You're listen Saints KFI AM six forty the Bill Handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning, December nineteenth.
Amy, you just came in and was just announced about Bonnie.
Willis, Fannie Willis, Fanny Willis funny, Yeah, yeah.
The Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis has been disqualified from prosecuting President elect Trump, which makes all the sense in the world.
She hires a special prosecutor who's never had experience as a prosecutor.
She's stooping him.
And you know that isn't not by the way, that is not a per se conflict. That is not on its face of conflict. A DA can hire a special prosecutor who he or she is stooping. Now not in open court, that's not allowed. But the optics are so horrible, and it was she should have.
Gone a long long time ago.
Now moving over to LA Unified School District, And as you know, I went through LA Unified School District, started in kindergarten, graduated high school. So I spent every moment before I went to college at LA Unified and so I always use LA Unified as sort of the poster child of any conversation I have about school districts. Also, LA Unified is one of the school districts that is.
Not good. Now everybody attacks them.
However, to be fair, they teach LA Unified teaches and I don't know, forty languages, an enormous number of migrants that can come in, illegal migrants that come in because they can't ask those kids English as the second language is primarily that's probably the largest single English's second language program in the country.
That's easy to say. So here's what's happening.
Principals who work their asses off, and they really do. They've said their workload is just too heavy and the pressure to raise student achievement is just too much. Because that's what's going on. So you know what they've done. They've unionized. They've unionized, which I've never heard of. They're now part of the Teamsters, which the thought of senior management. Actually they're considered middle management in terms of administration and
school district. You know, it doesn't make any sense, Neil, you were part of management when you were here.
Yes, and interesting so that people like Chris Little and me were dual because we were mad.
We're also members of after. Yeah. But the point is, but.
I didn't go to the meetings. I didn't go to meetings and I didn't talk to people about Yeah.
But the point I'm making is the thought of management being part of a union, and yeah, it's range.
It is strange. It just doesn't happen. It really doesn't.
I remember our last contract negotiations and Amy Kno, I don't know if you know this, and if you don't know, this is I was asked to sit on the committee on behalf of AFTER here at the at the building. Because every radio group or even station, some are unions, some are not union. And I was asked to because I'm a lawyer. They didn't know how bad I was, but I'm a lawyer, and they said, would you sit on the committee? I said, you know, I got to tell you I'm a business person too. Maybe you don't
want me to be on the committee. No, you're a member of AFTRA and we want you to sit on it and you can represent. And I said, here's the problem you're going to have, right, you're at owe with management, here's the union, and you're asking for more benefits, more money management during the course of those discussions, say no, it's like when I negotiate a contract three hundred and sixty four days a year, I'm the most wonderful thing at the station. I'm the best thing since sliced bread.
The day I negotiate my contract. Eh, you're not so good. Yeah, you're pretty much replaceable. It's a horrible situation. So I told and you know, the guy who was doing I don't want to mention his name, who was the union
guy here? I said, here's the problem you're going to have is that I'm going to sit down on our side, your side of the table, and every time management comes up with some statement, I'm going to look at you and go, they're absolutely right, and I'm going to keep on saying that over and over again.
Needless to say, I was not invited to sit on great idea, sir. Yeah, once again, the fantastic guy. Yeah, so something very unique.
LA Unified School principles are now unionized, and they're saying there's too much work, too much pressure, and they're right, and the pressure to bring up scores, especially at LA Unified.
I mean it is difficult.
I mean, there's a what a fifty, there's a sixty percent dropout rate because well, you've got people that are coming over the border. Our tax system is such that number one, you can't ask if someone is illegal or not. By law, those kids have to go to school. They're more difficult to teach by the very nature of who
they are. And Vietnamese kids who don't speak a word of English and Chinese kids, and there's no other school district in the country that has this kind of problem and they're set to the same standards.
I going to tell you, if I were a school principal, no, no, if I was a teacher, I'd quit because it's that difficult.
And in La Unified, it's more more difficult than anybody else or any other school district. So on, behalf of those of you here at the station who are members of AFTRA, and that's most people on the air. Management is absolutely right at every.
Point and handsome.
And you're right, yeah, all right. Now a story I want to share with you. Oh this is I love stories like this. Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It's really a unique cemetery in Hollywood and was created in eighteen ninety nine. It's been around for a while and the people who are buried there, Rudolph Valentino, Judy Garland, Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil b De Mill, Johnny Ramone. I mean it goes on
and on, Quincy Jones. I mean it is a very famous cemetery and also was the first one to make itself a park where people walk through and they have film festivals and it's just they were the first ones as cemetery to do an annual Dia de las mortes where they exhume some Mexican people that are buried there and celebrate diad les mortes and put them back in the ground.
It is a very unique cemetery.
Well, if you go there, there is a hundred foot tall, five story mausoleum that is now on the west edge. It's the Gower Court Mausoleum. It's opening up in January and it's going to house thirteen thousand dead people in crypts, niches for urns, family condos. Now, the guy who owns it says, we're not going to build any more cemeteries in la That's true, You're not gonna get any more.
There's just simply not going to be there. So what do they do?
And this is the wave of the future. If you can't go out, you go up. Didn't Michelle Obama say that? Okay, probably not. And so the cemetery still has land to provide in ground burials, but it doesn't matter. The future is clear. It is going up. When you think about burial being buried in a cemetery, I mean, that's a lot of space for you know, well, how much value it is I don't know. I mean I have a plot. Oh God, the amount of money that it costs is unbelievable.
And matter of fact, I think I'm going to sell it. And there's a whole story there. But the point is is that when you talk about going into a building like this where your loved one is buried or cremated and there's it just is I guess bigger connection is what they're saying. I don't see it because you look at a placard on the wall and there is your loved one, or you look at a tombstone or a placard on the ground there is your loved one.
So I don't see it.
But I'm told that there is a connection. Now, no one in my family has scrips. Everybody that I am related to who is dead, which is basically everybody. My parents, my grandmother are all buried in one cemetery, which, by the way, because my parents and my family are so cheap, there are you know, it's location, location locations the cemeteries and yeah, yeah, big time, and they were in the cheap section. That's what they do. And this is really strange.
I love this. So the officials initially wanted this is the city wanted to classify is housing house dead people? So the cemetery says no, it is storage. And what is the difference, Well, because if it is housing, you have to provide toilets and kitchens, and dead people tend not to use those facilities. Although it's kind of interesting because right next to the crematorium part of it there's a barbecue joint and I find that very very interesting
that they did that. I don't know who made that a point, made that decision, and so you have that issue, and so storage is what they got. Engineering construction, it was impossible because the entire building is a vertical mass, a cantilever that the parts of it stick out twenty feet straight out at seismic stability, internal openness because you walk through it and it is a park. It feels like a park with crips of dead people all around you. And it is landscaped, and it was designed by a
major landscaper. And the plantings will grow more luxuriant or luxuriant over time, so you're gonna have over spilling over overgrown foliage. You ever seen gardens of Babylon? You ever seen photos of that Nebuconezer And the Gardens of Babylon was this entire city that had overflowing plants. And that reminds me of that. The quartz stone was quarried in Brazil, corded in Brazil. I mean, this is real expensive stuff. Thirteen thousand people are going to be parked there. Just yeah,
I love it. I love it. You know how many times have I done death topics?
Kono and quite a few? Yeah.
Do you ever see me more excited about topics than death topics? No?
You do have a weird fascination with it, I really do.
I know, for some reason, I just really like death and dead people and stories about dead people and worms. December twenty five up next week not only Christmas Day, but also the first day of Hanukkah, which happens relatively rarely because the calendars are way different now here. We exchange gifts. We've been doing that. Amy came in and yeah, made some cookies, made homemade cookies. And I usually I'm not interested in going out and getting gifts or baking anything,
so I give gift cards. I'm going to tell you right now, spending five bucks for a two dollars gift card is a waste of.
Time, your captain generosity. Yeah, it's way too expensive to do that. So Neil, I brought you.
I don't normally every now and again, I'll bring you a gift. Yeah, and this year, I'm gonna open it right here on the air.
Yeah, please do. Yeah, I'm gonna open it here on the air, handmade by the way. Of course it is, because that's what you do. I got you. This thing is really and open this up for me. I'm too lazy to do that, probably best. I made it stupid proof so ann I'll be able to get through.
It's like wrapped in so she has to take a pair of scissors and uh do all of that so.
We can't even open his own gifts here. She started it first.
Okay, Yeah, of course she did. Okay, and I have fingernails too. Go figure that one out. Okay, here it goes, and maybe ladies and gentlemen behind here he is. I feel like I'm opening up and Oscar win here.
If you don't say the winner is anymore.
Oh, it's an ornament for your tree.
Oh, we have to take on Instagram.
What it's a It's a limit oversized lamictal pill ornament.
That you put up. We have to take a picture of yours. This is very this is very funny. Neil does just great stuff. And it's in the shape of a mintyal pill.
Yeah, and it's a two hundred and that's und and it's name brand is I don't know it's it is a name brand because it's do you take the good stuff?
I used to, but Kaiser stopped that because you know, I used to say that I needed the good stuff and my doctor said okay, And then it went to the formulary where a doctor now cannot prescribe the real stuff.
So it's all generic and I take a lot of it.
You know that I have to go every six months to a psychiatrist at Kaiser to get my limitdo the anti anxiety drugs It used to be my internist. Who we give it now it's a psychiatrist.
Isn't it for like bipolar? And it's sent for a lot of stuff.
It was originally it was a pill that was designed for an anti seizure drug, and then it turns out that it's also an anti anxiety drug. And by the way, the two hundred milligrams, which is a hell of a dose.
I take two.
Twenty five in the morning and I take two twenty five at night. And this would make a rabid dog docile and the sweetest, the sweetest dog you've ever met.
It takes you down to a nine.
Yeah, so every six months, I have to go to a shrink. I have to go to my shrink to get my LIMITDL.
Does he need it?
No, it's been the same for years and years, and so it's always it's fifteen minutes with a shrink, literally, and okay it takes that long. No, not even I mean, it's just is everything, okay, everything's fine. Any changes in your attitude, any changes in you know, your anxiety? No, no changes have you been particularly anxious at all? And I said, no, anything different about what you're doing? And I said, well, I have this desire to run over kittens, and the shrink looked at me and.
Goes, really, and it's starting to type, oh boy, we got a live one. Yeah, and then at some point I said that not really. So here I am.
Three of the four of us in my family are on this kind of stuff, the anti anxiety drugs, sorry, Bud, And it ain't Marjorie and my two daughters and I are.
On stuff like this and that's probably what twenty times larger than an actual pill.
Yeah. Yeah, by the way, the generic isn't the blue pill.
I used to and I used to, let me tell you, I used to mix up the pills so I would have no anxiety in the biggest direction you've ever seen these pills.
The ships are different, similar, different. It's the little blue pill. He's all my anxieties. Yeah.
So anyway, thank you. It's great stuff. And Neil has done cards for me that are extraordinary.
I came across thank you, that's very nice.
I came across one from the old days where I actually drew an illustration of you on the front. It says happy Hanukah. What do you get the guy that has everything? And you open up and it says not a damn there?
You know what?
I you also made the card of that I used for years and years and still yeah with your screaming face, my screaming face. So let's do this, and let's take a picture of my ornament, if you would, next to the Christmas tree.
And do we still going to put it on the Aldick Home Christmas? Yeah?
And which there are no ornaments now I'm going to just do it for the pictures, for the purpose of the photo. And then do we still have that card with a scream at all? I have a few left? Probably not, because that's great. It's a drawing to get you more screaming at the top of my lungs.
All right. Oh, and thank you for the cookies so far, so good? And what else? Amy makes lovely cookies? Do you mean what else? Know?
What? What are their gifts? Have I gotten this morning?
I don't know. I want some? You want some more gifts?
Do you? Yeah?
Okay, I like getting. There's plenty of empty.
I know.
Thank you very much for the gifts. And where's mine? Amy just brought one? She got me the cookies.
I brought you cookies, yeah, which is fine, and they're good cookies.
All right, and you have t oh these are these?
Are you? What are these confetti cookies with all the different colors of M and ms in there?
Is that? What they are? Confetti cookies? No? What do they called it? With what they call their Christmas M and M cookies? Okay, they're just red and green eminem's. Oh speak, I picked all the other colors out just for you.
Well the green eminem's. Let's go back to the little blue pill? Does that actually work?
Yes? Or no? Okay, we're done with the topic that we didn't do. So I learned a lot. You know, it's the holiday season. I get it. It is the holidays. I'm ready to go.
Tomorrow's last day, then some time off. I'll do Saturday's show and then some time off. I'm looking forward to being with my wife and my boy.
And Monday is my last show and we're good, No you wish. It's my last show until the beginning of January. So it's good times had by all. All right, Now, politics are horrific. I mean, we have reached the point where the polarization is so horrible. That doesn't matter if you're a Republican. The Democrats are satan and if you're a Democrat, the Republicans are satan.
They're all beeselbub.
Well, let me tell you about what happened in this little town go near Sacramento. About twenty six thousand people lived there, and two Republican candidates were running for office or city council, and they tied and eighty two votes to three thousand, eight hundred and eighty two votes. Now, this has happened before, but it's a very different way of thinking. First of all, they knew each other and they were friends. And three people running for two slots.
One of them just cleaned up and got fifty eight hundred votes, so he's in. Now you have Matthew Pratton and Bonnie Rodriguez tied for the other seat. Now has it happened before. It has not major elections, but minor elections, and they've been settled by coin flips, drawing names out of a bowl, a quick game of poker to.
See who wins.
And these two are longtime residents, well respected, and took a while to know that the tie happened because California counts votes very slowly. Now what do you do well to both of them? They weren't going to do a recount. Even though both had an argument they were going to win, they simply weren't going to spend the money. So what is going to happen? And people in town came up with ideas to settle.
The matter matter.
Now, Galt is a rural area, so Pratton said, how about a milking contest and whoever wins it becomes in city council.
Okay.
Rodriguez's son said, how about the two of them chase chickens and whoever gets the chicken first?
Okay.
Someone also in town suggested a wrestling match in jello.
Sure, why not?
You know? They ended up doing ended up drawing straws, But how do you wo draws first? And so they had to flip a coin to see who drew first, So it was a little convoluted. The assistant city clerk goes out and buys a three dollars pack of brightly colored straws, breaks up the straws. The local police chief is the official straw holder, and they figured this was going to happen out in the hallway and just have it done. Oh no, no, the whole town came out.
News cameras came out from adjoining villages. Well they are villages, little tiny towns, and so here we go.
What happened? What happened?
Well, Pratton won the seat and said, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna to take that straw and I'm going to frame it and put it in the city council office. Now you've got Rodriguez, who has been has lost the race for city council, who's not very happy.
But you know, they're friends.
They weren't going to say anything about each other. Matter of fact, they're good friends. So what ended up happening is sort of a final twist to the story. Another member of the city council had just resigned, so one of Pratton's first act as a member of the city council, and this became unanimous. They had to fill that seat
and brought in Rodriguez, so they both won. The reason I bring that up and why it just became a national story because in light of the crazy negative stories that are out there about politics today, you know, isn't a joy and I have loved to see Harris and Trump draw straws.
How much money you think would save?
You know, east Side spend over a billion dollars in those ads attacking each other like crazy. Right heard Sunday's twelve to two pm here on KFI. This is KF I am six forty.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app