Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio quoting Twitter, we cannot allow Sorrows, Stire, and Bloomberg to buy this election. Get out and vote Republican November six hashtag maga October. Based on the excuse which Kevin McCarthy has provided for his racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, politically pandering decision to remove Representative Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whoever wrote that tweet which I just read, must also be removed from any position of importance in the House. Because if ilhan Omar tweeted anti Semitic tropes and took too much time to apologize for them, then whoever tweeted the anti semitic trope about Sorrows and Bloomberg and Styre and four years later has yet to apologize for it is equally self disqualified. We cannot allow sorrow, Styre, and Bloomberg to buy this election. Tweeted on October eighteen by Congressman Kevin McCarthy, Welcome to the new McCarthy is um. You are guilty until proven innocent. He is innocent even when proven guilty. The member of the Foreign Affairs She said Americans only like Israel because it's all about the Benjamin's And three years later she said, I didn't know there's a trope when it comes to referring to someone who is Jewish with money. I didn't know there's a trope when it comes to referring to somebody who is Jewish with money. We cannot allow Sorrow, Styre and Bloomberg to buy this election. Kevin McCarthy indeed tweeted that on October eighteen, then he deleted it on October two, thousand eighteen. After he delet did it, he claimed the tweet had nothing to do with Bloomberg Sorrow since stire being Jewish Americans, then said he deleted it because of his sensitivity to threats against Jewish Americans. Then he reminded his Fox News interviewer that Michael Bloomberg put fifty four million dollars into the campaign. It was a statement which contradicted itself about three times in five seconds. It was the statement of a liar. It was the statement of a weasel. It was the statement of an anti Semite. It was the statement of Kevin McCarthy and the new McCarthy ism. Your anti Semitic trope for which you've apologized, gets you kicked off the Foreign Affairs Committee. My anti Semitic trope, which I've lied about for four years, gets me elected Speaker. We do not stop there. McCarthy playing politics with the world economy by threatening the debt limit, went to the White House and insisted he's not playing politics with the world economy by threatening the debt limit. He the president was, And when pushed to name what's spending he wanted cut. McCarthy, like every other Republican in each House, could not name anything, not one program, not one area the New McCarthy ism, And every week and every day and every hour they find something new to perform like that about There is no governing in the Republican Party. There is perpetual martyrdom, There is perpetual victimhood. There is one job in the New McCarthy ism, and one job only getting yourself re elected. Getting the base angry at something, usually something that does not exist, getting them angrier by emphasizing that if the facts say it does not exist, that's only because Republicans are having their rights violated, or they're being canceled, or they're being d platformed. Of your colleagues to the floor. They had a special order on Direct TVs d platforming Newsmax and wanted to ask you, sir, the House will contemplate hearings. You know. I had discussions with a couple of members now because it's very concerning to me. Now. News Max isn't the first one. Oh a n as well, and I think America should be able to have a choice in the news. They are able to get a choice and being able to see it. I would hate to see that someone's being kicked off simply because they provide something conservative, So I think it is a place that we should look at. It is implausible that even this idiot McCarthy is so stupid that he does not know the real news Max story. But it's either that or he is bald face lying. News Max was charging direct TV zero dollars to carry its product on the Direct TV satellite system. Now it has raised the price from zero dollars to a reported tens of millions of dollars a year. Direct TV said, why would we do that when when you gave it to it for free and you're still charging outlet like Roku zero dollars to carry your little network this in the New McCarthy is m merits a congressional hearing with Congressman. This merits political bullying, This merits the interference with the Republicans supposedly sacro sanc world of business and the free market. If you want to hold hearings about news Max, why not drag this fascist Christopher Ruddy, who owns news Max, in and grill him about price gouging, price gouging in the fertilizer market. The irony about Kevin McCarthy and his New McCarthy ism is that the only thing that happened yesterday that threatens him in the least that could burst his anti democracy, anti bipartisan, anti actually do anything credo are eight words he said yesterday in response to Marjorie Traitor Green. The House Oversight Committee was talking about violations of civil right and the murder of Tyree Nichols, and the first thing Congresswoman Cracker emphasized was that the first five officers who killed Nichols were black, which means it can't by rightist. And then she pivoted to something that were the Republicans still actually part of the democratic process in this country and not merely a party that serves as a harbor for insurrection, which Coddle's fascists. If she had said this under those circumstances, she would have gotten kicked off the committee and kicked out of the House before the hearing was over. There's a woman in this room whose daughter was murdered on January six, Ashley Babbitt, and Ashley Babbitt has there's never been a trial. As a matter of fact, no one has cared about the person that shot and killed her, and and no one in this Congress has really addressed that. Is she January six committee didn't address it. And I believe that there are many people uh that came into the capital on January six who civilar tra etcetera, etcetera. Sure, Marjorie Taylor Green defended a terrorist, defended her from a seat on the House Committee on Oversight. But she's rehabilitated. Now, she's the new Marjorie Taylor Green, asked the New York Times, ask the Washington Post. The new McCarthy is um needs many new Richard Nixon's and even more apologists in the media. What he is amazing is that Kevin McCarthy openly disagreed with Marjorie Trailer Green. One of the first things Marjorie Tilly Green said from overse diets was that Ashley Babbitt is murdered. Do you think Ashley Babbitt was murdered? You think the police officer who shot her and was doing his job. I think the police officer did his job. The follow up question, should Ashley Babbitt and the others who violently invaded the capital on January six be defended from a committee stage by a member of your party? Well, we don't know, but as Kevin McCarthy was not asked that because Republicans do not get asked follow up questions anymore, which is how you will remember McCarthy almost cried about ilhan Omar's trope about somebody who is Jewish with money, and nobody nobody asked him, Mr speaker, what about your trope about somebody who is Jewish with money? The new McCarthy is m has many things in common with the original version, but as important as any other component is this it gets the same incompetent, compliant, stenographic Washington Press Corps in three that Joe McCarthy got in nineteen fifty three. Remarkably, there was an accidental outbreak of journalism in the Los Angeles Times, Reporters Laura Rosenhall and Sarah Wire somehow got Bill Barr to speak to them in Sacramento after a conference and respond to the New York Times vivisection of bars suppression of the Muller report at his turning his Q, and on level belief that Trump's Russia conspiracy not only doesn't exist but was fabricated by I don't know, Lennon. When it comes to Bill Barr, I'm as lost as I was when they made his father the headmaster of my high school. The idea that there was a thin basis for doing it doesn't hold water. Bar says of the appointment of John Durham to go hunt for Snipes because it wasn't started as a criminal investigation. Yes, we wanted to hold people accountable if something came up that indicated criminality, or you could prove criminality, but it wasn't a criminal investigation. It was a review to get the story, and he got the story, narrator. He didn't get the story. The l A Times piece makes Bar sound nuts, makes him sound higher than a Chinese spy balloon over Montata, which is the only rational explanation for his last conclusion in the l A Times piece quote, I think Durham's going to explain, to the extent he's allowed to put it out, the whole genesis of the Russia interference claims and how it all occurred. Well, here's hoping he tries under oath before a Senate committee. William Barr bigger idiot than his father. I never thought i'd say that. By the way, two corrections and two apologies. But yesterday's piece on the prospect that certain wording in the New York Times dishonest clearing of Trump on Russia on Halloween two thousand sixteen point to one of their sores being the just arrested x FBI agent Charlie McGonagall, and whether McGonagall had a role in the Wiener laptop comy letter timeline, and if McGonagall might have been indicted in hopes of flipping him on something bigger. All that was, as I stated, the work of Greg oly Are, but I mispronounced his name holy Are, and I called his piece Charlie's angels. Pieces called Charlie's angles. So among other things, I need new glasses and the less virulent spell check still ahead here. If you're going to embezzle, you have to keep your strength up. So embezzled chicken wings, lots and lots of chicken wings, like one hundred thousand chicken wings. Also, as the fascist desperately moved to cage voters and suppressed voting, what one impediment had they left out well sadly to say, a Nebraska state senator just realized what that one impediment was and she wants to impose it. Plus I made the commercial, I fell off the rock, I bankrupted the company. That was a busy day things I promised not to tell. That's next. This is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Openman. Time for the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Donning Krueger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze one American News. This is the cheaper, sleazier, crazier version of news Max. Of course news Max is the cheaper, sleazier, crazier version of Fox News, And of course Fox News is the cheaper, sleazier, crazier version of Reality. Since Paul Pelosi was attacked by a right wing nut who intended to torture and kill Nancy Pelosi. O A N has show after show, day after day, promulgated the various they don't really hold together, but maybe we can just hate our way through the holes in them conspiracy theories. Clearly somebody at O a N has now gotten a phone call or a letter where they've talked to an actual lawyer, because O A N has issued a statement to the CNN gad Fly Daniel Dale quote. With the release of the video and other evidence, it's clear that an unwanted intruder with evil intent broke into the Pelosi home. Mr Pelosi's nine one one call reveals an incredibly calm and highly intelligent victim trying to relay key information and asking for immediate help without further aggravating a mentally disturbed intruder. We wish Mr Pelosi a speedy and full recovery translation. We wish Mr Pelosi won't sue us. We wish Mr Pelosi will sue, as we wish Mr b don't. Please don't sue, Please don't suite, Please don't sue. Solution sue them. The silver goes to very little former director of food Services at Harvey School District one fifty two outside Chicago. Ms Little has now been charged by Cook County prosecutors with in pantelon. Sure, she stole about a million and a half dollars in taxpayer funds and about nineteen months, but anybody can do that. What she did was to embezzle chicken wings, a lot of chicken wings, eleven thousand cases of chicken wings. Only during an audit by the school district business manager a year ago did they discover that, at the halfway point of the business year, food services had exceeded its annual budget by three hundred thousand dollars. Apparently Miss Little just kept ordering more and more chicken wings quote massive quant of the ease of chicken wings, and then going and picking them up herself at the factory. No word what she did with the eleven thousand cases of chicken wings, nor where those cases are today. But there is a rumor that Miss Little ways more than four thousand pounds. But our winner, State Senator Julie Slama of Nebraska. That's right, Slama as in five slam a Jamma, the nickname of the basketball teams from the University of Houston in the early eighties. What you would prefer her to use her married name? Her husband is named La Groan. You prefer Senator La Groan or Senator slam A Lagron. Okay, now to the serious part. Just when you thought the fascists were out of fascist the ideas, no, sir, not hardly. Senator Slama has already introduced a bill to require voter I D in Nebraska, where they have had almost no voting problems forcades. Now she's introduced an amendment to that voter I D bill to aid early voting. And when I say aid, of course, I mean to stop early voting under Senators slam As amendment Senators slam American Legion Girls Nation, two thousand thirteen. If you want to cast an early vote in Nebraska, you'd have to get it notarized by a notary public, not an online notary public, one in person in Nebraska, in rural Nebraska. If you're saying two hundred miles away from the nearest notary and you're in a wheelchair or something, and that's why you're voting by mail in the first place. Tough. Nebraska State Senator Julie Phi Slama gamma. Mamma wants to keep the minorities from voting, doesn't she? Two days? Worst person in the world. Hey, it's Friday. Friday's are when we do Fridays with Theber. So here's Thurber. Put on your day dreaming hats. James Surber's best known work, best loved work, and maybe just best work has been made into two different films, neither of which is really satisfactory, but each gives you just a glimpse of what your imagination is doing as you hear or read his words. It is a universal It is the story of everybody who's ever lived, who has ever day dreamed. It is the Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. We're going through. The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full dress uniform with the heavily braided white pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane. If you ask me, I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg said the commander. Throw on the power lights, rever up to undred. We're going through. The pounding of the cylinders increased to pocket to pocket of pocket, A pocket of pocket. The commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. Switch on number eight auxiliary. He shouted, switch on number eight dog, Hillary repeated. Lieutenant Burg full strength and number three turret, shouted the commander, full strength and number three turret. The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight engine Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. The old man will get us through, they said to one another. The old man ain't afraid of hell. Not so fast. You're driving too fast, said Mrs Middie. What are you driving so fast for? M hm, said Walter Middy. He looked at his wife in the seat beside him with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. You're up to fifty five, she said. You know I don't like to go more than forty. You're up to fifty five. Walter Middy drove on towards Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the s N two O two through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote intimate airways of his mind. Your ten stop again, said Mrs Middie. It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr Renshaw look you over. Walter Middy stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. Remember to get those over shoes while I'm having my hair done, she said, I don't need overshoes, said Middy. She put her mirror back into her bag. We've been all through that at she said, getting out of the car. You're not a young man any longer. He raced the engine a little. Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves? Walter Middy reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven onto a red light, he took them off again. Pick it up, brother snapped the cop as the light changed, and Middy hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot. It's the millionaire banker Wellington McMillan said, the pretty nurse. Yes, said Walter Middy, removing his gloves slowly. Who has the case? Dr Renshawn, Dr Wrenbo But but there are two specialists here. Dr Remington from New York and Mr Pritchard Mitford from London. He flew over. The door opened down a long cool carter, and Dr Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. Hello Middy, he said, we're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt obstreosis of the ductal tract tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him. Glad to, said Middy. In the operating room, there were whispered introductions Dr Remington, Dr Middy, Mr Richard Mitford. Dr Middy, and I've read you a book on screpto ricosis, said Pritchard Mitford, shaking hands. Brilliant performance, Thank you, said Walter Middy. Didn't know you're in the State's Middy grumbled. Remington's coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary. You are very kind, said Middy. A huge, complicated machine connected to the operating table with many tubes and wires began at this moment to go Pacata, Pacata, pacata. The new Anestata is here, is giving way, shouted an intern. There's no one in the east who knows how to fix it. Quiet man, said Middy in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa pocket, a creep, pocketa pocket, a creep. He began fingering delicately a roll of glistening dials. Give me a fountain pen, he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. That will hold for ten minutes, he said, Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Middy saw the man turn pale. Coreopsis has set in, said Renshaw nervously. If you would take over, Middy. Middy looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, then at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. If you wish, he said. They slipped a white gown on him. He adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves. Nurse's to him, shiny, back it up, Mac, look out for that buick. Walter Middy jammed on the brakes. Wrong lane, mac, said the parking lot attendant, looking at Middy closely. Gee yeah, muttered Middy. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked exit. Only leave us sit there, said the attendant. I'll put her away. Middy got out of the car. Hey better leave the key, oh, said Middy, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged. They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Middy, walking along main Street. They think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off outside New Milford, and he got them wound around the axles. The man had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then, Mrs Middy always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The Next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling. They won't grin at me. Then I have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains, off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. Over shoes, he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store. When he came out into the street again with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Middy began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him twice before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way, he hated these weekly trips to town. He was always getting something wrong. Clean x, he thought, squibs, razor blades, now, toothpaste, toothbrush by carbonet carborundum, initiative referendum. He gave it up, but she would remember it. Where's the what's its name? She would ask? Don't tell me you forgot the what's its name? The newsboy went by, shouting something about the Waterbury trial. Perhaps this will refresh your memory. The district attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. Have you ever seen this before? Walter Middy took the gun and examined it expertly. This is my Webley Victor's fifty point eight, oh, he said, calmly An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge rapped for order. You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe, said the district attorney, insinuatingly objection, shouted Middy's attorney. We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July. Walter Middy raised his hand briefly, and the bickering attorneys were stilled with any known make of gun, He said evenly, I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three feet with my left hand. Pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. A woman scream rose above the bedlam, and suddenly a lovely, dark haired girl was in Walter Middy's arms. The district attorney struck at her savagely, without rising from his chair. Middy let the man have it on the point of the chin, your miserable cur puppy biscuit, said Walter Middie. He stopped walking in the buildings of Waterbury, rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. He said, puppy biscuit. She said to her companion. That man said puppy biscuit to himself. Walter Middy hurried on. He went into an a and p not the first one he came to, but a smaller one farther up the street. I want some biscuit for small young dogs, he said to the clerk. Any special brand, Sir, the greatest pistol shot in the world. Thought a moment. It says puppies bark for it on the box, said Walter Middy. His wife would be through at the hairdressers in fifteen minutes. Middy saw in looking at his watch. Unless they had trouble drying it. Sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first. She would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby facing the window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor Beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. Can Germany conquer the World through the air? Walter Middy looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets. The canon Aden has got the wind up in young Rawley, Sir, said the sergeant. Captain Middy looked at him through tousled hair. Get him to bed, he said, wearily. With the others, how fly alone. But you can't, sir, said the sergeant, anxiously. Takes two men to handle that BOMBA and the archies a pounding hell out of the air. Von Rickman's circus is between here and Solier. Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump, said Middy. I'm going over spot of brandy. He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and wined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. Of a near thing, said Captain Middy carelessly. The bus barage is closing in, said the sergeant. We only live once, sergeant, said Middy, with his faint, fleeting smile. Or do we? He poured another brandy and tossed it off. I've never seen a man could hold his brandy lock usa, said the sergeant, begging your pardon, sir. Captain Middy stood up and scrapped on his huge web lee Vickers automatic. It's forty kometers through Elsa, said the sergeant. Middy finished one last brandy after all, he said, softly. What isn't the pounding of the cannon increased? There was the rat tat tatting the machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pucket a pucket a pocket, a pucket of the new flame throweries. Walter Middy walked to the door of the dugout, humming out prayed to my blonde. He turned and waved to the sergeant Cheerio. He said. Something struck his shoulder. I've been looking all over this hotel for you, said Mrs Middy. Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you? Things? Close in? Said Walter Middy, vaguely what Mrs Middy said? Did you get the wats it's name the poppy biscuit? What's in that box overshoes? Said Middy. Couldn't you put them on in the star? I was thinking, said Walter Middy. Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking? She looked at him. I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home, she said. They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you push them. It was two blocks to the parking lot at the drug store on the corner. She said, wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute. She was more than a minute. Walter Middy lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drug store smoking. He put his shoulders back and his heels together. To hell with the handkerchief, said Walter Middy, scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad, erect and motionless, proud and disdainful. Walter Middy, the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, Still ahead on countdown things I've promised not to tell. It's one thing to make a pretty good TV commercial, something else altogether, to make a pretty good TV commercial and fall off a cliff while you're doing it and bankrupt the company the commercial is for. I did all that first. In each addition, of Countdown, we feature a dog in need. You can help. Every dog has its day to Texas and Sweetheart. Big Dog Haven of Tennessee has taken over the care of Sweetheart and she's gonna need a lot of it. Sweetheart is one a big, beautiful, light tan colored shepherd and Sweetheart has been shot point blank in the chest and the arm along this collapse. The arm was broken, her shoulder shattered, she was bleeding out, but despite this awful prognosis, she made it through her first surgery. She's stable enough that they can go now and try to repair the damage to the shoulder without our help. You can find Sweetheart on Cuddly or on my Twitter feed. Your donations and retreats will truly help. I thank you, and of course Sweetheart, thanks you to the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell. And it was this time of year when my agent called me at ESPN. There's an ad agency in Santa Monica. They just called me, would you like to do two commercials for Boston Market? I answered with profound indifference. Okay, would you like to do two commercials for Boston Market? For two dollars. I believe my next words were, well, I can't do them today, but sure they faxed me. The scripts are actually pretty funny, very well done. I think you like them. I believe my next next words were, if I don't have to kill anybody in them, call them back and say yes and get the money. Since the idea was these ads would run on sports telecasts, most of them on ESPN, My yes got back to management at ESPN pretty quickly. You can't do these, one of the executives explained dismissively. We don't let anybody do commercials. I laughed. Every one of us has done the uh, this is sports center commercials. Some of us have written that this is sports center commercials. You don't even give us days off for making them, let alone give us money. This is money I don't have to ask you for. The executive shook his head. Those aren't commercials. Those are promotional announcements. They're in your contract. Nobody here does commercials, I said. Chris Berman has done a beer commercial in three out of the last five Super Bowls. My commercial is just for food. Well, he's Berman, I pointed out. I went to high school with him and I was the star of their most popular program, a little thing called Sports Center. TV Guide had just named US one of the top ten shows on TV shows not sports shows us in Seinfeld. Sorry, well, now I got a little angry, which never happened to me at ESPN, and I went to my ace in the whole. Uh my contract expires in like ten months, and you know I intend to leave, and during those ten months, you're gonna pay me about two hundred and sixty dollars. So Boston Market is gonna pay me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for two days work instead of ten months work. Plus they're gonna take me out first class to l A for a couple of days, and they're probably gonna do some radio spots and I'll make another twenty five grand. So you're giving me a choice, make say, chudred seventy five thousand dollars in like five days for them, or make two hundred and sixty dollars here between now and next September when I'm planning and leaving. Anyway, if you make me choose between those two, which do you expect me to choose? The executive coughed. We'll get back to an hour later, he got back to me by phone. Okay, we see your point, but there's still two problems. We can't just let everybody do commercials. I said, well, you know, why don't you just let anybody who went to the high school that Berman and I went to do commercials. He did not laugh at that. Well, how about only your regular weekday sports center anchors get to do commercials? There was a grunt and a maybe. Then we got to the gist of the real problem. Here's the real problem. People on your show. They'll be resentful. And I said, why will they be resentful? Because the production assistants are expecting that they're going to get their own commercials too. And I said, how about this, the day I'm out there actually shooting the commercial, I will get Boston Market to like cater dinner for the show staff, even if I have to pay for it myself. There was a long silence. Would management being looted in that? Can we get all the side dishes too? I swear to God, so off I flew at the beginning of December, during a winter that had gone frigid in October in Bristol, Connecticut. The next thing I knew I was on the beach in Malibu at Leo Corio State Park. The crew is complaining because it is raining lightly and only about fifty five degrees. To me, fresh from the hinter lands and having not been back to l A since I had moved out in It's like I'm in Tahiti. And my agent was right. The scripts were funny and original. They were as send up of the old Calvin Klein obsession perfume commercials. There are two extremely thin models and they are filmed writhing in frustration on the beach on the big rock outcroppings at Leo Corio State Park. She is supposed to say, emptiness, How can I fill this empty void of emptiness? They are in black and white, but I emerge from behind a rock or wherever I'm in color. They are in black and white, and I say when they say, don't know what to do by this emptiness, I say eat something. I then sell the sandwich. Then it cuts to a shot of me walking them down the beach with my arm over each of their shoulders, telling them eating is a good thing, and who's wearing cologne or who likes sports or other stupid things like that. For a quarter of a million dollars. Well, we start this at eight am, and the producer and the director John say to me and the two models and the crew, look, this rain is just going to get heavier as the day goes on. So what we want to do is not take a break for lunch. We'll just shoot until like two pm, and then you can have lunch. You can take your lunch with you, and you'll all get paid for a full day. And everybody agrees. The actress agrees, and she swears as she agrees. The actress is named Una. Una is from Chicago, and it will soon prove Una swear, there's more than a longshoreman. This blanking called can blank my blanking blank to be fair. Una and the guy are dressed in Calvin Klein rags, and they are there and they are from there, and they are freezing while I am wearing a production company brand new suit and shoes, and to me it feels like it's Tahiti. We take a couple of hours where we do all the shots where I emerge from behind the rocks or go around the rocks, or over the rocks, or look over the rocks, and the director finally says, okay, we've got five good options. Let's set up for the walk down the beach with your arms around each other's shoulders. By now it's noon or twelve thirty. And as they move the cameras and the rain starts to move from a mist to like a light rain, two prop guys bring out rakes and I'm sitting with the crew and I've been asking them questions all morning in between takes about how this is all being arranged and made and lit. And I say, rakes, what do you need rakes for on a commercial? And they say you'll see. And then each time me and Una and the guy walked down the beach and the director says, cut, we go back to the starting point. Now outcome two stage hands with rakes and they rake the sand on the beach smooth, and I say, oh, footprints. So each time I walk down this damp beach with the range just a little harder than it was the take before, in my brand new dress shoes, what I'm basically doing is polishing the souls of these brand new shoes on damp sand. I mean, by the time the director John says we are done, these souls of these shoes so shiny, I could go ice skating in these shoes. And John comes over and he says, listen, we got another half an hour. Can we go back and try a new way for you to appear on the rocks? I mean, can you Can you climb rocks at all? And I say, yeah, actually, I'm surprisingly good at it. You wouldn't think so, but I can climb rocks. And he points to one rock out cropping on the beach. Maybe it's high, and he says, try to climb up that and go as high as you can. If there's nothing that will support you, we'll forget it. And I try, and sure enough I get up near the top and there is a perfect little shelf in the rock that I can comfortably stand on. And the director points the camera up and he says, oh, damn, the angle is too tough. I can't swing the camera down fast enough for when you say eat something, so I refocus on the models. They won't work. Is there anything lower on the rock where you could stand? Can you come down at all? And I said, I think so. I think I can come down a little bit. Well, little did I know. Sure enough, maybe nine ten ft from the beach, up in the sky there is another little foothold on this rock outcropping. It is not big enough for me to put both my feet on it. But I say, if you don't mind me holding onto the rock as I say, eat something, I can do it from here. And the director says, okay, let's try it. And I climbed down the rock and he's moving the camera and I put my left foot on this flat part, which is nine or ten ft up from the beach, and for a couple of seconds everything is fine. I'm good. And that's when I feel that my left shoe, my brand new left shoe, straight from the floor, Shyme catalog, bright and shiny and now having been polished by four hours of walking up and down on a wet beach, complete with two guys there to rake the beach and make sure it is as shiny as it possibly can be. My left shoe, slipperier than a diamond, is now moving of its own accord. I'm holding. I'm doing a good rock climbing job, but the shoe, the shoe is not holding. Hey, I say, with some alarm, I'm about to fall off. I hit the sand no more than five seconds later, So that's about would a sixteen foot drop from my head to the beach and four weeks. For years still to this day, it has amazed me more than anything else that happened. It has amazed me how much went through my mind before I crashed. In fact, before I actually fell, I know, I did a quick height calculation fifteen sixteen feet. I recognized that the outcropping was so vertical that I was unlikely to hit any of the rock on the way down. But just the same I remembered that the rocks continued under the sand sea. I took two years of geology, and this was going to be a hard landing. More amazingly than all that, Though I had taken judo as a kid, I hated every minute of judo. Nineteen sixty six, so twenty six and twenty seven years before we shot this commercial, I was in the studio, the Judo studio in White Plains. Knew you work the day of the nineteen Northeast blackout, And the only happy memory of the entire judo experience I had was when our instructor, Bob Durocher locked us in the dojo that had been converted from a store that had a front door that was set in several feet from the streets so they could put display cases up. And now it's pitch black. So he went out and got his Volkswagen Karmen Gia drove it up over the sidewalk into that set in entryway of this converted storefront. He put his high beams on. He flooded the dojo with enough light that weak kids could change out of our judo stuff, then back into our regular clothes and wait for our parents to come get us. He did a great job. I didn't like the judo so much, but his blackout operations practice was superb. So now with all of this having gone through my head, in a second, I began to fall, and everything else from that year of once a week judo classes comes act to me. Relax. As you drop, the more of your body that hits, the less you'll get hurt. Hands protect. The head dropped like a sack of sand. I did not hit the sand, per se. I kind of splattered on my left side like swoop as I rolled over onto my back and took a breath and sat up. Of all people, Una was the first to race over to me. You want some blank and tea? I said, uh, no, no thanks. Let me let me see if I'm dead. The grips tried to help me to my feet, but I felt some very sharp pain that which suggested we should slow down. The problem was, though, even if I needed an ambulance, there was no way to get one down to where we were shooting, As that rock outcropping that I had just fallen from suggested, I like to call it a cliff every now and again. Leo Courio State Park had a real cliff in it and a flight of stairs, I mean a hundred steps, two hundred steps up to the Pacific Coast Highway on a park. Sure enough, I was able to stand, but I couldn't move easily. Everything hurt. So the two biggest members of the crew let me drape my arms over their shoulders, exactly the way I had draped my arms over their shoulders of the models during the beach shot. I stopped for a second. Hey, Oona, are you sure you don't want to Frankin carry me up the stairs? She said, with genuine sincerity. Now that's blank and funny. Seemed to me like it took about a month to get up those stairs. I assumed there would be an ambulance waiting by this point. Instead, there was a park ranger. This is a state park. I have to see you first, then I have to call the fire department. I said, well, this pain on my side here, this feels like fire, but I don't think it's actually fire. He called the fire department. They showed up, They assessed me. They called the ambulance. At some point, probably when I was being half dragged up the steps, something happened on the impact side. If I now tried to lower my left arm from way above my head, I got severe shooting, burning pain from my left armpit to about my left knee. Cleverly I figured out not to do that. Keep your left arm above your head and it won't hurt. I use the restroom in the ranger station. There was no blood, so no kidney damage. I'm okay. It does, however, hurt, and something could be broken. Now I go back outside, my arm above my head like I'm signaling for a cab on the streets of New York City. And the ambulance shows up and the E M t s tell me to get on their gurney, and I said, I can't. I can't lower my arm unless I want excruciating pain. I can't move my arm. I have to stay in this position, looking like like a Flamenco dancer. But I said, listen, can you lock the wheels on this gurney? And they said, sure we can, of course we can. And I said, just lock the wheels and I'll just back up onto the end of it and I'll fall backwards. And it worked, and so with my left arm still extended over my head, they loaded me into the ambulance. Apparently when I fell from that rock or cliff as I call it, it looked like I had been shot. Fifty sixty people on a commercial crew. The shooting day is over. They have missed lunch. There is a very nice catered lunch sitting there. And they told me later that everybody was so disturbed by what happened to me that only three people even took something to go and know the director was not filming as I fell. Sadly, so we hit every pothole on Pacific Coast Highway on the trip from the beach to the hospital. Oh, I call my agent from my cell phone, she laughed. I called ESPN actually to check on the cater dinner. Oh, what's new? Oh, I fell off a cliff shooting the commercial, they laughed. And I'm lying there in the emergency room waiting for X rays when my cell phone rings again and I reached into my left pocket and I had the phone halfway to my ear when I realized, my left side does not hurt anymore at all. It does not hurt at all. Well, that was a quick recovery. I sat up. My left side felt fine, In fact, it felt great, and a nurse came over and suggested I should lie back down again. I said, why, somehow I got better on the trip from all the potholes and just lying here, In fact, I feel great. Did you guys remove my left leg while I wasn't looking. Did you replace it with the left leg that I had when I was twelve? Because I could hop back to Connecticut on my left leg right now, just cancel the flight, she laughed. She said, no. What I was feeling would be the morphine they gave me so they could twist me around and take the X rays they needed. And I said, please never ever give me any more of that ever again. Thank you. My Judo flashback, as it turned out, had done the job. I had broken nothing the e R doctor complimented me on my fall, and he said, I've probably had six or eight different sprains on my left side. It would hurt, but it would keep getting better and I'd be able to make my flight home the day after next. He was completely right, although I now I found twenty five years later that it's beginning to hurt like I just fell off the cliff. Anyway, I went back to the hotel. I ate well, I slept well, I managed to walk around with the help of a cane, and I went back for day two of the commercial shoot. This one is in a mansion in Pasadena, a room teaming full of UNA's lying on the floor. They're photographed through chandeliers. They're lazy, rich kids who also need to be told to eat something. I arrived and walked into applause from the crew and I delivered a well rehearsed line. And now from my next trick, which is when the director John came over and apologized, and he said he thought this entry into shot for me would be way easier. What I had to do is lie on the floor, then sit up and deliver the line eat something. If you can sit up, he said, that is if you can't, we can do something else. Can you sit up? And I thought about it, and I rubbed my lower back, and I said, based on the day so far, yeah, I could, but probably only six or seven times. And and I said, while I can sit up, it's clear to me one of those bad sprains was in the muscles somewhere my lower back. And if I try to lay back down, I lose control. Just crashed back to the floor. That actually happened getting out of bed this morning. So after each take, the same two guys who had walked me up the stairs after I fell at the beach gently held my arms and shoulders and lowered me back two lying on the floor. We got what we needed. I went back to the hotel. I had dinner with some friends. The next day. I was a little sore, but quickly fine to get back on the plain east and sure enough, only time ever, I had a west to east tail wind. The flight from l a X to Newark took three hours and forty eight minutes. We traversed the country like a dart shot from a gun or an alderman falling from a rock out cropping. Oh. By the way, the commercial was an immediate success, unlike any that Boston Market had ever done before. In those days, they were packed each night for dinner at every location, selling half chickens and full meals with potatoes and salads, and they were getting an average of twelve dollars out of every customer. The rest of the day the place was empty. The idea behind my commercials. They were designed bringing a lunch crowd a sandwich in a soda and a bag of chips for four dollars. Soon they were swamped at lunchtime. Boston Market ordered three more commercials, these to be shot in a studio in New York. They offered me fifty grand a day. An entire new career vista was opening in front of me. I was, for a week or two in early the most successful male commercial actor in the country. We shot those three spots. I interrupted a grunge concert to shout eat something at the band, and then I got carried off by the crowd in a mosh pit. And I interrupted a Romeo soap opera surgeon coming on to his nurse by rising from the operating table to shout eat something. And then we did something with ball players at the stadium on Randall's Island, and I remember nothing of that because, unlike the first two, they never edited the film. Because that's when it happened. They're equivalent of falling off the cliff. I will confess it had not occurred to me. Then again, I did not own Boston Market. I did not work for their marketing department. I did not run the ad agency they employed. But none of them anticipated it either. After the first few weeks of giddy glee about the lunch crowds I had brought them, somebody noticed something unfortunate and unexpected. Basically, for every four dollar lunch they were now selling, they were selling one fewer twelve dollar dinner. They had not gained any new customers. They had just managed to get their customers to each spend eight dollars less. These very well made, very memorable commercials worked very very well. And the problem with that was each time they did work, it cost Boston Market eight dollars. By the end of Boston Market was something like nine hundred million dollars in debt, It had filed for bankruptcy and had been taken over by McDonald's. On the other hand, I got my money and in the twenty five years plus since Boston Market has not once used a celebrity endorser to try to sell their food. Oh and there was one other positive outcome. I'm actually very proud of this. The ad agency got the award in question. I did not, so I don't know which group gave it to us, but that eat Something campaign actually won an award because somehow my shouting eats something at una and the other way thin models. Somehow that cuts through to at least some victims of eating disorders. The Boston Market Eat Something ad campaign for which I fell off a cliff, okay, a rock outcropping for which I fell off a rock outcropping got an award from a national Bolimia Association. Countdown has come to you from the studios of All Round Broadcasting Empire World headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Thanks for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our theme here from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitarist based and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davison. Appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever our an outstree today was Stevie van Zant. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this, the seven fifty ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can. That scheduled countdown is Monday. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck ye. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.