This is Gary and Shannon, and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Death taxes in January take six months to complete. Those are the only true things I can say in this life.
My wife said that last night, that January seems to be taking forever. It always does every year. The good news is, after today, you don't have to worry about it anymore.
Police boats have returned to the river part of the recovery and investigation after that crash killed sixty seven people.
How are you going to just gloss over the fact that you feel better today.
I do feel better today. I also feel like that's wildly insignificant.
Well, yeah, there's big stories. But people were worried about you.
They were, yeah, oh, it's a root canal.
You know.
It was the worst pain I've ever felt. It was awful. I thought I could tough it out. I thought I could just motrin my way through a couple of weeks. Until I got in there. I could not even put some of that goo on your I put the goose, which by the way, is extremely low grade because I got the actual brand name origel from the CVS. That stuff is legit. That's like the dentist office stuff. The stuff we have here is like poor Man's origel made you feel like last about six minutes.
Like like Bristol Palin, that's a weird story. Sorry, that's a deep cut. Why she has facial paralysis for some reason and she can't figure out why?
And why did that story remind you of that?
Because you talked about it. Numbed up that side of your face. Pretty good, the good stuff, the.
Good stuff did, yeah, but it didn't show paralysis.
Actually probably felt like a little bit right, No, No, never mind, I didn't know she had paralysis.
That's awful.
It's probably a viral thing. It maybe uh is it long term bar syndrome? Oh, could be. I don't know.
I didn't know that you got the Bristol Palin newsletter.
I didn't know that she was in my feed, but apparently I saw it on Twitter yesterday that she's having she's still her struggles, was Scilla, No, that's Sarah Ah.
Bristol is the kid, right? Yeah?
No, I know she's the kid. But didn't she also live with her mother and Wasscilla.
I don't know if she that's a good question. I don't know where she is location wise, she's on Twitter.
I know that.
Yeah, did you really think that I was confused that Bristol Palin was the one that ran for vice president. Anyway, it's a crisis.
Is assume that I was that dumb.
Yeah, I mean, I know I've been gone a day, but I'm not that dumb. Anyway, Yeah, it was great. They I did get prescribed the opioids for the first time in my life.
You ask the painkillers. I haven't been prescribed painkillers for a long I did.
Say that the pain was much worse than I remembered the last time I needed a root canal. I mean I would have remembered. And my brother was making a joke, but I think there's kind of truth to it. He's like, well, this is dry january, serves you, right, you won't even felt this if you were doing dry January. I'm like, probably, like I probably would have had a few glasses of wine and been like, I can handle this. I grunted out, but I mean, hey, I don't remember the pain being
that bad. But anyway, I was with the doctor and they said, we're going to prescribe you the six hundred milligrams motron, which is the usual thing, which is great, works for me just fine, even in this situation where I had felt pain. It worked as soon as I took the first one. It worked so much better than just the couple of motron I was taking. But they did prescribe the oxy codone, I guess in case the hydro codone. Hydro codone codone. I knew it was bad.
I mean, I mean good for some people who can handle it. Was there somebody like me? No? Boy?
Now?
So I took it. I got the re or I got the prescription, and I didn't know that they had prescribed that when I went to the pharmacy to pick it up and I get it, and I'm like, what's this? Okay, I immediately take it and I put it in my husband's bathroom immediately.
You didn't take it.
I was like, I don't need to end up in a gutter with a heroin addiction.
They bother to ask you they did not preferred or wanted or maybe is there an issue.
No, it did not come up. It did not come up because I would have said no, thank you.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a strang.
There is also the human I think reflex of well maybe just in case, I should have it, you know what I mean. And that's not the me ending up in a gutter on Heroin side of me. That's the hoarder in me. I think, like Jacob was like, oh yeah, you should have that. I mean, you don't ever know when you're going to be stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere and need it. My husband's the same way.
I mean, he hoards medications from like years ago. I think everyone kind of does that, they hoard medications.
No, I don't do that. I mean I might listen and I have a pretty strong hoarding tendency.
That it's not like something No, but you've never been prescribed anything.
It's like I said, it's been a long time, right.
But I think that some people, especially as you get older, you want to make sure you have you know, whether it's like a steroid pack or antibiotics, so you want to make sure you have something in case something comes up and you can't get to the doctor right away. Okay, I don't know a Jacob, you're a hoarder. Tell me you're you're a young hord You're not even thirty yet. No, so explain the situation.
So I have some sweet muscle relaxers.
They're great, but like, what's the mentality behind that?
You just keep them when you need them for a rainy day. Never know, I just spilled water all over the place. If you need a muscle relaxer, though, oh man, it's a good one. Do you know what it's called? But it doesn't matter.
I don't want to know. I don't know what it's called. I don't know.
I took it last year when I injured my back. Yeah, huh from lifting, and it was great. It happened to be lifting.
It happened your back.
Yeah, I don't know if you saw the plates. He was thrown around. But what exercise were you doing? The squats?
Were you lifting Adam in the air as you did them?
Yeah? He was on my back.
He was sitting on the bar, so I threw him on there. All right, Well, we're glad you're back.
Thank you. I listened to the show yesterday. I must say I like that show, SAMs me. It's nice. It's it's more relaxed, calm. It's calm.
I can do a squirrel story without losing my mind. Claiming that they're all the devil's spawn.
I didn't hear that because you had to go to the press conference. Did and then I got home and I didn't. I didn't turn it on when I got home.
Well, maybe I don't worry.
I'll get the podcast, all right. If you miss any of the show, you can get the podcast. Just subscribe to it on the iHeart app. Somebody wrote smash that follow button on the iHeart app doesn't smash me and have sex with I don't want you to have sex with your phone.
I don't. I don't know who wrote that or is that old? Somebody under the age of It's old.
Okay, so now smash is back to just like tapping aggressively. Yeah, got it? Don't you smash to talk about sex today?
Gary? Last night, did you watch any of the fire Aid concert? No, it was.
It was had some incredible moments and some ones that were pretty cringe, But I did catch a good portion of it.
It went on for five and a half hours.
Where's the cringe?
Stevie Nicks actually, for me, was kind of cringe by Katie Perry.
It's your mouth because Stevie's my favorite.
Well, I'm not saying She's not a legendary.
It's just it's it's hard to watch our icons age as much and as Rod Stewart was amazing as much as Okay, so men.
Can age, but women can't. Yeah, Amy and I heard the same fing thing.
We'll talk about that a little bit later, but we're going to start in just a couple of minutes. The latest on what we know about this DC plane crash, and one specific explanation that I think is the best as to how something like this could possibly have happened.
The FAA has indefinitely closed a routes near Reagan National to most helicopter traffic after that collision. And that was one of my first reactions to this so well, the first one was, how does a communication era like this happen in twenty twenty four. This is something that shouldn't have happened in nineteen fifty four, let alone in twenty twenty four. There's no excuse for that kind of a thing.
I understand that the air traffic control system has been understaffed for a long time and over worked and antiquated, and the machinery, the technology, it's all antiquated. It is the best word and it's kind of one of those things where we think we're it's this ignorance right where we think we're the best at everything. We're America, We're the best at everything. We're the best at AI. You can't have our computer chips are too fancy for you China.
China's like, okay, well whatever, We're going to do our own thing and do just as well as you did with cheap computer chips. Same thing with the air traffic controller system. If we're just resting on, oh, we're just the best. We're the best at everything, not realizing the
dilapidation of several different things in this country. I mean, you look at infrastructure, go back to nineteen fifty four, go back to the formation of the highways, and we were the best at everything, space travel, what have you. Right now we look around, we're not it's a reckoning to realize that we have let things fall through the cracks. Anyway, that was one of the thoughts. The other thought was
what is the military doing. If you've flown in or out of Reagan in a lot of people have most people listening probably have you've noticed before the military aircraft co mingling with the commercial aircraft and probably had the thought of, eh, is that a good idea? What do I know? I'm just Shannon from LA But isn't that a good idea for those black Hawk helicopters be flying in cahoots with the jetliners. So that's a question that
just seems like a common sense question. And then the third reaction was such discussed over the race to politicize this thing on both sides. Trump coming out right away and saying this was a DEI problem. It may very well have been, but we have no idea that that is. It seemed like injecting a hot topic nationally into a tragedy when the bodies had even been found yet. And then the left's reaction to crucify him for doing that. It was all just so disgusting.
The the whole Dei conversation yesterday made me think, as I was reading more about it last night, what if what if the Biden administration had come out and said that this was a result of toxic masculinity, where the hot dog black Hawk pilot was fast and loose with
the regulations because he was toxic masculinity. What I mean, in the event that the pilots of the American Eagle flight and the pilot or pilots of the Blackhawk helicopter both happened to be absolute top of their game and hired therefore put in those positions because they were top of their class and had nothing to do with diversity, equity inclusion hiring. Then that makes the President look foolish
for even bringing that up. Here's now, I agree with him that Pete Hegseth said this the Secretary of Defense, He said, our Defense Department is a merit based Amen, I heard this organization. Yeah, and that's exactly the way I wanted. I agree the way I agree.
I agree that way across the board with many things. However, I will say this, Trump's repeated declaration that this was Obama and Biden is not all true. Yes, it was Obama in twenty thirteen that put the DEI ball into motion, including in the Air Traffic Control Department. But Trump left that in place during his first term.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's one so so, I mean, it could have been because he didn't know about it, which is probably the thing. If he had known about it, he probably would have gotten rid of it. But the fact of the matter is he didn't, and it rolled on and it was renewed during the Biden administration.
So that's the facts your point, it's completely unnecessary. The NTSB came out with their news conference yesterday during our show later in the show, and they said, listen, we're not going to get into any of that. What we're going to tell you is this is how we do the investigation.
This is what we're going to look for.
And they could care less about They couldn't care less about the kind of hiring that went into the shouldn't. That's not their job. That's not their job. It's the job of the Department of Defense. It's the job of the National Traffic Safety Board to take a look at itself and see what's going on.
That's not the ntsp's job.
Yeah, so this is one of those weird you know, we're talking about the loss of sixty seven peoples. You got the three members, three Army soldiers who were in that helicopter, the sixty four people on board that American
AIRLINEES regional flight. When we come back, though, I wanted to play for you, a retired Army Captain Arman Curdion described what I thought was the best description as to how this might have happened when you're talking about how would one set of pilots, how would one crew not be able to see the other aircraft in the air. And there was a visualization that I saw that kind of nailed it down for me, at least let me see it for my own eyes, how this could have happened.
So we'll talk about that we come.
Back, Gary and Shannon will continue. We are hearing about some of the victims as well. We'll get into who they were. President trump'sys twenty five percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico are coming tomorrow. Hasn't decided if oil imports will be included. Allegedly speaking at the White House, Trump said it would depend on the price of oil. He says, we don't need the products Mexico and Canada have and
have all the oil needed right here. Applied half of oil exports to the US in twenty twenty three, Mexico made up eleven percent.
We are going to get more water in southern California. There's a bump in the allocation of water that's been released from northern California. This extra amount could help serve as drought insurance. A state Department of Water Resources announced to this week that it's raised the allotment of requested supplies delivered by the state Water project from fifteen percent up to twenty percent. Of that amount of the billions
of gallons of water. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is the largest wholesaler of the state, expected to get about three hundred and eighty two thousand acre feet.
So stick that in your sock.
All right. Back to the disaster over the Potomac. The FAA says that staffing was not normal. Multiple media reports cite this source that say staffing was not adequate. The tower typically has a controller focused on helicopter traffic, another checking both air planes and helicopter activity. So they have not reviewed any specific reports about who was stationed where, but that there were too few bodies involved.
So the question that has come up is how could these pilots, both for the bombardier plane, the jet and the helicopter not see each other. Retired Army Captain Armand Curdion has looked at a bunch of the flight data that we know about when it comes to how high they were, what direction they were going, et cetera.
Certainly, if you look at the perspective of the aircraft coming down. It's still hard to determine from the video, the dark light video that we actually see, but your vision is going to be shielded seeing that helicopter coming down. Basically the aircraft moved into where the helicopter actually was. That whose fault it was is, so you have to
figure that out. And from the helicopter's flighter perspective, even though they have basically a hatch ahead of them and above them so that they can actually see out the aircraft, I doubt they would have seen the American Airlines aircraft even if they've been looking in the right direction until maybe a few seconds before the missap actually occurred. And I don't see how those pilots could have possibly seen that helicopter that was below them considered the aspect of the nose of the air.
Now that's the key part for me.
Somebody plugged in the flight information that they know of so far that's been publicly sourced into a flight simulator, and they showed the view from the cockpit of the American Eagle plane and as that plane came into land, it banked to the left just a little bit. And if you imagine when you're flying and you turn to the left, the plane kind of tilts on its axis there and that left wing is going to go sorry,
the right wing is going to go higher. If you're in the cockpit, you lose vision of everything that's below you or to that side of the airplane. So if that helicopter was coming from below them and rise, there's no way that the pilots in the in the jet would have ever seen them.
You'd think there'd be censors that would alert the.
And there are.
But as I learned yesterday from Jay Ratliffe, our our iHeart aviation expert, he was saying that those don't work below a thousand feet interesting, which is and the collision they would just.
Go off crazy because off skyscrapers and things, probably.
And because the collision itself took place at somewhere around three hundred to four hundred feet, Yeah, it would have been well below totally interesting. And it's it's a I mean you said this at the beginning of last segment, that there's so much traffic and a helicopter traffic in that area. There have been a bunch of videos that I've seen now of people taking off from Reagan National with helicopters right there.
Yea, not over there, That's what I'm saying. Right yeah, you take off and you're like, what the hell this is crazy, But you know, there's this false sense of secure. Oh it's a military, everyone knows what they're doing, right, Yeah, that's.
We do know obviously that some figure skaters were members of the plane or I should say passengers on the plane that went down.
Yeah, it was Wichitah where they were having their competition, competition as there has been everyone has been talking about.
They talked about figure skaters last week.
It was US Finals and the Boston area. There was a Boston Ski Center and Nancy Kerrigan actually spoke from it yesterday. Yeah, and there was a handful of skaters from that specific gym that that lost people as well, just really adds more more tragedy. I guess. I don't know. I mean, it's it's tragic no matter who loses their lives.
But sometimes you know, and it's a football league. I'm thinking about John Madden's football team that goes down, or you know, a bunch of skaters that were going to skate for the United States coming up in the Olympics, just adds another eerie I guess is the way to say another erie level you had?
Obviously, flight attendants like Ian Epstein, fifty three years old, was killed on that flight.
The figure skaters.
Jennahan is an only child with skating since she was four years old. She's just thirteen. She was traveling with her forty nine year old mother Jin and they were both killed. Sixteen year old Spencer Lane chasing his figure skating dreams at the Figure Skating Championships. He was there with his mother is Well Christine. The crew chief on the Blackhawk helicopter was twenty eight year old Ryan O'Hara and described as a wonderful kid, had a smile for everyone,
loved being in the army. Had just texted his dad earlier Wednesday about a new assignment that could bring him and his wife back to Georgia. Ryan's father said that he doated on his little one year old son.
Kaya Dugan thirty years old, visiting her hometown of Wichita because her mom had a surgical procedure that she was going there. Therefore, then there was the husband and wife, renowned Russian figure skaters, former Russian figure skaters. Now we're coaching young skaters there in Boston.
You have Gania Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, the coaches who were there. Another Cory Hainos, a teenage skater from Northern Virginia's parents, Stephanie and Roger, also on board that flight, according to relatives.
I mean, just the adding the.
I guess the personal details of the people who were lost just makes it even that much more terrifying and makes it makes it that much more sad that this had to happen in this way. Hopefully never again. I told you she has facial paralysis.
I don't know how you knew that. That's just so obscure. But did you read this yesterday?
I told you she.
Boasted a video of her showing what's going on with her face?
Did you see this video yesterday? Okay, that's what I'm asking. Did you hear about this yesterday?
Oh? Yes, I heard about it yesterday, But I didn't read the article.
You just saw on her Instagram page or something.
Listen, I don't need to tell you if she tends me text messages or not.
Okay, Okay. She revealed on social media that Gary follows she woke up nine days ago with a little weird sensation in my face. My mouth was pulling to the left, just felt off. She said it was so bad. At some point within hours, the entire left side of my face was numb paralyzed. She's thirty four. Now that means her babies like what seventeen eighteen?
Probably yeah.
Wow. She did not just close an exact diagnosis for her condition, but she did go through a CT scan, numerous tests. She was prescribed steroids and other meds. She may have a case of bell'sy Bell's policy.
We do know that staffing at the air traffic control tower at Reagan National was not normal for the time of day and the volume of traffic. According to report that came out from the FAA, the initial report about that crash from earlier this week, the control roller who was handling helicopters was also instructing planes that were landing and departing. Those are usually assigned to two controllers rather than just one.
I would like to apologize to you and help crystallize your point with regard to fire but with regard to fire aid and you mentioned Stevie Nicks, and it's hard for us to watch our legends age and I said, oh, so men can age like Rod Stewart, but women can't.
And that was very unfair of me to say that that was your thing you're thinking, because it is true in that when you see people on stage that you remember being young and in the height of their celebrity and youth and all of the things, it is kind of jarring when you see because you think about when you think of them in your mind, you think of
that image, right, and then you see them. And I had the same feeling when I saw def Leppard at the Forum a handful of years ago, ten years ago now or something like that, and I thought, oh, my god, they're so old. And it's not that they're so old, it's just that you remember them in nineteen eighty nine. And Stevie Nix is another one of those people that I remember in my The image in my mind is Stevie Nicks in the eighties. That's when I was first aware of her. So when you see people like that,
it is jarring. And their voices do not always age. Wonderfully, nobody's doing none of ours will. It's very rare for especially a vocalist, to have your voice remain intact after all those years in performing, and most often it is not and it makes it kind of sad. And you're right, and that's what you meant. You didn't mean that. You didn't mean that men can age and women.
I do want to I apologe.
One of the reasons that you're saying this is because you did check out this day and im.
And I was able to crystallize your point looking at it.
Yeah, So last night Fire at La was the double I guess, double venue concert.
They did it at the Kia Forum.
They did it at the Intuit Dome across way across the parking lot, started by Billy Crystal.
These were the clothes I wore when I fled my house with my wife Janice, like so many of us did on January Seventh's all I had ward for a week, plus an N ninety five mask. I look like in a vactor where you are someone who had just robbed a seven eleven. But everybody's been so supportive. This young girl, which must have been twenty, came up to me and said she understood my pain because she had lost TikTok.
For a day.
He also pointed out, and I had forgotten this that the concert for New York. I think they've officially named it, renamed it the Concert for America after the September eleventh attacks.
He was the guy who opened that one as well.
Can I just say that that is a brilliant move to whoever makes a phone called a Billy Crystal after nine to eleven or after something like this. He is the most comforting person and brings such an area of an aura of nostalgia with him. It just makes you feel good. Billy Crystal just does that. And I think it hearkens back to the oscars ony we used just a host and whenever that was. And maybe I think that way is a because I think that way of like Ronald Reagan as well, because I guess it's what
I grew up with. But Billy Crystal is just so calming and just so and you know, even if even as dumb jokes you'll laugh at because it's Billy Crystal.
Billy Crystal Safe, Yes, safe.
A lot of LA based bands, obviously, simply because there are LA based bands. We had Hot Chili Peppers of course. Billie Eilish and her brother Billy Eilish came out a couple of times.
Stevie Wonder was there.
Nirvana actually made an appearance, and I mean that it's kind of Nirvana.
Obviously. It was Dave Grohl and Chris Nova.
Selic Pat Smear showed up on playing as well, and they did a song with Dave Grohl's daughter Violet.
Oh listen, it's not Kurt Cobaine. But I thought it was a nice tribute that they did.
I mean, there's a number of Nirvana songs. You couldn't have a little girl do that one is probably a good choice.
Yeah, Stevie Wonder and Sting came out and did Superstition.
Stevie Wonder and New Steve. Okay, that's cool. I don't know if I don't know if I'm into that mashup, but I do like the song.
Fun collaborations like Kelly Roll brought out Travis Barker to play drums.
Is that a tattoo? Think that the tattoo place.
Katy Perry had the Pasadena Corral behind her when she started her sets.
Very big into the horses.
There were good stuff. Listen.
I thought you said you didn't like the Katy Perry park.
Well, I said that she was having problems with her her monitors. She was having problems with her headphone, so she you could tell she's a better singer than what she did last night. But again, that's live performance. That that's kind of what you're gonna get.
You're a harsh critic because you do live performances.
No, that's not you know.
How the sausage is made.
There were people last night on social media who were saying that this was a this was a master's course in how to do live music. And for the most part, they did fantastic, but there were a couple of little technical things that you could tell were not going well, and Katy Perry was one of them that she she just didn't sound her best. Billie Eilish, though she's got to be the most talented singer that's out there right now.
Oh, I guess I could turn it.
Over Billy Eilish. I understand her talent and her gift and it's incredible. Just makes me so freaking depressed. All right, we gotta go before I jump out the freaking window.
If you missed any part of our show, you can always go check out the podcast.
See that's why we can't have windows in our office.
Were drugs in our cabinets? We'll talk about opioids when we come back.
Go to the KFIAM six forty dot com, slash Gary and Shannon, or search anywhere you find your favorite.
You always do that when we're late. You know that. I know it's like a freakin' It's like death and Taxes and Gary doing a plug when we're already a minute and a half late.
Jacob mark this moment Shannon is blasting me for being late.
I'm never late.
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