference limit,

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Speaker 1: so sue me. The point is Trump's nuts, but he's

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Speaker 1: not ulterior motive nuts, and he's reached Liz Trust levels

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Speaker 1: of leadership in confidence, but he's not doing anything more

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Speaker 1: nefarious than just trying to steal all the money in

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Speaker 1: the world and stay in power forever. It's evil, but

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Speaker 1: it's easy to process. But as my old colleague mister

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Speaker 1: Larson points out, that is not true of many around Trump.

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Speaker 1: Larsen writes, quote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical

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Speaker 1: Christianity at the uppermost levels of the US military, airing

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Speaker 1: monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon. Last year, the Pentagon

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Speaker 1: confirmed me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study.

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Speaker 1: It's led by a preacher who says God commands America

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Speaker 1: to support Israel. You don't have to be a minister

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Speaker 1: or a counselor or a psychological professional to see that

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Speaker 1: Hegseth is in a state of crisis, has been in

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Speaker 1: a state of crisis for a long time. In fact,

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Speaker 1: is nuttier than a fruitcake or nuttier than the fruitcake

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Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Is he in a biblical apocalyptic end

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Speaker 1: times rapture state of crisis? Who knows? But if you

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Speaker 1: had to pick one person in the Trump administration who

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Speaker 1: was and you had to bet on him being that way,

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Speaker 1: like some Trump administration figures apparently bet last Friday that

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Speaker 1: we would bomb Iran within twenty four hours. If you

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Speaker 1: had to bet, you'd bet on heg Seth. There's also

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Speaker 1: this paul A White, the Trumps spiritual advisor from Tupelo, Mississippi,

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Speaker 1: who has previously been accused of selling blessings for cash.

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Speaker 1: Who and who at some sort of Trump connected event

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Speaker 1: the other day, lapsed into the whole fake healing thing

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Speaker 1: before realizing where she was. Is also JD. Vance, who

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Speaker 1: has been everything and believed everything and used every known

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Speaker 1: name and sold everything, and who couches everything sorry, in

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Speaker 1: biblical good and evil terms, and who in one of

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Speaker 1: the explanations for this disastrous attack on Iran where we

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Speaker 1: are wasting four million dollar missiles to try to take

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Speaker 1: down thirty thousand dollars Iranian drones in one of these

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Speaker 1: war rationales. I think it's number six B, or maybe

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Speaker 1: it's six C. It's Vance who finally convinced Trump that

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Speaker 1: this was exactly the right moment to bomb bomb bomb

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Speaker 1: bomb bomb Iran. To quote Saint John of McCain. So

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Speaker 1: Trump doesn't have to believe this armageddon shit, and of

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Speaker 1: course he doesn't. He believes in money, contracts, blackmail, self gratification,

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Speaker 1: and the colored gold. He's never had a thought that

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Speaker 1: didn't pertain to one or all of them. He didn't

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Speaker 1: have to believe it. He just has to be in

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Speaker 1: desperate escape mode, and only one or two people around

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Speaker 1: him have to be in apocalypse now mode. And Kaboom,

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Speaker 1: looking at you, pig hag Seth, looking at you, Van, Oh,

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Speaker 1: where is Vance? For God's sakes? Check house of futons?

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Speaker 2: Will you?

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you've noticed by now I really have tried to

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Speaker 1: present this apocalypse news in non apocalyptic terms, because we

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Speaker 1: can either mock it and laugh at a few puns

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Speaker 1: about it, or we can all run screaming into the

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Speaker 1: streets over it. And I've now gotten through sixty seven

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Speaker 1: years of almost running screaming into the streets every goddamn day.

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Speaker 1: But I haven't run into the streets screaming yet. And

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Speaker 1: it's now about my stubborn pride. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: do it. I don't want to lose my streak. But

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Speaker 1: I did want to wrap this up before some brief

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Speaker 1: headlines and a really good addition of worse persons about

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Speaker 1: the Cretans at the White House Correspondence Association actually inviting

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Speaker 1: Trump to their dinner, their dinner in the post rapture Afterlife.

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Speaker 1: I presume I did want to wrap this up by

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Speaker 1: just reading the operative part of the email received by

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Speaker 1: Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation on Tuesday.

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Speaker 1: Obviously after a preliminary phone call to mister Weinstein, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to read the actual operative paragraph just to emphasize

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Speaker 1: that this is goddamned serious and emphasis on the goddamned

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Speaker 1: quote subject Unit combat Readiness Briefing and Armageddon. Date March two,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, at one two fifty three pm MST.

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Speaker 1: I am a NCO rank withheld in our unit. This morning,

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Speaker 1: our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by

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Speaker 1: urging us to not be afraid as to what is

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Speaker 1: happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He

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Speaker 1: urged us to tell our troops that this was all

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Speaker 1: part of God's divine plan, and he specifically referenced numerous

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Speaker 1: citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to armageddon

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Speaker 1: and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that

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Speaker 1: President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the

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Speaker 1: signal fire in Iran to cause armageddon and mark his

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Speaker 1: return to Earth. He had a big grin on his

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Speaker 1: face when he said all this, which made his message

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Speaker 1: seem even more crazy. Our commander would probably be described

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Speaker 1: as a Christian first supporter. He has been this way

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Speaker 1: for a very long time and makes it clear that

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Speaker 1: he desires all of us under him to become just

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Speaker 1: like him as a Christian. But what he did this

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Speaker 1: morning was so toxic and over the line that it

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Speaker 1: shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing.

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Speaker 1: Besides myself, I am reaching out Torff on behalf of

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Speaker 1: fifteen fellow troops. I know you asked me about the

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Speaker 1: religious views of our group who has requested help from THERFF.

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Speaker 1: I can only tell you that I am a Christian,

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Speaker 1: and at least ten of the others are also Christians,

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Speaker 1: one of the others is Jewish, and one is Muslim.

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Speaker 1: I don't know the religious or non religious status for

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Speaker 1: the other three at this time. N quote, thank you,

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Speaker 1: Nancy Faust Blondie's rapture. That's right. I felt like I

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Speaker 1: should explain the joke now the promised headlines and back

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Speaker 1: to it. Iran, And did anybody notice that Trump promised

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Speaker 1: forever war. I mean they invented this phrase forever war,

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Speaker 1: and Trump would end all the forever wars. And now

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Speaker 1: he's promised, he's promised, He's used the phrase forever about

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Speaker 1: a forever war. If you missed it. Quote, the United

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Speaker 1: States munitions stockpiles have at the medium and upper medium

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Speaker 1: grade never been higher or better. As was stated to

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Speaker 1: me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons.

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Speaker 1: Wars can be fought quote forever unquote and very successfully

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Speaker 1: using just these supplies. Even if you're crazy, you can

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Speaker 1: still have a good old fashioned, easy to understand Freudian

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Speaker 1: slip wars can be fought forever, said the man who

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Speaker 1: said that we would not have forever wars and would

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Speaker 1: not fight them forever, also quoting Trump, I don't have

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Speaker 1: the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like

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Speaker 1: everybody President says there will be no boots on the ground.

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Speaker 1: I don't say it, Trump said, after launching the strikes

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Speaker 1: on Saturday, I say, probably don't need them, or if

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Speaker 1: they were necessary. It terrifies me almost as much as

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Speaker 1: the whole Armageddon stuff does. That when we hear Trump

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Speaker 1: talk about boots on the ground, there is every possibility

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Speaker 1: that he literally thinks that is literally what we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: that we're actually talking about boots on the ground, that

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Speaker 1: we're actually talking about sending cargo jets to a ran

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Speaker 1: full of footwear. If we survived. This last week should

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Speaker 1: be investigated as one of the worst scandals in American history,

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Speaker 1: even for Trump. The impeccable Brian Boiler writes that the

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Speaker 1: Democrats quote can resolve to treat it as a scandal

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Speaker 1: rather than a misjudgment. Nobody asked for this, and the

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Speaker 1: administration did not build a case for it. He writes,

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Speaker 1: Trump ordered the decapitation of the Iranian regime without a

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Speaker 1: plan for the aftermath. He and his advisors were reportedly

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Speaker 1: unprepared for the scale of the Iranian response. Multiple service

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Speaker 1: members have already been killed. We lost three f fifteen

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Speaker 1: fighters in one day. This Busler, continues, is more than

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Speaker 1: just an unwise use of military power that has cost

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Speaker 1: American lives and will make gasoline more expensive. It's an

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Speaker 1: impeachable offense that Americans have a right to understand from

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Speaker 1: its genesis. How was this decision made as Americans were

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Speaker 1: kept in the dark, Who presented, what to whom, and

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Speaker 1: what argument, if any, ultimately persuaded Trump. If records weren't

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Speaker 1: kept as to this process, what methods are these principles

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Speaker 1: using to conceal their deliberations from the public and the

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Speaker 1: eyes of history. Did Trump administration officials profit from the

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Speaker 1: war by placing bets on Kalshi or polymarket? Is it

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Speaker 1: the fruit of bribes that Gulf states paid directly to Trump?

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Speaker 1: Brian Boiler Who if the Democrats simply put in charge

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Speaker 1: of say the campaign of twenty twenty six and twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty eight, they go up about three points in the

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Speaker 1: end results in other words, Dems learn something from the

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Speaker 1: brutalities inflicted on this country and on your party in particular,

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Speaker 1: Dems ben Ghazi the hell out of this thing, and obviously,

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Speaker 1: in the context of what we're talking about today, I

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Speaker 1: do mean hell. Also of interest here, I have a

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Speaker 1: few words to say to the morons at the White

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Speaker 1: House Correspondence associated who invited Trump, who has been trying

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Speaker 1: to get reporters killed, arrested, and imprisoned for the last decade,

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Speaker 1: and he has accepted. And I guess they invited him

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Speaker 1: because the guy who murdered the five employees at the

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Speaker 1: Capitol Gazette newspaper in Maryland eight years ago was unavailable

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Speaker 1: because he's still serving five life terms in prison. They

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Speaker 1: couldn't get that guy. So Trump's the next worst human

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Speaker 1: being they could find to talk to a correspondent's dinner.

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Speaker 1: What are you people thinking, Well, your White House correspondents,

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Speaker 1: you're not thinking at all, are you. That's next. This

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Speaker 1: is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Oberman.

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Speaker 2: Oberman, Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Yankee Stadium.

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Speaker 1: My impression of the late Yankee public Address announcer Bob

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Speaker 1: Shepherd and Larry David's impression, which you heard first first

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Speaker 1: still ahead on this volume of Countdown, a kind of

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Speaker 1: hybrid between things I promised not to tell at our

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Speaker 1: Thurber segments. Basically, this is James Thurber's things he promised

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Speaker 1: not to tell, his long form story, and I mean

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Speaker 1: it's about half an hour of his days at the

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Speaker 1: founding of the New Yorker magazine. It is not fiction,

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Speaker 1: but many friends of the founder of the magazine, Harold Ross,

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Speaker 1: think a lot of it was fiction. But whatever, it's

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Speaker 1: funny and it's as goofy as any Thurber fable the

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Speaker 1: years with Ross. Next in Things he promised not to

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Speaker 1: tell first, however, we always have more new idiots talk

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Speaker 1: about the roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger

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Speaker 1: effects specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world.

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Speaker 1: The bronze worse Gunther Eagleman. Gunther Eagleman is the Twitter

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Speaker 1: fake name of a disgraced former Texas cop named David Freeman,

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Speaker 1: who thinks it's a patriotic fake name because it's got

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Speaker 1: both gun.

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Speaker 2: And igle in it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you could have gone with stun gun eagle droppings,

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Speaker 1: but David's not that creative anyway. He was outed on

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Speaker 1: Musk's site by another right winger too afraid to use

425
00:28:58,875 --> 00:29:04,915
Speaker 1: his real name, Sword Truth or if you prefer sword Truth,

426
00:29:05,675 --> 00:29:08,755
Speaker 1: and I want to read sword Truth's bio just to

427
00:29:08,795 --> 00:29:12,395
Speaker 1: underscore that this is a maga nut job making these

428
00:29:12,515 --> 00:29:17,995
Speaker 1: charges against Gunther Eagleman, not me. Quote investigative maga journalist

429
00:29:19,435 --> 00:29:26,515
Speaker 1: remonetized by ex critical thinker. And that's also pretty funny podcaster, Okay, author, sure,

430
00:29:26,555 --> 00:29:30,715
Speaker 1: why not? Jesus is King. I always like to read

431
00:29:30,755 --> 00:29:34,235
Speaker 1: the magas who, as you know, hate Latino Hispanic people

432
00:29:34,275 --> 00:29:37,875
Speaker 1: and Mexican people and any brown people. I always liked

433
00:29:37,955 --> 00:29:40,155
Speaker 1: when they use quote Jesus. I always like to hear

434
00:29:40,195 --> 00:29:47,515
Speaker 1: it in my head as Jesusjesus is King. Anyway, Sword Truth,

435
00:29:47,515 --> 00:29:51,315
Speaker 1: if that is your real name, sword or swat to

436
00:29:51,435 --> 00:29:56,275
Speaker 1: his friends alleges that David Freeman gun through Eagleman's often

437
00:29:56,395 --> 00:30:02,595
Speaker 1: raged filled Twitter x feed, is all about money, quoting

438
00:30:02,715 --> 00:30:07,755
Speaker 1: him gun Th Eagleman, like most of Cohn Incorporated, will

439
00:30:07,795 --> 00:30:14,995
Speaker 1: post anything for money, including TPUSA propaganda. Here is Eagelman writes,

440
00:30:15,275 --> 00:30:19,115
Speaker 1: Sword providing his cash app while refusing to post about

441
00:30:19,115 --> 00:30:23,035
Speaker 1: a patriotic MAGA topic except for three hundred dollars. Quote.

442
00:30:23,035 --> 00:30:26,115
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, brother, I charged the same for anyone. This

443
00:30:26,315 --> 00:30:29,595
Speaker 1: was long ago. He's likely doubled his rates per posts

444
00:30:29,715 --> 00:30:34,555
Speaker 1: since then. I have no doubt, goes Sword further in

445
00:30:34,675 --> 00:30:37,395
Speaker 1: my mind that he makes frequent paid posts on behalf

446
00:30:37,435 --> 00:30:41,675
Speaker 1: of third parties for TPUSA and Jake Hoffman through multiple

447
00:30:41,715 --> 00:30:48,195
Speaker 1: different paid posting and influencer companies. Unquote you think it's fascism.

448
00:30:48,595 --> 00:30:53,635
Speaker 1: He thinks it's an income and anyway. Sword then posted

449
00:30:53,715 --> 00:30:59,035
Speaker 1: screenshots of an online conversation with gun Grease in which

450
00:30:59,075 --> 00:31:02,475
Speaker 1: he's got Gunther saying or being asked something about I

451
00:31:02,515 --> 00:31:05,315
Speaker 1: created a post just now about it with some links

452
00:31:05,555 --> 00:31:09,635
Speaker 1: to more info, and Gunther responding I do charge. I

453
00:31:09,675 --> 00:31:12,955
Speaker 1: can send you my cash app if you still want

454
00:31:12,955 --> 00:31:18,035
Speaker 1: the repost. And then the answer comes from presumably whoever

455
00:31:18,075 --> 00:31:21,115
Speaker 1: it is that Sword knows. I understand, Yes, I am interested.

456
00:31:21,355 --> 00:31:24,355
Speaker 1: Is there any discount because of the patriotic nature and

457
00:31:24,475 --> 00:31:28,315
Speaker 1: emphasis on helping blah blah blah, god bless seventeen minute

458
00:31:28,355 --> 00:31:31,835
Speaker 1: video presentation password, blah blah blah. The answer, The only

459
00:31:31,875 --> 00:31:35,755
Speaker 1: promotional posts I do are three hundred dollars reposts. And

460
00:31:35,835 --> 00:31:39,835
Speaker 1: by the way, it's three hundred dollars written as dollar

461
00:31:39,955 --> 00:31:44,435
Speaker 1: sign three zero zero dot zero zero just in case

462
00:31:44,515 --> 00:31:49,195
Speaker 1: you thought he might be asking for three hundred dollars

463
00:31:49,395 --> 00:31:53,235
Speaker 1: nine cents. Yes, I would understand this would be something

464
00:31:53,435 --> 00:31:59,395
Speaker 1: you do for yourself referral business, not minimum. When defenders

465
00:31:59,435 --> 00:32:04,515
Speaker 1: insisted that free Egle gunther Man was innocent, sword truth

466
00:32:04,675 --> 00:32:08,435
Speaker 1: and posted a video scroll of that entire conversation three

467
00:32:08,475 --> 00:32:12,955
Speaker 1: hundred dollars to get a retweet from Eagleman because Murca.

468
00:32:13,875 --> 00:32:16,635
Speaker 1: What I want to know is this, if Eagleman's feed

469
00:32:16,755 --> 00:32:21,035
Speaker 1: really is as alleged, just cash driven, if this is

470
00:32:21,115 --> 00:32:24,195
Speaker 1: less about America and more about American money, isn't it

471
00:32:24,235 --> 00:32:29,595
Speaker 1: funny that Eagleman is always quoting Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

472
00:32:29,795 --> 00:32:34,715
Speaker 1: That's odd, isn't it? Runner Up, Speaking of odd, there's

473
00:32:34,795 --> 00:32:39,075
Speaker 1: Senator Markwain Mullen of Oklahoma. We have visited with Mark

474
00:32:39,115 --> 00:32:43,395
Speaker 1: Kwain a lot because mommy and Daddy couldn't decide between

475
00:32:43,715 --> 00:32:46,795
Speaker 1: calling him Mark and calling him Wayne, so they called

476
00:32:46,875 --> 00:32:52,035
Speaker 1: him Mark Wwain. He is very probably the only human

477
00:32:52,475 --> 00:32:55,395
Speaker 1: and certainly the only US Senator who can bring shame

478
00:32:55,675 --> 00:33:01,275
Speaker 1: and embarrassment to the name Mark Wain. Mark Wain is

479
00:33:01,355 --> 00:33:04,675
Speaker 1: dumb as a post. In fact, Markwain is as dumb

480
00:33:05,115 --> 00:33:08,395
Speaker 1: as the shadow of a post. In fact, he's as

481
00:33:08,475 --> 00:33:11,955
Speaker 1: dumb as the spit stain where the shadow of a

482
00:33:11,995 --> 00:33:18,195
Speaker 1: post used to be. Quote. War is ugly, he said

483
00:33:18,195 --> 00:33:22,635
Speaker 1: on Fox the other day. Quote it smells bad. As

484
00:33:22,675 --> 00:33:24,915
Speaker 1: an aside, I should note Markwayne Mullen never served in

485
00:33:24,955 --> 00:33:27,755
Speaker 1: the military, so he knows nothing about this smell of

486
00:33:27,835 --> 00:33:32,715
Speaker 1: war firsthand. To resume the quote, and anybody has ever

487
00:33:32,795 --> 00:33:34,995
Speaker 1: been there and been able to smell the war that's

488
00:33:35,035 --> 00:33:37,595
Speaker 1: happened round it and taste it and fill it in

489
00:33:37,635 --> 00:33:41,555
Speaker 1: your nostrils and hear it something that you'll never forget.

490
00:33:42,675 --> 00:33:45,075
Speaker 1: Mark Wayne used to to be not in the army,

491
00:33:45,075 --> 00:33:48,355
Speaker 1: but in the plumbing game. When he starts talking about

492
00:33:48,395 --> 00:33:52,555
Speaker 1: smelling something and it filling your nostrils, he's talking about

493
00:33:52,595 --> 00:33:55,835
Speaker 1: your backed up bathroom drain. I mean, holy cow, buddy,

494
00:33:56,275 --> 00:34:01,595
Speaker 1: that wasn't war, That was sewage. The thing is the

495
00:34:01,675 --> 00:34:04,675
Speaker 1: smell stuff there. That was the highlight of his appears

496
00:34:04,795 --> 00:34:09,355
Speaker 1: and sun Fox News. Senator Mark Klaine continued, if anybody's

497
00:34:09,395 --> 00:34:11,075
Speaker 1: ever been there and been able to smell the war,

498
00:34:11,155 --> 00:34:12,915
Speaker 1: that's happened around you and tay to fill it in

499
00:34:12,955 --> 00:34:16,075
Speaker 1: your nostrils and hear it something that you'll never forget. Fortunately,

500
00:34:16,435 --> 00:34:21,355
Speaker 1: he said, you have President hegg Seth. He quickly corrected himself.

501
00:34:21,475 --> 00:34:24,595
Speaker 1: I say President he Seth, Secretary heg Seth that has

502
00:34:24,595 --> 00:34:28,715
Speaker 1: got a great relationship with President Trump, and President heg

503
00:34:28,795 --> 00:34:34,275
Speaker 1: Seth has been there. Unquote, Mark Wayne Mullen calls him

504
00:34:34,315 --> 00:34:37,795
Speaker 1: President hag Seth. God forbid, immediately cracks himself and then

505
00:34:37,835 --> 00:34:41,955
Speaker 1: calls him President Hegseth again. You don't believe me.

506
00:34:42,435 --> 00:34:45,435
Speaker 3: War is ugly. It smells bad. And if anybody's ever

507
00:34:45,795 --> 00:34:49,395
Speaker 3: been there and been able to smell the the the

508
00:34:49,555 --> 00:34:52,195
Speaker 3: war that's happened around you and taste it and fill

509
00:34:52,235 --> 00:34:55,315
Speaker 3: it in your nostrils and hear it, it's something that

510
00:34:55,395 --> 00:34:56,395
Speaker 3: you'll never forget.

511
00:34:56,875 --> 00:34:57,515
Speaker 1: And it's ugly.

512
00:34:57,635 --> 00:35:01,515
Speaker 3: And fortunately you have President Haigseth, or I say President Hegseth,

513
00:35:01,555 --> 00:35:05,315
Speaker 3: Secretary Heigseth that has got a great relation with President

514
00:35:05,355 --> 00:35:07,355
Speaker 3: Trump and President Heigs has been there.

515
00:35:07,395 --> 00:35:12,635
Speaker 1: He's done that. Oh my god. A Senator, I'd also

516
00:35:12,755 --> 00:35:17,035
Speaker 1: like to add, Senator Senator Mark Qwain, your die job

517
00:35:18,275 --> 00:35:22,355
Speaker 1: the just for men coffee beans in the sink on

518
00:35:22,475 --> 00:35:27,995
Speaker 1: the old beardo there not fooling anybody. Mark Kwain Mullen,

519
00:35:28,435 --> 00:35:35,915
Speaker 1: the winds of war and plumbing. But even he's not

520
00:35:35,995 --> 00:35:38,995
Speaker 1: the worst, the winner, the worst president. Hegseth, I mean

521
00:35:39,195 --> 00:35:43,155
Speaker 1: President Mullen, I mean President Eagleman, I mean President Trump.

522
00:35:44,435 --> 00:35:47,795
Speaker 1: Actually Trump only has minority ownership of this award. It

523
00:35:47,915 --> 00:35:53,595
Speaker 1: really goes to the w HCA, the White House Correspondence Association,

524
00:35:53,955 --> 00:35:58,355
Speaker 1: and it's new president Uija Jang of CBS. Now. His

525
00:35:58,395 --> 00:36:02,395
Speaker 1: correspondents go, she's fine, and I'm sure this can't have

526
00:36:02,595 --> 00:36:06,395
Speaker 1: just been her idea, And and the WHCA may have

527
00:36:06,435 --> 00:36:09,275
Speaker 1: proposed this, thinking there's no way he's going to say yes.

528
00:36:10,235 --> 00:36:15,515
Speaker 1: But he said yes. The WHCA, which under her predecessor,

529
00:36:15,595 --> 00:36:20,635
Speaker 1: this self absorbed goofball Eugene Daniels now of MSN now

530
00:36:21,715 --> 00:36:25,595
Speaker 1: did nothing. WHCA did nothing under Eugene Daniels president. When

531
00:36:25,635 --> 00:36:29,395
Speaker 1: Trump started banning individual reporters and news outlets from the

532
00:36:29,395 --> 00:36:32,235
Speaker 1: press room, Daniels did nothing. He was too busy trying

533
00:36:32,235 --> 00:36:36,235
Speaker 1: to get on TV. The WHCA not only has invited

534
00:36:36,275 --> 00:36:41,515
Speaker 1: Trump to attend that annual exercise in pointlessness, the Oscars

535
00:36:41,595 --> 00:36:44,995
Speaker 1: for Ugly People, as it has been called the White

536
00:36:45,035 --> 00:36:47,555
Speaker 1: House Correspondence Dinner, an event that people who go to

537
00:36:47,595 --> 00:36:50,995
Speaker 1: the Rotary Club weekly luncheons in Skinny Atlas, New York

538
00:36:51,115 --> 00:36:55,675
Speaker 1: would be embarrassed to attend the White House Correspondent's Dinner.

539
00:36:56,035 --> 00:36:59,435
Speaker 1: That they once said, NBC had to threaten to fire

540
00:36:59,515 --> 00:37:02,555
Speaker 1: me to get me to go. Jeff Zucker said, if

541
00:37:02,555 --> 00:37:06,595
Speaker 1: you do not go, I will fire you. Not only

542
00:37:06,635 --> 00:37:11,035
Speaker 1: did they invite Trump, they apparently told him or let

543
00:37:11,115 --> 00:37:14,235
Speaker 1: him believe that he would be given an award, or

544
00:37:14,315 --> 00:37:18,195
Speaker 1: be honored, or be the honoree or something. Because Trump

545
00:37:18,395 --> 00:37:21,315
Speaker 1: has accepted and is going to go to the White

546
00:37:21,315 --> 00:37:26,675
Speaker 1: House Correspondence Dinner, and he immediately boasted about it. Trump wrote,

547
00:37:26,755 --> 00:37:29,715
Speaker 1: quote in honor of our nation's two hundred and fiftieth birthday,

548
00:37:29,915 --> 00:37:33,955
Speaker 1: and the fact that these quote correspondents unquote now admit

549
00:37:34,035 --> 00:37:36,275
Speaker 1: that I am truly one of the greatest presidents in

550
00:37:36,315 --> 00:37:41,555
Speaker 1: the history of our country, the goat. According to many, Yes,

551
00:37:41,595 --> 00:37:46,275
Speaker 1: you're the forty sixth best president ever. It will be

552
00:37:46,355 --> 00:37:49,235
Speaker 1: my honor to accept their invitation and work to make

553
00:37:49,235 --> 00:37:52,875
Speaker 1: it the greatest, hottest, and most spectacular dinner of any

554
00:37:52,995 --> 00:37:57,915
Speaker 1: kind ever. By the way, if they're still hosting it,

555
00:37:57,955 --> 00:38:01,395
Speaker 1: in that Hilton in Washington, it will automatically still be

556
00:38:01,435 --> 00:38:04,035
Speaker 1: the hottest ever because the ac ain't that great in

557
00:38:04,075 --> 00:38:09,195
Speaker 1: that ball room. But back to the main point, you're

558
00:38:09,395 --> 00:38:14,235
Speaker 1: honoring Trump. I mean, even if he just invented the

559
00:38:14,275 --> 00:38:17,635
Speaker 1: idea that there's some sort of award or they're gonna

560
00:38:17,675 --> 00:38:20,275
Speaker 1: name your greatest president in history of something, even if

561
00:38:20,315 --> 00:38:24,155
Speaker 1: he just invented that, you're you're letting him in. You're

562
00:38:24,195 --> 00:38:28,515
Speaker 1: letting him in. Are you Are you doing this because

563
00:38:28,675 --> 00:38:32,355
Speaker 1: he had Don Lemon arrested, or despite him having had

564
00:38:32,555 --> 00:38:37,075
Speaker 1: Don Lemon arrested? Are you doing this? Whca because he

565
00:38:37,195 --> 00:38:40,995
Speaker 1: pressured Warner Bros. Discovery to sell itself and CNN to

566
00:38:41,035 --> 00:38:45,035
Speaker 1: the Ellisons rather than to Netflix the Ellisons who already

567
00:38:45,035 --> 00:38:48,355
Speaker 1: bought and destroyed CBS. Are you doing that because he

568
00:38:48,395 --> 00:38:51,595
Speaker 1: did that? Or despite the fact that that now CNN

569
00:38:51,715 --> 00:38:57,395
Speaker 1: and CBS are our fascist networks? Are you doing this

570
00:38:57,475 --> 00:38:59,955
Speaker 1: because we know for a fact that his old National

571
00:38:59,995 --> 00:39:02,915
Speaker 1: Inquirer buddies tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos into turning the

572
00:39:02,955 --> 00:39:06,155
Speaker 1: Washington Post into a Trump proper Ganda outlet in twenty

573
00:39:06,275 --> 00:39:10,595
Speaker 1: seventeen or so, And then what a surprise, Bezos actually

574
00:39:10,635 --> 00:39:13,315
Speaker 1: did it anyway last year? Are Are you doing that

575
00:39:13,475 --> 00:39:16,555
Speaker 1: because he did that to try to kill off freedom

576
00:39:16,595 --> 00:39:18,995
Speaker 1: and for the press in this country? Or despite that?

577
00:39:20,355 --> 00:39:22,515
Speaker 1: I mean, Trump is going to be at your dinner

578
00:39:23,075 --> 00:39:27,235
Speaker 1: because the guys who literally blew up the LA Times

579
00:39:27,235 --> 00:39:30,635
Speaker 1: building in nineteen ten, killing twenty one and injuring more

580
00:39:30,635 --> 00:39:34,075
Speaker 1: than one hundred LA Times employees, Because the guys who

581
00:39:34,115 --> 00:39:37,435
Speaker 1: perpetrated that, because they're dead now and you can't have them,

582
00:39:37,475 --> 00:39:39,875
Speaker 1: so you're gonna take Trump instead. Are you having Trump

583
00:39:39,915 --> 00:39:44,675
Speaker 1: because Goebbels who imprisoned reporters in Nazi Germany? Because he's dead,

584
00:39:44,995 --> 00:39:47,195
Speaker 1: you can't get him. Are you doing it? Is it

585
00:39:47,235 --> 00:39:51,195
Speaker 1: Trump because MBS who ordered the bone sawing of a

586
00:39:51,355 --> 00:39:54,795
Speaker 1: Washington Post columnist. MBS would not pay his own way

587
00:39:54,835 --> 00:39:57,795
Speaker 1: in from Saudi Arabia, and the White House Correspondence Association

588
00:39:58,035 --> 00:39:59,835
Speaker 1: doesn't have the money for a free ticket for him.

589
00:40:00,355 --> 00:40:05,555
Speaker 1: Is that why you're having Trump, by the way, instead

590
00:40:05,555 --> 00:40:08,555
Speaker 1: of a comedian, because of course, the WHCA is also

591
00:40:08,675 --> 00:40:13,235
Speaker 1: not only subservient and terrified enough of Trump to invite

592
00:40:13,275 --> 00:40:16,995
Speaker 1: this mffor, but also too scared to have a comedian

593
00:40:17,035 --> 00:40:20,955
Speaker 1: there to balance it out. I mean, why not Stephen Colbert.

594
00:40:22,075 --> 00:40:25,155
Speaker 1: You know I loathed Stephen Colbert personally, but if Stephen

595
00:40:25,155 --> 00:40:27,595
Speaker 1: Colbert would be the stand up with Trump sitting next

596
00:40:27,595 --> 00:40:31,835
Speaker 1: to him, I'd carry Stephen Colbert to DC on my

597
00:40:32,115 --> 00:40:36,115
Speaker 1: back instead of a stand up of any kind. Stephen

598
00:40:36,115 --> 00:40:40,395
Speaker 1: Colbert or Carrot Top. Carrot Top will be fine. Carrot

599
00:40:40,515 --> 00:40:43,115
Speaker 1: Top will be Carrot Top will do it. Carrot Top

600
00:40:43,115 --> 00:40:45,955
Speaker 1: has the courage the White House Correspondence Association does not.

601
00:40:46,355 --> 00:40:49,075
Speaker 1: Carrot Top will go there and insult Trump. Carrot Top

602
00:40:49,075 --> 00:40:51,475
Speaker 1: will make Trump get up and leave and try to

603
00:40:51,475 --> 00:40:58,275
Speaker 1: have Carrot Top arrested. He'll do it. What's his name?

604
00:40:58,355 --> 00:41:04,675
Speaker 1: Emo Phillips? Emo will do it the entertainer instead of

605
00:41:04,755 --> 00:41:11,835
Speaker 1: Bay stand up. The entertainer instead of Roy Firestone is

606
00:41:11,875 --> 00:41:15,755
Speaker 1: going to be a mentalist. They ever got a mental

607
00:41:15,835 --> 00:41:20,995
Speaker 1: case and a mentalist, a mentalist named Oz Pearlman. And

608
00:41:21,035 --> 00:41:23,675
Speaker 1: I assume Trump agreed to go because he thinks Oz

609
00:41:23,795 --> 00:41:28,315
Speaker 1: Pearlman is doctor Oz from his own cabinet. And then,

610
00:41:29,635 --> 00:41:32,435
Speaker 1: don't look like Oz Oz, You've had a facelift again.

611
00:41:33,635 --> 00:41:39,635
Speaker 1: Oz Pearlman's previous biggest gig was the SP's Holy Cow.

612
00:41:40,115 --> 00:41:45,395
Speaker 1: A mentalist, say, whca, why don't you get somebody like

613
00:41:45,515 --> 00:41:50,795
Speaker 1: John Edward who communicates with the dead dead, like like

614
00:41:50,915 --> 00:41:54,755
Speaker 1: the White House Correspondence Association journalistic credentials, or its defense

615
00:41:54,795 --> 00:41:58,715
Speaker 1: of its membership, or its defense of this country. You've

616
00:41:58,715 --> 00:42:03,755
Speaker 1: got a mentalist? Are you kidding? Are you expecting having

617
00:42:03,795 --> 00:42:10,035
Speaker 1: Trump there will pacify him? Having one thousand people in

618
00:42:10,075 --> 00:42:16,235
Speaker 1: a stinky ballroom in Washington will make him not put

619
00:42:16,275 --> 00:42:19,995
Speaker 1: you in a prison camp. It will appease him. It

620
00:42:20,035 --> 00:42:23,915
Speaker 1: will increase attendance, it will sell more tickets. It'll make

621
00:42:23,995 --> 00:42:25,795
Speaker 1: up for the fact that the decor at the hotel

622
00:42:25,835 --> 00:42:28,355
Speaker 1: ballroom you use looks like it was left over from

623
00:42:28,355 --> 00:42:34,195
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty two Indianapolis, Indiana Emmy Awards dinner. Did

624
00:42:34,195 --> 00:42:36,635
Speaker 1: you invite him on a dare? Did you invite him

625
00:42:36,675 --> 00:42:40,915
Speaker 1: to show him that your association will do absolutely nothing

626
00:42:41,155 --> 00:42:44,515
Speaker 1: to stand up for freedom of the press, that when

627
00:42:45,395 --> 00:42:48,875
Speaker 1: the last guard rail is about to break you, the

628
00:42:48,915 --> 00:42:51,875
Speaker 1: White House cars behind its association will go over there

629
00:42:51,915 --> 00:42:57,915
Speaker 1: and saw it loose. President Luija Jiang of the WHCA

630
00:42:58,075 --> 00:43:02,715
Speaker 1: and of CBS News. Remember you're now owned by fascists.

631
00:43:03,195 --> 00:43:06,595
Speaker 1: Maybe Trump will get you fired, Dwija. During the dinner,

632
00:43:07,355 --> 00:43:12,155
Speaker 1: Just for Larf's Trump at the White House dinner only

633
00:43:12,155 --> 00:43:15,715
Speaker 1: if he's on the menu. Today's other worst persons in

634
00:43:15,755 --> 00:43:28,595
Speaker 1: the world. It's interesting that, like many of the great

635
00:43:28,635 --> 00:43:32,875
Speaker 1: writers in American and other nations histories, James Thurbert never

636
00:43:32,955 --> 00:43:36,715
Speaker 1: really wrote a book. Certainly not a novel, certainly not

637
00:43:36,755 --> 00:43:40,515
Speaker 1: a comedic novel. His My Life in Hard Times is

638
00:43:40,555 --> 00:43:46,155
Speaker 1: a series of embellished anecdotes. It's great, it's a great read.

639
00:43:46,235 --> 00:43:51,115
Speaker 1: It's book length, it's not really one narrative. And when

640
00:43:51,155 --> 00:43:52,475
Speaker 1: I say he never wrote a book, I mean he

641
00:43:52,555 --> 00:43:56,475
Speaker 1: never wrote a real fictional book. He did write a book,

642
00:43:57,595 --> 00:44:05,355
Speaker 1: The Years with Ross, his profile, his interpretation of Harold Ross,

643
00:44:05,675 --> 00:44:08,555
Speaker 1: who was the founder of the New Yorker magazine, and

644
00:44:08,755 --> 00:44:13,875
Speaker 1: probably even with the perspective of an additional sixty years

645
00:44:13,875 --> 00:44:17,355
Speaker 1: that James Thurber did not have in his life, still

646
00:44:17,675 --> 00:44:20,755
Speaker 1: probably the least likely person you would have picked out

647
00:44:20,755 --> 00:44:25,555
Speaker 1: of world history to have founded the New Yorker magazine.

648
00:44:26,235 --> 00:44:28,995
Speaker 1: The book is called The Years with Ross. It was

649
00:44:29,595 --> 00:44:34,035
Speaker 1: serialized in The Atlantic magazine, and the best part, including

650
00:44:34,315 --> 00:44:38,835
Speaker 1: one of my favorite quotations in history in human history,

651
00:44:39,475 --> 00:44:43,235
Speaker 1: was in the May nineteen fifty eight issue of the Atlantic.

652
00:44:43,515 --> 00:44:47,555
Speaker 1: The seventh part of James Thurber's series the years with

653
00:44:47,755 --> 00:44:53,755
Speaker 1: Ross by James Thurber. So many people have told me

654
00:44:53,835 --> 00:44:57,115
Speaker 1: that Harold Ross was a simple mechanism, and so many

655
00:44:57,155 --> 00:44:59,555
Speaker 1: others have assured me that he was a complex character.

656
00:44:59,715 --> 00:45:02,275
Speaker 1: It is small wonder that I dreamed the other night

657
00:45:02,315 --> 00:45:07,435
Speaker 1: that he was both complified and implicated. There are those

658
00:45:07,475 --> 00:45:10,275
Speaker 1: who contend that the multiple editor of The New Yorker

659
00:45:10,595 --> 00:45:13,835
Speaker 1: never stepped off the elevator on his office floor without

660
00:45:13,875 --> 00:45:18,395
Speaker 1: putting on an invisible military uniform. He was accused of

661
00:45:18,435 --> 00:45:22,035
Speaker 1: having a secret respect for rigid military discipline in spite

662
00:45:22,075 --> 00:45:26,915
Speaker 1: of his waggish and scallow waggish experiences in the AEF.

663
00:45:28,195 --> 00:45:32,075
Speaker 1: His frequent and profane denunciations of all top brass were

664
00:45:32,075 --> 00:45:36,675
Speaker 1: supposed to cover a sneaking admiration for General Headquarters Red Tape.

665
00:45:37,915 --> 00:45:39,795
Speaker 1: I can't go along with this, if only because I'm

666
00:45:39,835 --> 00:45:42,875
Speaker 1: unable to dispel the image of Ross as the jittery

667
00:45:42,995 --> 00:45:46,435
Speaker 1: skipper of a schooner out of Coleridge, a ship's master

668
00:45:46,555 --> 00:45:49,355
Speaker 1: with more than a dash of mutineer in him, When

669
00:45:49,355 --> 00:45:51,275
Speaker 1: he is not that figure in my nightmares. He is

670
00:45:51,315 --> 00:45:55,075
Speaker 1: an awe shocks farm boy from Colorado trying to land

671
00:45:55,275 --> 00:46:01,075
Speaker 1: a nineteen hundred biplane in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

672
00:46:01,115 --> 00:46:05,435
Speaker 1: When as Private hw Ross he was editor of the

673
00:46:05,475 --> 00:46:09,635
Speaker 1: Stars and Stripes, the situation was more Comeric Opera than

674
00:46:09,755 --> 00:46:13,395
Speaker 1: American Army. He was once put in the guardhouse for

675
00:46:13,475 --> 00:46:19,195
Speaker 1: some insubordination by Captain Guy T. Visnisky, but he had

676
00:46:19,235 --> 00:46:21,195
Speaker 1: to be released or the newspaper could not have been

677
00:46:21,195 --> 00:46:25,795
Speaker 1: got out. As editor, he could give orders to Captain

678
00:46:25,955 --> 00:46:30,275
Speaker 1: Franklin P. Adams and to Sergeant Alexander Wolcott, who once

679
00:46:30,355 --> 00:46:34,475
Speaker 1: called him in Paris the best editor in the world.

680
00:46:35,515 --> 00:46:38,795
Speaker 1: Where and how he finally learned his obsessive reverence for

681
00:46:38,995 --> 00:46:42,795
Speaker 1: order and organization, nobody will ever know for sure. Although

682
00:46:42,795 --> 00:46:45,715
Speaker 1: he was always scornful of American big business and big

683
00:46:45,755 --> 00:46:49,395
Speaker 1: business men, he talked constantly of running this place like

684
00:46:49,435 --> 00:46:53,755
Speaker 1: any other business office. He was vociferous in his contempt

685
00:46:53,795 --> 00:46:56,515
Speaker 1: for the way most metropolitan newspapers were run. But I

686
00:46:56,675 --> 00:46:59,675
Speaker 1: always felt that his urge to tear down walls and

687
00:46:59,795 --> 00:47:03,755
Speaker 1: set up a central desk was an unconscious tendency to

688
00:47:03,875 --> 00:47:07,675
Speaker 1: create a last city room with everyone in full sight

689
00:47:07,715 --> 00:47:11,115
Speaker 1: of everyone else. I go on feeling this in the

690
00:47:11,115 --> 00:47:15,115
Speaker 1: face of his continual scoffing at all things intramurally journalistic

691
00:47:15,155 --> 00:47:18,395
Speaker 1: in any writer's copy. He didn't want any stories by

692
00:47:18,435 --> 00:47:21,875
Speaker 1: reporters and ex reporters about their work on newspapers. It

693
00:47:21,915 --> 00:47:24,995
Speaker 1: makes me self conscious, he would say. And he went

694
00:47:25,195 --> 00:47:28,555
Speaker 1: so far once as to insist when I used city

695
00:47:28,675 --> 00:47:32,275
Speaker 1: Room in a talk story, that it be changed to

696
00:47:32,355 --> 00:47:37,515
Speaker 1: the room where the reporters write their stories. Whatever the

697
00:47:37,555 --> 00:47:40,755
Speaker 1: origin of his driving desire for order and organization may

698
00:47:40,755 --> 00:47:44,275
Speaker 1: have been, it's satisfied two of his deepest needs. Something

699
00:47:44,275 --> 00:47:48,515
Speaker 1: to keep trying for and something to keep grousing about.

700
00:47:49,795 --> 00:47:52,315
Speaker 1: When I was in Columbus, Ohio in the summer of

701
00:47:52,395 --> 00:47:56,115
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven on vacation and on my way out

702
00:47:56,155 --> 00:47:59,075
Speaker 1: of the job of running the magazine, I got a

703
00:47:59,115 --> 00:48:05,315
Speaker 1: six word note from Andy White that read Thurber the

704
00:48:05,355 --> 00:48:10,715
Speaker 1: new passing system. White the new passing system, typed on

705
00:48:10,795 --> 00:48:14,075
Speaker 1: an enclosed piece of paper, went like this, White passes

706
00:48:14,115 --> 00:48:18,995
Speaker 1: to Levick, who passes to Ross. I have no copy

707
00:48:19,035 --> 00:48:21,235
Speaker 1: at hand, and it may be that I have left

708
00:48:21,315 --> 00:48:23,635
Speaker 1: out one of the passes. Perhaps it went like this,

709
00:48:23,755 --> 00:48:27,235
Speaker 1: White passes to Barnes, who passes to Levick, who passes

710
00:48:27,235 --> 00:48:31,115
Speaker 1: to Ross. If there was a Barnes, he has long

711
00:48:31,155 --> 00:48:33,995
Speaker 1: since passed and been forgotten. Sometimes I wake up at

712
00:48:34,075 --> 00:48:36,635
Speaker 1: night and chant to myself. White passes to Tinker, who

713
00:48:36,715 --> 00:48:39,715
Speaker 1: passes to Evers, who passes the chance, who passes to Ross.

714
00:48:41,635 --> 00:48:45,835
Speaker 1: This old system, indicating the official route for notes and

715
00:48:45,955 --> 00:48:50,075
Speaker 1: comment from White's typewriter to Ross's desk, was one of

716
00:48:50,475 --> 00:48:55,355
Speaker 1: one hundred similar systems devised by distraught executive editors in

717
00:48:55,435 --> 00:49:00,675
Speaker 1: a feudal effort to set Ross's organization conscious mind at rest.

718
00:49:02,275 --> 00:49:06,235
Speaker 1: These systems formed what Stanley Walker, who later got involved

719
00:49:06,235 --> 00:49:12,235
Speaker 1: in them, called the rigmaroles. The man who had thought

720
00:49:12,315 --> 00:49:15,395
Speaker 1: up a way to reroot comments so that Ross wouldn't

721
00:49:15,475 --> 00:49:19,155
Speaker 1: worry about it getting lost between Andy's office and his

722
00:49:19,595 --> 00:49:22,515
Speaker 1: was named William Levick. He lasted about as long as

723
00:49:22,595 --> 00:49:26,595
Speaker 1: I had in the untenable job of mastermind and whipping

724
00:49:26,675 --> 00:49:31,835
Speaker 1: boy to Harold Ross. Levick's final frantic response to the

725
00:49:31,915 --> 00:49:34,675
Speaker 1: editor's demand for a method of keeping track of everything

726
00:49:35,515 --> 00:49:39,155
Speaker 1: was an enormous sheet of cardboard six feet by four

727
00:49:39,515 --> 00:49:45,715
Speaker 1: divided into at least eight hundred squares, with fine hand

728
00:49:45,875 --> 00:49:48,995
Speaker 1: lettering in each of them, covering all phases of the

729
00:49:49,035 --> 00:49:56,115
Speaker 1: scheduling of departments and other office rigmaroles. This complicated caricature

730
00:49:56,195 --> 00:50:01,675
Speaker 1: of system, this concentration of all known procedural facts hung

731
00:50:01,795 --> 00:50:04,435
Speaker 1: on a wall of the talk meeting room until one

732
00:50:04,515 --> 00:50:10,235
Speaker 1: day day it fell down of its own weight. Ross

733
00:50:10,275 --> 00:50:12,835
Speaker 1: had stared at it now and then without saying anything.

734
00:50:13,635 --> 00:50:16,675
Speaker 1: When it crashed, he told his secretary, get rid of

735
00:50:16,715 --> 00:50:21,475
Speaker 1: that thing. I suppose this was also what he said

736
00:50:21,475 --> 00:50:23,355
Speaker 1: about a sign I made at the time and hung

737
00:50:23,395 --> 00:50:26,675
Speaker 1: on a wall near the elevator's alterations going on as

738
00:50:26,755 --> 00:50:34,715
Speaker 1: usual during business. Bill Levick, one of the few men

739
00:50:34,875 --> 00:50:37,555
Speaker 1: Ross always called by his first name in the office,

740
00:50:37,635 --> 00:50:39,595
Speaker 1: had been a friend and colleague of the editor in

741
00:50:39,715 --> 00:50:44,195
Speaker 1: his San Francisco newspaper days. He had greatly impressed Ross

742
00:50:44,235 --> 00:50:47,075
Speaker 1: at that time by his calm and efficient direction of

743
00:50:47,115 --> 00:50:50,275
Speaker 1: a staff of reporters. One night, when some disaster struck

744
00:50:50,315 --> 00:50:53,595
Speaker 1: the city, Levick, as I remember it, had been night

745
00:50:53,715 --> 00:50:57,035
Speaker 1: city editor of the paper. His calmness and efficiency, which

746
00:50:57,035 --> 00:51:00,315
Speaker 1: had stood up under disaster, did not long stand up

747
00:51:00,395 --> 00:51:05,315
Speaker 1: under Ross's continual badgering and heckling. He gave up the

748
00:51:05,355 --> 00:51:08,235
Speaker 1: hopeless task of trying to please Ross in the big job.

749
00:51:08,275 --> 00:51:10,635
Speaker 1: He did not leave like most of the others, but

750
00:51:10,795 --> 00:51:15,275
Speaker 1: became the art makeup man. He was unhappy in that

751
00:51:15,355 --> 00:51:18,515
Speaker 1: role too, because he didn't like artists and thought most

752
00:51:18,515 --> 00:51:23,435
Speaker 1: of their drawings were silly. You're the only cartoonists that

753
00:51:23,515 --> 00:51:28,875
Speaker 1: can spell, he once told me, sourly. A new Tottery

754
00:51:29,035 --> 00:51:32,075
Speaker 1: Graybeard says he saw Levic one day in the office

755
00:51:32,275 --> 00:51:36,275
Speaker 1: with tears in his eyes. Tears of fury or frustration

756
00:51:36,635 --> 00:51:38,755
Speaker 1: were not infrequent in some of the men who worked

757
00:51:38,755 --> 00:51:41,795
Speaker 1: for Ross, but Levick could be tough too, and his faint,

758
00:51:41,835 --> 00:51:45,315
Speaker 1: gentle smile could turn cold when Ross backed him into

759
00:51:45,315 --> 00:51:48,475
Speaker 1: a corner. One day, the editor went up in flames

760
00:51:49,075 --> 00:51:51,835
Speaker 1: because of the similarity and proximity of two drawings in

761
00:51:51,875 --> 00:51:54,635
Speaker 1: the front of the book. But instead of bawling Levick

762
00:51:54,715 --> 00:51:57,755
Speaker 1: out himself, he sent his secretary to the makeup man

763
00:51:58,275 --> 00:52:03,755
Speaker 1: with a sharp reprimand Levick took a swing at the fella,

764
00:52:03,995 --> 00:52:05,835
Speaker 1: and when Ross sent the young man back with an

765
00:52:05,835 --> 00:52:10,835
Speaker 1: even sharper message, knocked him down, resigned, went away, and

766
00:52:11,035 --> 00:52:16,195
Speaker 1: was not seen again. Bill Levick died a few years later,

767
00:52:16,275 --> 00:52:18,355
Speaker 1: somewhere in New Jersey, out of work and down on

768
00:52:18,435 --> 00:52:20,395
Speaker 1: his luck. And I told Ross about it. He was

769
00:52:20,435 --> 00:52:24,715
Speaker 1: genuinely saddened, and the news depressed him for days. I

770
00:52:24,795 --> 00:52:27,915
Speaker 1: didn't treat him right goddamn it, he told me. But

771
00:52:27,995 --> 00:52:33,115
Speaker 1: he kept calling me sir, and standing there mocking me

772
00:52:33,195 --> 00:52:37,435
Speaker 1: and grinning at me. He called me that sur thing.

773
00:52:38,235 --> 00:52:42,315
Speaker 1: He called Wolcott foolish. He would say, foolish is late

774
00:52:42,355 --> 00:52:45,155
Speaker 1: with his copy this week? For shouts and murmurs. He

775
00:52:45,275 --> 00:52:49,955
Speaker 1: kept saying, sced for schedule, and picks for drawings. All

776
00:52:49,955 --> 00:52:54,275
Speaker 1: he cared about was his goddamn pianola rolls. He had

777
00:52:54,315 --> 00:52:58,595
Speaker 1: millions of them. Want anything else in his house. You

778
00:52:58,635 --> 00:53:01,195
Speaker 1: don't play the pianol every night unless there's something the

779
00:53:01,275 --> 00:53:05,315
Speaker 1: matter with you. He even edited the damn roles, pasting

780
00:53:05,315 --> 00:53:08,795
Speaker 1: them up with tissue paper, collaborating with guys like Beethoven.

781
00:53:10,595 --> 00:53:12,355
Speaker 1: He was a good man. No, I was fond of him.

782
00:53:12,835 --> 00:53:17,435
Speaker 1: They didn't belong here. I thought of asking him, who does?

783
00:53:18,395 --> 00:53:20,235
Speaker 1: But I just went away and left him with his

784
00:53:20,275 --> 00:53:25,355
Speaker 1: memories and miseries. When a system fell down, Ross was

785
00:53:25,435 --> 00:53:28,235
Speaker 1: usually dejected until he or somebody else thought up a

786
00:53:28,275 --> 00:53:31,075
Speaker 1: new one. But once in a while the mutineer in

787
00:53:31,155 --> 00:53:34,875
Speaker 1: him took over. He was gleeful if the falling down

788
00:53:34,955 --> 00:53:38,275
Speaker 1: or pushing over of a system disturbed or tangled up

789
00:53:38,315 --> 00:53:43,355
Speaker 1: the business department. Those guys upstairs Once when a rebuilt

790
00:53:43,395 --> 00:53:46,715
Speaker 1: typewriter I've been using broke down. I phoned the Underwood

791
00:53:46,715 --> 00:53:51,115
Speaker 1: company at noon, ordered its most expensive machine, and charged

792
00:53:51,115 --> 00:53:55,115
Speaker 1: it to the New Yorker. The typewriter, delivered at the

793
00:53:55,115 --> 00:53:57,755
Speaker 1: office two hours later, was held up by the alert

794
00:53:57,795 --> 00:54:00,395
Speaker 1: Business office, and a deputy was sent to Ross with

795
00:54:00,435 --> 00:54:03,235
Speaker 1: the complaint that I had got the machine without authorization

796
00:54:03,395 --> 00:54:08,715
Speaker 1: or the signing of any ret acquisition slips. The typewriter

797
00:54:08,795 --> 00:54:11,235
Speaker 1: had been hidden from me in the art stock room,

798
00:54:11,275 --> 00:54:13,315
Speaker 1: but an office boy told me where it was, and

799
00:54:13,355 --> 00:54:20,075
Speaker 1: I went and got it. The whole illegal procedure delighted Ross.

800
00:54:20,795 --> 00:54:23,715
Speaker 1: It's the only direct action there's been around here in years,

801
00:54:24,715 --> 00:54:27,075
Speaker 1: he yelled at the nervous man from the business department,

802
00:54:27,315 --> 00:54:32,075
Speaker 1: I'll okay it, and he grabbed pencil and paper and

803
00:54:32,195 --> 00:54:36,235
Speaker 1: okayed it. When he found out that I was in

804
00:54:36,275 --> 00:54:38,995
Speaker 1: the habit of going to the supply stock room, getting

805
00:54:39,035 --> 00:54:41,955
Speaker 1: in with a pass key, and taking whatever I wanted paper,

806
00:54:42,035 --> 00:54:46,795
Speaker 1: paper clips, typewriter ribbons, pencils, and wire baskets, he sauntered

807
00:54:46,835 --> 00:54:50,755
Speaker 1: into my office and asked, how do you get your supplies?

808
00:54:52,595 --> 00:54:56,915
Speaker 1: I told him, and he went away grinning. A monthly

809
00:54:57,035 --> 00:55:01,075
Speaker 1: checkup by the business office had shown a discrepancy in

810
00:55:01,155 --> 00:55:04,115
Speaker 1: supplies on hand, and again someone had complained to the editor,

811
00:55:04,115 --> 00:55:08,075
Speaker 1: and he had affected me. I was thwarted for a while,

812
00:55:08,075 --> 00:55:11,555
Speaker 1: and the guys upstairs installed new locks on all the doors.

813
00:55:11,715 --> 00:55:14,555
Speaker 1: But I smuggled the master key to a locksmith and

814
00:55:14,635 --> 00:55:18,955
Speaker 1: had a dozen keys made from it. I told Ross

815
00:55:18,995 --> 00:55:21,875
Speaker 1: about that myself, adding that I had given a few

816
00:55:21,875 --> 00:55:25,835
Speaker 1: of the extra keys to girls I knew for souvenirs.

817
00:55:26,435 --> 00:55:30,955
Speaker 1: Ross didn't believe that, even though it was true. The

818
00:55:30,995 --> 00:55:33,955
Speaker 1: heartiest laugh of the mutinous Skipper came from the day

819
00:55:34,075 --> 00:55:36,355
Speaker 1: I found out and told him that the master key

820
00:55:36,355 --> 00:55:40,075
Speaker 1: to the former system of locks had been retained and

821
00:55:40,155 --> 00:55:44,075
Speaker 1: hung on a hook beside the new one. I showed

822
00:55:44,075 --> 00:55:46,715
Speaker 1: it to him. Attached to it was a small wooden

823
00:55:46,755 --> 00:55:50,155
Speaker 1: plaque on which someone had printed in India ink master

824
00:55:50,395 --> 00:55:57,315
Speaker 1: key and under that doesn't work. Ross told the story

825
00:55:57,555 --> 00:56:01,715
Speaker 1: all over town. It represented to him not merely the

826
00:56:01,755 --> 00:56:05,595
Speaker 1: bewilderment of some office boy, but the total inefficiency of

827
00:56:05,635 --> 00:56:10,435
Speaker 1: the business department, which had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

828
00:56:12,995 --> 00:56:17,835
Speaker 1: After Levick came Arthur Samuels, out of an advertising agency

829
00:56:18,315 --> 00:56:21,515
Speaker 1: with previous experience as a newspaper reporter and a magazine

830
00:56:21,555 --> 00:56:24,795
Speaker 1: promotion man. Art Samuels, who had been a member of

831
00:56:24,835 --> 00:56:28,395
Speaker 1: the Cottage Club and the Triangle Club in his Princeton days,

832
00:56:28,555 --> 00:56:31,675
Speaker 1: was a close friend and idol of another Princeton man,

833
00:56:32,515 --> 00:56:37,475
Speaker 1: Raoul Fleischmann. By the way, that was Ross's business partner.

834
00:56:37,595 --> 00:56:41,155
Speaker 1: I Olderman should add Raoul Fleischman put the money up

835
00:56:41,155 --> 00:56:44,555
Speaker 1: for the New Yorker to continue, and any friend and

836
00:56:44,675 --> 00:56:46,635
Speaker 1: idol of Fleischman, who was the chief backer of the

837
00:56:46,675 --> 00:56:49,875
Speaker 1: magazine was a target for Ross's slings and arrows and

838
00:56:50,035 --> 00:56:54,395
Speaker 1: doomed from the start. Raoul once told me Art is

839
00:56:54,435 --> 00:56:57,515
Speaker 1: one of the funniest men in the world on two martinis.

840
00:56:58,595 --> 00:57:01,355
Speaker 1: When I mentioned this praise to Ross, he said, I

841
00:57:01,395 --> 00:57:03,315
Speaker 1: guess I always got to parties when he was on

842
00:57:03,395 --> 00:57:10,675
Speaker 1: his third or left before he finished his first. Samuels

843
00:57:10,675 --> 00:57:13,395
Speaker 1: had taken over one of the largest New Yorker offices

844
00:57:13,435 --> 00:57:17,075
Speaker 1: and furnished it with rugs, large handsome bridge lamps, and

845
00:57:17,155 --> 00:57:20,675
Speaker 1: other fancy appointments that must have brought Ross's disapproving tongue

846
00:57:20,915 --> 00:57:24,195
Speaker 1: out of his mouth when he first beheld this change.

847
00:57:24,835 --> 00:57:28,315
Speaker 1: He himself liked a plain newspaper type office. I don't

848
00:57:28,315 --> 00:57:32,395
Speaker 1: want to look like the editor of Vanity Fair, Samuels

849
00:57:32,435 --> 00:57:34,595
Speaker 1: lasted until just after he came back from a six

850
00:57:34,635 --> 00:57:37,955
Speaker 1: week leave in Europe. I learned later that Ross had

851
00:57:37,955 --> 00:57:40,235
Speaker 1: intended to fire him while he was abroad, but he

852
00:57:40,355 --> 00:57:43,395
Speaker 1: put it off until Art's ship was back in the

853
00:57:43,435 --> 00:57:47,795
Speaker 1: harbor of New York. Then, just before Samuels disembarked, he

854
00:57:47,835 --> 00:57:50,355
Speaker 1: got a telegram from Ross telling him he was through.

855
00:57:51,635 --> 00:57:54,035
Speaker 1: Late that afternoon, the editor called me into his office.

856
00:57:54,155 --> 00:57:55,795
Speaker 1: He was sitting with his head in his hands, and

857
00:57:55,835 --> 00:57:59,755
Speaker 1: he said Samuels was just in here, bawling the holy

858
00:57:59,795 --> 00:58:03,235
Speaker 1: hell out of me. No man would have fired him

859
00:58:03,235 --> 00:58:06,835
Speaker 1: the way I did. I guess I could tell he

860
00:58:06,995 --> 00:58:10,435
Speaker 1: had taken quite a verbal lashing, and he was to

861
00:58:10,435 --> 00:58:15,275
Speaker 1: get others. Later, Hell and High Voices broke loose in

862
00:58:15,315 --> 00:58:18,315
Speaker 1: his office when Jeffrey Heilman gave him a verbal going over,

863
00:58:18,355 --> 00:58:21,075
Speaker 1: which no doubt Ross had coming to him. Some weeks

864
00:58:21,075 --> 00:58:23,475
Speaker 1: after that, Ross held up a Hellman piece so long

865
00:58:23,515 --> 00:58:25,675
Speaker 1: that Catherine White said to him one day at a

866
00:58:25,675 --> 00:58:28,635
Speaker 1: talk meeting, why haven't you put the Heilman piece through?

867
00:58:29,315 --> 00:58:33,075
Speaker 1: We all think it's very good. Ross turned this over

868
00:58:33,155 --> 00:58:36,075
Speaker 1: in his mind for ten seconds and then said he

869
00:58:36,195 --> 00:58:39,835
Speaker 1: called me a liar, picking one of the least provocative

870
00:58:39,875 --> 00:58:44,475
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey's descriptions of him. He bought the Heilman place

871
00:58:44,595 --> 00:58:48,275
Speaker 1: that day. It was a basic fact of Ross's nature

872
00:58:48,315 --> 00:58:51,235
Speaker 1: that he really respected no man who didn't, at one

873
00:58:51,275 --> 00:58:53,515
Speaker 1: time or another fight back and yell him down. I

874
00:58:53,555 --> 00:58:55,595
Speaker 1: had many a yelling bout with him in his office,

875
00:58:55,595 --> 00:58:58,235
Speaker 1: but we always ended up on good, even affectionate terms.

876
00:58:59,355 --> 00:59:01,355
Speaker 1: One day, ten years ago, he and William Shawn were

877
00:59:01,355 --> 00:59:03,315
Speaker 1: trying to explain to me what they thought was the

878
00:59:03,355 --> 00:59:05,075
Speaker 1: matter with a couple of pieces I had written in

879
00:59:05,075 --> 00:59:08,795
Speaker 1: a series on soap operas, and Ross snapped out of

880
00:59:08,795 --> 00:59:13,155
Speaker 1: his heart, no, out of his ulcers. Yes, if you

881
00:59:13,275 --> 00:59:18,195
Speaker 1: could see, you would know what we mean. That sent

882
00:59:18,235 --> 00:59:21,835
Speaker 1: me rocketing into the higher reaches of lurid damnation of

883
00:59:22,075 --> 00:59:26,115
Speaker 1: all editors. He said he was sorry, and he was,

884
00:59:26,955 --> 00:59:29,235
Speaker 1: but he never immediately got over the effects of one

885
00:59:29,275 --> 00:59:31,755
Speaker 1: of our yelling spells. That noon, I was having lunch

886
00:59:31,795 --> 00:59:34,635
Speaker 1: at the Algonquin with my wife and daughter, then sixteen,

887
00:59:35,035 --> 00:59:38,555
Speaker 1: when Ross came over to our table. We talked amiably

888
00:59:38,595 --> 00:59:41,435
Speaker 1: for a while, and then he spurted something happens to

889
00:59:41,515 --> 00:59:44,235
Speaker 1: Jim once a month that makes him carry on like

890
00:59:44,275 --> 00:59:51,155
Speaker 1: a woman. This indelicate illusion was remarkable in a man

891
00:59:51,395 --> 00:59:54,315
Speaker 1: as self conscious as a choir boy in the presence

892
00:59:54,315 --> 00:59:58,835
Speaker 1: of women, and embarrassed to death if anyone then made

893
00:59:58,915 --> 01:00:04,915
Speaker 1: a reference to the functional. My daughter had met him

894
01:00:04,955 --> 01:00:07,075
Speaker 1: first when she was only nine, and he was in

895
01:00:07,115 --> 01:00:10,115
Speaker 1: one of his most blustery moods. I asked her afterward

896
01:00:10,195 --> 01:00:12,795
Speaker 1: what she thought of him, and she said, he's gruff,

897
01:00:13,235 --> 01:00:16,315
Speaker 1: but I'm not afraid of him. She might have been

898
01:00:16,315 --> 01:00:23,155
Speaker 1: speaking for her sex. In general. Thorn Smith doesn't properly

899
01:00:23,195 --> 01:00:25,435
Speaker 1: belong in any New Yorker, or for that matter, any

900
01:00:25,435 --> 01:00:28,555
Speaker 1: other category, but he underwent a stretch of torture, both

901
01:00:28,595 --> 01:00:30,555
Speaker 1: give and take, as a member of the staff. During

902
01:00:30,555 --> 01:00:33,395
Speaker 1: the winter of nineteen twenty nine nineteen thirty. I had

903
01:00:33,395 --> 01:00:36,435
Speaker 1: brought him in and introduced him to Ross, saying that

904
01:00:36,875 --> 01:00:39,315
Speaker 1: he had given up an advertising job to write a

905
01:00:39,355 --> 01:00:42,035
Speaker 1: book it must have been the stray Lamb, and found

906
01:00:42,115 --> 01:00:46,955
Speaker 1: himself unable to get work. Thorn Smith, straight out of Wonderland,

907
01:00:47,395 --> 01:00:51,235
Speaker 1: looked like a cousin of the White Rabbit and completely befuddled.

908
01:00:51,275 --> 01:00:54,835
Speaker 1: Harold Ross, the editor, took him on, though mainly I

909
01:00:54,875 --> 01:00:57,795
Speaker 1: am sure, because he had edited a Service magazine. During

910
01:00:57,795 --> 01:01:02,435
Speaker 1: World War One, a Navy publication called Broadside. The two

911
01:01:02,515 --> 01:01:07,395
Speaker 1: men disparate, if there were ever a disparity, talked about

912
01:01:07,435 --> 01:01:10,035
Speaker 1: the stars and stripes and a mutual acquaintance who'd been

913
01:01:10,035 --> 01:01:15,155
Speaker 1: on the wartime army gas attack. Everything went wrong, though,

914
01:01:15,195 --> 01:01:17,635
Speaker 1: between Ross and Thorn, who once didn't show up for

915
01:01:17,675 --> 01:01:21,195
Speaker 1: a week. You ought to know where he is. Ross

916
01:01:21,195 --> 01:01:25,755
Speaker 1: told me, he's your responsibility. I said that Smith was

917
01:01:25,835 --> 01:01:29,715
Speaker 1: God's responsibility, not mine or any man's. When he finally

918
01:01:29,755 --> 01:01:32,875
Speaker 1: did appear, Ross said, why didn't you telephone and say

919
01:01:32,915 --> 01:01:38,035
Speaker 1: you're sick? Thorn had a lovely answer to that. The

920
01:01:38,075 --> 01:01:41,555
Speaker 1: telephone was in the hall, and there was a draft

921
01:01:44,475 --> 01:01:46,995
Speaker 1: The New Yorker had in a special file at that time,

922
01:01:47,075 --> 01:01:49,675
Speaker 1: a snack of profiles that needed editing before they could

923
01:01:49,715 --> 01:01:51,875
Speaker 1: be used, and Smith had been given an office and

924
01:01:51,915 --> 01:01:55,395
Speaker 1: told to try his hand at fixing them up. It

925
01:01:55,435 --> 01:01:58,755
Speaker 1: didn't work out. He can't use a typewriter, or if

926
01:01:58,795 --> 01:02:02,795
Speaker 1: he can, he won't, Ross told me, And then, with

927
01:02:02,915 --> 01:02:06,995
Speaker 1: dramatic voice and gestures, he sits out there riding on

928
01:02:07,195 --> 01:02:13,835
Speaker 1: Fool's cap with a quill pen by candlelight. I asked,

929
01:02:14,755 --> 01:02:17,915
Speaker 1: you have me there, said Ross, Where the hell did

930
01:02:17,955 --> 01:02:22,115
Speaker 1: you find him? Anyway, I didn't find him, I said,

931
01:02:22,515 --> 01:02:27,195
Speaker 1: God sent him to you. Smith departed soon after that

932
01:02:27,315 --> 01:02:29,715
Speaker 1: to join the other poor little lambs who had gone astray.

933
01:02:30,715 --> 01:02:32,555
Speaker 1: It was only the other day I found out that

934
01:02:32,595 --> 01:02:35,755
Speaker 1: he had once written on Fool's cap, but with modern

935
01:02:35,875 --> 01:02:40,355
Speaker 1: fountain pen an entire talk department which was never used.

936
01:02:41,475 --> 01:02:44,595
Speaker 1: Ross must have put him up to that. Secretly, I

937
01:02:44,755 --> 01:02:49,315
Speaker 1: counted among my sorrows and literature's losses, that his talk

938
01:02:49,355 --> 01:02:55,115
Speaker 1: department is nowhere to be found. James M. Kin was

939
01:02:55,155 --> 01:02:57,835
Speaker 1: a puzzle to Ross. Two. All men puzzled him to

940
01:02:57,915 --> 01:03:01,195
Speaker 1: some degree, but Thorn Smith and jim Kin were much

941
01:03:01,235 --> 01:03:05,315
Speaker 1: too much for his understanding. We called him dizzy Jim.

942
01:03:05,435 --> 01:03:09,635
Speaker 1: An old timer told me recently, you were daffy Jim.

943
01:03:10,395 --> 01:03:13,195
Speaker 1: It seems that Cain liked to work on the floor,

944
01:03:14,075 --> 01:03:16,395
Speaker 1: where there was a lot of room, and used to

945
01:03:16,395 --> 01:03:20,795
Speaker 1: put the talk department together down there. He once lifted

946
01:03:20,875 --> 01:03:22,995
Speaker 1: high the hearts of Andy and Catherine White at a

947
01:03:23,035 --> 01:03:25,955
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day dinner at his apartment by putting the turkey

948
01:03:26,475 --> 01:03:30,995
Speaker 1: platter and all on the floor and carving it blandly.

949
01:03:31,035 --> 01:03:32,955
Speaker 1: Going on with the story he was telling, And he

950
01:03:33,035 --> 01:03:37,555
Speaker 1: told stories exceeding well. Jim Kaine was not at The

951
01:03:37,635 --> 01:03:39,795
Speaker 1: New Yorker long, only a few months, but the memory

952
01:03:39,835 --> 01:03:42,595
Speaker 1: of him has not dwindled there. When he got the

953
01:03:42,635 --> 01:03:44,355
Speaker 1: hell out, he didn't want to see Ross or The

954
01:03:44,395 --> 01:03:47,115
Speaker 1: New Yorker ever. Again, I don't blame him for leaving

955
01:03:47,155 --> 01:03:49,875
Speaker 1: any mention of it out of the piece about him

956
01:03:49,875 --> 01:03:52,595
Speaker 1: and Who's Who. He had been on the Baltimore American,

957
01:03:52,955 --> 01:03:56,035
Speaker 1: the Baltimore Sun, the New York World, and he was

958
01:03:56,115 --> 01:03:59,675
Speaker 1: at one time a professor of journalism at Saint John's

959
01:03:59,755 --> 01:04:03,755
Speaker 1: College in Annapolis, where he had been born. Cain must

960
01:04:03,795 --> 01:04:06,675
Speaker 1: have known Raw in France when he was editor of

961
01:04:06,715 --> 01:04:12,435
Speaker 1: the seventy ninth Divisions Lorraine Cross. Jim is a big man,

962
01:04:13,435 --> 01:04:16,715
Speaker 1: and Ross was always a little wary of big men. Once,

963
01:04:16,755 --> 01:04:18,995
Speaker 1: when he got into a hassle with Joel Sayer over

964
01:04:19,035 --> 01:04:22,755
Speaker 1: a projected profile on Ross's detective friend Raymond Schindler, the

965
01:04:22,835 --> 01:04:26,155
Speaker 1: wary editor said to me, Jesus, your friend Say is

966
01:04:26,195 --> 01:04:31,355
Speaker 1: a big guy. My researches and reflections have turned up

967
01:04:31,355 --> 01:04:35,555
Speaker 1: the interesting truth that of all the miracle men, all

968
01:04:35,635 --> 01:04:39,435
Speaker 1: were short of physical stature, except Cain and Ralph Ingersoll,

969
01:04:40,555 --> 01:04:42,155
Speaker 1: and maybe one or two others out of the more

970
01:04:42,195 --> 01:04:45,035
Speaker 1: than thirty. I am over six feet myself, But when

971
01:04:45,115 --> 01:04:48,435
Speaker 1: Ross and I tangled, I weighed only one fifty. I

972
01:04:48,475 --> 01:04:51,395
Speaker 1: have reached one eighty six. Now, await alas I'll never

973
01:04:51,435 --> 01:04:53,835
Speaker 1: be able to throw around in Ross's office. During a

974
01:04:53,875 --> 01:04:58,755
Speaker 1: monthly yelling spell. In nineteen thirty one, my daughter had

975
01:04:58,795 --> 01:05:01,995
Speaker 1: about seven months to go before she was born when

976
01:05:01,995 --> 01:05:04,155
Speaker 1: her mother and I bought a house a mile outside

977
01:05:04,195 --> 01:05:07,875
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook, Connecticut. And Ross pretended to be frightened when

978
01:05:07,915 --> 01:05:10,955
Speaker 1: he heard about my plans to live in the country.

979
01:05:12,515 --> 01:05:15,435
Speaker 1: Timid as usual about taking up personal matters with a

980
01:05:15,435 --> 01:05:18,835
Speaker 1: man face to face, he assigned Cain the task of

981
01:05:18,875 --> 01:05:22,035
Speaker 1: trying to dissuade me from moving out of the city.

982
01:05:23,235 --> 01:05:26,315
Speaker 1: Jim had approached the subject gingerly in my office, saying

983
01:05:26,355 --> 01:05:28,875
Speaker 1: only a couple of sentences that I recognized at once

984
01:05:28,915 --> 01:05:32,515
Speaker 1: as bearing the stamp of a Ross panic. When he

985
01:05:32,555 --> 01:05:36,155
Speaker 1: suddenly stood up and said, this is none of my

986
01:05:36,275 --> 01:05:40,115
Speaker 1: business or Ross's either. I'm sorry I mentioned it. Live

987
01:05:40,155 --> 01:05:42,315
Speaker 1: where you want to and the way you want to.

988
01:05:44,955 --> 01:05:48,235
Speaker 1: One day, Jim had sent on to Ross some manuscript

989
01:05:48,235 --> 01:05:50,115
Speaker 1: of which the editor could make neither head nor tail.

990
01:05:50,395 --> 01:05:54,155
Speaker 1: He sent it back to Cain with a memo attached

991
01:05:54,315 --> 01:05:59,595
Speaker 1: that is still in existence. It read what is the

992
01:06:00,555 --> 01:06:06,555
Speaker 1: signifigance of it all? Anyway? That is the misspelling of

993
01:06:06,715 --> 01:06:09,275
Speaker 1: significance as I remembered it for twenty five years. But

994
01:06:09,315 --> 01:06:11,875
Speaker 1: as you will see, I was wrong. Just before Jim left,

995
01:06:11,995 --> 01:06:15,915
Speaker 1: he had the memo framed in leather and presented to

996
01:06:15,955 --> 01:06:19,675
Speaker 1: his successor, Bernard A. Bergman, who still has it. I

997
01:06:19,715 --> 01:06:21,715
Speaker 1: wrote him a few weeks ago to check the spelling

998
01:06:21,755 --> 01:06:27,435
Speaker 1: of the big word and got this reply, sign ig

999
01:06:28,515 --> 01:06:37,315
Speaker 1: if a and ce sick. Harold Ross's spelling was often grotesque.

1000
01:06:37,515 --> 01:06:39,955
Speaker 1: He was always looking up words, he questioned in copy

1001
01:06:39,995 --> 01:06:41,835
Speaker 1: he was reading, but he never seemed to doubt his

1002
01:06:41,955 --> 01:06:44,635
Speaker 1: own accuracy. In all the years I knew him, he

1003
01:06:44,715 --> 01:06:49,315
Speaker 1: never got prodigal right. He spelled it prodigal and pronounced

1004
01:06:49,315 --> 01:06:54,995
Speaker 1: it as if it were spelled prod goal. It was

1005
01:06:55,035 --> 01:06:57,075
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty four, to get back to Jim Kaine

1006
01:06:57,315 --> 01:07:00,715
Speaker 1: that he brought out The Postman Always Rings twice. I

1007
01:07:00,795 --> 01:07:02,915
Speaker 1: once asked Ross if he had read it, and he said,

1008
01:07:02,995 --> 01:07:06,395
Speaker 1: wouldn't be my kind of stuff. I have no doubt

1009
01:07:06,395 --> 01:07:08,035
Speaker 1: that if he had started reading it, he would have

1010
01:07:08,035 --> 01:07:10,435
Speaker 1: put it down, thus becoming the only reader in the

1011
01:07:10,435 --> 01:07:13,755
Speaker 1: country able to do that. He didn't even try to

1012
01:07:13,795 --> 01:07:17,315
Speaker 1: read a Farewell to Arms and dismiss that novel with

1013
01:07:17,835 --> 01:07:20,475
Speaker 1: I understand the hero keeps getting in bed with women,

1014
01:07:20,915 --> 01:07:26,115
Speaker 1: and the war wasn't fought that way. I have a

1015
01:07:26,155 --> 01:07:29,315
Speaker 1: recent letter from Bernard Bergmann about Ross that ends he

1016
01:07:29,355 --> 01:07:31,115
Speaker 1: was a great man. I wish I could have been

1017
01:07:31,155 --> 01:07:34,475
Speaker 1: close to him, but I never was. Bergmann lasted almost

1018
01:07:34,475 --> 01:07:37,635
Speaker 1: two years, beginning in nineteen thirty one. He quit because

1019
01:07:37,675 --> 01:07:40,875
Speaker 1: Francis Bellamy had appeared on the scene, and Burgee was

1020
01:07:40,875 --> 01:07:43,715
Speaker 1: wise enough to realize the newcomer was to become the

1021
01:07:43,795 --> 01:07:47,235
Speaker 1: new genius. The old ritual firing and hiring was about

1022
01:07:47,235 --> 01:07:51,715
Speaker 1: to begin once more. After Bellamy disappeared in his time

1023
01:07:51,795 --> 01:07:56,995
Speaker 1: and turn he smoked cigars was Ross's epitaph for this victim.

1024
01:07:57,235 --> 01:08:00,595
Speaker 1: The editor phoned Bergman, who had just left the Philadelphia Record,

1025
01:08:00,675 --> 01:08:03,795
Speaker 1: and tried to get him to come back. He rambled

1026
01:08:03,795 --> 01:08:06,275
Speaker 1: on in his loud one about the job of editorial

1027
01:08:06,355 --> 01:08:09,435
Speaker 1: publishing whenever that meant, and the rebirth of his conviction

1028
01:08:09,515 --> 01:08:13,875
Speaker 1: that Bergmann could handle certain tough problems in the office.

1029
01:08:14,035 --> 01:08:18,715
Speaker 1: Bergmann said, that's just what I was doing, and he laughed,

1030
01:08:19,355 --> 01:08:25,555
Speaker 1: and Ross laughed too, and they both hung up laughing. Bergmann,

1031
01:08:25,635 --> 01:08:28,835
Speaker 1: like me, went to Ohio State, helped edit the Daily Lantern,

1032
01:08:28,915 --> 01:08:31,595
Speaker 1: and was a reporter on the Columbus Dispatch. We had

1033
01:08:31,595 --> 01:08:35,195
Speaker 1: been friends since nineteen fifteen, and I persuaded Ross to

1034
01:08:35,275 --> 01:08:38,715
Speaker 1: hire him to supervise the talk of the town. Ross

1035
01:08:38,755 --> 01:08:41,195
Speaker 1: had finally found out after years of hit and miss

1036
01:08:41,475 --> 01:08:44,115
Speaker 1: what manner of man and writer I was. But I

1037
01:08:44,155 --> 01:08:47,835
Speaker 1: don't think he ever knew anything about Bergmann. A man's

1038
01:08:47,995 --> 01:08:51,835
Speaker 1: past dropped away and his life began anew when he

1039
01:08:51,875 --> 01:08:55,035
Speaker 1: went to work for the New Yorker. Bergie had been

1040
01:08:55,115 --> 01:08:58,715
Speaker 1: a regimental sergeant major in World War One, a newspaper

1041
01:08:58,755 --> 01:09:01,915
Speaker 1: reporter and editor, and a New York Press agent. In

1042
01:09:01,995 --> 01:09:06,235
Speaker 1: high school in Chillicothe, Ohio, nearly fifty years ago, Bergmann

1043
01:09:06,275 --> 01:09:10,075
Speaker 1: organized a four piece orchestra to play for Saturday night

1044
01:09:10,155 --> 01:09:15,235
Speaker 1: dances at the Knights of Pytheas Club. His clarinetist Bergmann

1045
01:09:15,275 --> 01:09:17,635
Speaker 1: played the violin and played it well, was a youngster

1046
01:09:17,715 --> 01:09:21,315
Speaker 1: named Theodore Friedman, whom Bergmann paid two dollars and a

1047
01:09:21,315 --> 01:09:23,315
Speaker 1: half a night until he let him go because he

1048
01:09:23,475 --> 01:09:26,835
Speaker 1: jazzed up everything did funny things with a plug hat

1049
01:09:27,115 --> 01:09:32,035
Speaker 1: and disconcerted the other boys. A decade later, Theodore Friedman

1050
01:09:32,195 --> 01:09:37,475
Speaker 1: alias Ted Lewis was earning one hundred and ten thousand

1051
01:09:37,475 --> 01:09:42,075
Speaker 1: dollars a week the Palace, the Zigfield Follies, the Zigfield Roof,

1052
01:09:42,275 --> 01:09:45,835
Speaker 1: and Bergmann was his press agent for a long time.

1053
01:09:45,835 --> 01:09:49,075
Speaker 1: Starting about nineteen twenty eight, Bergee had contributed to Talk

1054
01:09:49,195 --> 01:09:53,075
Speaker 1: of the Town the best items and suggestions of any outsider.

1055
01:09:53,435 --> 01:09:56,235
Speaker 1: And when Ross asked me, after the vanishing of Ingersoll,

1056
01:09:56,795 --> 01:09:59,835
Speaker 1: Raymond Holden, Ogden, Nash and several others, if I knew

1057
01:09:59,835 --> 01:10:02,675
Speaker 1: a good man for Talk, I brought Bergmann in and

1058
01:10:02,715 --> 01:10:06,715
Speaker 1: he was hired. I had asked Ross to promised me

1059
01:10:06,795 --> 01:10:10,075
Speaker 1: that he would not elevate Bergmann to the Genius chair,

1060
01:10:10,555 --> 01:10:14,155
Speaker 1: and he said he wouldn't, but he did. I'm gonna

1061
01:10:14,155 --> 01:10:16,475
Speaker 1: give Bergman a crack at that job. He told me,

1062
01:10:16,675 --> 01:10:19,755
Speaker 1: I think he can run the magazine. Don't say anything

1063
01:10:19,755 --> 01:10:24,115
Speaker 1: about it, though, cause I haven't told him yet. I

1064
01:10:24,235 --> 01:10:28,035
Speaker 1: left the room, giving the door a good slam. I

1065
01:10:28,115 --> 01:10:30,155
Speaker 1: hated to lose the man who had brought to Talk

1066
01:10:30,475 --> 01:10:33,475
Speaker 1: facts and anecdotes about a dozen New Yorkers whose careers

1067
01:10:33,715 --> 01:10:38,795
Speaker 1: fascinated Harold Ross, the g whiz guy. They included Jake Volk,

1068
01:10:39,035 --> 01:10:42,755
Speaker 1: the building wrecker, Lewis Marshall, an eccentric millionaire lawyer who

1069
01:10:42,835 --> 01:10:45,275
Speaker 1: rode to work on the L train and back home

1070
01:10:45,315 --> 01:10:49,875
Speaker 1: on the subway, George and Ira Gershwin, and George Grause,

1071
01:10:50,515 --> 01:10:54,635
Speaker 1: the German artist with whom Bergmann and I once had dinner. Grause,

1072
01:10:54,835 --> 01:10:57,315
Speaker 1: I told Ross wanted to meet the New Yorker artist

1073
01:10:57,835 --> 01:11:03,715
Speaker 1: whose work began where the other cartoonists left off. Well did,

1074
01:11:03,755 --> 01:11:11,315
Speaker 1: he asked? He meant me, I said, shyly, Hawash, said Ross,

1075
01:11:11,715 --> 01:11:14,835
Speaker 1: who didn't believe a word of it. The day that

1076
01:11:14,955 --> 01:11:18,075
Speaker 1: Ross promoted Bergmann, I sat outside his office and eavesdropped.

1077
01:11:18,475 --> 01:11:21,555
Speaker 1: Bergmann got the works, the whole rigmarole from you gotta

1078
01:11:21,595 --> 01:11:25,795
Speaker 1: hold the artist's hands through. I'm, by god gonna keep

1079
01:11:25,875 --> 01:11:29,515
Speaker 1: sex out of this office to I want to run

1080
01:11:29,595 --> 01:11:34,195
Speaker 1: this place like any other business office. I got up

1081
01:11:34,235 --> 01:11:37,235
Speaker 1: in disgust, went to the men's room and put up

1082
01:11:37,275 --> 01:11:40,075
Speaker 1: the window because it was a hot day. I heard

1083
01:11:40,155 --> 01:11:42,115
Speaker 1: the door open and closed behind me, but I didn't

1084
01:11:42,155 --> 01:11:44,235
Speaker 1: see what it was. Then I went out and met

1085
01:11:44,275 --> 01:11:49,115
Speaker 1: Bergmann coming down the hall. Ross's secretary just came in

1086
01:11:49,155 --> 01:11:50,835
Speaker 1: and said you were going to kill yourself in the

1087
01:11:50,835 --> 01:11:53,395
Speaker 1: men's room, he told me. Ross turned to me and said,

1088
01:11:53,635 --> 01:11:58,915
Speaker 1: that's my life. Do something about it. Bergmann had one

1089
01:11:58,995 --> 01:12:01,435
Speaker 1: great failure and at least one great triumph at the

1090
01:12:01,475 --> 01:12:04,275
Speaker 1: New Yorker. His failure lay in his inability to build

1091
01:12:04,315 --> 01:12:08,755
Speaker 1: a partition by means of which Ross could get to

1092
01:12:08,795 --> 01:12:16,435
Speaker 1: the men's room unseen and ungreeted in the halls. Nobody

1093
01:12:16,435 --> 01:12:19,755
Speaker 1: else could have designed such a crazy partition either, and

1094
01:12:19,835 --> 01:12:23,355
Speaker 1: the dilemma wasn't solved until someone suggested he have a

1095
01:12:23,475 --> 01:12:29,875
Speaker 1: lavatory built just off his office. Oh I'll be damned,

1096
01:12:30,635 --> 01:12:33,355
Speaker 1: Ross must have said when this simple way out of

1097
01:12:33,355 --> 01:12:38,275
Speaker 1: embarrassment was presented to his astonished mind. The lavatory was installed,

1098
01:12:38,595 --> 01:12:41,075
Speaker 1: and it not only saved Ross the torture of being

1099
01:12:41,115 --> 01:12:46,435
Speaker 1: spoken to by employees, but it eliminated uncomfortable dialogue with

1100
01:12:46,595 --> 01:12:53,155
Speaker 1: writers and editors in the men's room. As an aside,

1101
01:12:53,235 --> 01:12:55,915
Speaker 1: here comes the line I mentioned one of my favorite

1102
01:12:55,995 --> 01:13:00,115
Speaker 1: quotations in human history. I hope you're ready to resume.

1103
01:13:01,075 --> 01:13:07,035
Speaker 1: Once standing trow to trow with John Moscher, Ross grumbled,

1104
01:13:07,715 --> 01:13:12,595
Speaker 1: why aren't you writing any more casuals? Because I have

1105
01:13:12,835 --> 01:13:20,235
Speaker 1: lost the slight fancy that sustained me. Mosher explained. It

1106
01:13:20,355 --> 01:13:23,635
Speaker 1: was the kind of Mosher retort that left Ross flabbergasted,

1107
01:13:23,835 --> 01:13:26,715
Speaker 1: and he was miserable when he had nothing to say.

1108
01:13:28,795 --> 01:13:31,515
Speaker 1: Bergmann's great triumph was the hiring of Alvid Johnston, and

1109
01:13:31,555 --> 01:13:35,355
Speaker 1: I'll let him retell that story himself. When I first

1110
01:13:35,355 --> 01:13:38,915
Speaker 1: took over the me job managing editor, Ross said he

1111
01:13:38,955 --> 01:13:41,195
Speaker 1: had been trying to get Alba Johnston to come full

1112
01:13:41,195 --> 01:13:43,355
Speaker 1: time to the New Yorker for a long while, but

1113
01:13:43,475 --> 01:13:46,155
Speaker 1: Alva always refused, said he was too old to change

1114
01:13:46,155 --> 01:13:48,155
Speaker 1: his field. He was a reporter and he didn't want

1115
01:13:48,195 --> 01:13:51,595
Speaker 1: to take a chance on magazines. Ross said to me

1116
01:13:51,635 --> 01:13:53,115
Speaker 1: that if I could get Alvia to come to the

1117
01:13:53,115 --> 01:13:57,755
Speaker 1: New Yorker, that's all I'd ever have to do. How

1118
01:13:57,875 --> 01:14:00,595
Speaker 1: much did you offer him, I asked, Oh, we never

1119
01:14:00,675 --> 01:14:06,555
Speaker 1: discussed salary. Ross said, well, let's offer him three hundred

1120
01:14:06,555 --> 01:14:11,355
Speaker 1: dollars a week. I said, uh, that's that's double what

1121
01:14:11,435 --> 01:14:16,435
Speaker 1: he's getting on the New Harold Tribune. And I said,

1122
01:14:16,595 --> 01:14:19,195
Speaker 1: if we offer him a lot of money, he just

1123
01:14:19,275 --> 01:14:24,155
Speaker 1: won't be able to turn it down. Bergmann, you're a genius.

1124
01:14:24,955 --> 01:14:30,035
Speaker 1: Ross said, I never thought of offering him money, so

1125
01:14:30,195 --> 01:14:31,795
Speaker 1: I made a date with Alba. I told him we'd

1126
01:14:31,795 --> 01:14:33,635
Speaker 1: guarantee him three hundred dollars a week. I can still

1127
01:14:33,675 --> 01:14:36,115
Speaker 1: see Alba turning pale, standing up and saying, gee, I

1128
01:14:36,275 --> 01:14:38,875
Speaker 1: have to think that over. I went back to Ross

1129
01:14:38,875 --> 01:14:42,755
Speaker 1: and told him we got Alva. We had to. That incident,

1130
01:14:42,875 --> 01:14:45,515
Speaker 1: certainly important in the history of The New Yorker, showed

1131
01:14:45,595 --> 01:14:51,155
Speaker 1: Ross's occasional naive and charming impracticality, although he was the

1132
01:14:51,155 --> 01:14:56,515
Speaker 1: world's greatest. The quoted words are Bergmann's Harold Ross's loss

1133
01:14:56,635 --> 01:15:00,195
Speaker 1: of Bergmann was William Randolph Hurst's gain, where the former

1134
01:15:00,235 --> 01:15:02,075
Speaker 1: New Yorker editor was hired to build up the New

1135
01:15:02,155 --> 01:15:06,475
Speaker 1: York Americans daily March of Events page, known to the

1136
01:15:06,475 --> 01:15:10,435
Speaker 1: printers as the Highbrow Page. And build it up he did.

1137
01:15:10,475 --> 01:15:12,875
Speaker 1: A Few months later, Ross ran into him somewhere and said,

1138
01:15:13,195 --> 01:15:15,475
Speaker 1: you're causing a lot of excitement at the New Yorker

1139
01:15:15,475 --> 01:15:17,755
Speaker 1: and worry too. I guess, but keep it up. I

1140
01:15:17,915 --> 01:15:20,955
Speaker 1: like it. I don't see how he could have liked it,

1141
01:15:20,995 --> 01:15:23,755
Speaker 1: because Bergmann had signed up, among others, for one or

1142
01:15:23,755 --> 01:15:27,955
Speaker 1: two columns a week, Bob Benchley, Frank Sullivan, Clarence day,

1143
01:15:27,995 --> 01:15:32,115
Speaker 1: Ogden Nash and Jim Kaine. He also got stuff from H. L.

1144
01:15:32,235 --> 01:15:35,315
Speaker 1: Menken and Oliver Herford which Ross would have liked. For

1145
01:15:35,355 --> 01:15:39,035
Speaker 1: The New Yorker. I did some columns for the Highbrow

1146
01:15:39,115 --> 01:15:42,875
Speaker 1: Page and quite a lot of drawings. The appearance of

1147
01:15:42,875 --> 01:15:47,355
Speaker 1: my drawings there caused Ross to pass the buck to someone,

1148
01:15:47,595 --> 01:15:50,875
Speaker 1: who passed to someone else, who passed it to Catherine White,

1149
01:15:50,955 --> 01:15:52,635
Speaker 1: who wrote me a note asking me if I had

1150
01:15:52,635 --> 01:15:55,275
Speaker 1: not broken my New Yorker contract by not first letting

1151
01:15:55,315 --> 01:15:58,435
Speaker 1: the art meeting see my drawings for the New York American.

1152
01:15:59,555 --> 01:16:01,595
Speaker 1: The New Yorker, in fact, had seen them all and

1153
01:16:01,675 --> 01:16:05,835
Speaker 1: turned them all down. I asked this fact to Catherine,

1154
01:16:05,875 --> 01:16:07,555
Speaker 1: who passed it to someone else, who passed it to

1155
01:16:07,595 --> 01:16:13,115
Speaker 1: someone who passed it to Ross. My drawings ceased appearing

1156
01:16:13,195 --> 01:16:15,635
Speaker 1: in The American when Bergmann got a note from old

1157
01:16:15,675 --> 01:16:20,795
Speaker 1: Hurst himself which read, stop running those dogs on your page.

1158
01:16:21,915 --> 01:16:26,275
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have them peeing on my cheapest rug. In

1159
01:16:26,355 --> 01:16:29,235
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four, the Old Man stopped Kine's columns too,

1160
01:16:29,355 --> 01:16:31,675
Speaker 1: over Bergmann's protest that Jim was one of the best

1161
01:16:31,675 --> 01:16:36,275
Speaker 1: and most popular American writers. Hurst's final note on this

1162
01:16:36,435 --> 01:16:41,435
Speaker 1: matter read get rid of Cain. I thought Abel had

1163
01:16:41,435 --> 01:16:49,915
Speaker 1: done it. Sorry he failed the years with Ross, wherein

1164
01:16:49,995 --> 01:16:54,955
Speaker 1: I learned that someone in the same millennium in which

1165
01:16:54,995 --> 01:17:00,715
Speaker 1: I lived said the phrase I had lost the slight

1166
01:17:00,995 --> 01:17:18,075
Speaker 1: fancy that sustains me. I've done all the damage I

1167
01:17:18,115 --> 01:17:21,995
Speaker 1: can do here. Thank you for listening. Our musical directors

1168
01:17:21,995 --> 01:17:25,275
Speaker 1: have Countdown are John Phillip Scheneil on keyboards and handling

1169
01:17:25,355 --> 01:17:28,235
Speaker 1: the orchestration, and Brian Ray on the guitars, bassed drums

1170
01:17:28,275 --> 01:17:31,715
Speaker 1: and of course the whole vibe of the thing. Their

1171
01:17:31,755 --> 01:17:34,475
Speaker 1: work is produced by Tko Brothers. By the way, there

1172
01:17:34,555 --> 01:17:38,195
Speaker 1: is a documentary about Harold Ross, also a book called

1173
01:17:38,555 --> 01:17:42,035
Speaker 1: Genius in Disguise, which presents the other point of view

1174
01:17:43,515 --> 01:17:47,115
Speaker 1: that perhaps Thurber left out for comedic purposes. We'll call

1175
01:17:47,115 --> 01:17:51,075
Speaker 1: it that. Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever,

1176
01:17:51,155 --> 01:17:54,675
Speaker 1: is responsible for the satirical and pithy musical comments whenever

1177
01:17:54,715 --> 01:17:57,955
Speaker 1: we play the sports music. It's the old Olderman Show

1178
01:17:58,035 --> 01:18:01,795
Speaker 1: theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy

1179
01:18:01,795 --> 01:18:05,355
Speaker 1: of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the

1180
01:18:05,355 --> 01:18:07,955
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed. And my announcer today, as I mentioned,

1181
01:18:07,995 --> 01:18:12,635
Speaker 1: was my friend Larry David doing his impression of the

1182
01:18:12,715 --> 01:18:16,715
Speaker 1: late New York Yankees stadium public address announcer from nineteen

1183
01:18:16,755 --> 01:18:22,555
Speaker 1: forty nine through two thousand and eight, Bob Shuppud. This

1184
01:18:22,675 --> 01:18:27,915
Speaker 1: program was produced by Ted and Stevie. Everything else was

1185
01:18:27,955 --> 01:18:30,955
Speaker 1: as always my fault. It's countdown for today, Day four

1186
01:18:31,035 --> 01:18:33,955
Speaker 1: hundred and ten of America held hostage again just one

1187
01:18:33,955 --> 01:18:37,155
Speaker 1: thy fifty one days until the scheduled end of Trump's

1188
01:18:37,195 --> 01:18:40,155
Speaker 1: lame duck and lame brained term unless he is removed

1189
01:18:40,235 --> 01:18:46,675
Speaker 1: sooner by Oz Perlman, the mentalist at the White House

1190
01:18:46,715 --> 01:18:52,475
Speaker 1: Cars Bonded's Association. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Bulletins

1191
01:18:52,555 --> 01:18:55,435
Speaker 1: is the news merits until the next one. I'm Keith Olberman.

1192
01:18:55,475 --> 01:19:22,995
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown

1193
01:19:23,075 --> 01:19:26,795
Speaker 1: with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

1194
01:19:26,875 --> 01:19:31,835
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1195
01:19:31,875 --> 01:19:33,715
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.