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.
Oh my goodness, So how do they know? How do they know? Amy?
How do they know that they're close to their first flight?
Mike?
We actually talked to Sandy Steers at Friends of Big Bear Valley.
Oh good, so anywhere.
Between ten and fourteen weeks, and Gizmo the littler one hits ten weeks tomorrow, Sunny's already ten weeks, so they could really take off anytime.
Now, what are they going to go?
Yeah, did they leave and then they come back? Do they just come home for Thanksgiving?
They just fall off the nest and it goes, well, when.
Do they make babies?
Well, they're just still babies themselves. So here's the thing, because I had all these questions too, because I'm like, what happens when they leave?
And you said, just do or die?
And she says, well, if they don't have a successful flight, they just sort of glide and then they'll work their way back up to the nest. But sometimes that takes a while.
I was gonna say, how do there's no elevators? How do they get back up there if.
They had to flap away? You got to figure it out real quick. And then like take a tail feather after they've left, Silly. After they've left, mom and Dad still take them food because they don't know how to hunt yet. And then they teach them how to funt a hunt. And so Jackie and Shadow will sort of follow them around and teach them how to hunt and take them food.
They're like, this raw flesh doesn't just appear at home.
You actually have to go out and work for it, exactly, go to.
The Kroger, come home, fry it up in a pan or not in their in their situation. Well everyone, you know, kids just think that food just appears, you know, and learn an ugly lesson.
One day.
You learn that you've got to go out and kill something, you know, whether it be proverbally or otherwise.
There's nothing for verbal about it, right, there's not in this case, is there?
No?
And have you watched them? Have you seen them flapping around? I have not. I just saw a still I think on the tea news here.
Oh okay, so it's really fun that they they're practicing now. They haven't jumped off the ledge yet, she said, just when they're ready, they'll go. But they'll sit and they'll flap and flap, and they run across the nest and then stop.
Short of Oh my god, it's like riding a bike or jumping into a pool, big milestone.
What are you doing?
Great?
What are you gonna do when they're out of camera shot?
Me or Shannon? You better be devas.
You're gonna have to, like, you know, go to Michael's or something, Michaels and get.
A stuffed to eat.
Get it, no, get like a hobby. That's what I do when i'm board. I go to Michael's. I pick up some sort of craft project. Oh that's a good idea.
I know.
I've been watching them for like three months. Yeah, I don't want you to feel a hole in your heart.
I know. If only somebody around here would make a freaking baby.
I know.
Oh wait, somebody did.
What who do we need?
Carlo's daughter had a baby. Oh yeah, well she should bring that baby in here. He should. We need to nurture. We do need to nurture something. You and I were both the big nurtures.
Yeah, you guys great aunties.
We do we as I bet much better than mommy, Amy.
I like that, Mommy Amy.
I'm gonna I'm gonna hold onto that mommy.
All right, Well, welcome to Friday.
So the president went to a mosque on his Middle East trip, and everybody is up in arms. Oh my goodness, he's talking ont of both sides.
Of his mouth.
He's going to a mosque after all the things he said about Muslims. He said that Barack Obama was a Muslim, he said that there should be camps that Islam hates us.
Uh.
This is just case in point that the president doesn't care about religion. I'm sorry to say it. It's the way it is. It doesn't mean anything to him to go to this mam. He doesn't understand the gravity.
I don't know.
If he doesn't understand it, he doesn't care to understand it. And that's fine.
There are people that go through their lives.
With no religion and they do just fine. And he's one of those people.
You know.
It's like, you want to believe he's into religion.
Fine, but he put out a Bible. Fat did he put out a.
Boy to sell it?
He cares about the almighty dollar. That's what this president cares about and that's fine, but let's stop putting him into the religious shoe because the foot doesn't fit. If he was that much into religion, he would not have There's a reason he's the first president not to go or to go to a mosque.
He did say he had a pretty good trip.
In an amazing four day period. I think like none other, there has never been anything like it. Is a great relationship with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE has great friendships. I can tell you that at the top level, the relationship and friendship is really unified at least.
Okay, now, we have to remember back when Barack Obama talked about reopening relations with Iran.
This is should be taken in that same vein.
A lot of people criticized Obama at the time because they said that Iran was a terrorist state. There's nothing different about that comment from Barack Obama. Although the deal that came out of it was ridiculous, there's nothing different between that comment from Barack Obama and this trip from President Trump.
Uh. Could you imagine if Barack Obama, to your point, went to a mosque and said these words, isn't this beautiful? It's so beautiful, very proud of my friends. This is an incredible culture. We would have been up in arms if Barack Obama said that, like, oh, this is proof he's a terrorist.
You know what I mean?
Like you, let's just take like you said, take this all with a grain of salt. But don't but don't be hypocritical in thinking that, like look at how look at Trump, look at how sure he is embracing another culture. It would have lost your damn minds if Barack Obama did that, or Biden or any other Democrat. He went on to say, this is the first time they've closed the mosque for the day.
Is that true?
First time they closed it?
It's in a hundred of the United States.
I think, what, oh my goodness.
Again, if coming from anybody else, you'd be like, what team are you on? Bro?
Bro.
He went on to say, let's see here.
Okay, So he's wearing only socks since shoes are not allowed in the mosque. He's given a tour, he's given explanations of various features in the building, and.
Then he asks reporters.
He turns to the reporters and the photographers and he goes, is everybody having a good time.
That's not even a mosque for playing the room.
Easy.
Well, he's not playing that room, unfortunately, he's playing our rooms.
He's playing a room. That's a good points playing a room, bro That's what.
But you know what I mean, Like if that came from a Barack Obama, we would be like, what's guys, We got to dig into this and we go. We go through his past, We go through things that he had said in the past.
We go through everything, his relationship with his fot.
Oh my god.
All right.
Up next, there was a pretty damning story Wall Street Journal. Jonathan Stewart is an air traffic controller and he says he averted a mid air collision.
Yeah, it's just another pilon of how scared. This scares me as somebody who's gonna get on a plane in a couple of days, but even a person who just lives on the ground where the planes fly overhead. The state of this system is terrifying. The fact that three quarters of the air traffic controller system is obsolete should be something we acted on, not yesterday.
But in the late eighties.
Yeah, when that stuff started aging, Yeah, is when we should have done it. All right, we'll talk about this what this Johnathan Stewart has to say about his life there as an air.
Trans Did you see his picture as well? Yeah, yeah, that was troubling too.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
It's all right, We're.
All God's children, aren't we though. Here's your chance at one thousand dollars.
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That keyword again, Bank goes on the website. An hour from now, we'll give you another shot at one thousand dollars. Reminder that tonight the Dodgers take on the Angels at Dodger Stadium, first pitches at seven o'clock. He can listen to all Dodger games on AM five to seven a LA Sports from the Galpinmotors Broadcast booth stream all the games in HD on the iHeartRadio app used that keyword AM five to seven LA Sports. They crushed the A's
last night nineteen to two. There was a point where the A's knew it was over, and they put in a backup catcher as their pitcher.
I love that.
That's one thing of all the games I've ever been to, I've never seen a position player pitch, because that usually ends up in those blowout games. He threw pitches that were forty two miles an hour, which is like slow pitch softball.
And he threw pitches that were ninety miles an hour.
That's fun, and he struck out show Hey O Tani Wow, which he had the biggest smile on his face.
He took the ball and threw it to the dugout so that they would keep it.
I love that on show Hey a Tony bobble Night. Nonetheless, yes, you're the back of catching.
You already hit two home runs. Oh that's great.
Clayton Kershaw penciled in, by the way, to make his season debut tomorrow.
Okay, so we're gonna have to spread out with this one because we've talked about the FAA recently We've talked about the struggle to fully staff air traffic facilities. We've talked about the dilapidated nature of these air traffic facilities to keep critical technology running. But so often we're just getting the headlines and we're not really hearing about the anecdotes. And it doesn't really matter if you fly a lot.
Even if you don't fly a lot, this impacts you because it involves planes crashing to the ground.
And involves others. Oh, look at there's that bird of.
Prey that we bring in to scare away the ground mites.
Do you see him?
And he's eating something?
He is eating something? Is it a squirrel? What kind of bird is that? Again?
Is it a hawk? Red? Redtail hawk?
What is his name? Again?
Not Nicodemus, that was the adele. But is it the same guy that has Nicodemus that also has this bird? Was it Fred Rogan we were walking out with and he said, what the hell is that? And the guy's walking around with this redtailed hawk on his shoulder. What the hell's that guy doing as a hawk of some kind of okay? And uh and and you said a very matter of facty to Fred, Oh, the building hires this guy to bring his big ass bird in to scare away the other birds and the and the ground mites.
And Fred goes with, I don't know, I made that up because I can't. I can't figure out. I couldn't figure out what that word was, so I went with ground mites. And Fred's like, what the hell kind of place we work at?
They bring it in?
Like?
Bird?
What?
What?
Like?
It's the Renaissance Fair.
Suddenly, anyway, he's got something out there.
He's sitting on a street light that's just about level with our window right here.
Yes, and he's uh lunch all right? Well, uh, just as easily.
As we get distracted, so do overworked air traffic controllers.
And now we're getting anecdotes of.
Just how this dilapidated system is playing out for people that are directing planes in the sky. We've got an anim about a near mid air collision. This air traffic controller is singing about it. They're not supposed to, but he's giving us the details. We'll talk about it when we come back.
Gary and Shannon will continue.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
A bunch of stories that are going on today, members of the Railroad Engineers Union for New Jersey Transit went on strike. About three hundred and fifty thousand people a day rely on New Jersey transits, so they have been shut down. Huge day of severe thunderstorms could be coming today. About nine million people from Missouri up through Kentucky under a level four of five risk of severe thunderstorms today. And did you hear James Comey in this ridiculous post that he made about.
Why is a anyone listening to him or paying attention or giving him a microphone?
And b something scrawled in the sand.
Is that somehow had the formation of eight six four seven.
Okay, get rid of the president?
Now why they're.
Taking it as a death threat? Is that right?
Yeah? Okay, why why would you post that? If you're going to take that seriously, you're the death threat. But you then also think Trump is a terrorist for going to a mosque, Like if you're going to be that overreactive with your thinking.
It's it's one of.
Those things that James Comy should know better as a former director of the FBI.
He needs to know better.
The chronicle, dumb ass.
It's it's just it's one of those super frustrating, Like what, First of all, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security don't need to waste their time by investigating that, but they need to make a point by saying, don't investigating that.
Investigating that?
All right, So we're talking about this air traffic controller mess that is quickly turning into a disaster, and I hope that I am wrong and I am overreacting to this. Jonathan Stewart says he was in his fourth hour of overseeing the planes flying near Newark. We've talked about how Newark is kind of the hub for this air traffic controller mess when it comes to staffing shortages, and I believe the planes are monitored out of like Philadelphia or something.
It's just it's a they're having to cut down on flights because there's just not enough people to monitor them. It's just indicative of a greater problem there at Newark anyway. So Jonathan Stewart is tasked with overseeing planes there. He's in his fourth hour and he notices two planes speeding nose to nose on his radar. It was a business jet that had departed Morristown Airport and was heading toward another small plane that had taken off from Teterborough, they say.
He says a mid air collision was potentially seconds away because the planes were flying at the same altitude. Now, he had been scribbling call signs for the planes and flight information in a note bok and a nope book. He's a veteran, by the way, He's had years of doing this, and he was doing this scribbling the call signs for the planes and flight information handwritten, putting them
handwritten into a notebook because he was prescient. He felt like radar and radio communication was just close to failing at any time.
Because it had failed before it had he was able to get them, like you said, to change course. No collision. But he fires off an email to the FAA, to his bosses and just basically says, the work situation is ridiculous.
I take my job very seriously as I.
Do the safety of the flying public, and I take pride in my performance. And he said, I do not want to be responsible for killing four hundred people.
Right, there's complaining about your job.
Right, there's should I really complain about this or should I just let it go kind of mentality. But when you are responsible for the lives of at least four hundred people in the sky alone. It becomes less of I just complaining about my job. It's life or death
for many, many people. And the ripples outwardly of that are Could you imagine the stress of that, going to work as an air traffic controller system, knowing your equipment is antiquated, knowing that there's a potential that you could fail at your job because of it and kill all those people. I mean, of course they're overstressed. Of course it's a job nobody wants. You would be able to sleep at night.
Well, on his case, he's had bouts of these close calls that he says are cumulative. You know that the PTSD from this is a real side effect of his job.
Now he's not technically working in an airport tower. He actually works as a supervisor at a facility known as a traycon terminal radar approach control and in addition to handling some of the smaller regional airports in the area, like you mentioned the Morristown in Teeterborough, he and Trey con oversees planes approaching Newark and he gots to toggle between kind of supervising other controllers and then himself taking
a seat and obsessively tracking all of these. His description of it is, it's like a video game, but it's like playing three D chess at two hundred and fifty miles an hour. We are the guys guiding your pilot's home.
He says controllers are not to blame for all of the recent delays and disruptions in and out of Newark, for example, And he says controllers did not walk off the job, as the United Airlines the chief did say in a recent letter to customers, now United specifically has buy in because they use Newark as one of their hubs for the East Coast.
Well, let's set all that aside.
And I don't mean to judge Jonathan Stewart, and I'm not, but let's just talk about.
What kind of guy he is.
He likes to shoot guns at an indoor range where he lives just outside of Philly. He enjoys cigars Johnny Walker blue, who wouldn't He likes, He is hard charging, he's confident, he's brash. He likes to spend time at the gym. He likes to ride his motorcycle. And he says that the reason he's in air traffic control is because the adrenaline rush hooked him.
It's the job's high stakes. It's effing fun.
Man.
You play god because you cannot fail. That's one way to look at it.
One way to look at He's got about a decade in the US Air Force, which is where he started in air traffic control stuff, and based on his time of service and the overtime, he brings in about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.
He says that the stat issue is among the biggest problem because on that day in particular, he had already been working three hours without a break. If you can imagine just three hours of constantly looking at a screen, monitoring radar.
Where is going where?
Where?
You know, all of the things that you can imagine with coordinating flight paths and things like that, that would drive.
You kind of crazy.
If you just had three hours, no break of just staring at the screen doing that, I would imagine for most people, especially if it was years of doing that, maybe one afternoon sounds kind of exciting, like a video game. But you keep doing that over and over, you get complacent, I would imagine. He says, it's easy to lose focus and get tired, and he says that controllers should spend
no more than two hours actively working the traffic. He says, like anything else, you're going to have a breaking point. And he was working that day for more than three hours without a break. So he says the situation is has been and continues to be unsafe. The amount of stress were under his insurmountable.
And this program, this problem at Newark isn't going away today. For example, they've already had forty five flights canceled and one hundred and twenty or so delayed, so it's still a problem there in Newark.
Who wants a fun Friday story, Amy, you might like this one.
I Do, I Do?
This is a man who sailed from Oregon to Hawaii, actually said, f this job. I'm out of here, got in his boat going to Hawaii from Oregon. And who did he bring with him? Phoenix? Who is Phoenix? Phoenix is his cat?
That's not very nice for the cat.
He can't get away.
We'll tell you the story when we come back.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon Demand from KFI AM six forty.
You're going to be live at Bravery Brewing up in Lancaster. Make the trip. It's gonna be worth it.
It's going to be a.
Beautiful, beautiful day up there, and we'll kick off Memorial Day with the introduction of this year's version of KFIPA some fun stuff that we have planned for the show.
So come on out and say hi.
The Great Great Pizza, by the way, regularly voted the best pizza.
In the Antelope Valley. It's at Bravery Pizza Kitchen.
I was talking to a friend and he said, have you had the pizza at Bravery Brewing? And I said, you bet your ass I have. And he said, that's the best pizza I have ever had. And I said, yeah, it's really good pizza. And he goes, no, it's the best pizza I ever had. It's really great, And I said yeah, I mean the first time I had it there. Now it's like, you know, you get a little used to it, you take it for granted.
Take it for granted.
But we are the first time we had a piece of that pizza at Bravery Brewing, we looked at each other like we're never leaving.
It is all we.
Need is They dragged us out of there that day.
They did and then all over in came the document the restraining Arner.
There is a guy named Oliver Widger, and he actually was diagnosed with a syndrome in his back that carries the risk of paralysis that he described it as having the cervical spine of one hundred and fifteen year old person. No disks. They've begun fusing the gather. He's in constant pain. He decided at the age of twenty nine he wasn't going to take it anymore. He was working as a manager at a tire company, required him to be clean shaven,
to wear pressed shirts all the time. Once he got that diagnosis, he said, I got to do something else with my life. Liquidates is four to oh one k, quits his job, sells everything he has, and buys a sailboat, and now Oliver and a rescue cat named Phoenix are making their way across the ocean from Oregon where he started.
To Hawaii.
Just last night he was on with Anderson Cooper talking about life on the Pacific Ocean with his cat Phoenix.
You've got to rescue cat. How's Phoenix? Then she's doing good.
It's really it's been really cool to see here because I was nervous. She's lived on the boat obviously for a year, and boat obviously gone sailing. But I was nervous, you know, taking her across an ocean because obviously the waves here big boat rocks constantly. But it was after two days she went, she became completely like she's threw and through a boat cat.
Now, okay, you gotta love being alone, because that's all he is is a I mean argue with bully.
He's got a cat with him.
But he's taken to social media and as you can tell, he's got a satellite hookup so that he can do live interviews with Anderson Cooper. Some of the highlights that he talks about, the speed that dolphins swim at, he said, amazed him. He found flying fish on the day of the boat at one point stretches where there are no birds in sight for days. Obviously there's no land And it was funny because Anderson Cooper asked him, do you have any idea where you are?
And he looks around and he goes, well, he goes, there's no.
Real landmarks out here in the middle of the Pacific, uh. And then he was asked, is there anything that you've learned. Is there any you know, grand life lesson that you have learned halfway through your journey?
Specific ocean doesn't care.
No, it does not care.
The ocean doesn't say the ocean. Yeah, No, it doesn't care. It doesn't care about anything. And uh yeah, is that scary or is that liberating?
This is neither.
I guess it's pure, you know what I mean? If it's really like feels it feels sin.
I wish I could be like I really wish I could be like Oliver, Like I'm just gonna grab my cat, I'm gonna get in a boat and we'll see what happens.
Does Does that sound just so freeing.
And as free as he is, And clearly is a free enough spirit that he can do something like this, And he's got enough cash to buy a fifty thousand dollars boat and then refit it. And he's creative enough because he locked himself in the engine compartment at one point and had to pry himself out with it, and he's making repairs to the boat on the fly or on the sail line.
You're going to Hawaii this year this summer?
Should I do it this way? Maybe?
Maybe run this by the wife say hey, she would say, I'll meet you there.
You don't have to say two of us.
Well you did you think for one second?
I thought that your wife would entertain getting in a boat with you and a cat.
And she would never let me take my dog.
She would never let me take Peter on a boat for the three week out, or how Peter.
Would love it? Are you kidding?
If there is a dog meant for a boat trip from Oregon to a.
Terrier, the word terrier means Earth, means land. Ah, that's not his thing.
Wah, just give me the wine.
Hey, guys, video gamers, you can be heroes. We'll tell you how when we come back to Gary and Shannon.
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio lap