This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to kf I AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Marla and Mark for Gary and Shannon, who come back next week. But in the earliest hours of this Tim Conway Jr. Working straight through the night. I mean, it was an extraordinary show Mo Kelly as well, an extraordinary show of commitment to information and it was the best of this radio station. So very cool to be here this week. And we are expecting.
Of course, as you know, Marla is with child, and it's very exciting for me because.
That was a transition I didn't expect.
Yes, exactly. Well, I have much more that you won't expect later this but I am expecting. You are expecting, and I'd like to say we're expecting because I'm part of the process too now, Uncle Mark, Yeah, exactly, I have a vested interest. Would you ever sell naming rights to your child? Would you ever think about that like they do like a crypto arena, you know that they
are they paying for the No. No, I don't think if a big like billionaire like Musk type figure came into your life and said, you know, one hundred million dollars. But you have to name your child, uh, you know, Elon or whatever it was.
Well, his son's name is X right, and you're having.
A girl, so it wouldn't be Elon maybe, but yeah, maybe he won Mexish. Yeah, for for.
How much money?
Exactly?
Yeah, absolutely, all of a sudden negotiation the art of the deal.
First it will no, but now it's how much money? Was that? All right? Whatever?
We call her beg anyway for baby girls.
That's pretty cool. Well, we're so excited. Anyway, here's what's happening. Time for what's happening. The Santa Ana winds have relaxed across southern California four.
Now anyway, thank goodness. Yes, so most of the mornings expired yesterday at no, today's Thursday. I'm getting my days mixed up. I'm sorry.
It'll be three o'clock to day that they expire completely.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, But so then we have some calm going into the weekend, which is beautiful. But then there is that next Santa Ana wind event that is expected to happen Monday and Tuesday sixty percent chance. So if you want to look at the other side of forty percent chance that it won't.
Well, it's not going to be a sent an event on the scale that we saw no shees. I think worth noting.
It's not one of those particularly dangerous situations.
And between now and then, we're going to get a sea breeze, says the National Weather Service. And that's important because with that sea breeze comes humidity. Yeah.
Yeah, we'll increase the dryness, but the decrease.
Wind blown dust and ash still around. You should avoid our outdoor activities, keep windows and doors closed if you're in many of these areas of the Palisades and the eaten fires, and residents, residents who are you know, going through those regions are supposed to be well made aware of that, which is what we're doing and the National Weather Service does similarly. There is a mud and debris slide that has split a hillside home in the Palisades. I mean the home has been split in half. Marlow.
But this is adding insult to injury because it actually is one of the homes that survived the fire and then the debris flow in the slide caused it to split in half. And a lot of these people what they've done is when they evacuated. They hired private security to guard because we know the issue of looters and all of that, and of course we have the La County Sheriff and we have laped out there monitoring various jurisdictions.
But nonetheless, they get private security, and there was a hired there's a security officer who literally saw this home cast a yea mar or castella mar. I'm not sure how to sell the.
Name of the street. Yeah, yeah, right in the.
Pacific Palisades, literally split in half.
Yeah, and then there you'll see all over local news. It's a huge story, but it's also something of a well, it may be a sign of what's to come. Well, one of the's certainly what's to come and what of the One of the concerns that we have contemporaneous with all of this is that, you know, we saw it happen in Santa Barbara, you know, in Montecito. I mean, it was an extraordinary thing. The flow of mud. It
gets to be a concern and it's addressed. I mean in all of the press conferences that all the fire officials and public officials have done, they have touched on that as well. The average rate on the thirty year mortgage hits seven percent.
It's the highest level in eight months. The rate rows to just seven point zero four percent from six point nine to three percent last week. This is according to Freddie Mack. It has risen for five straight weeks. And what about the fifteen year fixed rate mortgage, which is very popular with homeowners. That one also increased to six point two seven that's up from six point one four last week.
Yeah. Of course this affects the real estate market. It adds hundreds of dollars a month to costs for borrowers. So this is something to watch.
Yeah, the elevated mortgage rates now prolonging a national home sale slump that began in twenty twenty two.
Zin is the nicotine pouch that is used by many. It's kind of like the chew. You put it between like your lip and your gums.
Yeah, I asked you, how does the pouch work?
Yeah, that's well, that's how. It's not very complicated. Yeah. Yeah, well you know, I'm gonna recommend as a pregnant woman, you lay off the chew.
Yeah.
Yeah. The FDA is authorizing though, this Zin nicotine pouch for sale. They are saying that they have found that they pose these pouches lower risks of cancer and other serious health conditions compared with cigarettes. It's again, it's not saying it's safe per se, right Marla, than after agent saying that.
It's better than smoking. That's what they're saying. But we know that smoking is bad, and at this point it's doesn't have a lot of use a young among miners.
Meaning that most kids are not are not used.
No, yeah, they're not using it. But I didn't realize that it had exploded in recent years in terms of popularity because of a viral online meme trend.
You're not hanging out with the zen crowd over there in West La, West La and Maternity Land.
You're not there with the well, even if I wasn't pregnant, I wouldn't be hanging out.
You wouldn't be. You don't see yourself with the zen crowd. You're at the in crowd, not the z. Drug eating rats have invaded Houston's police evidence room. I know it's true. It's an issue that has prompted the district attorney there to alert defense attorneys in open drug related cases that number thirty six hundred. So they're saying Hey, there is a problem with the evidence room to the point that
thirty six hundred different cases likely might be influenced. They don't think that there's any impact on any cases, even as large as number as that is yet, but they're saying it's possible that something could happen as a result of this rodent infestation.
So get this. The Houston mayor said, just one example is the quote, just one example. We've got four hundred thousand pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoining got a bunch of high. Rats.
Don't get high on your own supplies one of these space Come on now, just make money off of it, didn't you rats? Get that? And finally, the Southwest pilot is removed from the cockpit. For anybody guesses.
DUI god a good look.
Just yesterday Georgia to Chicago. It was to have been a flight that the Southwest pilot would take them on. He was booked on a charge of driving under the influence.
Bail said at thirty five hundred, the employee has been removed from duty.
Uh, yes, I would hope. So that is always the kind of thing that's going Look, you know, but I.
Love that the FA put out a statement clarifying that regulations prohibit pilots from using alcohol while on duty.
Yeah, well, I thank you, Yeah, thank you. I would think that would kind of be a border plate thing. Hollywood mourning the passing of David Lynch. The writer director had kind of a dark vision in his films Blue Velvet, mulhalland Drive, Twin Peaks.
I loved Twin Peaks.
America loved Twin Peaks. Yeah, I mean all that mystery and darkness around his stuff. And you know, he'd had emphysema. He was a lifetime smoker, and he actually in a post just last year, said that he wouldn't likely be able to leave his house to direct anymore.
He was seventy eight. The family spokesperson announcing his death on Facebook saying it is with deep regret that we his family announced the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There's a big hole in the world now that he's no longer with us. But as he would say, keep your eye on the donut and not on the whole.
Well, it's interesting because he was one of those guys who was a celebrated director, and he was recognized, I feel with a profile internationally that was even stronger than his profile in Hollywood. I just feel as though he was really celebrated.
And beyond Hollywood, he had a foundation, the David Lynch Foundation, to back meditation for mental health. So this was huge, very big into that huge.
Essentially Lynch dedicated the last twenty years. I wanted to I just picked that number, but I think that's about right to launching this center for meditation, and I think it's transcendental meditation that he Yeah, you're one.
Hundred percent right. It was in two thousand and five that he launched that oh wow.
So yeah, and he dedicated so many resources and so much social media toward that, and he helped so many people through that foundation.
Yeah, it's amazing. Just this fall, the Foundation's Meditate America public awareness campaign promoted meditation for stress reduction by offering free sessions, discounted courses, and scholarships in more than one hundred US cities.
So he was born in Montana. Just I mean interesting. You always learn I feel so much about people sadly by reading their obituary. I mean, you learn what a rich life and what contributed to this person who was so very creative. So he born in Montana and he had this weird They talk about contradiction. I'm just reading different obituaries between his mild manner and the eruptions of violence and profanity in his art. I mean, let's face it, we talk about those movies and there's a lot of
both profanity and violence in his films. And he says, look, my parents were so loving and good. He wrote a memoir and he said they had good parents also raising them, and everybody loved my parents. They were fair.
So in other words, don't blame my parents.
Yeah, like, my twisted reality is not owing to some kind of weird childhood I had. But he came up with I believe, Terrence Malick and Paul Schrader, I mean, Paul Schrader wrote Actually Driver, and Lynch made his first feature, Eraserhead, in nineteen seventy seven, and again that was shot in black and white, and that's a bizarro kind of movie.
I love this description of his genre. These were horror stories that mix the monstrous with the mundane, that emerged from a landscape of dreams or nightmares. Their happy endings doing nothing to erase the discomfort they left behind. Few doubted the power of his vision and imagination, though naysayers questioned his logical thread.
Yeah. I mean, here's another way to say that. Sometimes his movies are really tough to understand. Yeah, what's going on in mulhalland Drive. I don't know. But I'll tell you a movie that's easy to understand and is really powerful. And it was one of his films I forget when I want to see it. Maybe it came out in the eighties, was a Elephant Man. The Elephant Man. He did that with Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt played the elephant Man. And it is a true story and it's a really powerful movie.
So again, I didn't realize you did The Elephant Man.
Yeah, nor did I hadn't remembered it either as his.
But oh my gosh, that movie. I remember seeing that and it was just it's one of those that stays with you.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Oh my gosh, I'm looking it up. When did you say, I'm just seeing if you were correct, I think it was in the eighties. It was, yeah, in nineteen eighty.
Yeah, yes, Wow, there's stories out of that whole thing because you know, you had a it was kind of an immersive experience. The actors there, like, you know, John Hurt, he was just a remarkable as he had all that prosthetic on as the Elephant Man, and you have Anthony.
Hopkins and Bancroft.
Oh that's right and Bancroft right. But I guess there was some real shall we say, flare ups on the set between Hopkins and Lynch, as reported. You know, Hopkins was frustrated that Lynch wasn't saying, you know, exactly what he wanted from his character. But whatever, the result was remarkable. You know.
So I'm looking at the movie poster and it's the Elephant Man and it says I Am not an animal, I'm a human being. I'm a man.
I'm sure it holds up today. It was, Yeah, it was, and terrific performances and there were oscars I think that came from it. Maybe Hurt one, but twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and of course, as we say, this foundation that backs meditation for mental health was really where he put a lot of his work over the last couple of decades. A big loss and at seventy eight years of age David Lynch with a great body of work, not just in show business but in his life. He passes away
again at age seventy eight. Now to the story that we talk about my show and talk about on Fox eleven, talk about here at KFI, and I was saying, we've been wall to wall with coverage on the fires in southern California and the question around the fires and the LAFD budget cuts. All of this is being looked at by News Nations national investigative correspondent Rich McHugh. Hi, Rich, Hi, guys. How are you all right? I mean, we're all right as we kind of sift through the wreckage, literal and
also administrative. What have you found in looking at some of these issues involving the LAFD budget cuts.
Well, it's just it's widespread.
You know.
I've been talking to a former twenty three year you know, veteran the Lostians of the Fire Department, John Knot, and he stood up a couple of years ago the vaccine. He refused to take the COVID shot. Yeah, yeah, and
they fired him. There were hundreds that refused. Anyway, He's watching this whole thing, and I've talked to other former lostians of fire department sources, and they say this is a complete and utter lack of leadership, you know, at the at the in the fire department, like at the chief level, but above at at the mayor level, and the budget cuts that you know, I have a document that shows that the Mayor's office was asking for an additional forty eight I believe it is forty eight point
eight million in budget cuts this year, which would ultimately require them to close sixteen fire stations, entire fire stations. Obviously, the fire department was pushing back on that, but that's that's the state of things. And so their point is, you can't run an effective fire you know, department this big of a city with these these types of the issues with under these tremendous budget cuts, when the focus is on the priorities are on not on fire prevention,
Let's put it that way. I also obtained this morning a new a letter from current and former fire chiefs. I'm not going to phrase that right, but they're almost at chief level like leadership, and it's addressed to Kristen Crowley basically calling it out, calling her out.
I can read a quote.
It's so damning they're asking for her resignation. One of the quotes is, there's no doubt among all of us that if you had done things right and prepared the Los Angeles Fire Department for an incident of this magnitude, fatalities would have been reduced in property would have been saved. All the preventative systems and mechanisms that we have put it in place in the past where non existent at the Palisades Fire. We attribute this to you and your
command staff, lack of experience, arrogance, inability to lead. I mean, it's a damning a five phades letter as I've ever read in my life, and.
It was a by who and so that's signed by a former leadership at LAFDLA.
Los Angeles Fire Department chief officer's current and plump. Well, this is like in Unison. It's five pages, it's out. We have a story out Onnation with it right now. See you can go to the News Nation and find it.
But it's.
It's really scathing, and it's an indictment of poor management by they allege by the chief and by the mayor as well.
Well. You know, one of our reporters at Fox eleven, Gigi Grassiet. She's the one who got the exclusive interview Friday with Crowley in which Crowley made the point that you just made, and in Crowley's words that since nineteen sixty one right to now, the fire department has fewer fire stations despite a significant increase in the population. And then of course she points to the budget cuts, and that's when we heard her candidly, you know, sort of go not sort of to go against the mayor and
the city. You also Rich spoke to you have an exclusive interview with a Palisades residents who saw the actual fire break out, and I believe a slow fire response.
Yeah, Michael Valentine, he lives at the top of the Palisades, and I believe he was among the first people to see this, and he and his wife were among the first people to see this breakout. She was the first call. I believe Los Angeles Fire Departments confirmed that the call it in ten twenty nine was the first, and I believe that's the one that she made. They saw the smoke was localized up on the top of the ridge
by Skull Rock. I don't know if you know Skull Rock, but it's up on the top of the ridge line there. There was a fire there previously a week earlier in a nearby spot, and Michael Valentine says the response on New Year's Eve was overwhelming. There was they put it out, you know, and so kind of loads him into a sense of security where he thought, okay, well, here we go again. He was documented documenting the fire in a
series of videos. He started, you know, videoing about four five minutes after they called Non one ten thirty four, ten thirty six, ten fifty. In some of the videos, you see a chopper overhead at ten fifty scouting appears to be scouting the fire, and then you see them starting to fight the fire around. I believe it's like right after eleven or eleven thirteen. Obviously it's not a continuous video, so that we don't know if they were
fighting before that. But according to him, he says he did not see any firefighters up there in that time for a long time, and you couldn't see any other firefighters, and it just seems to grow and grow, and by the end of his videos it's it's metastasized into this giant fires. He says he believes, having lived up there and been a Palisades resident for forty years, that this could have been contained. This wasn't a wind event. You know, you no weatherman, but this wasn't a win event.
Yet.
It wasn't eighty milius at the top there it was. It was it was windy that they could have he believes they could have contained it.
In other words, there was there was a gap of about forty to forty five minutes with the surveillane then coming back and then doing any sort of drop.
Yes. Yes, And this is by keep in mind, this is a former, uh prosecutor for the Department of Justice, Like this is not somebody who is just just some average resident, like this is somebody who knows, you know, what they're talking about. And so for him to come out and say this, he used the word negligent. I think he used the word criminally negligent. So those are some strong words, Yeah, they are.
And you brought up the New Year's Day fire in the early morning hours and now as you know, that is being investigated as a potential cause.
Yeah, and it's you know, two people who know, like it's possible that that fires just thatt there in the roots for a week in when the winds started kicking up. That's what kicked it up. It's possible. But I'm also hearing that they're investigating who else was up there. I believe there were a bunch of kids that were up there that were documented coming running down. So I know that they're looking at all the security cameras. You can't even get up there, you know, can't even access those trails.
I've tried.
So they have it all sectioned off, and investigators are up on the top of that ridge line. They were at least yesterday all day yesterday.
Well, you mentioned criminal negligence. I mean, if indeed there can be sufficient evidence of that, you would expect that these lawsuits, some of which are already sort of germinating out of the Palisades and out of the eating fire too. I mean, they're two different kinds of sets of criminal complaints or legal complaints, civil complaints. They will be they'll be joined by many residents there who have lost everything. Rich mcku. It's a remarkable thing. Go ahead, you finishing that.
I'm sorry.
I talked to a resident last night who's who told me, yes, she is going to be filing independently. You know, she she has she is not part of the suit, but those in the Pacific Policies, they've already filed suit against the city and against the Department of Water and Power for the fact that the Inez Reservoir reservoir was empty. So this is just the beginning of what's probably going to be a title wave of of of lawsuits.
Yeah, that wave of already has already started.
Indeed. Uh, yeah, well this is great, great reporting. We'll look to a news nation and Rich again is the national investigative correspondent there, and we appreciate it. Rich mccut thanks for checking in with the care fire. Thank you, Yeah, thank you. But former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush not attending Donald Trump's traditional inaugural lunch. There is a lunch hosted by the president elect, and they are declining the invitation. George Bush Obama, and you
know Hillary Clinton was invited to that too. She's not going to be doing that, former Secretary of State, and of course she ran against Trump.
Again, not much of a surprise.
Yeah, I mean, look, let's be honest. Trump himself didn't attend the inauguration of Joe Biden.
However, they were all in attendance at Jimmy Carter's funeral, and all of the images between Obama and Trump, those weren't viral. They looked like they got along just fine.
Yeah, I mean in the moment, I mean, Obama seemed to bury the hatchet. And it's usually inauguration day one of the only occasions where all former living presidents congregate. You know, you'll usually find them at these inaugurations. But again, Trump didn't go to Biden's and now they're sort of a maybe a breakdown a bit of that tradition. What will be very much, it would seem a present, is the rise of those who are trying to I think,
curry favor with Donald Trump. And there are a lot of tech bros in that group.
I think they've already curried favor. Yeah, I think the trying is over. It's going to be a very tech titan heavy inauguration. Yeah, including TikTok Ceo shoo chew, shout chew if you say so. He has been invited and is expected to attend on Monday, and he will be sitting alongside Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg. And it's noted here that the Google Ceo'ssun Dar.
Yeah.
Yeah, he is planning to attend, but he's going to sit with other executives.
There are a lot of tech executives at this show. And you may say all of the ingratiating themselves to Trump is over. Marley. You may see it as through, because they did cut the million dollar checks for the inauguration fund, and they did go down to Marlago and have spent time there Zuckerberg and the rest. But I'd suggest to you it's an ongoing thing. I think it never really ends, you know.
Well, and then there's a lot of people within Trump's circle who, you know, according to many reports, are a little annoyed by Musk's omnipresence, if you will. Yeah, he is ubiquitous in mar A Lago and always has the President's here. So yeah, to your point, I understand what.
They're Batman and Robin Marlin. I don't know which one's Batman and which one's Robin, but they are tight. And again, you know, this is no surprise. The Supreme Court justices, they I believe, are in attendance typically. I mean they're older people and it's cold out there, you know. I mean, I grew up in Washington, d C. And the invitation to the inauguration you may view as a real cool thing, and it probably is a cool thing, But I'm telling
you that's a bad ticket. It's like being invited to the AFC playoff game championship game if it were in Buffalo, New York. So when the Bills host the AFC Championship game and you get, well, here you go, tickets on the fifty yard line.
You know what, dude, you can pay me enough to sit there freeze my.
Yeah, it's five below and there's a win.
Well it well to me, it's like the New York Times ball drop.
Exactly where you're corraldone.
Yeah, yes, pardon me, you're corraldon and you have to be there. You can't leave. It's cold, it's miserable. I don't think it's supposed to be raining on Monday there, but it's gonna be cold.
It's gonna be cold. I mean it's January in Washington, d C. It's cold. So all I'm saying is that it ain't the great ticket that necessarily one might think it is. But it's now going to be attended by a whole different texture of people than attended it in times past.
It's the oligarchy that President Biden warned about last.
Look, you can talk about how much of an influence they'll have. It would seem to me they will have a huge influence because this is a really clever incoming president when it comes to social media, and these are the heads of huge social media companies and tech companies. I mean to be fair, SpaceX Bezos has immense contracts with the US government. They have nothing to do with
social media, and similarly Google, et cetera. So they definitely have big places at the table when it comes to the incoming administion.
Well, and let's not forget that this comes the day after the TikTok ban could very well take effect, and you know, of course Trump is doing his part to delay a band or find a workaround. Now there reports NBC News is reporting that the Biden administration is weighing options that could keep TikTok available in the US if the ban is instituted. And if it does go into effect, it doesn't mean if you're an active user you can
still use it. It just doesn't take new users. But even as an active user, eventually you won't be able to update and it'll become Yeah.
I you know, I am on this. They're gonna save TikTok. There are just too many interests associated with TikTok for it to go away. But exactly how it will be saved that'll be interesting to see. TikTok TikTok. Co Belt is next, and Marla, I look forward to seeing you every morning, I really do.
I'll be back tomorrow for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is our final day and Gary and Shannon return on Monday. Thanks everybody, Thanks to all the Gary and Shannon kids who've supported and John Colebelt. Next, it is KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
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 app