10-23-25 - *FULL SHOW* David Zucker (Airplane!); Alex DeMille; Russia sanctions

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listening to some of this press conference, lots and lots
of federal agencies plus NYPD talking about these it sounds
to me like two separate, massive investigations into illegal gambling
involving NBA players. And they did a press conference that

(00:23):
was probably close to an hour long, and I listened
to quite a lot of it, and I think one
of the parts that kind of gave the information most concisely.
Even though this was primarily a federal investigation, there was
some NYPD involvement because obviously they do a lot of
you know, mafia related stuff in New York, and this

(00:45):
is a mafia related thing. I thought the NYPD, the
chief of the NYPD, did a great job.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
And I want to share a little bit of this audio.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
This is just from about twenty twenty five minutes ago.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Have a listen.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
The first case, Operation Nothing but Bet, exposed a gambling
ring built around professional basketball where players and associates allegedly
used inside information to manipulate, manipulate prop bets on major
sports betting platforms. They placed wagers on unders on players
to score.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Let all right, a little hiccup and there we go, found.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Less assist less using information that was not yet public wow.
In some instances, players altered their performance or took themselves
out of games to make sure that those bets paid out.
One example occurred on March twenty third, twenty twenty three,
in Charlotte. Terry Rogier, an NBA player now with the

(01:47):
Miami Heat but at the time playing for the Hornets,
allegedly let others close to him know that he planned
to leave the game early with a supposed injury. Using
that information, members of the group placed more than two
hundred thousand dollars in wagers on his under statistics. Rogier
exited the game after just nine minutes, and those bets

(02:09):
paid out, generating tens of thousands of dollars in profit.
The proceeds were later delivered to his home, where the
group counted their cash. As the NBA season tips off,
His career is already benched, not for injury, but for integrity.
As a result of this investigation, six defendants, including Rogier,

(02:30):
are now facing conspiracy to commit bank and wirefraud. In
a second case, Operation Zen Diagram, investigators uncovered a long
running scheme in which members and associates of several well
known organized crime families rigged high stakes poker games across
the country. These operators included capos and multiple soldiers from

(02:51):
the Banano, Gambino, lu Casey, and Genevieve's crime families. Bringing
four of the five families together in a single indictment
is extraordinarily rare. It reflects how deep and how far
this investigation reached, and the skill and the persistence it
took to get here. That work uncovered a deliberate, technologically

(03:14):
sophisticated operation designed to carry out their crimes. They use
custom shuffling machines that could read the order of cards,
bar coded decks, and hidden cameras built into tables and
light fixtures. The organizers also enlisted well known public figures
former and current NBA players and coaches, including Chauncey Billups,

(03:36):
the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers and NBA champion
and a Hall of Famer, to make the games appear legitimate.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
All right, I'll leave that there. You can go if
you go to YouTube and type in.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
News conference on illegal gambling or something like that, you'll
find you'll find the whole thing. But she did a
great summary. I think Chauncey Billups. There's one person I
think it was Chauncey Billips, who among the sports people
at least is the only one named in both indictments.
These are two separate investigations that they are announcing at
the same time. One of them is players changing the

(04:15):
outcomes of games, or at least the outcomes of their
own performance in games, so that people could bet on them, right,
I think you understand, right, if a player who let's
say a player normally gets nine assists in a game,
some particular player normally gets nine assists in a game,
and he tells his friends, I'm going to have a
quote unquote injury in the third quarter and I'm going

(04:37):
to leave the game, and then all these people bet
that he will have under nine assists.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I think they said the majority of them worthy worthyes,
prop bets.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, because that's the main thing any
one player can control.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Right. Imagine this back in.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
The day, in the sort of early days of sports gambling,
or like before it was legal. And I will fully
admit I did a lot of sports gambling.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Not for a long time.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
But over a short period of time, like a year
or a year and a half, I did quite a
lot of sports gambling that was absolutely illegal, calling up
some you know, probably mafia related guy with an Italian name.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
It really might have been.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Vinnie or something like that, placing bets with him over
the phone. I don't even remember how I paid him
or how he paid me. Right, So I've done a
fair bit of this. But remember back then, all you
could bet on was who would win the game and
what the total number of points would be in the game.
And it's very difficult for any one player to make

(05:38):
a big difference in that, and certainly it's very difficult
for any one player to kind.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Of guarantee an outcome like that.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
You could be an important player on a team, but
that doesn't mean you can really guarantee that your team
is going to lose, right. You could try to make
it a little more likely, but maybe you start playing
badly and the coach teach takes you out and puts
someone else in who plays.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Great and they win the game.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
But when you can bet these so called prop bets
on how will this one particular player do in the game, well,
obviously that's very very prone to manipulation. And so these
schemes both involved NBA players Chauncey Billups NBA great player

(06:22):
and coach, and oh my gosh. The other thing that
I thought was interesting, the FEDS in this press conference
said this has been going The investigation has been going
on for something like four years. And the NYPD chief
she said that I guess their involvement, the local involvement
has been a couple of years, but this has been

(06:43):
going on for a long time. They talked in a
different part of the press conference about one guy who
lost one point eight million dollars. They also said there
were a few people who refuse to pay, and of course,
when you refuse to pay the mafia, you know you'll
get at least threats and maybe violence. The chiron at
the bottom of the Fox News screen right now says
gambling probe involved eleven states and at least thirty people.

(07:06):
And it looks like they're saying that, And I don't
know how this ties in, because what it said a
moment ago is that they're like one hundred and twenty
three members of the mafia involved, So maybe maybe thirty people.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Outside of the mafia.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
But what these NBA players did on the on the
poker side of the investigation was to was to give
it credibility. Right, You've got it. You've got an NBA
Hall of Famer and you want you get the opportunity

(07:41):
to go play poker, like in the same room or
maybe at the same table with him. And you don't
think a guy like that is going to be mobbed up,
you know, tied into the Banano family.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
But there it is.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
There, it is what an absolutely incredible story. And when
I saw the headlines this morning, you know the FBI
is going to announce indictments regarding gambling and sports related
I had a feeling it would be something kind of
like the first one, because we've seen stories like that
before of players changing their own behavior in a game

(08:16):
and telling people or betting on their own team to lose.
There was a player whose name escapes me right now
who did that. He was banned from the NBA for life.
But these guys, wow, they're in a lot of trouble.
They are in a lot of trouble. And I'll tell you,
I don't know who played in these poker games, but
if there were some people who played in the games

(08:37):
who are kind of tough guys in their own right,
maybe not outright members of the Lukesey crime family or whatever.
But I'm not sure i'd want to be one of these,
one of these NBA players who was involved in this, right,
I think I think they might be safer in prison,
And well, I guess we'll maybe find that out. I

(08:59):
just caught the hail end of one of the people
in the press conference saying that there was somebody who
was involved in both of these gambling schemes.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
I'm not sure who it is.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
I'm not sure if that's Chauncey Billups or if he's
only in the in the poker scheme. In any case,
I've got producer A Rod with me today and he
had I thought some interesting not exactly rhetorical questions like
important question, just questions we don't know the answers to yet,
as well as some thoughts, especially with Chauncey Billups having
been such a big sports star here in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
So what you got, A Rod? Well, by the way,
shout out to chat.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
I just told me David Jones is the one that's
indicted in both of these. Okay, thank you, thank you,
But ross is the United States of America. You are
innocent until proven guilty. But NBA Portland Trailblazers, private organizations.
How long does Chauncey Billups last as the Portland Trailblazers
head coach?

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And you can't imagine long.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
I'd be surprised if you lasts more than an hour,
and I'm not exaggerating. What do you think or do
you think it's do you think it would be unfair
to do anything to him until there's a result in this, which,
by the way, could.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Take a couple of years. It could take a couple
of years.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
I can't imagine that it would go past this season.
Maybe they play out this season, but you have to
get into the mindset of not being able to wait.
As an organization, you know they're going to have an
interim coach I would imagine likely for the remainder of
the year now, unless they just bring in someone off
the street that's going to be the replacement and then
has a chance to be the next permanent guy.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
But you can't wait out that process.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
And then you even think, well, privately, you consider the
fact that he likely would never be able to be
your head coach again. If he is indeed sentenced on
any or all of these charges.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
I would remove him immediately because I don't think. I
don't think it's a sustainable dynamic to have a coach's
accused of that kind of thing being around all these players.

Speaker 5 (11:03):
Well, you and I just talked about in the break
So that player that was banned for life is Michael Porter,
Junior's brother, John Tay Porter. That the NBA, the Trailblazers,
the whole entire organization wants to do one thing is
quickly and immediately rather distance themselves from stuff like this,
because I've been reading today the NBA was completely blindsided.
They did not see this coming, They did not know
about the arrests. This as news to them. Their season

(11:26):
just started two days ago, and this is not a
good start off the.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Court for the NBA.

Speaker 5 (11:31):
I have to imagine that, especially how seriously they've taken this,
how much they've made statements with unprecedented bannings and punishment
when it comes to gambling, and looking to let.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
The rest of the league know this is unacceptable.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
I have to imagine they maybe even get with the
Blazers and let them know, let's get rid of this
now so they can move forward in their own season
and continue to encourage the fans, not their players and
their coaches to continue to bet on the on the
game that they that they love and have that money
continue to be such an influx to the NBA, just

(12:08):
like it has.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Every other stap.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
I'll throw one more thing out there at you. There's
a lot of money that goes to maybe not directly
to teams, although there might be some, but in a
lot of the surrounding environment around professional sports from big
online sports betting companies like FanDuel and DraftKings and so on,

(12:29):
and those companies. Even if Chauncey Billups was only involved
in the other one and he's the biggest name, but
still those guys, those companies are gonna say, we're billion
dollar businesses and so are you, but you're you're harming us.
People will stop betting on or reduce their betting on
basketball when they feel like it's not honest, and those

(12:54):
companies are gonna put an immense amount of pressure on
the NBA to go absolutely as far as the NBA
can get away with as fast as the NBA can
get away with it.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
To get this stuff out of the.

Speaker 5 (13:04):
Game, they have to go scorts to earth, especially with
this story. So Terry Rozier, who's on the Hornets. Now
on the heat, probably he'll probably be I imagine. I imagine
he will be cut by the heat much faster than
the Blazers will fire Chauncey. This this story is the
craziest one. Terry Rozier told gamblers who would leave a
Hornets game early and take Lee undering all those player
stats two hundred thousand in wages replaced, and he left

(13:27):
the game after nine minutes. FBI says they later counted
the cash one at the bets at his home. Stories
like that, the NBA has to go scortch to earth
and make sure that they might They might come down
with the do the decision for the Miami Heat and
ban him today just he's done today, Like they have
to make that statement so that way, like you said,

(13:48):
these people keep betting on these games, and they make
the statement like any other player does, as you're done, Yeah,
gone for sure.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
I think to try to balance, you know, the sort
of innocent until proven guilty thing, I think they have
to suspend him indefinitely, yeah, during the process, and then
ban him for life if he pleads guilty or is
found guilty.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
Yeah, like the you're the you're the Commissioner's exempt list,
essentially like you're you're you're you're done.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
You know you're done.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
We're not gonna make official until the FBI makes it official,
but you're never playing again, right They have to They
absolutely have to. Last quick thing for you, a rod.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
If Chauncey Billups is found guilty or pleads guilty, do
you think he should be removed from the NBA Hall
of Fame?

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Assume he can be.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I don't know if he even could be, but just
assume that he could be.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Would you I don't think that I would.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
And this goes to the same conversation of will Pete
Rose ever getting into Cooperstown. Yeah, because it's so ingrained
into the sport, but this is such a nasty version
of it.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
This isn't just gambling on games that well.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Remember also the Chauncey Billips part might not be the
gambling on games. It might be using his name and
reputation to snooker people into getting swindled by the mafia
in poker games. Very true, and because of that angle,
I would have even leaned probably stay in even if
it was in the other side of this thing. I
would say, you then got to go down the line
and all the other players or coaches or whatever in

(15:22):
any hall of fame that have committed some bad acts
outside of the game of basketball.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
You'd then start to you don't want to get into that.
That's Pandora's box, So I would say no, but it's
worth considering, folks.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
When we come back, one of the things we're going
to do is talk with Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn
about the decision Denver is making whether or not to
keep using license plate reading cameras.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
That's coming up next.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Also within the next several minutes is this hour's chance
to win a thousand bucks in our keyword for cash
thanks to Mercedes of Littleton Mercedes of Littleton dot com,
thank you a rod. Breaking news in the past twenty
minutes or something, Donald Trump has pardoned Chang Peng Xiao,
who is the founder of Binance Now. He and his

(16:14):
firm were accused of and have been fined for money
laundering and various kinds of stuff like this. I'm not
gonna really get much into the merits because I don't
know the details of the.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Case very well, and I do know that in the Biden.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Administration, the guy, especially Gary Gensler, who was running the
SEC at the time, absolutely hated cryptocurrency and there was
a lot of very very very anti crypto stuff in
that administration. And Trump used to be i would say
neutral to slightly negative on crypto, and then he completely
changed his mind. I think originally it was about politics.

(16:49):
I think he realized there's a large segment of mostly
young adult men when it comes to voters, young adult
men who are super interested in crypto and kind of
like the subset of voters who might vote a particular
way based.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
On the legalization of marijuana, right.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
And I'm not saying those are the same people, but
just these kind of narrow subsets. And he said, you
know what I want to go over. I want to
go after those people. Like my election might be close,
every little subset I can get.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Would be great.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
And so he turned toward being pro crypto and then,
of course kind of famously, now he got involved in
the crypto industry, and his family has done all this
stuff and you know, his his crypto, the money that
his family is making off of creating this this trump coin.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
I mean, here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
His the the trump coin and the crypto business is
called World Liberty, or let me let me clarify that
World Liberty is a company that runs a lot of
this stuff and gives some of the income for it
to the Trump family. World Liberty is sort of its
own thing. It's related to Trump, but it's not exactly
identical to.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
The Trump co.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
But they manage it and then they give Trump some
money for the use of the name. Essentially, and here's
a quote from the Wall Street Journal, World Liberty has
generated significantly more income from the Trump for the Trump
family in the past year than their property portfolio ever.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Has annually got it.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
The cryptocurrency money for the Trump family in the past
year generated more money for them than was generated by
their property portfolio in the best year that their property
portfolio ever had. And Binance was a big part of
the growth of one of these peg cryptocurrencies called USD one.

(18:47):
It's not all the Trump coin, there's other stuff, and
the Trump family I think owns at least some of
World Liberty and Binance is involved with that. So long
story short, finance and the Trump family have a very
kind of incestuous relationship when it comes to cryptocurrency, and
they each they help each other, but mostly it's finance

(19:10):
helping Trump, helping the Trump family get rich off of well,
you know, this crypto stuff, which you might think of
as a grift or you might think it's legit.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
It's up to you.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
But in any case, this guy is a convicted felon
at this point for money laundering and stuff like that,
and now he's been pardoned by Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
That's all I want to say on that particular story
you recall. I'm sure the.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Heist.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
I don't know if it's the heist of the century,
but heist of the decade at least at the Louver
which showed, oh my gosh, I saw such a funny
political cartoon yesterday.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
I think it was by Ramirez.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
I don't remember his first name, and he signs his
cartoons Ramirez, and he tends to be a somewhat conservative
political cartoonist, which you don't.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
See that many of.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
In any case, he had the cartoon was a couple
of tourists standing in front of the louverra and there
was a sign on the door of the museum saying
the museum is closed, Like you know, after the robbery,
the museum I think is back open as of maybe yesterday.
But the one tourist said to the other tourist, Hey,

(20:19):
it looks like Joe Biden's border enforcement staff got jobs
at the Louverra. So, I mean, can you imagine having
a room full of incredibly valuable jewels.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
And having no cameras in the room. How's that possible?

Speaker 1 (20:38):
No cameras in the room, no cameras on the exterior
window entrances to the room. Maybe there was one camera
on one side, but there wasn't on the other side.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
So as they came in, there was no camera. No
camera in the room.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
What an absolute utter failure of security.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
I mean, one of the.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Greatest failures of security you can imagine. I mean, oftentimes
you get these very creative criminals. You know, maybe you
might even call the Chauncey Billups thing a bit of
creative criminality. It's only a little bit creative, but how
about yeah, I mean they use they use rigged shuffling
machines and bar coded cards so they could manipulate the

(21:22):
cards inside the shuffling machine. Apparently it's kind of creative
a little bit. So it's important for law enforcement to
be creative. As well. You gotta think, all right, what
might might these bad guys do? Put yourself in the
mindset of the bad guy and ask yourself, what might
they do? How would I if I were the bad guy? Right,
we're gonna red team this. If I were the bad guy,

(21:45):
what would I try to do? Now, if you're at
the louver, wouldn't it be just the very very very
least amount of creativity that a person could possibly imagine
to say, I might try to steal gems, especially if
there's a way into the room that doesn't have a
camera on it and there's no cameras in the room?
Are you kidding me? Anyway, that's sort of backward looking.

(22:08):
The new news that I wanted to share with you,
and this comes from ABC in what could.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Be the first major break.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
In the investigation of the jewel heist, which, by the way,
they're now valuing it one hundred and two million dollars.
Polices have found traces of DNA on items that the
thieves left behind. So they found a helmet that was
left behind, and they found a glove that was left behind,

(22:35):
and they found traces of DNA. And of course these days,
all you need is a trace. I don't know if
the French detectives these days are any better than you know,
Inspector cluz Oh.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
I guess we'll find out.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
I don't know whether the and I don't know whether
they know yet whether the DNA in the helmet is
different from the DNA and the gloves. So do they
have DNA from two people or do they have DNA
from one person?

Speaker 2 (23:00):
And then I also.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Don't know what they're going to compare the DNA to, right,
I don't know what databases they have where they could,
you know, look it up and say, yeah, this guy's
in the system, or a relative of.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
This guy is in the system, something like that.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Anyway, that's the update, and I wanted to I wanted
to share with you what else. All Right, I'm gonna
do ninety seconds on this next story, and then we're
gonna get to my guest. When you buy a gun,
you have to fill out a federal form that asks
whether you are addicted to or a or a user
of illegal drugs, and if you are, you are not

(23:37):
allowed to purchase a gun. And this has been an
issue for a while when it comes to marijuana, because
marijuana is legal in many states, it is still not
legal federally.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
That might change, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
But there was a case, and I think there's actually
been been more than one, but there was there was
a case where somebody got in big trouble for having
a fun after the federal government said, well, you smoke
marijuana and therefore you violated federal law. And now the
attorneys for this guy, and this is from the Associated Press,

(24:10):
says that at least twenty percent of Americans have tried marijuana,
and so any of those people go to get a
gun and say, you know, I'm not a you know,
an habitual user or whatever the wording is of an
illegal drug, then they're.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Breaking federal law.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Now, the Justice Department says that there's a you know,
serious public safety risk. Now I understand, I understand how
you might want to say, all right, if you're using
methamphetamine or something that's going to put you out of
your mind or something like that, then you can't own
a gun. And this is separate from the question whether anybody's.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Going to answer that honestly, right, are you going to
go buy a gun?

Speaker 1 (24:50):
And let's say you occasionally use cocaine, I'm just gonna
pick a drug Are you actually going to answer yes
on that?

Speaker 2 (24:56):
No, you're not so.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
I think the question itself is probably stupid. But in
any case, the reason I bring this to you is
that this is going to the Supreme Court now, and
the Supreme Court is going to consider a case as
to regarding whether it's constitutional for the federal government to
ban from owning a gun people who smoke marijuana on

(25:19):
a regular basis, not just oh I smoked it twice
last year or something like that.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
And I'm not talking about me. I've never tried it.
But this is going to go to.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
The Supreme Court, and I have to say, I hope
the Supreme Court says that they can't enforce that. But
with this Supreme Court, I really don't have a prediction
because I like, for example, I think Justice Alito will
definitely side with the government. Right, I don't know, but
I think it's a very interesting case and I just
wanted to bring it to your attention.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
All Right, I'm gonna do something different here.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
I did hear in our CHOA News broadcast yesterday, and
then I read a little bit online at the Denver
gazet and Axios and a couple other places about a
decision to be made by the Denver City Council about
whether to keep using a license plate reading system and
an associated database by a company called flock Flock. And

(26:17):
I actually, I actually thought I heard that they said
we're not going to use it anymore.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
And maybe I heard it wrong.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
And then I read and here's the headline from the
Denver Gazette. Denver mayor extends flock camera contract against council's wishes.
So to me, I am not capable of understanding the
intricacies here, and if I were to try to explain
it to you, I would get way too many things wrong.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
And therefore joining us to make sure that not just you.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
But also I understand not just what's really happening, but
also what really happened to get to where we are now.
Is Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn, former reporter with the
Rocky Mountain News. I remember him from those days. Hi Kevin,
thanks for joining me again on the show.

Speaker 6 (27:01):
Hi Ross, I think that's the longest introduction I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
You're welcome. You're welcome.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
So okay, let's do this in a strange order. But first,
just give me the headline. What is exactly the current decision.

Speaker 6 (27:18):
The current decision was by the mayor to extend the
contract with Flock, a no cost contract for five months.
We are piloting a denver only platform that the company
put together that has aimed at addressing all of the
concerns and issues that members in the public have brought

(27:42):
up about the use of this system, whether they're realistic
or not, except for one, and that is basically the
overarching question of should this data be gathered at all?
There's no way to reconcile using the system if there's
an agreement that we shouldn't be gathering.

Speaker 7 (28:04):
The data at all.

Speaker 6 (28:06):
I'm not in that camp because license plates are plane
view and courts have ruled pretty consistently that police in
the public, if they can see your license plate, they
can make note of it. This is simply a system
that makes note of it about two million times a
month based on our locations, and holds that for thirty days.

(28:29):
But here's the bottom line. For me, ross, am I
under surveillance If no one's looking at me. The fact
that my license plate may be in this database for
thirty days after I pass one of their readers is
meaningless until my license plate is looked at. Otherwise it's

(28:50):
a passive system. And so unless my car is stolen,
or it's my license plate stolen, or it's used in
a robbery, or I turn up missing, no one's looking
at it, which looked at, for instance, quite recently a
homicide case where the license plate readers system was able

(29:11):
to identify the vehicle that was used in that and
otherwise there would not have been that feat. So it's
been very, very useful, not just in stolen car cases.
That was the primary reason that we used it in
the first place, since I think it was March of
twenty twenty four, was to reduce our stolen our auto thefts,

(29:35):
which we have. We were leading the nation in auto thefts.
But this has been very useful in resolving missing person cases,
amber alerts, homicides, aggravated assaults, and cases like that. So
a lot of the concerns were over misuse and abuse.

(29:57):
So the mayor extended it to March thirty first with
this new platform where it's restricted only to Denver and
so no outside law enforcement agencies can look at it.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Okay, so let me just jump let me just jump
in for a second, just so I can get into
a few questions. We got about five minutes here, so
I fully get your point about the passivity of it
and that it's information just sitting in a database. And
just so we're clear, Kevin, I really don't have a
strong opinion on this. I'm not arguing in favor of
it against it. I just want to understand what's going on.
I can understand the concerns of some saying, Okay, it's

(30:35):
sitting in a database, but how do we make sure
that the only people looking at the database are the
people that we think should be looking at the database?

Speaker 2 (30:44):
And I assume that.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
That's a big part of the conversation with this task
force that you were part of.

Speaker 6 (30:50):
Yes, yes, and still still am. The task force hasn't
finished its work. I think the reason the mayor did
what he did yesterday is that the current contract was expiring.
I think it was due to inspire yesterday and so
in order to keep the cameras operating while the task
force is still doing its work, I think this was

(31:10):
a move that he decided he had to make, and
I support that it may lead to a new contract consideration.
At the end of March. We will see this current contract.
We will see how the platform is used and how
we limit access to the only the users who are
authorized to use it, and how it can't be misused.
I want to satisfy myself with that, but I do

(31:32):
want to clarify something ross when you introduce the topic.
The city Council in May voted down the full contract
extension for two years under the old rules. We voted
that down at the request of the Mayor's office because
of all the controversies surrounding If the mayor's office asked
us that day to why don't you vote down the contract?

(31:55):
We will form this surveillance task Force to come up
with recommendations on how it can be used or whether
it can be used within our within our rules and
within our our desires and frankly within our within the
way we want the city to operate. So we haven't
reached that decision yet. So the mayor made it clear

(32:20):
in May that he was going to keep the camera
system operating through the task forces work, and so we've
reached the end of that. They worked out, He listened
to the concerns that were being raised, and Flock put
together a Denver only platform unique to Denver and We're
going to see how that works, and if it doesn't

(32:40):
work to our satisfaction, then we pulled them out at March. Okay,
we're still going onto the task force. We needed to
keep the cameras going.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Okay, So can you just please clarify what the what
what the public misunderstanding is that you are trying to
make sure people get.

Speaker 8 (33:03):
Right, okay, that.

Speaker 6 (33:07):
The unanimous city council vote did not mean that a
unanimous city council that all the city council members did
not want flock. I was ready to vote yes. I
don't know if it would have passed the seven votes
that day, but the votes were very fluid because of
all the input we were getting. So the mayor's office said,

(33:28):
let's pull back. So I think what's being misinterpreted is
the city council vote.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
First, got it, Okay, it was to pull the.

Speaker 6 (33:35):
Contract in order to do this evaluation work and see
whether we want to use it. That work is still ongoing.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
And with the announcement yesterday with the mayor extending the
contract and you said it's a no cost contract, so
it is are you confident that the mayor has the
authority to do that?

Speaker 8 (33:57):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (33:58):
Yeah, I think it's clear that it does.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Okay, Yeah, and if you were a betting man, do
you believe that a year from now, flock cameras will
be operating in Denver?

Speaker 6 (34:09):
I think it's gonna be very difficult. Even if this
news system works. There are a lot of folks who
simply don't believe we should be acquiring the data at all.
I think that would be I think that would be
the wrong decision because, like I said, am I under
surveillance of no one's looking at me? It's playing view?

(34:33):
The plane view doctrine has been upheld in courts. This
is simply a mechanized, an automated acquiring that data.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
But I'll tell you what, the people who then who
have been victimized by a crime are glad that we
were able to solve it based on using this system.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Denver City Councilman, Kevin Flynn, thanks very much for your
time for the clarifications. And uh and I'm sure I've
got lots of listeners in Denver. They'll be thinking a
lot about this as it proceeds. Okay, you too. All right,
we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back
on KWA Happy Thursday. I'm ross It's my favorite day
of the week. I got producer A Rod behind the

(35:15):
glass with me today. I got a few people textinging
in about that last conversation we had with Kevin Flynn
of the Denver City Council, And I do think I'm
just going to follow up on this just for a moment,
and then I'm gonna move on to some other topics.
But I uh, I understand the point that he makes,
but I don't necessarily think it's very convincing for lots

(35:37):
of people.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
A lot and what we're.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Talking about here, if if you missed that part of
the conversation is the decision by the Mayor of Denver
to extend the contract for a company called Flock that
is essentially license plate reading cameras that then drop that
information into a database that theoretically the you know, data

(36:00):
gets deleted when it's thirty days old, and sort of
there's a rolling thirty days of data in there. And
some members of the city council are very skeptical of it,
and some members of the city Council, like Kevin Flynn,
believe that on balance it's worth it. And Kevin said, look,
license plates are out in public anyway, you don't have
an expectation of privacy about your license plate. So that's

(36:22):
one thing. I'm not taking his argument. I'm just telling
you what his argument is. And then the other thing
he said was, well, if this license plate reader puts
your information into a database, but nobody looks at it,
and then you and then the data is deleted thirty

(36:42):
days later, just just go with him. Assume it'll actually
happen that way, Okay, Just assume that is that impermissible?
Is that a surveillance state? Is that even being under surveillance?
And of course the question, especially from.

Speaker 9 (36:55):
Folks on the left on the City Council, is is
how do you know who's How are you going to
guarantee who's going to be looking at the data?

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Now I realize you.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Can make all the rules and you can say no,
it's only Denver police, only Denver prosecutors. You know something,
and we'll never let ICE look at it, Which is
sort of what caused some of this conversation to begin with.
Is the far left, in particular on the City Council,
said we're afraid that this database will be used by
ICE to find and to find illegal aliens, and they
didn't want that because they like to protect illegal aliens.

(37:30):
But in any case, so if you wall all that off,
you say, all right, ice can't use it, these people can't,
or just saying only these people can use it, you know, Okay,
some people might trust that. Other people will say I
simply don't trust government, or I don't trust that the
Feds won't find a way into it, even if they're
not supposed to use it, or whatever it might be. Now,

(37:51):
there's not a lot of identifying information there, right, it
shows a license plate as you drive by a particular
location on the road. It doesn't have your name, it
doesn't have doesn't have much right, So, but I understand
the civil liberty side of this. The other thing, a
listener just texted in. A listener just texted in, let's see.

Speaker 10 (38:12):
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
They're also using license plate readers to calculate how often
Weld County drivers who are not required to have emissions
are driving into cities where emissions are required. That being said,
if they are in emissions required counties that are eventually
going to require Weld County drivers to get emissions done, now,
I don't that that could be right, I.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Assume my listener is right.

Speaker 6 (38:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
I hadn't heard that that issue before. But I think
what that raises is how might the use of this
camera be in how much the use uses of these
cameras expand beyond what you normally think of his law
enforcement against you know, criminal behavior?

Speaker 10 (38:49):
Right?

Speaker 2 (38:50):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Why is the data being collected in the first place
primarily for use in law enforcement?

Speaker 6 (38:56):
Right?

Speaker 2 (38:56):
So let's say there's a there's a murder, and.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
You can see, okay, the and they caught the license
plate if someone was leaving to say, okay, he went
here and then he went here, and maybe that gives
you at least a little bit of a clue as
to the locations.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
I guess that's the idea.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
I haven't thought about it all that all that much, really,
but I just wanted you to kind of I just
wanted to follow up on that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
So now I'm gonna move on to other things.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
So President Trump has been pretty well manipulated by Vladimir
Putin for throughout Trump's actually throughout both.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Of Trump's presidencies.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
But it didn't matter that much during the first one,
not the way it matters during the second one, because
now we've got the Trump Ukraine, Russian Trump Ukraine, the
Russia Ukraine War, and every time Trump threatens to do
something to push back against Russia, Vladimir Putin has a
phone call with Milania or a phone call with Trump

(39:54):
and gets him to back off. And this is why
Vladimir Putin doesn't feel any get all from the United
States of America, because he has masterfully manipulated Donald Trump,
and Donald Trump just keeps.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Caving in over and over. It's kind of sad to see.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
And it's a little strange to see, actually, because Trump's
behavior with the Israel Gazza thing was very, very different.
But that might be because Trump seems to I don't know,
idolize is a bit strong, but have some kind of
affinity with dictatorial strong men for whatever reason, and he
loves to talk about how great a relationship he has

(40:33):
with some of the world's major dictators. I have a
great relationship with Chijin Ping. And meanwhile, I think these guys,
every time they hear Trump say we have a great relationship,
they must just, like, you know, spit out their vodka
or whatever they're drinking because they're laughing so hard thinking
that Trump and whoever that is, has a great relationship
and that somehow it means that that Trump's going to

(40:57):
get more of what he wants. Anyway, we talked yesterday
about how Marco Rubio had a conversation with Sergei Lavrov,
who is a terrible human being, who is the Russian
foreign minister.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
And after that it becomes clear.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
That Rubio goes to Trump and says, don't.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Waste your time meeting with Putin.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Not only is it a waste of your time, but
actually benefits him, So don't do it.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
So they called off the meeting.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
And now finally it seems like Trump is has decided
he's had enough, at least to a certain degree. The
US yesterday announced sanctions of two of the very biggest
Russian oil companies, right Rosneft ros n Eft and luke

(41:43):
Oil l Ukoil, And so the US has now put
sanctions on these companies on their subsidiaries, freezing whatever assets
they might have in the United States, although I don't
think they have too much.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
And what else here this is from Axios.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
All property and interest to the designated companies or persons
in the United States will be frozen and all persons
or entities will not be allowed to do business with them.
So you get the idea. Trump said, I waited a
long time. These are big sanctions. We hope they won't
be on for long and that the war will be settled.
We'll see this morning. This morning, Europe announced their nineteenth

(42:26):
package of sanctions against Russia. Some of these are actually
quite big, though. A ban on imports of Russian liquefied
natural gas into the EU starting January twenty twenty seven
for long term contracts starting within six months, though for

(42:46):
short term contracts, I think they did six months for
two reasons, one to let current contracts be short term
contracts be fulfilled, and two to try to get them
through the winter. And they tightened sanctions on Rosneft, which
we just mentioned, and gas Prom, which is a big
natural gas producer in Russia. So now Russia and I'm sorry,

(43:07):
the United States and Europe are both sanctioning Russia. United
States basically for the first time, Russia for the nineteenth time.
Russia says, we don't care, we don't think you should
do that, but it's.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Really not gonna affect us.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
We'll see, I'll tell you the thing I note this morning,
oil prices are.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Up significantly today.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
They're up about five percent, maybe closer to six percent,
So you're gonna see gasoline prices go up a little
bit and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
And I'm not that.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Worried about that, right I'm not worried about a few
cents more in a gallon of gas right now. But
what I do note is when the price of oil
goes up, Russia will sell their oil for more as
long as they can still find buyers. So in a sense,
it might make it harder for them to find a
buyer here or there, but eventually they will because every

(43:55):
BTU of energy produced in the world will be used
one way or another as they do that. The sanctions
caused the price to go up, so Russia will sell
their gas for more. The key thing I think will
be can Trump really get India to stop buying Russian energy?

Speaker 2 (44:14):
I guess we'll see.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
I saw the story a couple of days ago at
a website called interesting facts dot Com, and I have
no idea if this story is true, but let's just
assume it's true, just because it seems kind of fun.
The act of high fiving a friend in celebration may
seem like it's been around forever, but in fact, the
gesture originated even more recently than cell phones or email.

Speaker 8 (44:40):
Is that true?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Hmmm? I'm trying to think.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Back to my childhood, which were was before cell phones
and email? Did I high five people when you know,
played on basketball team? Did we high five when I
was in high school?

Speaker 7 (44:55):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
I actually don't remember. I actually don't remember.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
I'd like you to tell me that. Actually text me
at five six six nine zero and think as deeply
as he can. When when what's your first recollection of
ever high fiving somebody? Huh, that's a hard question. Five
six six nine zero.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Let me know.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
But anyway, according to this piece, the most widely accepted
origin story goes like this. Now, see this isn't more
recent than cell phones or email. Anyway, Maybe it's just
a badly written article. The high five was first used
during a baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and
Houston Astros on October tewod nineteen seventy seven. That's not

(45:35):
before cell phones an email? Who wrote that first sentence,
oh my god? After hitting his thirtieth home runner the season,
left fielder Dusty Baker, remember him, was greeted by his
teammate Glenn Burke, who excitedly offered a raised hand to celebrate,
which Baker then slapped in returned. Burke then hit a
home run of his own, and the pair repeated the motion.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Does it remind you of a scene in what is It?
An Airplane?

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Is in the movie Airplane where there's a yeah, right
when they're working the scene in the movie Airplane where
they're in the Peace Corps and they go to Africa
and they're and they're teaching some Africans to play basketball
and he gives one of them a high five, and
he and uh, and then the guy punches him because
he's never done a high five before. Oh, dude, Hey, Rod,
do you like the movie Airplane and Naked Gun?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
And that love the movie that stuff? Yes, dude.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
The guy who wrote Airplane is his guest on the
show in the next segment, The one who wrote it,
and I think he directed it too, David Zucker.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
I think his brother, Yeah, his brother Jerry Zucker was involved.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
And there's another guy involved, but David Zucker who did
Airplane and the Naked Gun movies. In Kentucky, Fried movie
and all that stuff. He's gonna be on in like
fifteen minutes. Hell, yes, yeah, I thought I thought you'd
like that. Uh anyway, Okay. So the players then celebrated
in another homer three days later with the new gesture,
and that moment was photographed by the Los Angeles Times,

(46:58):
which ran the image on the front page of the
oct Over sixth edition with the caption.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Give him a hand.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
It wasn't until nineteen eighty, which again is before cell
phones and email, so that was a dumb sentence at
the beginning of this article. It wasn't until nineteen eighty
that the term high five was definitively coined and began
appearing in print, with its first such appearance in a
March twenty fifth Boston Globe article. According to the Oxford

(47:24):
English Dictionary. Now there is another explanation for the creation
of the high five. Nineteen seventy eight nineteen seventy nine,
University of Louisville's men's basketball team, during practice, Wileie Brown
offered his teammate teammate Derek Smith a low five, a

(47:45):
knee level gesture that was commonly used by African Americans
as a symbol of unity at that moment. As reported
in the Week, Smith responded no up high, giving literal
rise to a new gesture. This was cited as the
origin of the High five in the New York Times
are Goal on September first, nineteen eighty. However, this event
actually post dates the Baker Burke story, which makes the

(48:08):
New York Times claim suspect, assuming that the reported timelines
are indeed accurate.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
The most likely origin of the High five a hand
gesture between two members of the Los Angeles Dodgers on
October tewod nineteen seventy seven. I do not know why
whoever wrote this piece said that this originally originated more
recently than cell phones or email. Like how well, the person,

(48:35):
you know, the person who wrote this maybe is like
twenty two years old and thinks that cell phones and
email have been around for you know, more than.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Fifty years or something.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I was very strange, But anyway, I still really like
the story, and I hope you did too. All Right,
you know what, I'm gonna take quick break here in
the next segment of the show in about fifth well,
the next segment show will start in several minutes, but
about fifteen minutes from now, David Zucker is gonna is
going to join the show. I am just so excited

(49:08):
to have him on. I am just such an enormous,
enormous fan of you know, his work for years and
years and years. I just you know, hey, Rod, can
you put my audio up for a second, just just
for a moment here.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
I just want to do this real quick.

Speaker 7 (49:25):
Can you fly this plane and land it?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Surely you can't be serious.

Speaker 7 (49:29):
I am serious, And don't call me Shirley.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
That's coming up next just a few minutes.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
We're gonna have David Zucker, one of the incredible brains,
a guy I really want.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
To have a beer with one day.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
But but you know, one of the primary guys behind
the movie Airplane, and part of the reason I'm gonna
have him on is on November second.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
I think that's a Sunday. Yeah, a week from this
coming Sunday.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
David Zucker and Robert Hayes, who was one of those stars,
one of the stars of the movie. He played Ted
Striker in the movie, are going to be in Denver
at a special screening of the movie Airplane at the
Paramount Theater. There's tickets available at Ticketmaster and then they're
going to talk, you know, talk about the movie, take
questions and so on.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
So that's a week from.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Sunday at the Paramount Theater, and I just thought, what
an awesome opportunity to get guys on the show. So
David Zucker will be on in just a few minutes,
and actually Robert Hayes will be on next next Monday.
So I'm really really excited about that. Let me just
do a couple minutes on a story that is It's.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
In the news a lot right now.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
I think it's probably getting a little more attention than
it deserves. But it's this whole thing with Donald Trump's
three hundred million dollars. Now he yesterday said it's three
hundred million, had been saying two hundred and fifty million,
three hundred million dollar ballroom at the White House. And
what's brought this back into the news a little bit
more is they started the demolition and Trump had said

(50:59):
that they're going to do part of the east wing
and add this massive ninety thousand.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Square football room, and the White House itself is.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Much less than that, something like fifty five thousand square feet.
So this thing is absolutely enormous. I don't know if
the ninety thousand square feet includes you know, office space
or whatever on a second floor. Okay, I'm not sure
about that. But the reason this came back up as
a thing is that yesterday, when talking to reporters, President
Trump said that they looked at trying to keep some

(51:32):
of the existing East Wing and decided it just wouldn't work.
And so they're demolishing the entire East Wing. And you've
got some You've got at least one or two conservation
organizations saying, you know, they shouldn't do that without talking
to us first. And then there's a more official kind
of organization, the National Capital Planning Commission I think it's called,

(51:55):
and I think they really are supposed to be involved
with this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
The Trump and administration.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Is claiming that that that commission does have jurisdiction to
some degree at least over construction, but not over demolition. Right,
So they're saying the Trump administration's argument, and they're acting
on it, and nobody's gonna stop them.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
And what could you do.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
The buildings have destroyed at this point already. What they're
saying is, yeah, we'll have to work through that Planning
Commission when it comes to what we're building there, but
we don't have to work with them when it comes
to knocking down what's there. So they're gonna they're gonna
knock down what's there, and then of course it's kind
of a fat complay, right, you're gonna have to build something.

(52:39):
I will also note that the whole three hundred million
dollars is being paid for by private donors trum Trump
is one of them himself, but individuals, some corporations are
contributing in all that, So there's no government money being spent.
You know, I I actually think I kind of like it.
I'm not saying I have an opinion about the plan
or an opinion about knock down the whole East Wing.

(53:01):
I don't care very much about that, But I do
think Trump has a legitimate argument when he says that
it's it's kind of ridiculous how little space the White
House has for.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
You know, major state dinners.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Right, they can only host a rather small number of
people for what could be very large events.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
And so this ballroom will be much more glamorous.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
But it will also be much much bigger, and they
will be able to host you know, extremely large events,
and I think it's fine, and.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I think he's right when he says people have wanted
this for a long time. As to the.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Details of should it be doing it exactly this way
or exactly that way.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
I don't know. I barely care.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
I kind of think that a lot of what's going on,
why this is in the news so much, Why you've
got people like Adam Kinsinger, who was nominally a Republican
but a guy who really hates who really hates Trump.
You know, these people are are coming out on Twitter
and and saying, you know, is any Republican gonna say something?
Is anybody gonna stop him? What's going on here?

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Right?

Speaker 1 (54:06):
I think I think some of it is just people
who want to criticize Trump for anything. And you know,
I'm not shy about criticizing Trump, but I think part
of my job, and I think part of your job,
and just any any honest, honest person I think is about.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Is about telling the truth.

Speaker 8 (54:27):
Right.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
There's plenty of stuff that Donald Trump does that's worth criticizing,
and there's plenty of stuff that Donald Trump does that's
worth praising. And there's also there has to be even
though it doesn't feel like it.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
In the world that we live in.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Today, some amount of stuff that Donald Trump does that's
just not worth caring that much about. Do you and
I actually need to care that much about the East
Wing of the White House?

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Not the White House, it's the East Wing.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
The oldest parts of it are maybe a little over
one hundred years old, but a lot of it is
a lot less than that, and some of it apparently
is not that nice.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Who cares? Do you have to care?

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Do you have to have an opinion about everything? I
don't think so. And so part of the reason I
wanted to mention this to you today is just to say, like,
I actually think this is a bigger story than it
needs to be.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
So there's that, all right.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
I am I'm so excited for this next conversation. I'm
gonna I'm gonna play this again, even though I even
though I played it a second ago, in case you
weren't listening ten minutes ago when I played it, but
just just to set the mood.

Speaker 7 (55:32):
Can you fly this plane and land it?

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Surely you can't be serious.

Speaker 7 (55:37):
I am serious, And don't call me Shirley.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
There has never Now I'm not the most movie expert guy.
But in my not so humble opinion, there has never
been a more quotable comedy than Airplane. So exactly right
that voice you hear, David Zucker, one of the great

(56:01):
brains behind Airplane.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Behind Naked Gun, Kentucky Fried.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Movie, on and on and on and gosh, David, I
I've just uh, it's been a long time since I've
looked forward to an interview this much. And I was
supposed to have you the other day and I screwed
it up. I'm very sorry for that. Thank you for
giving me another chance. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 8 (56:18):
Oh yeah, you were the one I woke up early
and then you did.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
That was me, That was me.

Speaker 8 (56:23):
You're responsible. I can't believe I'm even speaking.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
I know I can't believe it either.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
But I owe you a beer if I get the
chance to if I get the chance to see you.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
But let me just.

Speaker 8 (56:32):
Say, that's fine. I look forward to that. But let's
get this over with now.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Okay, So you just answered the question before I asked it.
But the question is, are you as much of a
smart ass in a good way? Like snappy answers to
stupid questions from the old Mad magazine that I'm sure
you know, are you that way all day every day?

Speaker 8 (56:53):
Well only to the extent that I don't really take
anything seriously. Yeah, and I do a lot of improv
not on stage, but just you know, in restaurants and
when I'm when I'm meeting people, and I just I
just kind of naturally want to, you know, see if

(57:15):
I can get a laugh out of people. I mean,
always at their expense, not at me.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Yeah, you know, I got to tell you, I mean,
a common line in my house is Mom's gonna go
boil the roast again. And you know I say on
the show all the time, the foot's on the other hand, now,
I mean, and I picked a bad week to quit amphetamines. Like, dude,
how how did you come up with so so many

(57:41):
lines in a relatively small number of movies that everybody knows?

Speaker 2 (57:46):
How'd you do that?

Speaker 4 (57:47):
Well?

Speaker 8 (57:48):
I think we kind of naturally think that way. It's
not that, you know, comedy writing is a nine to
five job for us. We just, you know, we just
always lived that way, thinking of what the what the
takedown would be, what the funny line would be, and
we just kind of got to thinking that way. I mean,
even ever since high school. And then we for Airplane,

(58:11):
we watched this very serious movie called Zero Hour, which
is nineteen fifty seven black and white movies flying movie
and had the same plot, and we thought, oh, this
would be great to redub this. And then we said,
wait a mint, why redub it? Why why not just
remake it with you know, serious actors, And that's really

(58:32):
how airplanes are. And in Zero Hour there was actually
a line the guy said, in the air controlling room,
you know, it looks like I quit the I picked
the wrong week to quit smoking. And so we used
that in Airplane, and then every scene after that we

(58:53):
just upped the ante a little bit.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
By the way, there's also a book about this, guys
that David and his brother Jered and Jim Abrams wrote
called Surely you can't be serious?

Speaker 2 (59:04):
The True Story of Airplane.

Speaker 8 (59:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Okay, So I'm I'm guessing based on your name that
you're a member of the tribe, and I am, and
I'm and I'm guessing your brother is, and I'm guessing
Abrams is too. But should I Is that right? Are
you guys all Jews?

Speaker 8 (59:18):
We're all Jews?

Speaker 4 (59:19):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Okay, So my question for you is because there's an
immense tradition of Jews and comedy, just immense. And I
wonder if you think any of that is part of
the reason you are the way you are.

Speaker 8 (59:34):
It is, you know, for our comedy, but it but
we also love you know, Bob Hope, Steve Martin, Yeah,
you know, Robin Williams. These guys are brilliant guys. And
you know, just come come to it from another direction. Sure,
you know, Jewish humor is. I guess there's something in particular,

(59:56):
I guess, uh, you know now that you asked about it,
thinking about I don't think about it a lot. But
it's outsider human. We always feel like outsiders, I guess, so,
you know. And and a movie like Zero Hour is
populated all by these you know, very white gentiles, uh huh.
And it's just it's so wonderful to see the seriousness

(01:00:19):
of it and we can be kind of like, well,
the March Funsers were the same way, you know, very
very outsider immigrant here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yeah, yeah, that'd.

Speaker 8 (01:00:28):
Read my next book.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Yes, we're talking with David Zucker, who is behind the
Airplane movies and the Naked Gun movies and Kentucky Fried
movie and so much more. All right, I got a
couple of other things I want to Oh, oh well,
let me just mention. I mentioned this before you came
on the show, but I want to mention again. David,
along with Robert Hayes, who played Ted Striker in Airplane,
are going to be at the Paramount Theater in Denver

(01:00:50):
on November two, which is a week from Sunday, special
screening of the movie, and then they're going to talk.
I assume you're going to take some questions from the crowd.

Speaker 8 (01:00:58):
David, absolutely, We're going to do a Q and A
on stage with you know, with the Q and A
prison I guess they call them, and then then we're
gonna take questions and generally have fun. And these are
these are just great. It's it's so fun and I'm
kind of a frustrated stand up comedian anyways, but so
this is my chance.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
So folks, if you go to ticketmaster dot com and
just type in Airplane, I'm sure you'll find it. But
like I said, a week from Sunday at the Paramount
Theater in Denver. Now I would like to understand, David.
I would like to understand, Uh, David Zucker's master Crash,
tell me about this.

Speaker 8 (01:01:38):
Oh, well, you know, other people have been trying to
do this kind of humor and it's not that we're
so amazing, but we do. We know, we have a
lot of experience doing it, and we learned over fifty
years how to do it. And you know, the people
just this little past year tried to do Naked Gun

(01:01:59):
for Yeah, and they didn't know what they were doing, so,
you know, it kind of ruined the franchise. So I
was motivated to start this thing called Mastercrash dot com
and I'm teaching. We have fifteen rules and most of
the things are what not to do, and Jerry and
Jim and I always avoided mistakes by sticking to these

(01:02:22):
rules and nobody knows about them, certainly not the people
who are trying to do this kind of movie. So
we're doing that. And so I'm ending up teaching a
online course in comedy and I have personal interaction with students.
They can ask me questions and it's so much fun.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Where did the rules come from? Did you? Did you
divine them?

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Based on working in movies for a long time and
saying this works and this doesn't, And we're going to
make it a rule.

Speaker 8 (01:02:50):
Yeah, yeah, basically it started, you know, we start we
had a show in Los Angeles on Pico Boulevard in
West LA called Kentucky Fright Theater, and we ran a
show called My Nose just so our weekly listening in
the La Times calendar section would say my Nose runs continuously.
And so we had our first preview and this one

(01:03:12):
friend of Jim's came in and he was a comedy writer,
and he said, yeah, I love the show, but you know,
in this one sketch, you were doing a joke on
a joke And we said, what's that? Because we had
never considered that there were there was any discipline to it,
and it was our comedy was and it worked, but
it was anything goes. So that became our first rule,

(01:03:35):
and then over the next ten or so years we
evolved you know, fourteen other rules, including the fifteenth rule,
which is there are no rules. So so you know,
and I love I love being in comedy and I
love you know, doing it, living it the whole thing,
and especially doing these q and as. It's it's fun

(01:03:58):
and this is kind of what I do for a living,
and I don't feel.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
That I'm working it's just amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
We're talking with David Zucker, who is a film writer, director, producer.
He's behind Kentucky Fried movie and Airplane and Naked Gun
and Police Squad and a couple of the scary movie movies.
Don't forget basketball and basketball of course nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Right base Kipball?

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Hey Rod, my producer who you talk to for a moment,
loves loves basketball. Okay, so you got Kentucky Fried movie
made in nineteen seventy seven, and the first movie is
usually a harder one to make. But I was kind
of I was wondering was it difficult for you to
get Airplane made? Because I don't think there was anything

(01:04:47):
like it. I still don't think there's anything like it
other than your other movies.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
So what was what was that like?

Speaker 8 (01:04:54):
Well, tremendously difficult. We wrote the script in nineteen seventy five.
Oh and we couldn't get financing for it, and it
was only like a two or three million dollar movie,
but we couldn't raise the money. So John Landers came
to see the show one night and said, why don't
you guys do a movie of your show of the
Kentucky friede theater show, and so that was the idea

(01:05:16):
for Kentucky FRIEDE Movie, which was consisted of like twenty
two separate sketches. There was no plot, and it was
a very low budget with six hundred thousand, and the
thing made twenty million, so we were very profitable. And
we went back to the same people who financed Kentucky
Fried Movie and said, well, now we have the script

(01:05:36):
called Airplane and we want to do that. And the
guy read it and said, well, no, I want to
do Kentucky Fried movie too, so you know, we don't
want to do sequels and do the same thing. So
finally Michael Eisner of Paramount read the script to Airplane
and he thought there was a possibility. So we landed
at Paramount and that was completely That's how we got

(01:05:58):
Airplane made.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
All right, I've got I've got a few listener questions.
They listeners have texted in some questions, David, have you
ever been in a Turkish prison?

Speaker 8 (01:06:10):
I believe it or not. I have gotten that question before,
and only one, and it was only for a short
time and I didn't have sex with any menut, so
I don't like to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
How did you come up with what's the character's name anyway,
what do you make of this? I can make a
hat or a broach or a pterodactyl, which is an
amazing line.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Johnny right as Johnny Johnny Johnny.

Speaker 8 (01:06:37):
Steve Stucker, who in our Kentucky Bride Theater show in
the seventies was our piano player and he was hilarious
on stage. And in one sketch and this came out
of improv, one character says, Johnny, what can you make
out of this? You know, some kind of paper or something. Yeah,
and he was, well, I've got to make a hat,
and he just came up with us. In addition to

(01:06:58):
in in the in Airplane, when Stucker is answering the
questions of.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
The reporters, yea, he wrote all those lines.

Speaker 8 (01:07:08):
We did not write those.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Wow. Wow.

Speaker 8 (01:07:11):
We actually when we were writing the script, we called
Steve on the phone and said, Steve, we want you
to play this air controller and you're going to be
doing a press conference. Here are the questions. He said
over the phone, exactly what is in the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Amazing.

Speaker 8 (01:07:27):
We just wrote it down, same thing as the Black
Dudes wrote their all their.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Dialogue because we didn't know how the guys who speak Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:07:36):
Guys who's fleet speak jive. And they also wrote, uh,
you know Barbara Billings leaves lines and bought her phonetically
how to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Oh my gosh, that's incredible. I wish I had another
hour with you. I've got about a minute with you,
so I'm I think I'm going to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Make this my last question somewhat broad one.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
I would like you to say anything you want to
tell us about Leslie Neil.

Speaker 8 (01:08:01):
Oh. You know he we we hired him to do
that part because we thought he had no sense of
humor at all from you know, dozens of movies and
TV appearances. And it turns out he was a prankster.
And he would bring he brought to the set this
this heart machine and he would use it, and you know,
and because people always thought he was this serious, respectable actor,

(01:08:27):
and he would just do these heart noises and he
did it, you know, on elevators everywhere. So and that
was that was the thing with Leslie. He was, you know,
always a fun guy to be around.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
David Zucker, Seriously, I got to thank you so much
for just bringing so much joy to my life. Airplane
is the by far the movie I quote the most
weekly for sure, and it's just I can't believe anybody
had the had the skill and the lunacy both to
get that done. And I'm really grateful.

Speaker 8 (01:09:01):
Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, and I'm
glad to have provided any last that I could, So
thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
David Zucker and Robert Hayes, who played Ted Striker in Airplane,
will be at the Paramount Theater a week from Sunday,
November second, a special screening of the movie and then
a Q.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
And A with these guys, and go.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
To ticketmaster dot com to get your tickets. It's been
an absolute pleasure having you on the show. David, Thank you, sure,
thank you, Bye bye bye. Oh my gosh, that's one
of my favorite interviews ever.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
We'll be right back. What's your favorite comedy movie of
all time?

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Text me at five six six nine zero and tell
me and tell a Rod too, what's your favorite comedy
movie of all time?

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Five six six nine zero.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
I'm not going to tell you mine yet, although people
who have been listening to my show for some number
of years probably know what it is. But a Rod,
do you know off the top of your head what
your favorite comedy movie is.

Speaker 5 (01:10:01):
It's it's a couple honorable mentions that are all tied
for first. Okay, spinal Taps probably up there, yeah, with
best in Show as well, the same guys, Dodgeball is
up there as well. Man Anchorman's in the conversation, Bruce
Almighty's in the conversation. But I'm I'm I'm gonna go

(01:10:23):
with spinal tap. Yeah, I'm gonna go spinal tap.

Speaker 10 (01:10:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
Yeah, that's an incredible movie. I always in my life
every day Ross turn it up to eleven, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
And to me, to me there that this one goes
to eleven is not only the most quotable line in
that movie, but it's one of the most quotable lines
in movies.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
So I absolutely love that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
And then the other one, which I can't say the
uncensored version on the air because has a swear word
in it. But when the guys are standing at Elvis's
grave and one says, sure puts things in perspective, and
they you know what, the next guy says.

Speaker 5 (01:11:00):
Oh my gosh, I actually haven't seen in a minute.
What is it?

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
It's it's yeah, too much bleeping perspective, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
I love that too much.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
I can't say the word too much, bleeping perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
I just I love.

Speaker 5 (01:11:13):
I love when I've seeing Stonehenge and the guy whole,
one of the guys gets caught inside the whatever egg.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Yeah it is, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
And when the Stonehenge things come out eighteen inches tall
because he wrote eighteen, you know, with a double apostrophe,
and he meant for them, he meant to make them
eighteen feet, but he wrote eighteen and then two little
things instead of one. So those eighteen inches, Oh my gosh.
All right, so keep those texts coming at five six,

(01:11:40):
six nine zero, and tell me your favorite your favorite
comedy movie of all time, and a rod don't look
at the texts yet, because I want a rod on
later in a little bit, I'm gonna ask you to
guess what are the movies that are most coming up
on that on that list, I want to do a
couple other things here for a minute. I've had this

(01:12:02):
for a bit. This is kind of a nerdy economic thing,
but I'm gonna just I'm gonna go with it with
you here briefly. So Oftentimes, when I think about government policy,
and in particular, when I think about government policy, coming from
the left. I my perception of it is, these are

(01:12:23):
people who want to turn us into Europe, right, And
it's not as overt as it used to be, like
we actually had it. We've had the Supreme Court mentioned
Europe in a decision some years ago and how they
do it over there, and it used to be more
of a thing than it is now, where there was
some overt push by folks to just say, you know,

(01:12:44):
Europe does it this way.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
And I think there has long been this. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
I wouldn't go quite so far as to say imposter syndrome,
but just a slight sense of inferiority among our most
educated class unquote educated class that had them feeling that
the US is just not as sophisticated and that we

(01:13:10):
would just all be better off if we were a
little more like Europe, which of course is the opposite
of what's true. The United States is better than Europe
in almost every single way, and we should aspire to
be less like them rather than more like them in
any case. In any case, I saw a statistic, an

(01:13:33):
economic statistic that really kind of brought this home to me,
and I wanted to bring it to you In the
context of, hey, let's try to do everything we can
to make sure we don't turn into Europe. Make sure
we don't turn into Europe when it comes to taxes
and regulations on how to run a business, or how

(01:13:53):
to hire and fire people, or all of this kind
of stuff. And the reason that the thing that brought
this to my mind was there was an article I
saw in a tweet that I saw. The article is
in the Economist magazine, which tends to be very pro European,

(01:14:13):
and the headline is how Europe crushes innovation. And this
is primarily about labor laws, because they make it very,
very difficult and or very expensive to fire somebody in Europe.
And you simply have to be able to fire people.
If you can't easily fire people, then you will hold
back on hiring people, and you will have structurally higher

(01:14:36):
unemployment and a less dynamic economy. And it is exactly
what's going on in Europe. The Economist says the European
system may feel kinder, in fact, the cumbersome process for
letting go workers comes with hidden costs. It's not just
that the expense and hassle of occasionally firing employees weighs
on firms long term profitability. Rather the sheer difficulty of

(01:14:59):
shedding staff on mass steers Europe's biggest companies away from
making risky bets in innovative fields. And it's a much
longer article, but I'm going to stop there on that
and then tell you about this tweet from a guy
named Marcus Villig.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
I don't know who he is. He's not a famous person,
but anyway, he.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Just showed a list of the top twenty five companies in.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
The world by market cap.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
And we talked about market cap already, right, but the
top twenty five companies in the world based on the
value of the company as represented in the stock market. Listen,
it is get in the top twenty five companies. I'll
ask you, I'll make this a question. In the top
twenty five companies in the world, how many of them

(01:15:46):
are European?

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
How many of them are European? The answer is zero zero.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Europe as a continent, Western Europe has a population fairly
similar to the population of the United States of America.
So it's not like we're comparing the US to you know,
some very small group. But the vast majority of these
companies are American. There's a couple of Chinese companies like
ten Cent. You've got Saudi Aramco, which is not surprising,

(01:16:17):
the huge Saudi Arabian oil company. You've got TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor.
The vast, vast majority of the top twenty five are American.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
So my warning to you, not that you need.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
It, is please don't let the United States turn into Europe.
Coming up in the next few minutes, this hour's chance
to win a thousand bucks in our keyword for cash
thanks to Mercedes of Littleton Mercedesolyttleton dot com. I mentioned
that Airplane is my second favorite comedy of all time,
and it's a close second. It's definitely second, but it's
a close second because it's absolutely incredible. And I am

(01:16:51):
asking you, what is your favorite comedy of all time?
Text me at five six six nine zero and tell
me your favorite comedy of all time. This one is
my favorite comedy of all time. I think longtime listeners
will already know what I'm gonna say, but this one
is mine.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Your mother was a humster and your father snake of deliberates.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
I have probably seen Monty Python in the Holy Grail
fun Your general direction, Yeah, yeah, I've probably seen that
thirty times.

Speaker 5 (01:17:22):
I don't know a lot, really a lot. I just
absolutely love that. You be very proud of me.

Speaker 6 (01:17:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
I went to Colorado Renaissance Fair for the first time
this year. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:17:31):
You obviously get chosen when you watch the jousting to
cheer for a certain jouster. Okay, I did at one
point in time. Tis but the scratch your arms off?

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
No it isn't. No, it doesn't, it's a flesh wound.

Speaker 8 (01:17:47):
Is your name?

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Oh, answer me these questions? Three? What is your name?
What is your quest? What is your favorite gota? What
is the capital of Asia? What is the average spana
velocity of an unladen swallow? What do you mean in
African or Europeans?

Speaker 10 (01:18:05):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
I don't know? That so freaking quotable bring out today?
There's just so I just dead yet I'm still happen.
You'll be quite dead in a moment, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
So I've asked you, you being listeners and a Rod,
what's your favorite comedy five six, six nine zero to
let me let us know. A Rod already answered with
with some of his and he said he put spinal
tap at the at the top of his list, which definitely.
It deserves that kind of that kind of ranking.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
And I asked you a Rod to take a guest
without looking at text line as to what movies you
think will show up most commonly. Oh my gosh, I
have over one hundred. I have over one hundred texts
on this already. What movies do you think are showing
up most commonly in this list?

Speaker 5 (01:18:56):
Well, I think there's gotta be some other people that
have your second favorite mind favorite Airplane and Spinal tab
MANI Pophon was the third movie I wrote down that
has to be mentioned a couple of times. I guarantee
your audience loves blades blazing saddles. All right, hang on
there for a second, search blazing saddle.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
It has to be on there. Here we go a
few times. Sheriff Mongo's back. He's breaking up the whole town.
You've got to help us, please, did you hear that?

Speaker 8 (01:19:19):
Nah?

Speaker 7 (01:19:20):
It's please?

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
This morning, I couldn't get the time of day.

Speaker 10 (01:19:24):
Who's his mongo anyway? Well, Mongo ain't exactly a who,
is more of a what what he said?

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Well, now I'll thank yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Oh, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):
The fools, I mean, the sheriff's going.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
To do it, and so now the sheriff is going
over to put on his guns.

Speaker 10 (01:19:45):
No, no, don't do that. Don't do that.

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
If you shoot him, you're just make him mad.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
That's one of my favorite lines. Don't shoot Mongo. You'll
you'll just you'll just make him mad. So you're absolutely right.
A rod blazing saddles Is is one of the movies
that is on the list most I think action one
of the vacation movies.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Yeah, okay, yep, there are a lot of Christmas vacations.
There are a lot Caddy Shack mentions.

Speaker 5 (01:20:12):
View Mom in my top five, probably on my Mount Rushmore.
Anyone else say office Space? You know you know who
said that? Ben Albright? Yes, Ben Albright said office Space.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
I believe you, I believe I'm just kidding. I don't
remember that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
I did see it, but I only saw it once
and I don't remember it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:34):
Idiocracies probably not mentioned, but it's an honorable mention for me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Okay, Jack who works here says Wayne's World.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
That's pretty world.

Speaker 10 (01:20:44):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:44):
Brothers is a newer one that's in what is it
step Brothers? Will Ferrell's probably one of his best movies
in there. Okay for me, that one's not on the list.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
You know, the other one that Ben Albright said, and
he wasn't the only one who said it, but I
do think it's a super interesting choice is Doctor Strangelove.
That's that's a very interesting movie to have as one
of your favorite comedies.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
And then this is the other movie.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Which also has lots and lots of quotable lines that
many many people listed when we asked for your favorite comedies.

Speaker 7 (01:21:11):
Oh, would you like to have a Rollin's?

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
Hey, it's fun? All right? Do you know that line?
It kind of sounds familiar. What movie that's? Young Frankenstein?

Speaker 4 (01:21:29):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
Huh? Have you seen Young Frankenstein? Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:21:34):
To be fair sacrilegiously, I don't even think I've seen
Blazing Saddles in full. Wow, yeah, I know, I don't know.
Even in twenty twenty five, a lot of people are
gonna admit that's a favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
They're both Those are both mel Brooks movies, right, Young
Frankenstein and and Blazing Saddles and History of the World Spaceball's.
A couple of people mentioned I think that's on the
mel Brooks movies Spaceballs, and uh yeah, it is for sure. Uh,
there's I think you wat you mentioned Caddy Shack. That's
that's big on this list. Dumb and Dummer, really Animal House. Yeah,

(01:22:06):
A bunch of a few people said best.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
In show, which you mentioned.

Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
Yeah, so good, all of those, all the Christopher guests,
give me all of those meals.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
Yes, all right, we're gonna take quick break here.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
When we come back, we're gonna do something real different
and I'm excited for this.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
We're gonna have Alex Dmill on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
His dad, Nelson de Mill, is one of the great
thriller writers of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
They wrote two books together.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
They started a third book together and got much of
the way through it, and then Nelson de mill passed away.
Alex finished the book. It's called The Ten Men. It's
a really fun read. Alex Demill joins us next. I
am very pleased to welcome back to the show Alex
de Mill.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
And Alex has been on a time or.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Two in the past and previously with his dad Nelson
de Mill, an absolutely legendary thriller writer, and they've written
some things together, Nelson being the sort of traditional book
writer and Ali Alex being a screenwriter, a movie and
TV writer more, but they partner together on books and

(01:23:07):
the newest book is called The Ten Men, and it's
a wonderful book.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
And we'll talk about the book more in a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
But during the process of writing this book, Nelson, who
was not a young dude, even the previous time that
I talked with him, he got sick. He passed away
and and Alex finished the book. And I so, first, Alex,
I just wanted to say, you know, I'm I'm sorry.
I you know your dad's his I mean, we weren't buddies,

(01:23:36):
but I was in email contact with him from time
to time and just seemed like an incredible person, and
I just wanted to express my condolences.

Speaker 10 (01:23:47):
Thank you, Ross, I appreciate that, and good to be
with you again.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Just a little a little more on working with your dad,
and then we'll get we'll get into the book.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Tell us what it was like.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
So these characters, got Brody and Maggie Taylor of characters
who've been in I don't know how many books, but
I've read them multiple times, in multiple books. And tell
me a little about starting the book with your dad,
tell me a little bit about finishing the book without
your dad. And then we'll talk more about the plot
of the book and all that.

Speaker 11 (01:24:19):
Sure, Yes, this is the third book with Scott Brody
and Maggie Taylor The Person The Deserter.

Speaker 10 (01:24:24):
In twenty nineteen.

Speaker 11 (01:24:26):
The follow up was Bloodlines in twenty three.

Speaker 10 (01:24:29):
This is the third book with them.

Speaker 11 (01:24:31):
And yeah, basically this book was not supposed to come
out this year. I wasn't even supposed to write it
when I did, but because he got sick, we decided
to switch the schedule around a little bit. So I
actually began the book after he became ill and started
getting treatment for esophageal can so it was kind of

(01:24:52):
cast a Paul over the whole thing. But he and
I come up with the premise together the prior year,
so I feel like we had a good foundation going
into it. And you know, it was tricky. It was
it was a really really hard the context I wished to.

Speaker 10 (01:25:09):
Write a novel, so I'll say that.

Speaker 11 (01:25:10):
But I think we had a really solid foundation because
we worked so closely on the first two Ie like
I got some sort of intense masterclass from a very
accomplished writer, So I felt I felt well equipped to
deal with it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
And you you talked a little bit about this in
I don't remember if it was the forward or at
the end.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
I think it was in the foreword.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
But you know, at some point your dad couldn't help anymore,
and and you just picked it up and ran with
it from there.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
Tell tell me a little more about that.

Speaker 11 (01:25:44):
Yeah, you know, I was working on it. I didn't
want to. I didn't The last thing I wanted was
for him to be focusing on work. But at some
point I realized that he actually liked liked it and
needed it, and he needed something to focus on. So
I was I was sending him chapters. You know, he
was slower to get back and usual, partly because you know,
he was a he was a affectionist to the end,
and he would wait until he had a good day,

(01:26:05):
and that's when he would read and I'd get I
get notes back from him, and they would be as
sharp as they ever were. But then, you know, he
got a chemo treatment and then he'd be Yeah, I
talk with a count for a week or two, and
so it kind of stretched the process out, and eventually
I still sent some stuff by I kind of knew
that he wasn't going to read any more of the book. Frankly,
I kind of could see, I could see where things
were going, and it was it was hard, you know,

(01:26:29):
the once he passed away and I still had a
chunk of the book to write, and obviously, you know,
dealing with grief and everything. And surprisingly, the process of
finishing his book was a kind of a kind of
an appropriate way of griefing. And it's sort of I

(01:26:50):
wouldn't say it distracted me and actually made me focus
on him and him and his memory. And I didn't
have him as a co writer, and I was an
editor anymore. So instead I was just kind of kind
of crafting into my head what would he think of this?

Speaker 10 (01:27:02):
What do you say about that?

Speaker 11 (01:27:04):
Yeah, so I was in a way kind of communing
with him and imagine the conversations and recall the conversations
about over the course of the other two books in
the portion of this book. So it was emotionally difficult,
but also really kind of rewarding process.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
Yeah, I can imagine that we're talking with Alex de
mil about the new book that he and his dad,
Nelson co wrote.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
It's called The Ten Men, and it is a really
fun read.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, like
in the first chapter or two, where's this going?

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
What's this about? And then I found myself.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
This is one of those books where I feel like
I need to tell the author you made me a
little tired at work because I couldn't put the book down.
So I kept I stayed up late for a few
nights in a row reading the book because I just
couldn't put it down. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. And
especially this is more of a personal thing, but like
I got just some annoynoying things going on in my life,
not terrible things, but annoying things.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
And I was really in a.

Speaker 1 (01:28:06):
Mood for a book that would take take me away,
distract me, be.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
Fun, and and this was that for me, and so
I just I loved it. I really did.

Speaker 10 (01:28:21):
Thank you.

Speaker 11 (01:28:22):
Yeah, you know, the highest compliment is getting here from
readers to say they didn't they didn't get off of
sleep because of your book.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
So The tin Men, I'm not I don't want to,
you know, spoil anything. So The tin Men is.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Basically about the US government thinking about how to use
humanoid robots that are powered with some level of artificial
intelligence and some of.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
The risks that could come about.

Speaker 8 (01:28:52):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
I'm going to leave it to you to spoil as
much as you want to spoil about the plot.

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
I don't think that's that's my role, So I try
to not say too much at the point in the
conversation about what the book is.

Speaker 11 (01:29:05):
Sure, yeah, at the heart of it, it's a murder
mystery at a very isolated, high stress environment. It's a
fictional army camp set out deep in the Mojave Desert,
and our main characters are two of our army detectives
are sent there because the scientist was murdered by what
they only know of it as a quote unquote lethal
autonomous weapon, and once they get there, they start to
realize the full scope of the kind of secretive work

(01:29:28):
that goes on there, the basis of which is war
games between a human human uh well tune of army
rangers and these next generation weapons that have their own autonomy, yes,
some degree of artificial intelligence, and how intelligent they are
not as sort of a point detention in the book,
but really it was about this kind of remarkable secretive

(01:29:53):
work being done and what it does to the people
that are there, and of course all the things that
could potentially go wrong, and they're they're, they're, they're out
in the middle nowhere trying to figure out what went
wrong if there was a human hand into it, and
of everybody that could be a suspect. I think of
it a little bit of like a closed circle mystery. You know,
you're inside of a mansion. Somebody in this in this
house is the killer, except we're in a we're an

(01:30:15):
army camp in the middle of the desert, right, artian environment.

Speaker 2 (01:30:18):
Right, you know, one of the things that I found interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
So I didn't serve in the military, but both my
parents did, and I lived on and around military basis
for most of my childhood and knew lots of military people.
And my recollection is that your dad served in the military,
Is that right?

Speaker 11 (01:30:34):
Yes, he was an infantry lieutenant in the Army. He
least he served the year of combat in Vietnam in
nineteen sixty eight, which was the worst year of the war.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
You know what funny, just just a little tangent. My
friend Jack Carr, who you might know, just set his
new novel in the Vietnam War in nineteen sixty eight,
because it was the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War.
So it's very interesting seeing that you mentioned that that's
that's when.

Speaker 7 (01:31:01):
You're actually, yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 10 (01:31:04):
Just started it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
Actually, it's fabulous. It's fabulous. I read it either right
before or right after your book. They're both great. So anyway, anyway,
what kind of jumped out at me. One of the
things that jumped out at me in The Ten Men
is the dialogue and the mindset of the.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
Army Rangers who are there. I thought that was really
interesting and well done.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Not that I'm an Army ranger and not that I
know for sure, but I thought it gave what seemed
to me like a very realistic reaction to a hypothetical
scenario where Army rangers are fighting intelligent machines.

Speaker 10 (01:31:46):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 11 (01:31:47):
It was a challenge because you're taking people who are
at the top of their game, at the top of
their their prowess in this elite unit, and you still
have to show them as being kind of ground down.

Speaker 10 (01:31:58):
So what does it take to to do that to
guys like that? So it was it was sort of
It was.

Speaker 11 (01:32:04):
It was interesting to to build them up and then
build up their adversary. So everything was at this like
at a heightened level of stakes and ultimately their vulnerabilities
are what makes them human. And I tried to I
tried to kind of get that across too. You know
that with our being human comes with strengths and it
comes with weaknesses, but they are all kind of what

(01:32:24):
we we value in ourselves. So I wanted to show
that there's this real psychological cost to what was happening
with them.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
We're talking with Alex Demil about his new thriller novel
called The Ten men uh Co, written with his dad,
Nelson de Mill, who passed away during the during the
writing of the book. There's a scene roughly in the
middle of the book where there's a conversation with one

(01:32:52):
of the with one of the robots and the robot.
The robot goes by the name Bucky because the robots
are kind of name for baseball players, and.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
It's a really interesting conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
I'm just gonna quote a little I'm gonna try to
explain to you what death is, said Morgan, because you
can't possibly understand it. Specialist Daniel Kemp was born twenty
years ago. You've only existed for a single year, give
or takes, so that amount of time might not be fathomable.
Fathomable to you. Twenty years ago, for instance, nightmares like
you were the subject of speculative fiction books and movies

(01:33:27):
about horror and fear and how we through technology might
lose our own humanity and struggle to regain it. Do
you understand any of what I'm saying? And I'll stop there.
The robot kind of sort of replies, But that's one
of those things that sounds a little bit to me
like like Alex de Mill speaking to me rather than
you know, this particular character in the book speaking to

(01:33:49):
a robot.

Speaker 10 (01:33:53):
Yeah, yeah, I can.

Speaker 11 (01:33:54):
I can definitely see that it is because because really
of the challenge of writing this book was we were
not writing a science fiction book, So what do we
know about what is real now? And how do we
kind of project, like five minutes in the future to
imagine where we might be tomorrow.

Speaker 10 (01:34:14):
So yeah, the twenty years the whole world has changed.

Speaker 7 (01:34:19):
Me.

Speaker 10 (01:34:19):
We've all experienced this in the last few years of
AI too.

Speaker 11 (01:34:22):
To me, it's been really disorienting how quickly AI has developed,
how quickly it's gone for me this fringe thing to
being a main source of conversation to being this thing
that we end up just using thoughtlessly every day of
our lives. You know, we don't mean to every time
you use Google unless you go out of your way
to turn it off as using aar So, yeah, it
was it was trying to You're right. I was having

(01:34:47):
my own kind of personal reaction to this stuff. And
then if you if you kind of create this robot,
you get to kind of interrogate your own your own
fears inside of your book, which is fun.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
Yeah, I mean, folks, The Ten Men, Uh, this is
gonna be a little bit not exactly accurate, but if
you imagine a combination of a murder mystery and I robot,
or a murder mystery and uh and a less futuristic
version of the Terminator or something like that, it's a
it's a wonderful combination. And that's why it's a book

(01:35:19):
you can't put down and just recently published so you
can go get it now. The Ten Men written by
Alex to Mill with his dad Nelson. Again, Alex, thank
thanks for your time, Thanks for another great book.

Speaker 2 (01:35:31):
And I'm really sorry about the loss of your dad.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
I just thought he was a wonderful guy and I
always loved my opportunity to talk with him, and uh
and and I'm really glad for you that you got
to finish the book in the way you described, because
it does seem to me and I don't want to,
you know, I'm I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not
your friend, but I feel like that must have been
its own way. Been been a wonderful way to honor

(01:35:58):
him by by finishing this and thinking about him as
you're doing it.

Speaker 10 (01:36:06):
I thank you, Ross. It was really good to talk
to you. And yes, absolutely that was It felt right.

Speaker 11 (01:36:10):
It's certainly what he would have wanted, and it felt
like a fitting, fitting tribute to him.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
Folks, go by and read the Ten Men. You'll love it.
Thanks Alex, good to see again.

Speaker 10 (01:36:19):
Thank you, good to see you too. Thanks for us.

Speaker 2 (01:36:22):
Okay, there you go. Really fun book, really really fun read.
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
We thought about five minutes left, and I want to
take these five minutes talk about the story. We started
the show with this ridiculously large scant. Two large scandals
that were announced in a big press conference by a
bunch of federal agencies. Not just the FBI, was there
also NYPD two separate gambling scandals, both involving NBA people.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
One was NBA players who were.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Taking themselves out of games or otherwise not performing up
to their ability for the specific purpose of allowing people
to bet on the under on prop bets. Right, this
player will have under some number of assists or under
this number of points, and then they would, you know,
in the third quarter, you know, tell the coach, oh,
I'm hurt, I got to come out, but he would

(01:37:18):
tell people in advance, I'm going to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
So they could go bet.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
And then the other scandal, and this one involves Chauncey Billups,
former Big time cu star, NBA Hall of Famer, NBA
coach as well. And what he did was lured people
into poker games that were being run by the mafia,
where the poker games were rigged with like shuffling machines

(01:37:45):
that could actually order the cards the way the mafia wanted,
hidden cameras, X ray poker tables.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
What x ray poker tables cards face down on the
table can see see oh my gosh, yeah, and contact lenses.
I mean Ocean's thirteen level stuff ross, Yeah, dammy Ocean.
Chauncey Billups, what in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
So all this stuff was announced this morning. A Rod
and I said at the beginning of the show when
we talked about it, or, I said, and A Rod
did not disagree that I thought the players and involved
and Chauncey Billups, I thought they would be out within
an hour, and I bet you they were out within
an hour, although the press release took two hours. But

(01:38:29):
a Rod got it. So they're all suspended for now.
But a Rod found something that Chauncey Billups said at
his press conference yesterday.

Speaker 5 (01:38:41):
I Chauncey Billups in the postgame press or yesterday was
asked about pressure, and he essentially said, I'm gonna let
the chips fall. I let the chips fall where they may.
You know that about me talk with Mandy, I'm gonna
get you that cut hanger.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
Oh my gosh, Johnny Chancey Billups talking about chips, did
you follow this story this morning?

Speaker 12 (01:39:04):
Yeah, we're trying to get somebody now from ABC a
little bit later in the show to give us some
more details.

Speaker 13 (01:39:09):
But you know, this is one of those.

Speaker 12 (01:39:10):
Things when sports betting started rising so dramatically.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
Yeah, I said to someone.

Speaker 12 (01:39:15):
A few years ago, I was like, you know what
we're We're only a few years away from some massive
betting scandal that's going to involve athletes, because we've normalized
gambling at a level now where I think it's easy
for a lot of people to justify it as like, oh,
it's no big deal, even though you're in the league.
You know, it's just it's a messy situation. And I

(01:39:37):
don't think and I'm not blaming sports gambling. This isn't
even about sports betting, right, This is not poker.

Speaker 13 (01:39:42):
But I do think the.

Speaker 12 (01:39:43):
Gambling probably brings in strange bedfellows.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
And the other scandal is about gambling, right. The other
scandal was about a guy claiming he was injured and
then he had people bet the under on how many
assists he.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
Would get it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
So there were two separate scandals. I think there's only
one person involved with both of them.

Speaker 5 (01:39:58):
Well, play the audio for us A Rod Chauncey Phillips
post game last night.

Speaker 7 (01:40:03):
You know, I don't, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:40:04):
That pressure thing is nothing to me, man.

Speaker 10 (01:40:07):
I'll do the best I can and let the chips fall.

Speaker 7 (01:40:09):
What they may? You know that about me? Button now?

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
Quick?

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Oh my gosh, unfortunate, very unfortunate choice.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
Yeah, what you got coming up? Mandy.

Speaker 13 (01:40:17):
Oh, I don't know. No, I'm just kidding. I got
I got you. Did you know that there's a haunted
car wash in the area.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
No, oh yeah, We've.

Speaker 12 (01:40:25):
Got the owner of that harnted car wash coming up today.
If you want to go get your car scared.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
Yeah, here's what I want to do.

Speaker 13 (01:40:31):
They hand dry. Does the mummy show up and just
spin around.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
And do the cars. It's a legitimate question whether you
get a really good car wash.

Speaker 13 (01:40:37):
You'll find that out today.

Speaker 2 (01:40:39):
That's a funny.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
Topic for you because I heard you talking the other
day about how you don't.

Speaker 13 (01:40:42):
Like d not like it. Not, I'm not going to
get my car washed.

Speaker 10 (01:40:45):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
She has a producer that injects all the helines into
the huh.

Speaker 12 (01:40:48):
He forces me, uh huh. He pushes on those parts
of me that I don't like to.

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
Acknowledge challenge her. Yeah, there you go, very there you go.

Speaker 12 (01:40:54):
I'm trying to think of what else we have on
the show today. I promise you it's gonna be good.

Speaker 2 (01:40:57):
I promise it will be to everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
Stick around or Mandy's Fabulous Show, have a wonderful rest
of your Thursday, my favorite day of the week, and
I'll talk to you tomorrow.