December 19, 2024 • 25 mins
LAUSD principles muscle up by joining the Teamsters. Inside Hollywood forever cemetery’s new high-rise mausoleum. The is the futures of cemeteries. An election draw decided by a straw. AI chatbots are becoming popular for therapy. What do mental health experts say?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listen Saints KFI AM six forty the Bill Handles
show on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six
forty Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning, December nineteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Amy, you just came in and was just announced about Bonnie.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Willis, Fannie Willis, Fanny Willis funny, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
The Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis has been disqualified
from prosecuting President elect Trump, which makes all the sense
in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
She hires a special prosecutor who's never had experience as
a prosecutor.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
She's stooping him.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And you know that isn't not by the way, that
is not a per se conflict. That is not on
its face of conflict. A DA can hire a special
prosecutor who he or she is stooping. Now not in
open court, that's not allowed. But the optics are so horrible,
(00:59):
and it was she should have.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Gone a long long time ago.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Now moving over to LA Unified School District, And as
you know, I went through LA Unified School District, started
in kindergarten, graduated high school. So I spent every moment
before I went to college at LA Unified and so
I always use LA Unified as sort of the poster
child of any conversation I have about school districts. Also,
(01:30):
LA Unified is one of the school districts that is.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Not good. Now everybody attacks them.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
However, to be fair, they teach LA Unified teaches and
I don't know, forty languages, an enormous number of migrants
that can come in, illegal migrants that come in because
they can't ask those kids English as the second language
is primarily that's probably the largest single English's second language
(02:02):
program in the country.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's easy to say. So here's what's happening.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Principals who work their asses off, and they really do.
They've said their workload is just too heavy and the
pressure to raise student achievement is just too much. Because
that's what's going on. So you know what they've done.
They've unionized. They've unionized, which I've never heard of. They're
(02:27):
now part of the Teamsters, which the thought of senior management.
Actually they're considered middle management in terms of administration and
school district. You know, it doesn't make any sense, Neil,
you were part of management when you were here.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yes, and interesting so that people like Chris Little and
me were dual because we were mad.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
We're also members of after. Yeah. But the point is, but.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I didn't go to the meetings. I didn't go to
meetings and I didn't talk to people about Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
But the point I'm making is the thought of management
being part of a union, and yeah, it's range.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It is strange. It just doesn't happen. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I remember our last contract negotiations and Amy Kno, I
don't know if you know this, and if you don't know,
this is I was asked to sit on the committee
on behalf of AFTER here at the at the building.
Because every radio group or even station, some are unions,
some are not union. And I was asked to because
(03:35):
I'm a lawyer. They didn't know how bad I was,
but I'm a lawyer, and they said, would you sit
on the committee? I said, you know, I got to
tell you I'm a business person too. Maybe you don't
want me to be on the committee. No, you're a
member of AFTRA and we want you to sit on
it and you can represent. And I said, here's the
(03:57):
problem you're going to have, right, you're at owe with management,
here's the union, and you're asking for more benefits, more
money management during the course of those discussions, say no,
it's like when I negotiate a contract three hundred and
sixty four days a year, I'm the most wonderful thing
at the station. I'm the best thing since sliced bread.
The day I negotiate my contract. Eh, you're not so good. Yeah,
(04:21):
you're pretty much replaceable. It's a horrible situation. So I
told and you know, the guy who was doing I
don't want to mention his name, who was the union
guy here? I said, here's the problem you're going to
have is that I'm going to sit down on our side,
your side of the table, and every time management comes
(04:42):
up with some statement, I'm going to look at you
and go, they're absolutely right, and I'm going to keep
on saying that over and over again.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Needless to say, I was not invited to sit on
great idea, sir. Yeah, once again, the fantastic guy. Yeah,
so something very unique.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
LA Unified School principles are now unionized, and they're saying
there's too much work, too much pressure, and they're right,
and the pressure to bring up scores, especially at LA Unified.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I mean it is difficult.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I mean, there's a what a fifty, there's a sixty
percent dropout rate because well, you've got people that are
coming over the border. Our tax system is such that
number one, you can't ask if someone is illegal or not.
By law, those kids have to go to school. They're
more difficult to teach by the very nature of who
(05:39):
they are. And Vietnamese kids who don't speak a word
of English and Chinese kids, and there's no other school
district in the country that has this kind of problem
and they're set to the same standards.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I going to tell you, if I were a school principal, no, no,
if I was a teacher, I'd quit because it's that difficult.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And in La Unified, it's more more difficult than anybody
else or any other school district. So on, behalf of
those of you here at the station who are members
of AFTRA, and that's most people on the air. Management
is absolutely right at every.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Point and handsome.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And you're right, yeah, all right. Now a story I
want to share with you. Oh this is I love
stories like this. Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It's really a unique
cemetery in Hollywood and was created in eighteen ninety nine.
It's been around for a while and the people who
are buried there, Rudolph Valentino, Judy Garland, Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil
(06:45):
b De Mill, Johnny Ramone. I mean it goes on
and on, Quincy Jones. I mean it is a very
famous cemetery and also was the first one to make
itself a park where people walk through and they have
film festivals and it's just they were the first ones
as cemetery to do an annual Dia de las mortes
(07:08):
where they exhume some Mexican people that are buried there
and celebrate diad les mortes and put them back in
the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It is a very unique cemetery.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, if you go there, there is a hundred foot tall,
five story mausoleum that is now on the west edge.
It's the Gower Court Mausoleum. It's opening up in January
and it's going to house thirteen thousand dead people in crypts,
(07:45):
niches for urns, family condos. Now, the guy who owns
it says, we're not going to build any more cemeteries
in la That's true, You're not gonna get any more.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
There's just simply not going to be there. So what
do they do?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And this is the wave of the future. If you
can't go out, you go up. Didn't Michelle Obama say that? Okay,
probably not. And so the cemetery still has land to
provide in ground burials, but it doesn't matter. The future
is clear. It is going up. When you think about
(08:25):
burial being buried in a cemetery, I mean, that's a
lot of space for you know, well, how much value
it is I don't know. I mean I have a plot.
Oh God, the amount of money that it costs is unbelievable.
And matter of fact, I think I'm going to sell it.
(08:45):
And there's a whole story there. But the point is
is that when you talk about going into a building
like this where your loved one is buried or cremated
and there's it just is I guess bigger connection is
what they're saying. I don't see it because you look
(09:10):
at a placard on the wall and there is your
loved one, or you look at a tombstone or a
placard on the ground there is your loved one.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
So I don't see it.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
But I'm told that there is a connection. Now, no
one in my family has scrips. Everybody that I am
related to who is dead, which is basically everybody. My parents,
my grandmother are all buried in one cemetery, which, by
the way, because my parents and my family are so cheap,
(09:46):
there are you know, it's location, location locations the cemeteries
and yeah, yeah, big time, and they were in the
cheap section. That's what they do. And this is really strange.
I love this. So the officials initially wanted this is
the city wanted to classify is housing house dead people?
(10:14):
So the cemetery says no, it is storage. And what
is the difference, Well, because if it is housing, you
have to provide toilets and kitchens, and dead people tend
not to use those facilities. Although it's kind of interesting
because right next to the crematorium part of it there's
(10:37):
a barbecue joint and I find that very very interesting
that they did that. I don't know who made that
a point, made that decision, and so you have that issue,
and so storage is what they got. Engineering construction, it
was impossible because the entire building is a vertical mass,
(10:58):
a cantilever that the parts of it stick out twenty
feet straight out at seismic stability, internal openness because you
walk through it and it is a park. It feels
like a park with crips of dead people all around you.
(11:19):
And it is landscaped, and it was designed by a
major landscaper. And the plantings will grow more luxuriant or
luxuriant over time, so you're gonna have over spilling over
overgrown foliage. You ever seen gardens of Babylon? You ever
seen photos of that Nebuconezer And the Gardens of Babylon
(11:42):
was this entire city that had overflowing plants. And that
reminds me of that. The quartz stone was quarried in Brazil,
corded in Brazil. I mean, this is real expensive stuff.
Thirteen thousand people are going to be parked there. Just yeah,
(12:06):
I love it. I love it. You know how many
times have I done death topics?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Kono and quite a few? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Do you ever see me more excited about topics than
death topics? No?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
You do have a weird fascination with it, I really do.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I know, for some reason, I just really like death
and dead people and stories about dead people and worms.
December twenty five up next week not only Christmas Day,
but also the first day of Hanukkah, which happens relatively
rarely because the calendars are way different now here. We
(12:49):
exchange gifts. We've been doing that. Amy came in and yeah,
made some cookies, made homemade cookies. And I usually I'm
not interested in going out and getting gifts or baking anything,
so I give gift cards. I'm going to tell you
right now, spending five bucks for a two dollars gift
(13:09):
card is a waste of.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Time, your captain generosity. Yeah, it's way too expensive to
do that. So Neil, I brought you.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I don't normally every now and again, I'll bring you
a gift. Yeah, and this year, I'm gonna open it
right here on the air.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, please do. Yeah, I'm gonna open it here on
the air, handmade by the way. Of course it is,
because that's what you do. I got you. This thing
is really and open this up for me. I'm too
lazy to do that, probably best. I made it stupid
proof so ann I'll be able to get through.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
It's like wrapped in so she has to take a
pair of scissors and uh do all of that so.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We can't even open his own gifts here. She started
it first.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Okay, Yeah, of course she did. Okay, and I have
fingernails too. Go figure that one out. Okay, here it goes,
and maybe ladies and gentlemen behind here he is. I
feel like I'm opening up and Oscar win here.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
If you don't say the winner is anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Oh, it's an ornament for your tree.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh, we have to take on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
What it's a It's a limit oversized lamictal pill ornament.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That you put up. We have to take a picture
of yours. This is very this is very funny. Neil
does just great stuff. And it's in the shape of
a mintyal pill.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, and it's a two hundred and that's und and
it's name brand is I don't know it's it is
a name brand because it's do you take the good stuff?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I used to, but Kaiser stopped that because you know,
I used to say that I needed the good stuff
and my doctor said okay, And then it went to
the formulary where a doctor now cannot prescribe the real stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
So it's all generic and I take a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
You know that I have to go every six months
to a psychiatrist at Kaiser to get my limitdo the
anti anxiety drugs It used to be my internist. Who
we give it now it's a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Isn't it for like bipolar? And it's sent for a
lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It was originally it was a pill that was designed
for an anti seizure drug, and then it turns out
that it's also an anti anxiety drug. And by the way,
the two hundred milligrams, which is a hell of a dose.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I take two.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Twenty five in the morning and I take two twenty
five at night. And this would make a rabid dog
docile and the sweetest, the sweetest dog you've ever met.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
It takes you down to a nine.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, so every six months, I have to go to
a shrink. I have to go to my shrink to
get my LIMITDL.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Does he need it?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
No, it's been the same for years and years, and
so it's always it's fifteen minutes with a shrink, literally,
and okay it takes that long. No, not even I mean,
it's just is everything, okay, everything's fine. Any changes in
your attitude, any changes in you know, your anxiety? No,
no changes have you been particularly anxious at all? And
(16:37):
I said, no, anything different about what you're doing? And
I said, well, I have this desire to run over kittens,
and the shrink looked at me and.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Goes, really, and it's starting to type, oh boy, we
got a live one. Yeah, and then at some point
I said that not really. So here I am.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Three of the four of us in my family are
on this kind of stuff, the anti anxiety drugs, sorry, Bud,
And it ain't Marjorie and my two daughters and I are.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
On stuff like this and that's probably what twenty times
larger than an actual pill.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah. Yeah, by the way, the generic isn't the blue pill.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I used to and I used to, let me tell you,
I used to mix up the pills so I would
have no anxiety in the biggest direction you've ever seen
these pills.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
The ships are different, similar, different. It's the little blue pill.
He's all my anxieties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
So anyway, thank you. It's great stuff. And Neil has
done cards for me that are extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I came across thank you, that's very nice.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I came across one from the old days where I
actually drew an illustration of you on the front. It
says happy Hanukah. What do you get the guy that
has everything? And you open up and it says not
a damn there?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I you also made the card of that I used
for years and years and still yeah with your screaming face,
my screaming face. So let's do this, and let's take
a picture of my ornament, if you would, next to
the Christmas tree.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
And do we still going to put it on the
Aldick Home Christmas? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And which there are no ornaments now I'm going to
just do it for the pictures, for the purpose of
the photo. And then do we still have that card
with a scream at all? I have a few left?
Probably not, because that's great. It's a drawing to get
you more screaming at the top of my lungs.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
All right. Oh, and thank you for the cookies so far,
so good? And what else? Amy makes lovely cookies? Do
you mean what else? Know?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
What? What are their gifts? Have I gotten this morning?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I don't know. I want some? You want some more gifts?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Do you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Okay, I like getting. There's plenty of empty.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I know.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Thank you very much for the gifts. And where's mine?
Amy just brought one? She got me the cookies.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I brought you cookies, yeah, which is fine, and they're
good cookies.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
All right, and you have t oh these are these?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Are you? What are these confetti cookies with all the
different colors of M and ms in there?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Is that? What they are? Confetti cookies? No? What do
they called it? With what they call their Christmas M
and M cookies? Okay, they're just red and green eminem's.
Oh speak, I picked all the other colors out just
for you.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well the green eminem's. Let's go back to the little
blue pill? Does that actually work?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yes? Or no? Okay, we're done with the topic that
we didn't do. So I learned a lot. You know,
it's the holiday season. I get it. It is the holidays.
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Tomorrow's last day, then some time off. I'll do Saturday's
show and then some time off. I'm looking forward to
being with my wife and my boy.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And Monday is my last show and we're good, No
you wish. It's my last show until the beginning of January.
So it's good times had by all. All right, Now,
politics are horrific. I mean, we have reached the point
where the polarization is so horrible. That doesn't matter if
(20:46):
you're a Republican. The Democrats are satan and if you're
a Democrat, the Republicans are satan.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
They're all beeselbub.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well, let me tell you about what happened in this
little town go near Sacramento. About twenty six thousand people
lived there, and two Republican candidates were running for office
or city council, and they tied and eighty two votes
to three thousand, eight hundred and eighty two votes. Now,
(21:19):
this has happened before, but it's a very different way
of thinking. First of all, they knew each other and
they were friends. And three people running for two slots.
One of them just cleaned up and got fifty eight
hundred votes, so he's in. Now you have Matthew Pratton
and Bonnie Rodriguez tied for the other seat. Now has
(21:43):
it happened before. It has not major elections, but minor elections,
and they've been settled by coin flips, drawing names out
of a bowl, a quick game of poker to.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
See who wins.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And these two are longtime residents, well respected, and took
a while to know that the tie happened because California
counts votes very slowly. Now what do you do well
to both of them? They weren't going to do a recount.
Even though both had an argument they were going to win,
(22:19):
they simply weren't going to spend the money. So what
is going to happen? And people in town came up
with ideas to settle.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
The matter matter.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Now, Galt is a rural area, so Pratton said, how
about a milking contest and whoever wins it becomes in
city council.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Rodriguez's son said, how about the two of them chase
chickens and whoever gets the chicken first?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Someone also in town suggested a wrestling match in jello.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Sure, why not?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know? They ended up doing ended up drawing straws,
But how do you wo draws first? And so they
had to flip a coin to see who drew first,
So it was a little convoluted. The assistant city clerk
(23:18):
goes out and buys a three dollars pack of brightly
colored straws, breaks up the straws. The local police chief
is the official straw holder, and they figured this was
going to happen out in the hallway and just have
it done. Oh no, no, the whole town came out.
News cameras came out from adjoining villages. Well they are villages,
(23:42):
little tiny towns, and so here we go.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What happened? What happened?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well, Pratton won the seat and said, here's what I'm
gonna do. I'm gonna to take that straw and I'm
going to frame it and put it in the city
council office. Now you've got Rodriguez, who has been has
(24:12):
lost the race for city council, who's not very happy.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
But you know, they're friends.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
They weren't going to say anything about each other. Matter
of fact, they're good friends. So what ended up happening
is sort of a final twist to the story. Another
member of the city council had just resigned, so one
of Pratton's first act as a member of the city council,
and this became unanimous. They had to fill that seat
(24:39):
and brought in Rodriguez, so they both won. The reason
I bring that up and why it just became a
national story because in light of the crazy negative stories
that are out there about politics today, you know, isn't
a joy and I have loved to see Harris and
(25:02):
Trump draw straws.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
How much money you think would save?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know, east Side spend over a billion dollars in
those ads attacking each other like crazy. Right heard Sunday's
twelve to two pm here on KFI. This is KF
I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listen Saints KFI AM six forty the Bill Handles
show on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six
forty Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning, December nineteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Amy, you just came in and was just announced about Bonnie.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Willis, Fannie Willis, Fanny Willis funny, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
The Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis has been disqualified
from prosecuting President elect Trump, which makes all the sense
in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
She hires a special prosecutor who's never had experience as
a prosecutor.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
She's stooping him.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And you know that isn't not by the way, that
is not a per se conflict. That is not on
its face of conflict. A DA can hire a special
prosecutor who he or she is stooping. Now not in
open court, that's not allowed. But the optics are so horrible,
(00:59):
and it was she should have.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Gone a long long time ago.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Now moving over to LA Unified School District, And as
you know, I went through LA Unified School District, started
in kindergarten, graduated high school. So I spent every moment
before I went to college at LA Unified and so
I always use LA Unified as sort of the poster
child of any conversation I have about school districts. Also,
(01:30):
LA Unified is one of the school districts that is.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Not good. Now everybody attacks them.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
However, to be fair, they teach LA Unified teaches and
I don't know, forty languages, an enormous number of migrants
that can come in, illegal migrants that come in because
they can't ask those kids English as the second language
is primarily that's probably the largest single English's second language
(02:02):
program in the country.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's easy to say. So here's what's happening.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Principals who work their asses off, and they really do.
They've said their workload is just too heavy and the
pressure to raise student achievement is just too much. Because
that's what's going on. So you know what they've done.
They've unionized. They've unionized, which I've never heard of. They're
(02:27):
now part of the Teamsters, which the thought of senior management.
Actually they're considered middle management in terms of administration and
school district. You know, it doesn't make any sense, Neil,
you were part of management when you were here.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yes, and interesting so that people like Chris Little and
me were dual because we were mad.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
We're also members of after. Yeah. But the point is, but.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I didn't go to the meetings. I didn't go to
meetings and I didn't talk to people about Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
But the point I'm making is the thought of management
being part of a union, and yeah, it's range.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It is strange. It just doesn't happen. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I remember our last contract negotiations and Amy Kno, I
don't know if you know this, and if you don't know,
this is I was asked to sit on the committee
on behalf of AFTER here at the at the building.
Because every radio group or even station, some are unions,
some are not union. And I was asked to because
(03:35):
I'm a lawyer. They didn't know how bad I was,
but I'm a lawyer, and they said, would you sit
on the committee? I said, you know, I got to
tell you I'm a business person too. Maybe you don't
want me to be on the committee. No, you're a
member of AFTRA and we want you to sit on
it and you can represent. And I said, here's the
(03:57):
problem you're going to have, right, you're at owe with management,
here's the union, and you're asking for more benefits, more
money management during the course of those discussions, say no,
it's like when I negotiate a contract three hundred and
sixty four days a year, I'm the most wonderful thing
at the station. I'm the best thing since sliced bread.
The day I negotiate my contract. Eh, you're not so good. Yeah,
(04:21):
you're pretty much replaceable. It's a horrible situation. So I
told and you know, the guy who was doing I
don't want to mention his name, who was the union
guy here? I said, here's the problem you're going to
have is that I'm going to sit down on our side,
your side of the table, and every time management comes
(04:42):
up with some statement, I'm going to look at you
and go, they're absolutely right, and I'm going to keep
on saying that over and over again.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Needless to say, I was not invited to sit on
great idea, sir. Yeah, once again, the fantastic guy. Yeah,
so something very unique.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
LA Unified School principles are now unionized, and they're saying
there's too much work, too much pressure, and they're right,
and the pressure to bring up scores, especially at LA Unified.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I mean it is difficult.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I mean, there's a what a fifty, there's a sixty
percent dropout rate because well, you've got people that are
coming over the border. Our tax system is such that
number one, you can't ask if someone is illegal or not.
By law, those kids have to go to school. They're
more difficult to teach by the very nature of who
(05:39):
they are. And Vietnamese kids who don't speak a word
of English and Chinese kids, and there's no other school
district in the country that has this kind of problem
and they're set to the same standards.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I going to tell you, if I were a school principal, no, no,
if I was a teacher, I'd quit because it's that difficult.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And in La Unified, it's more more difficult than anybody
else or any other school district. So on, behalf of
those of you here at the station who are members
of AFTRA, and that's most people on the air. Management
is absolutely right at every.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Point and handsome.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And you're right, yeah, all right. Now a story I
want to share with you. Oh this is I love
stories like this. Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It's really a unique
cemetery in Hollywood and was created in eighteen ninety nine.
It's been around for a while and the people who
are buried there, Rudolph Valentino, Judy Garland, Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil
(06:45):
b De Mill, Johnny Ramone. I mean it goes on
and on, Quincy Jones. I mean it is a very
famous cemetery and also was the first one to make
itself a park where people walk through and they have
film festivals and it's just they were the first ones
as cemetery to do an annual Dia de las mortes
(07:08):
where they exhume some Mexican people that are buried there
and celebrate diad les mortes and put them back in
the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It is a very unique cemetery.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, if you go there, there is a hundred foot tall,
five story mausoleum that is now on the west edge.
It's the Gower Court Mausoleum. It's opening up in January
and it's going to house thirteen thousand dead people in crypts,
(07:45):
niches for urns, family condos. Now, the guy who owns
it says, we're not going to build any more cemeteries
in la That's true, You're not gonna get any more.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
There's just simply not going to be there. So what
do they do?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And this is the wave of the future. If you
can't go out, you go up. Didn't Michelle Obama say that? Okay,
probably not. And so the cemetery still has land to
provide in ground burials, but it doesn't matter. The future
is clear. It is going up. When you think about
(08:25):
burial being buried in a cemetery, I mean, that's a
lot of space for you know, well, how much value
it is I don't know. I mean I have a plot.
Oh God, the amount of money that it costs is unbelievable.
And matter of fact, I think I'm going to sell it.
(08:45):
And there's a whole story there. But the point is
is that when you talk about going into a building
like this where your loved one is buried or cremated
and there's it just is I guess bigger connection is
what they're saying. I don't see it because you look
(09:10):
at a placard on the wall and there is your
loved one, or you look at a tombstone or a
placard on the ground there is your loved one.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
So I don't see it.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
But I'm told that there is a connection. Now, no
one in my family has scrips. Everybody that I am
related to who is dead, which is basically everybody. My parents,
my grandmother are all buried in one cemetery, which, by
the way, because my parents and my family are so cheap,
(09:46):
there are you know, it's location, location locations the cemeteries
and yeah, yeah, big time, and they were in the
cheap section. That's what they do. And this is really strange.
I love this. So the officials initially wanted this is
the city wanted to classify is housing house dead people?
(10:14):
So the cemetery says no, it is storage. And what
is the difference, Well, because if it is housing, you
have to provide toilets and kitchens, and dead people tend
not to use those facilities. Although it's kind of interesting
because right next to the crematorium part of it there's
(10:37):
a barbecue joint and I find that very very interesting
that they did that. I don't know who made that
a point, made that decision, and so you have that issue,
and so storage is what they got. Engineering construction, it
was impossible because the entire building is a vertical mass,
(10:58):
a cantilever that the parts of it stick out twenty
feet straight out at seismic stability, internal openness because you
walk through it and it is a park. It feels
like a park with crips of dead people all around you.
(11:19):
And it is landscaped, and it was designed by a
major landscaper. And the plantings will grow more luxuriant or
luxuriant over time, so you're gonna have over spilling over
overgrown foliage. You ever seen gardens of Babylon? You ever
seen photos of that Nebuconezer And the Gardens of Babylon
(11:42):
was this entire city that had overflowing plants. And that
reminds me of that. The quartz stone was quarried in Brazil,
corded in Brazil. I mean, this is real expensive stuff.
Thirteen thousand people are going to be parked there. Just yeah,
(12:06):
I love it. I love it. You know how many
times have I done death topics?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Kono and quite a few? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Do you ever see me more excited about topics than
death topics? No?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
You do have a weird fascination with it, I really do.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I know, for some reason, I just really like death
and dead people and stories about dead people and worms.
December twenty five up next week not only Christmas Day,
but also the first day of Hanukkah, which happens relatively
rarely because the calendars are way different now here. We
(12:49):
exchange gifts. We've been doing that. Amy came in and yeah,
made some cookies, made homemade cookies. And I usually I'm
not interested in going out and getting gifts or baking anything,
so I give gift cards. I'm going to tell you
right now, spending five bucks for a two dollars gift
(13:09):
card is a waste of.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Time, your captain generosity. Yeah, it's way too expensive to
do that. So Neil, I brought you.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I don't normally every now and again, I'll bring you
a gift. Yeah, and this year, I'm gonna open it
right here on the air.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, please do. Yeah, I'm gonna open it here on
the air, handmade by the way. Of course it is,
because that's what you do. I got you. This thing
is really and open this up for me. I'm too
lazy to do that, probably best. I made it stupid
proof so ann I'll be able to get through.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
It's like wrapped in so she has to take a
pair of scissors and uh do all of that so.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We can't even open his own gifts here. She started
it first.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Okay, Yeah, of course she did. Okay, and I have
fingernails too. Go figure that one out. Okay, here it goes,
and maybe ladies and gentlemen behind here he is. I
feel like I'm opening up and Oscar win here.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
If you don't say the winner is anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Oh, it's an ornament for your tree.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh, we have to take on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
What it's a It's a limit oversized lamictal pill ornament.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That you put up. We have to take a picture
of yours. This is very this is very funny. Neil
does just great stuff. And it's in the shape of
a mintyal pill.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, and it's a two hundred and that's und and
it's name brand is I don't know it's it is
a name brand because it's do you take the good stuff?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I used to, but Kaiser stopped that because you know,
I used to say that I needed the good stuff
and my doctor said okay, And then it went to
the formulary where a doctor now cannot prescribe the real stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
So it's all generic and I take a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
You know that I have to go every six months
to a psychiatrist at Kaiser to get my limitdo the
anti anxiety drugs It used to be my internist. Who
we give it now it's a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Isn't it for like bipolar? And it's sent for a
lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
It was originally it was a pill that was designed
for an anti seizure drug, and then it turns out
that it's also an anti anxiety drug. And by the way,
the two hundred milligrams, which is a hell of a dose.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I take two.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Twenty five in the morning and I take two twenty
five at night. And this would make a rabid dog
docile and the sweetest, the sweetest dog you've ever met.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
It takes you down to a nine.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, so every six months, I have to go to
a shrink. I have to go to my shrink to
get my LIMITDL.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Does he need it?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
No, it's been the same for years and years, and
so it's always it's fifteen minutes with a shrink, literally,
and okay it takes that long. No, not even I mean,
it's just is everything, okay, everything's fine. Any changes in
your attitude, any changes in you know, your anxiety? No,
no changes have you been particularly anxious at all? And
(16:37):
I said, no, anything different about what you're doing? And
I said, well, I have this desire to run over kittens,
and the shrink looked at me and.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Goes, really, and it's starting to type, oh boy, we
got a live one. Yeah, and then at some point
I said that not really. So here I am.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Three of the four of us in my family are
on this kind of stuff, the anti anxiety drugs, sorry, Bud,
And it ain't Marjorie and my two daughters and I are.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
On stuff like this and that's probably what twenty times
larger than an actual pill.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah. Yeah, by the way, the generic isn't the blue pill.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I used to and I used to, let me tell you,
I used to mix up the pills so I would
have no anxiety in the biggest direction you've ever seen
these pills.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
The ships are different, similar, different. It's the little blue pill.
He's all my anxieties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
So anyway, thank you. It's great stuff. And Neil has
done cards for me that are extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I came across thank you, that's very nice.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I came across one from the old days where I
actually drew an illustration of you on the front. It
says happy Hanukah. What do you get the guy that
has everything? And you open up and it says not
a damn there?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I you also made the card of that I used
for years and years and still yeah with your screaming face,
my screaming face. So let's do this, and let's take
a picture of my ornament, if you would, next to
the Christmas tree.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
And do we still going to put it on the
Aldick Home Christmas? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And which there are no ornaments now I'm going to
just do it for the pictures, for the purpose of
the photo. And then do we still have that card
with a scream at all? I have a few left?
Probably not, because that's great. It's a drawing to get
you more screaming at the top of my lungs.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
All right. Oh, and thank you for the cookies so far,
so good? And what else? Amy makes lovely cookies? Do
you mean what else? Know?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
What? What are their gifts? Have I gotten this morning?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I don't know. I want some? You want some more gifts?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Do you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Okay, I like getting. There's plenty of empty.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I know.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Thank you very much for the gifts. And where's mine?
Amy just brought one? She got me the cookies.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I brought you cookies, yeah, which is fine, and they're
good cookies.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
All right, and you have t oh these are these?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Are you? What are these confetti cookies with all the
different colors of M and ms in there?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Is that? What they are? Confetti cookies? No? What do
they called it? With what they call their Christmas M
and M cookies? Okay, they're just red and green eminem's.
Oh speak, I picked all the other colors out just
for you.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well the green eminem's. Let's go back to the little
blue pill? Does that actually work?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yes? Or no? Okay, we're done with the topic that
we didn't do. So I learned a lot. You know,
it's the holiday season. I get it. It is the holidays.
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Tomorrow's last day, then some time off. I'll do Saturday's
show and then some time off. I'm looking forward to
being with my wife and my boy.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And Monday is my last show and we're good, No
you wish. It's my last show until the beginning of January.
So it's good times had by all. All right, Now,
politics are horrific. I mean, we have reached the point
where the polarization is so horrible. That doesn't matter if
(20:46):
you're a Republican. The Democrats are satan and if you're
a Democrat, the Republicans are satan.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
They're all beeselbub.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well, let me tell you about what happened in this
little town go near Sacramento. About twenty six thousand people
lived there, and two Republican candidates were running for office
or city council, and they tied and eighty two votes
to three thousand, eight hundred and eighty two votes. Now,
(21:19):
this has happened before, but it's a very different way
of thinking. First of all, they knew each other and
they were friends. And three people running for two slots.
One of them just cleaned up and got fifty eight
hundred votes, so he's in. Now you have Matthew Pratton
and Bonnie Rodriguez tied for the other seat. Now has
(21:43):
it happened before. It has not major elections, but minor elections,
and they've been settled by coin flips, drawing names out
of a bowl, a quick game of poker to.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
See who wins.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And these two are longtime residents, well respected, and took
a while to know that the tie happened because California
counts votes very slowly. Now what do you do well
to both of them? They weren't going to do a recount.
Even though both had an argument they were going to win,
(22:19):
they simply weren't going to spend the money. So what
is going to happen? And people in town came up
with ideas to settle.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
The matter matter.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Now, Galt is a rural area, so Pratton said, how
about a milking contest and whoever wins it becomes in
city council.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Rodriguez's son said, how about the two of them chase
chickens and whoever gets the chicken first?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Someone also in town suggested a wrestling match in jello.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Sure, why not?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You know? They ended up doing ended up drawing straws,
But how do you wo draws first? And so they
had to flip a coin to see who drew first,
So it was a little convoluted. The assistant city clerk
(23:18):
goes out and buys a three dollars pack of brightly
colored straws, breaks up the straws. The local police chief
is the official straw holder, and they figured this was
going to happen out in the hallway and just have
it done. Oh no, no, the whole town came out.
News cameras came out from adjoining villages. Well they are villages,
(23:42):
little tiny towns, and so here we go.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What happened? What happened?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Well, Pratton won the seat and said, here's what I'm
gonna do. I'm gonna to take that straw and I'm
going to frame it and put it in the city
council office. Now you've got Rodriguez, who has been has
(24:12):
lost the race for city council, who's not very happy.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
But you know, they're friends.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
They weren't going to say anything about each other. Matter
of fact, they're good friends. So what ended up happening
is sort of a final twist to the story. Another
member of the city council had just resigned, so one
of Pratton's first act as a member of the city council,
and this became unanimous. They had to fill that seat
(24:39):
and brought in Rodriguez, so they both won. The reason
I bring that up and why it just became a
national story because in light of the crazy negative stories
that are out there about politics today, you know, isn't
a joy and I have loved to see Harris and
(25:02):
Trump draw straws.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
How much money you think would save?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know, east Side spend over a billion dollars in
those ads attacking each other like crazy. Right heard Sunday's
twelve to two pm here on KFI. This is KF
I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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