October 29, 2025 ⢠29 mins
This week, Gary and Shannon dive into the controversy over a Los Angeles public official landing a $2-million golden parachuteâwithout ever having to take the jump. Then, we take a spooky turn as we explore L.A.âs most epic family-run haunted houseâa Van Nuys institution that might just outshine the big-budget attractions. Plus, we go behind the music with Tom Freston, MTV co-founder and author of Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. He joins the show to talk about the golden age of MTV, his âLike Kubalâ essay from Vulture, and the untold stories that shaped pop culture.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Gary and Shannon K Well, we
were talking about your youth earlier live everywhere on the
Iheard Radio. Amy King has a great bear story. Woman
(00:21):
in Lochrasanta.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Amy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
She she went to pick up her daughter at school
on Monday. They got home, pulled into the driveway and
went into the house and about five minutes later she said,
why is somebody honking my horn? And went outside and
there was a bear in her car. And then there's
video of the bear opening the car door, climbing in.
He tore the crap out of the interior and stole
(00:46):
some pop tarts.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Do we know what kind pop tarts in their car?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Do we know what kind of who doesn't what kind
of pop parts?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I do not have a flavor sugar? Oh really?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I think that they should be the cherry with the
white and the sprinkles. I think if the bear went
after it, it would want a fruity one.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I don't think it want a chocolate one because it's
kind of already chocolate.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Is the bear Ken Champa. Now he's afraid of brown
sugar and the maple flavors.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
And yes, the bear is Ken Shampeau.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Gary, proud of you going to the smart school. Thank
you for the kids. That's great. And also love the
story about the cake when your neighbor made you a cake.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
That was neat also, But a lot of the stories
involved adults taking you places. Oh, you're right, being alone
with you when you were a kid.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh my god, you're so right.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I didn't even think about that. Now I think about
you and Jimmy alone in that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Car with wh who knows who?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Stevens Steven with his mother, his mom, Yeah, huh, just
alone in the car.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Did you hear that there was a group of us
that went over there? No, no, he was one of
my friends that was in the class with me. And
it was a class. What kind of class? What kind
of what did.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
They teach you at school? Room? A smart school?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
See, now I'm worried that it was some sort of
underground bunker where they took the you know that go
along to get along kids?
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Hey, Gary and Shannon and Pedro loving your show and
laughing as them cranking away at work.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Good for you. Recee's Monkeys.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Remember that book Summer of the Monkeys that we had
to read in grade school back in the day, Jay
Berry Lee and he wanted to get a rifle and
a pony, but his sister Daisy had a crippled leg,
and he caught some escape monkeys that got off the
train that crashed. And anyway, it's a great book. And
I'm just laughing because it reminded me of that.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
They didn't take care I Love You by I Love You.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
They didn't have that at Smart School. Gary would just
play doctor with Steven's mom. They didn't have any books
there in that room. It was just what no I
felt bad about Steven's mom. Knoctor, get it. Oh, I
know what you're saying. Yeah, I do get it. Yeah,
that's not a hard it's.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Not a hard lead. Tomorrow we're going to be live. Yeah,
tomorrow you to see all that in person.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
DJ's Restaurant in brue House in West Covina will be
out there doing the show from nine until one, So
come on out and.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Get an early start, an early early start on your weekend.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Okay, this story is shocking, but not shocking, and it's
shocking that it's not shocking.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's like, yes, this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
This happened in La County, But of course it happened
in La County, and that's why it's so sad that
it's not going to be a head scratcher. There is
a woman who received a two million dollar payout from
La County and then kept doing the job that she
was doing to the tune of she like.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
A paper pusher somewhere in the department of something.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Something's no.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
She's a chief executive officer of the county of the
county got it and she was making already eight hundred
and sixty two thousand dollars a year, eight hundred and
sixty two thousand dollars a year, and then got this
two million dollar payout on top of that and kept working,
kept earning that salary. Now. LA County Supervisors was very
(04:21):
quiet about this over the summer when they offered this
whopping payment to the CEO.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Her name is Facia. Is it facia?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Our FISHA fait facio is pretty facial, Davenport, They're not.
There's facial Davenport. Will go with Davenport concealed and conceded.
Excuse me, even in a private letter over the summer
that the two million dollar check was unprecedented but fair
because she contended that the five elected bosses on the
(04:52):
Board of Supervisors wronged her in an unprecedented way.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Right because the What of Supervisors had put on a
ballot last November a new position of elected County Chief Executive,
which would replace her appointed County Chief Executive.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Did anyone directly bad mouth say we got to get
this woman out of there and elect somebody. Say she's
got no business being there. No, say she's awful at
her job.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Nope. No.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
She said that the measure implied the county would be
better off with an elected CEO, and that that inference
damaged her reputation.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Now, this was case in point of the county being
lazy and throwing around your money because they don't care
about it because it's yours. This settlement agreement was approved
behind closed doors. It was only uncovered through a records
request by last an expert observer of the county and
(05:57):
its governance.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Somebody who deals with the weis.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
When it comes to county politics and the way the
books are balanced and worked with, said this is crazy.
The person said, I can't believe that it's that easy
for the County of La to write a two million
dollar check to an employee and for them to stay.
It doesn't make any sense. And listen the position itself.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I don't think when we were living and working in Seattle,
King County had a King County Executive and it's basically
a mayor of the county. It's an executive office to
kind of work alongside, coequal supposedly with the legislative branch
of the county government, which would be the Board of Supervisorship.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
This position has existed as long as I've covered La
County Board of Supervisors, so past twenty years, they've had
a CEO.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Right, but there's been but it's been appointed by by
the rest of the supervisors, and in this case, they
wanted to change that into the elected position. So okay,
all right, if this woman is capable, if she's.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You work hard.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
If you're in charge of the county's finances, and the
boobs that run the county cut you a two million
dollar check because your feelings.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Are hurt you and don't force you to leave.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You turn it down because you're in charge of the
books for La County and you know it could go
to a million other better things. You have no business
getting eight hundred and sixty two thousand dollars a year
for your job to pay attention to the numbers for
LA County and then demand this two million dollar payout
because your feelings were hurt and continue in that eight
(07:37):
hundred and sixty two thousand dollars a year job.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That makes you not fit for your role. Period. End
of story.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Now let's also point out one of the complaints she
said was that she would suffer a reduction in her
retirement payments if she can't stay in her post past
the twenty twenty eight start date of what would be
the elected position. She has said, at least not publicly,
she hasn't expressed any interest in running for it. She
went on medical leave earlier this month. Oh what a surprise,
(08:09):
undisclosed reason. Yeah, medical leave. What a racket that's become.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
People taking a year off or whatever and getting paid
because they feel uncomfortable at work.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It is such a racket. I mean, I know countless people.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
At least four people, let me strike myself, there at
least four people I've heard of that work in media
that have taken this vague medical leave because they were
worried about being fired and decided that they would like
to take the medical leave. So at least they're paid
for another year and then they get to come back,
(08:47):
and then the firing ball gets to get rolling, so
you get that year plus another like six months or whatever.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Part of me thinks, well, you're a fool for not
doing that if it's available. But part of me thinks,
how do you live with yourself in your character for
doing something like that?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
People?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
I don't know. I don't know how people do that.
I'm happy to work alongside someone who says that they
would never do that.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I would never do that.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
You do the double birds on the way out, Yes,
one for you and one for you right.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Furthermore, it's like if you don't if someplace doesn't want you.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Leave, Yeah, it does you no good.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It does you no good to be somewhere where you're
not wanted anyway. Not healthy, even if you're on a
year medical not healthy exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Gary Shannon will continue.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Forty Tomorrow, of course, live at BJ's Restaurant and Brue
House in West Covina.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
We'd love it if you would come on out and say, Hi.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Have you thought about which underwear you're gonna wear? For
your actual underwear?
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I have not put any thought into it. Oh should
I go light or dark?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Dark is art safer?
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I don't think light happens, you know what to make like,
I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow because I've promised
I'll go dark. I'd go dark. It contrasts with the
skin tones. Yeah, and it's pretty dark in there.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
No one's gonna No one's trying to go out to
West Covina to see you in cream colored boxers.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
But you keep pushing it like they do, like they
do want to see that, And that's not a thing
that anybody wants to see.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
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Speaker 2 (11:04):
Tony Braxton, wow at all?
Speaker 6 (11:10):
Oh wow?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
What is she doing with her skin?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
That keyword is money once again, it goes on the website.
Keep an eye on your email in box. Winners are
notified via email and if you don't win this hour,
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Speaker 1 (11:26):
I always loved her shoulders. I remember this music video
and she's wearing this like black vest. I want to say,
it's like nineteen ninety three, and.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
That's thirty two years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
She's only fifty eight. She looked great, she looks incredible.
But I remember, and she did this thing with her
shoulders and I was like, man, I love those shoulders.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Foul filth and filthinfoul. All right.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So did you ever have any homes growing up that
that decorated. I remember there was one right off the
one oh one in like Morinwood area that would always
dress itself up. The house would dress itself up for
Christmas and you could see it from the one oh
one to look over and see, oh there's the Christmas house.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
But in my neighborhood I live now, Halloween is a
big to do.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I mean people go all out with the mass of
spiders crawling out of the windows and there's a pirate
ship in one lawn area. It's just there's a street
near me that shuts down on a Halloween only pedestrians
and every home just goes. I mean these places must
(12:35):
spend thousands and thousands of dollars.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
We had one.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
We had a high school friend whose family lived in
a huge old Victorian home.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Cool, I mean historic monument.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
It was beautiful and they would go just absolutely nuts
at Halloween. We would always come over, like starting freshman year,
this circle of friends, we'd all come together the week
before and help them build, help her parents build all
of the stuff and hang the mannequins out of the tree.
And it was always gruesome and gory and yeah, loved it.
(13:08):
Had they had a staircase actually that was used in
a Coca Cola commercial at one point, and before they
had before Coke came in and built a new staircase.
It was an open staircase so you could you could
sit underneath it and put your hand out. There were
no risers. Yeah is that the right, Yeah, I think
it's risers. You could reach out and grab someone's feet
(13:28):
as they walk up to the front.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Terrifying. It was great. It was a lot of fun.
That is terrifying.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Well, there is one in Van Eyes that gets a
lot of attention, the Terrace Halloween House there and wow,
they go they definitely go out. It's become one of
the more well known home haunts of the San Fernando Valley.
A Burbank apparently does it big when it comes to
(13:56):
Halloween displays.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Conway lives in Burbank. Do you think he dresses the
house up? I don't know. I do not know.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
To enter the Halloween House and Van Eyes, the Hea
Terrace Halloween House is to walk through a small cemetery
before encountering a winding array.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Of thematic spaces.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
A skeleton seated at a decrepit vintage piano gives way
to a rickety bridge, a smooshy swampland a doll laden
tea temple. Dolls are so creepy a chapel in exorcism room.
The displays are so massive that when the facades for
(14:37):
the bridge and the mini church started taking shape.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
The city inspector came out, Oh, what a fun sponge
that guy.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Well, it was a neighbor that complain the family was
building an unsanctioned.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
ADYU Hi, I'm a member of the hall. With your neighbor,
we don't talk about our neighbor.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I better not have a neighbor that phones me in
for anything, because.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
That's not going to go. Well, it has not come
up again.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I'll just say that, like, that's ridiculous, it's incredibly ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I'll just tell the story briefly.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Gary had some construction going on his house at about, oh,
I don't know, nine thirty am on a Saturday, and
somebody complained, well it's a Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
No.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
No, Not only did that, they lied about when the construct.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
They lied and said it was before eight am. They
phoned it in and there was an apology from your
house that preempted all of that to say, hey, just
so you know, we have construction people out and they
were like, well it.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Is a Saturday.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Like what, yeah, a Saturday at nine thirty am and
you can't better your home.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Well, and the thing is I could prove through my
doorbell camera. What time they didn't even come to the house. Yeah,
until just before nine o'clock.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
So anyway, the people that call that stuff in for
like a minor inconvenience and then they they they'll go
through the effort of googling the city inspector or the county.
They they've got so many more problems on their hands
than that, right, I mean, you've got to be unhappy with.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I would love to know what their to do list
was every day, Just what you're to do, look over
the fence, peek through other people's mail, shake my fist
at the sky.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Could you imagine complaining about somebody putting up a haunted
house display for the children?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
For the children?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Totally imagine that people suck some of them, some are
lovely and Tony Braxton's shoulders.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
By the end of the day today, I'm going to
have you thinking more Tony Braxton's shoulders and less impotent
dodgers offense.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I know, I know, I know. Let's lean into the
fun things. I am, I am, I'm changing my eye.
You're now looking at pictures of Tony braxt little bit
I was a little bit, will continue.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It feels like freedom. Today is parahelium day.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh, I think you were misspelling parahelium when you were
looking it up.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Parahelian is the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid,
or comet at which it is closest to the Sun.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
How do I it's not or you're absolutely right now?
Did you did you know this word previously or did you.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Just flow out of you or no?
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I think I learned it yesterday or last week we
were talking about three I at list great word, the
day of parahelian.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Parahelians today. As a matter of fact, one's.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
As close to the Sun today as it's ever going
to get unless it changes direction.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Well that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I mean it appeared to be a pilot at this
comet I e. An alien craft.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
The President is in South Korea. He and South Korean
leaders announced a broad trade deal. Both countries have said
that they will reduce reciprocal tariffs from twenty five percent
down to fifteen percent, but South three is also going
to invest about three hundred and fifty billion dollars in
the United States. President Trump said, this is a pretty
(18:15):
much finalized, pretty much finalized deal, but he didn't get
into the specifics about all of it.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
The man who was one of the founding members of
the team that created MTV in nineteen eighty one has
done a long winded article about his experience. He was
the head of marketing. He worked on the I Want
My MTV ad campaign. He was president and CEO for
(18:41):
seventeen years of MTV Networks.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He had come from a career in advertising apparently was
working in a textile business clothing business basically, and was
living and working in New Delhi, India and Cobble, Afghanistan
when he just before he came to MTV and in fact,
in this article that he writes out writes for Vulture,
(19:06):
he said, in the eighties, MTV was a lot like Cobble,
an exotic new place with a crazy cast of wild
characters and few rules. And for those of us who
grew up on MTV, this is exactly what we wanted
it to be like. This is exactly what we assumed
it was like. Because ESPN has a culture. For example,
(19:31):
they used to run a series of commercials where just
random sports stars would be walking around the same studios
and offices of ESPN and the mascots that you would
see the anchors for Sports Center or whatever. You know,
there'd be a parking a parking lot problem where someone's
f one car couldn't go over the speed bumps, or
(19:52):
the mister Met mascot had a problem with the water
cooler or.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Something like that.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
That's what we want to believe goes on in those
back offices. And this is this story detailing the absolute
debauchery that took place in MTV in the early eighties
is exactly the way we wanted it to be, I think.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
He writes. Everyone wanted to be on MTV.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Labels and artists lobby to get their videos in heavy rotation.
We would catapult nobody's to start them in weeks. There
was a lot of power to wield, and power doesn't
always bring out the best in people. We would refresh
and reinvent MTV every four to five years. That was
the goal, as one group aged out and a new
group replaced it. Advertisers pay a higher premium to reach
(20:39):
young people. The thinking is hook them on PEPSI or
forward early on, and you've got a customer for life.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And MTV had a direct line to these young people.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
It's an unbelievable dissection of I don't even want to
say it's them taking advantage of the culture and the time,
but they one hundred percent took advantage of the culture
and the time. You have to because they had this
new theory of how people were going to enjoy music.
(21:12):
I mean, radio in the sixties, seventies, in the early
eighties was absolutely one of the most powerful things we
had ever seen, and they took that. They took that
radio model and put it on television, where back in
the day, obviously they had the personalities that were their VJs,
they had the music, but they had it in the
(21:33):
form of these videos that you gave us all the
I don't know, this new idea of attaching visuals to
the songs that we had learned and loved.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It was lightning in a bottle. And as he writes,
the party really kicked into gear when Bob Pittman made
former radio DJ and label executive Les Garland the head
of programming. Less was the one who got Mick Jagger
to scream, I want my MTV.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So referred to himself in the third person. Less. Yes,
he called himself the gar Man. Do you have a
nickname for yourself? Yes, it's Phonsie. But that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I'm sorry, I can't believe I forgot your nickname was Phonsie.
But we'll get into more of this behind the scenes
of MTV because it's fun.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
It's exactly what you would expect.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
But we'll use bright colors to fill in all the
blanks for you.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Do you see what the word of the year from
dictionary dot com is? Goober gazorp?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
What six seven? Is it really?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Is it really?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
That's many words. I mean, it's more than one word.
Not to be a stickler. Sorry, I thought perihelium was
going to be the word. It's my word of the ear.
Producer Richie was was just a we were talking about.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Did we watch MTV as kids? Yeah, it was on
all the time. In my house.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
We weren't allowed to watch it, so I'd have to
watch it when my parents weren't home. And then if
the car pulls into the driveway or the truck pulls
in there, I had to quickly get up and change
the channel real quick, and Richie said, yes, on the
remote controls, you could do the back and it would
go straight back to whatever channel you were watching. So
you had to throw them off by changing the channel
multiple times in case they picked up the remote get back.
(23:25):
That's next level. Which is funny because my remote didn't
have any of that. I didn't have a remote. I
had that stupid thing that sat on the top of
your TV and had that little slider that went back
and forth.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I can't relate.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I feel bad that you weren't exposed to MTV the
way the rest of us were.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Well, I mean I still watched it, it's just you
actually had a.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Little Stephen's mom was really the only She was the
only one who would let me watch closure that you had.
Wait a minute, So we're talking about behind the scenes
at MTV.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
A guy named Tom Freston was one of the early
big guys at MTV in the eighties, and he wrote
a piece for Vulture that described MTV as similar to
Cobble Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Label executive Les Garland is a major character in this
named the head of programming.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And what's his name? Who wrote the skins?
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Tom says, Tom by the way, he was about eighty
years old now, But he says, at the time Les
Garland looked about this, looked about my age. But to
this day I don't think his date of birth ever
was revealed. He was an effervescent, good looking guy with stylish,
curly brown hair. Confident. He was the king of cool,
and in many ways he was. He arrived with deep
(24:50):
music business relationships, full of war stories from the rock
and rolled trenches of the seventies. He was like David
Lee Roth in an Armani suit, amid towering speakers, gold
records and stacks of videotapes, overflowing ash trays and a
bar stock with tequila lineup of squat green dom Perignon
(25:11):
bottles sent over by the labels. It was the Less
Garland show. Every time a big ad sale landed, he
rang a huge bell. Grizzled labor promotion men in satin
jackets and facial hair would slink in and slink out,
usually laughing. Rod Stewart would drop by to place newest tracks,
(25:31):
and when female artists came calling, the staff would vacate.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Oh and then he says.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
The gear man or the gar man would fornicate with
a lucky few. If you're of the age where you're
using the word fornicate, I don't want you talking about sex.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I'm sure you have stories. I don't want to hear them.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
He would say that people in the MTV offices worked
in flip flops and bathing suits. Some of them slept
in the offices. Exotic dancers would be sent over by
the music labels. Bands would be there all the time.
Lemmy from Motorhead might walk by with a bottle of tequila.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Tequila.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Girls in short shorts and cowboy hats would always be circulating.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
What a vibe?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Hey, guys, it wouldn't be nice to have the guys
around here dress up in short shorts and parade around
with tequila shots today.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Tomorrow, Okay, where's Oh he's twerking. Well, it's got some moves.
You would too.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
You would too if you had that body. Easy, they said.
When MTV started, I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
This, this is what happens when you don't let your
kids have MTV.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
When they started, it was still uh, it wasn't an
immediate success that they would basically play any video that
was produced for them. But when it started showing that
the music videos were driving the music industry as much
as radio was. They were getting instead of four or
five new videos a week, they get fifty or sixty.
(27:07):
The big acts that didn't believe in MTV right away,
guys like Bruce Springsteen, they joined in ZZ Top that
had been around for a decade and a half, started
re engineering how they were going to present themselves because
they knew there was now a visual component to everything
that they had to do. There was also something what
I thought was interesting that there was a push. One
(27:31):
of the criticisms early on was MTV was not playing
music made by black artists, and they quickly, I don't
know about quickly, but they did ameliorate that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
One of the ways they did that was by.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Mainstreaming rap music as it was getting underway with the
Loo MTV raps with Fat five Freddy. Remember the original
Doctor Dre, I mean Dre with an accent over the e.
Not this Doctor Dre that everybody knows of, but the
original guy. That's a whole nother thing. He was a
former MTVVJ born in Long Island as opposed to out
(28:06):
here in LA They said.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
The wall was finally knocked down by Michael Jackson's Thriller.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
CBS Records chief Walter.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yetnikoff always claimed that he forced MTV to play Michael
Jackson by saying that if we did not, he would
pull all Columbia and Epic videos from the channel. He writes,
it's a good story, but I've never found anyone who
worked at MTV who had any idea what this guy
was talking about. Billy Jean was a smash from day one.
We wanted that video on our channel beat. It was
(28:36):
even better by the time the video for Thriller came out.
Michael and MTV were in a mutually beneficial relationship. They
played his thirteen minute mini movie on the hour every hour.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I remember that. I totally remember that. Yeah, and it
was terrifying.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It was so scary when all the zombies would come
out and the choreo.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I mean, who doesn't know the choreo? I don't don't.
I never learned it.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I mean I would recognize it if you got up
and started doing it, you know, the.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Choreo from Janet Jackson. If though, right, that sounds like
you don't know what that is? You know, thunderstruck, right,
DCC sure, okay, thank god?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
All right?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Coming up next Swamp Watch all the news out of
Washington when we come back to Gary and Shannon.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Gary and Shannon K Well, we
were talking about your youth earlier live everywhere on the
Iheard Radio. Amy King has a great bear story. Woman
(00:21):
in Lochrasanta.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Amy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
She she went to pick up her daughter at school
on Monday. They got home, pulled into the driveway and
went into the house and about five minutes later she said,
why is somebody honking my horn? And went outside and
there was a bear in her car. And then there's
video of the bear opening the car door, climbing in.
He tore the crap out of the interior and stole
(00:46):
some pop tarts.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Do we know what kind pop tarts in their car?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Do we know what kind of who doesn't what kind
of pop parts?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I do not have a flavor sugar? Oh really?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I think that they should be the cherry with the
white and the sprinkles. I think if the bear went
after it, it would want a fruity one.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I don't think it want a chocolate one because it's
kind of already chocolate.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Is the bear Ken Champa. Now he's afraid of brown
sugar and the maple flavors.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
And yes, the bear is Ken Shampeau.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Gary, proud of you going to the smart school. Thank
you for the kids. That's great. And also love the
story about the cake when your neighbor made you a cake.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
That was neat also, But a lot of the stories
involved adults taking you places. Oh, you're right, being alone
with you when you were a kid.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh my god, you're so right.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I didn't even think about that. Now I think about
you and Jimmy alone in that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Car with wh who knows who?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Stevens Steven with his mother, his mom, Yeah, huh, just
alone in the car.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Did you hear that there was a group of us
that went over there? No, no, he was one of
my friends that was in the class with me. And
it was a class. What kind of class? What kind
of what did.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
They teach you at school? Room? A smart school?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
See, now I'm worried that it was some sort of
underground bunker where they took the you know that go
along to get along kids?
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Hey, Gary and Shannon and Pedro loving your show and
laughing as them cranking away at work.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Good for you. Recee's Monkeys.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Remember that book Summer of the Monkeys that we had
to read in grade school back in the day, Jay
Berry Lee and he wanted to get a rifle and
a pony, but his sister Daisy had a crippled leg,
and he caught some escape monkeys that got off the
train that crashed. And anyway, it's a great book. And
I'm just laughing because it reminded me of that.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
They didn't take care I Love You by I Love You.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
They didn't have that at Smart School. Gary would just
play doctor with Steven's mom. They didn't have any books
there in that room. It was just what no I
felt bad about Steven's mom. Knoctor, get it. Oh, I
know what you're saying. Yeah, I do get it. Yeah,
that's not a hard it's.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Not a hard lead. Tomorrow we're going to be live. Yeah,
tomorrow you to see all that in person.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
DJ's Restaurant in brue House in West Covina will be
out there doing the show from nine until one, So
come on out and.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Get an early start, an early early start on your weekend.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Okay, this story is shocking, but not shocking, and it's
shocking that it's not shocking.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's like, yes, this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
This happened in La County, But of course it happened
in La County, and that's why it's so sad that
it's not going to be a head scratcher. There is
a woman who received a two million dollar payout from
La County and then kept doing the job that she
was doing to the tune of she like.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
A paper pusher somewhere in the department of something.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Something's no.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
She's a chief executive officer of the county of the
county got it and she was making already eight hundred
and sixty two thousand dollars a year, eight hundred and
sixty two thousand dollars a year, and then got this
two million dollar payout on top of that and kept working,
kept earning that salary. Now. LA County Supervisors was very
(04:21):
quiet about this over the summer when they offered this
whopping payment to the CEO.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Her name is Facia. Is it facia?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Our FISHA fait facio is pretty facial, Davenport, They're not.
There's facial Davenport. Will go with Davenport concealed and conceded.
Excuse me, even in a private letter over the summer
that the two million dollar check was unprecedented but fair
because she contended that the five elected bosses on the
(04:52):
Board of Supervisors wronged her in an unprecedented way.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Right because the What of Supervisors had put on a
ballot last November a new position of elected County Chief Executive,
which would replace her appointed County Chief Executive.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Did anyone directly bad mouth say we got to get
this woman out of there and elect somebody. Say she's
got no business being there. No, say she's awful at
her job.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Nope. No.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
She said that the measure implied the county would be
better off with an elected CEO, and that that inference
damaged her reputation.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Now, this was case in point of the county being
lazy and throwing around your money because they don't care
about it because it's yours. This settlement agreement was approved
behind closed doors. It was only uncovered through a records
request by last an expert observer of the county and
(05:57):
its governance.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Somebody who deals with the weis.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
When it comes to county politics and the way the
books are balanced and worked with, said this is crazy.
The person said, I can't believe that it's that easy
for the County of La to write a two million
dollar check to an employee and for them to stay.
It doesn't make any sense. And listen the position itself.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I don't think when we were living and working in Seattle,
King County had a King County Executive and it's basically
a mayor of the county. It's an executive office to
kind of work alongside, coequal supposedly with the legislative branch
of the county government, which would be the Board of Supervisorship.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
This position has existed as long as I've covered La
County Board of Supervisors, so past twenty years, they've had
a CEO.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Right, but there's been but it's been appointed by by
the rest of the supervisors, and in this case, they
wanted to change that into the elected position. So okay,
all right, if this woman is capable, if she's.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You work hard.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
If you're in charge of the county's finances, and the
boobs that run the county cut you a two million
dollar check because your feelings.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Are hurt you and don't force you to leave.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You turn it down because you're in charge of the
books for La County and you know it could go
to a million other better things. You have no business
getting eight hundred and sixty two thousand dollars a year
for your job to pay attention to the numbers for
LA County and then demand this two million dollar payout
because your feelings were hurt and continue in that eight
(07:37):
hundred and sixty two thousand dollars a year job.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That makes you not fit for your role. Period. End
of story.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Now let's also point out one of the complaints she
said was that she would suffer a reduction in her
retirement payments if she can't stay in her post past
the twenty twenty eight start date of what would be
the elected position. She has said, at least not publicly,
she hasn't expressed any interest in running for it. She
went on medical leave earlier this month. Oh what a surprise,
(08:09):
undisclosed reason. Yeah, medical leave. What a racket that's become.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
People taking a year off or whatever and getting paid
because they feel uncomfortable at work.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It is such a racket. I mean, I know countless people.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
At least four people, let me strike myself, there at
least four people I've heard of that work in media
that have taken this vague medical leave because they were
worried about being fired and decided that they would like
to take the medical leave. So at least they're paid
for another year and then they get to come back,
(08:47):
and then the firing ball gets to get rolling, so
you get that year plus another like six months or whatever.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Part of me thinks, well, you're a fool for not
doing that if it's available. But part of me thinks,
how do you live with yourself in your character for
doing something like that?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
People?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
I don't know. I don't know how people do that.
I'm happy to work alongside someone who says that they
would never do that.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I would never do that.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
You do the double birds on the way out, Yes,
one for you and one for you right.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Furthermore, it's like if you don't if someplace doesn't want you.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Leave, Yeah, it does you no good.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It does you no good to be somewhere where you're
not wanted anyway. Not healthy, even if you're on a
year medical not healthy exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Gary Shannon will continue.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Forty Tomorrow, of course, live at BJ's Restaurant and Brue
House in West Covina.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
We'd love it if you would come on out and say, Hi.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Have you thought about which underwear you're gonna wear? For
your actual underwear?
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I have not put any thought into it. Oh should
I go light or dark?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Dark is art safer?
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I don't think light happens, you know what to make like,
I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow because I've promised
I'll go dark. I'd go dark. It contrasts with the
skin tones. Yeah, and it's pretty dark in there.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
No one's gonna No one's trying to go out to
West Covina to see you in cream colored boxers.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
But you keep pushing it like they do, like they
do want to see that, And that's not a thing
that anybody wants to see.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
We have a chance for you to win one thousand dollars.
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Speaker 2 (11:04):
Tony Braxton, wow at all?
Speaker 6 (11:10):
Oh wow?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
What is she doing with her skin?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
That keyword is money once again, it goes on the website.
Keep an eye on your email in box. Winners are
notified via email and if you don't win this hour,
well there's another shot coming up next hour for you
to pick up one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I always loved her shoulders. I remember this music video
and she's wearing this like black vest. I want to say,
it's like nineteen ninety three, and.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
That's thirty two years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
She's only fifty eight. She looked great, she looks incredible.
But I remember, and she did this thing with her
shoulders and I was like, man, I love those shoulders.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Foul filth and filthinfoul. All right.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So did you ever have any homes growing up that
that decorated. I remember there was one right off the
one oh one in like Morinwood area that would always
dress itself up. The house would dress itself up for
Christmas and you could see it from the one oh
one to look over and see, oh there's the Christmas house.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
But in my neighborhood I live now, Halloween is a
big to do.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I mean people go all out with the mass of
spiders crawling out of the windows and there's a pirate
ship in one lawn area. It's just there's a street
near me that shuts down on a Halloween only pedestrians
and every home just goes. I mean these places must
(12:35):
spend thousands and thousands of dollars.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
We had one.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
We had a high school friend whose family lived in
a huge old Victorian home.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Cool, I mean historic monument.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
It was beautiful and they would go just absolutely nuts
at Halloween. We would always come over, like starting freshman year,
this circle of friends, we'd all come together the week
before and help them build, help her parents build all
of the stuff and hang the mannequins out of the tree.
And it was always gruesome and gory and yeah, loved it.
(13:08):
Had they had a staircase actually that was used in
a Coca Cola commercial at one point, and before they
had before Coke came in and built a new staircase.
It was an open staircase so you could you could
sit underneath it and put your hand out. There were
no risers. Yeah is that the right, Yeah, I think
it's risers. You could reach out and grab someone's feet
(13:28):
as they walk up to the front.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Terrifying. It was great. It was a lot of fun.
That is terrifying.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Well, there is one in Van Eyes that gets a
lot of attention, the Terrace Halloween House there and wow,
they go they definitely go out. It's become one of
the more well known home haunts of the San Fernando Valley.
A Burbank apparently does it big when it comes to
(13:56):
Halloween displays.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Conway lives in Burbank. Do you think he dresses the
house up? I don't know. I do not know.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
To enter the Halloween House and Van Eyes, the Hea
Terrace Halloween House is to walk through a small cemetery
before encountering a winding array.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Of thematic spaces.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
A skeleton seated at a decrepit vintage piano gives way
to a rickety bridge, a smooshy swampland a doll laden
tea temple. Dolls are so creepy a chapel in exorcism room.
The displays are so massive that when the facades for
(14:37):
the bridge and the mini church started taking shape.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
The city inspector came out, Oh, what a fun sponge
that guy.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Well, it was a neighbor that complain the family was
building an unsanctioned.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
ADYU Hi, I'm a member of the hall. With your neighbor,
we don't talk about our neighbor.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I better not have a neighbor that phones me in
for anything, because.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
That's not going to go. Well, it has not come
up again.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I'll just say that, like, that's ridiculous, it's incredibly ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I'll just tell the story briefly.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Gary had some construction going on his house at about, oh,
I don't know, nine thirty am on a Saturday, and
somebody complained, well it's a Saturday.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
No.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
No, Not only did that, they lied about when the construct.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
They lied and said it was before eight am. They
phoned it in and there was an apology from your
house that preempted all of that to say, hey, just
so you know, we have construction people out and they
were like, well it.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Is a Saturday.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Like what, yeah, a Saturday at nine thirty am and
you can't better your home.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Well, and the thing is I could prove through my
doorbell camera. What time they didn't even come to the house. Yeah,
until just before nine o'clock.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
So anyway, the people that call that stuff in for
like a minor inconvenience and then they they they'll go
through the effort of googling the city inspector or the county.
They they've got so many more problems on their hands
than that, right, I mean, you've got to be unhappy with.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I would love to know what their to do list
was every day, Just what you're to do, look over
the fence, peek through other people's mail, shake my fist
at the sky.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Could you imagine complaining about somebody putting up a haunted
house display for the children?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
For the children?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Totally imagine that people suck some of them, some are
lovely and Tony Braxton's shoulders.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
By the end of the day today, I'm going to
have you thinking more Tony Braxton's shoulders and less impotent
dodgers offense.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I know, I know, I know. Let's lean into the
fun things. I am, I am, I'm changing my eye.
You're now looking at pictures of Tony braxt little bit
I was a little bit, will continue.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It feels like freedom. Today is parahelium day.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh, I think you were misspelling parahelium when you were
looking it up.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Parahelian is the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid,
or comet at which it is closest to the Sun.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
How do I it's not or you're absolutely right now?
Did you did you know this word previously or did you.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Just flow out of you or no?
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I think I learned it yesterday or last week we
were talking about three I at list great word, the
day of parahelian.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Parahelians today. As a matter of fact, one's.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
As close to the Sun today as it's ever going
to get unless it changes direction.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Well that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I mean it appeared to be a pilot at this
comet I e. An alien craft.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
The President is in South Korea. He and South Korean
leaders announced a broad trade deal. Both countries have said
that they will reduce reciprocal tariffs from twenty five percent
down to fifteen percent, but South three is also going
to invest about three hundred and fifty billion dollars in
the United States. President Trump said, this is a pretty
(18:15):
much finalized, pretty much finalized deal, but he didn't get
into the specifics about all of it.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
The man who was one of the founding members of
the team that created MTV in nineteen eighty one has
done a long winded article about his experience. He was
the head of marketing. He worked on the I Want
My MTV ad campaign. He was president and CEO for
(18:41):
seventeen years of MTV Networks.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He had come from a career in advertising apparently was
working in a textile business clothing business basically, and was
living and working in New Delhi, India and Cobble, Afghanistan
when he just before he came to MTV and in fact,
in this article that he writes out writes for Vulture,
(19:06):
he said, in the eighties, MTV was a lot like Cobble,
an exotic new place with a crazy cast of wild
characters and few rules. And for those of us who
grew up on MTV, this is exactly what we wanted
it to be like. This is exactly what we assumed
it was like. Because ESPN has a culture. For example,
(19:31):
they used to run a series of commercials where just
random sports stars would be walking around the same studios
and offices of ESPN and the mascots that you would
see the anchors for Sports Center or whatever. You know,
there'd be a parking a parking lot problem where someone's
f one car couldn't go over the speed bumps, or
(19:52):
the mister Met mascot had a problem with the water
cooler or.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Something like that.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
That's what we want to believe goes on in those
back offices. And this is this story detailing the absolute
debauchery that took place in MTV in the early eighties
is exactly the way we wanted it to be, I think.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
He writes. Everyone wanted to be on MTV.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Labels and artists lobby to get their videos in heavy rotation.
We would catapult nobody's to start them in weeks. There
was a lot of power to wield, and power doesn't
always bring out the best in people. We would refresh
and reinvent MTV every four to five years. That was
the goal, as one group aged out and a new
group replaced it. Advertisers pay a higher premium to reach
(20:39):
young people. The thinking is hook them on PEPSI or
forward early on, and you've got a customer for life.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And MTV had a direct line to these young people.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
It's an unbelievable dissection of I don't even want to
say it's them taking advantage of the culture and the time,
but they one hundred percent took advantage of the culture
and the time. You have to because they had this
new theory of how people were going to enjoy music.
(21:12):
I mean, radio in the sixties, seventies, in the early
eighties was absolutely one of the most powerful things we
had ever seen, and they took that. They took that
radio model and put it on television, where back in
the day, obviously they had the personalities that were their VJs,
they had the music, but they had it in the
(21:33):
form of these videos that you gave us all the
I don't know, this new idea of attaching visuals to
the songs that we had learned and loved.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It was lightning in a bottle. And as he writes,
the party really kicked into gear when Bob Pittman made
former radio DJ and label executive Les Garland the head
of programming. Less was the one who got Mick Jagger
to scream, I want my MTV.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So referred to himself in the third person. Less. Yes,
he called himself the gar Man. Do you have a
nickname for yourself? Yes, it's Phonsie. But that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I'm sorry, I can't believe I forgot your nickname was Phonsie.
But we'll get into more of this behind the scenes
of MTV because it's fun.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
It's exactly what you would expect.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
But we'll use bright colors to fill in all the
blanks for you.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Do you see what the word of the year from
dictionary dot com is? Goober gazorp?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
What six seven? Is it really?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Is it really?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
That's many words. I mean, it's more than one word.
Not to be a stickler. Sorry, I thought perihelium was
going to be the word. It's my word of the ear.
Producer Richie was was just a we were talking about.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Did we watch MTV as kids? Yeah, it was on
all the time. In my house.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
We weren't allowed to watch it, so I'd have to
watch it when my parents weren't home. And then if
the car pulls into the driveway or the truck pulls
in there, I had to quickly get up and change
the channel real quick, and Richie said, yes, on the
remote controls, you could do the back and it would
go straight back to whatever channel you were watching. So
you had to throw them off by changing the channel
multiple times in case they picked up the remote get back.
(23:25):
That's next level. Which is funny because my remote didn't
have any of that. I didn't have a remote. I
had that stupid thing that sat on the top of
your TV and had that little slider that went back
and forth.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I can't relate.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I feel bad that you weren't exposed to MTV the
way the rest of us were.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Well, I mean I still watched it, it's just you
actually had a.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Little Stephen's mom was really the only She was the
only one who would let me watch closure that you had.
Wait a minute, So we're talking about behind the scenes
at MTV.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
A guy named Tom Freston was one of the early
big guys at MTV in the eighties, and he wrote
a piece for Vulture that described MTV as similar to
Cobble Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Label executive Les Garland is a major character in this
named the head of programming.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And what's his name? Who wrote the skins?
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Tom says, Tom by the way, he was about eighty
years old now, But he says, at the time Les
Garland looked about this, looked about my age. But to
this day I don't think his date of birth ever
was revealed. He was an effervescent, good looking guy with stylish,
curly brown hair. Confident. He was the king of cool,
and in many ways he was. He arrived with deep
(24:50):
music business relationships, full of war stories from the rock
and rolled trenches of the seventies. He was like David
Lee Roth in an Armani suit, amid towering speakers, gold
records and stacks of videotapes, overflowing ash trays and a
bar stock with tequila lineup of squat green dom Perignon
(25:11):
bottles sent over by the labels. It was the Less
Garland show. Every time a big ad sale landed, he
rang a huge bell. Grizzled labor promotion men in satin
jackets and facial hair would slink in and slink out,
usually laughing. Rod Stewart would drop by to place newest tracks,
(25:31):
and when female artists came calling, the staff would vacate.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Oh and then he says.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
The gear man or the gar man would fornicate with
a lucky few. If you're of the age where you're
using the word fornicate, I don't want you talking about sex.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I'm sure you have stories. I don't want to hear them.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
He would say that people in the MTV offices worked
in flip flops and bathing suits. Some of them slept
in the offices. Exotic dancers would be sent over by
the music labels. Bands would be there all the time.
Lemmy from Motorhead might walk by with a bottle of tequila.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Tequila.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Girls in short shorts and cowboy hats would always be circulating.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
What a vibe?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Hey, guys, it wouldn't be nice to have the guys
around here dress up in short shorts and parade around
with tequila shots today.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Tomorrow, Okay, where's Oh he's twerking. Well, it's got some moves.
You would too.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
You would too if you had that body. Easy, they said.
When MTV started, I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
This, this is what happens when you don't let your
kids have MTV.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
When they started, it was still uh, it wasn't an
immediate success that they would basically play any video that
was produced for them. But when it started showing that
the music videos were driving the music industry as much
as radio was. They were getting instead of four or
five new videos a week, they get fifty or sixty.
(27:07):
The big acts that didn't believe in MTV right away,
guys like Bruce Springsteen, they joined in ZZ Top that
had been around for a decade and a half, started
re engineering how they were going to present themselves because
they knew there was now a visual component to everything
that they had to do. There was also something what
I thought was interesting that there was a push. One
(27:31):
of the criticisms early on was MTV was not playing
music made by black artists, and they quickly, I don't
know about quickly, but they did ameliorate that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
One of the ways they did that was by.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Mainstreaming rap music as it was getting underway with the
Loo MTV raps with Fat five Freddy. Remember the original
Doctor Dre, I mean Dre with an accent over the e.
Not this Doctor Dre that everybody knows of, but the
original guy. That's a whole nother thing. He was a
former MTVVJ born in Long Island as opposed to out
(28:06):
here in LA They said.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
The wall was finally knocked down by Michael Jackson's Thriller.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
CBS Records chief Walter.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yetnikoff always claimed that he forced MTV to play Michael
Jackson by saying that if we did not, he would
pull all Columbia and Epic videos from the channel. He writes,
it's a good story, but I've never found anyone who
worked at MTV who had any idea what this guy
was talking about. Billy Jean was a smash from day one.
We wanted that video on our channel beat. It was
(28:36):
even better by the time the video for Thriller came out.
Michael and MTV were in a mutually beneficial relationship. They
played his thirteen minute mini movie on the hour every hour.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I remember that. I totally remember that. Yeah, and it
was terrifying.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It was so scary when all the zombies would come
out and the choreo.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I mean, who doesn't know the choreo? I don't don't.
I never learned it.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I mean I would recognize it if you got up
and started doing it, you know, the.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Choreo from Janet Jackson. If though, right, that sounds like
you don't know what that is? You know, thunderstruck, right,
DCC sure, okay, thank god?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
All right?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Coming up next Swamp Watch all the news out of
Washington when we come back to Gary and Shannon.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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