You're listening to KFI AM six forty the Bill Handle Show on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. Another hot one hopefully cools down by the end of the weekend.
A couple of things before we get into Joe Biden and his Big Boy
speech yesterday. First of all, the podcast is up and right now my
podcast, the Bill Handle Show podcast, very different thing. I say things
I can I explore topics a little deeper in any case, that is up
right now only on the iHeartRadio app at this moment. It's going to be
expanding in the next few days to of course all the podcast platforms. But
it's on the iHeartRadio app, the Bill Handle Show podcast and well, for
example, one of the stories I tell in my background is how I got
a job here at KFI without having a job here at KFI. I actually
learned and listen to both of them. I really loved it, and learn
things about you that I didn't know. Yeah, and you've known me for
thirty years, Neil, indeed, yeah, you know basically everything about me.
And also Neil and I are going to be at the White House Anheim
White House Sunday celebrating Bastile Day. It's going to be an all French menu.
It's celebrated. I don't know where Bruno, chef Bruno connects with French
bestial Day's Italian. So I have no idea. And maybe it's because the
only people the Italians ever beat in a fight were the French. I don't
know. In any case, the bottom line is that it's all French menu.
We'd love to have you there. It's ninety five bucks ahead, but
it's very high end food and we'll spend the evening and my daughter is coming,
my daughter Barbara and her fiance coming, and I'm going to celebrate that
he's going to be taking care of her. Ha. Okay, Dad,
I don't need I won't need your credit card anymore when I don't when I
get married. Ha. All right. What happened yesterday at Joe Biden's Big
Boy's speech and Washington at the end of the summit at the NATO summit,
Well everybody, of course, all the reporters were ignoring what happened during the
summit. Joe Biden explained it when he first came out and gave it us
prepared on the teleprompter speech, and it was he is wonderful NATO is terrific.
It will be destroyed under Trump. I mean, just his normal stuff.
Now, that was to his strength when he answered questions, because foreign
relations is his thing. I mean, forty years in the Senate and his
specialty was foreign relations. The problem became when he started talking and he was
asking questions and that one and I stopped listening after a few minutes because it
was so painful. He refers to President Zelenski as President Putin and then corrects
himself, calls Vice President Harris vice President Trump and corrects himself. He refers
to taking advice from my commander in chief instead of saying correcting himself, saying,
the chief of staff of the military. That's no big deal. That's
just a I don't think that's a big deal. A right correction, though,
yeah, it's that's not the end of the war. He did not
correct himself on the Trump vice president Trump thing. He actually I'm trying to
remember, I think because they, oh, you know, you're right,
you're right, and you're right. He also taught now this is now we
have the minutia and people are going to Minutia. He said, I created
two thousand jobs just last week. Well, it was a report that two
hundred thousand jobs had been created in the last month. And then he did
a few of the gaffs and the big issue, and the big question,
is this was going to either save him or destroy him. If the gaffs
continued and he showed that he did not have the wherewithal to even figure out
where he is what he is doing, of course that would have just solidly,
solidly wrap it up for him and the campaign. He wouldn't be a
he would not be able to fight the overwhelming move to get him out of
the campaign. He didn't go there. At the same time, he had
the opportunity to score big time by coming up with a speech or answers to
questions that were on point, that were succinct, that showed cognitive abilities.
Now it's hard for him to do that because he is he does not do
well under these circumstances. He's just not good at it. And unfortunately,
today you have to be good at communications, or good at speech making,
or good at press conferences, and that somehow translates into someone's ability to govern
the United States or govern a state or a city. That's unfortunately, you
can't be bad at communicating and still be a good boss. Well, when
you're talking about decisions that a president makes, the fact that you're a bad
or he's a bad speech maker. And even if he makes mistakes, and
I'll tell you, even if he loses it for a minute or two,
he actually pays attention to his advisors. Not necessarily now in terms of the
run for the presidency, But I think he gets a good solid cea yesterday,
you know, passing. Yeah, yeah, he passed. Did he
score big? No? No, I think it's being described as Democratic Party
is still in the same purgatory that it was a few days ago. I
think that makes a lot of sense. And you can see how he actually
how scared he is. And and I know someone who is very, very
smart, and she is just a horrible test taker. I had a law
clerk once, one of the smartest people I knew, took the California State
Bar six times, six times, and she was and is brilliant, a
phenomenal lawyer. She just was not good at test taking. So can we
have a president who is just not good at press conferences or communicating or coming
off you know, he's no JFK. You know who instantly would able to
be come up with a quip. He's no Barack Obama, he has no
Bill Clinton. He's not even a Ronald Reagan, who, by the way,
wasn't quick, but he was a communicator. He could do a teleprompter
like no one else ever. Good. You don't think Reagan was quick.
I don't think he was quick. No, I begged it different. Yeah,
I don't think. Yeah, And they were all written, and they
were all written for him. Oh when a balloon pops and he says,
missed me in the middle of a speech that's written for him. No,
but you know, if that you're talking about one or two he was not
known. How many of those can you come up with? Very little,
very few. And by the way, that one, oh you missed me
that I'd like to see a little bit more depth. Not that that wasn't
the appropriate comment, don't misunderstand, but when we're talking about coming back quipping,
if you will, retorting replying on something of substance. But anyway,
that's certainly my take on it. I didn't think that Ronald Reagan was particularly
quick, but okay, on a balloon popping incident, I'll take that back.
The balloon incident he was Anyway, the bottom line is I'm gonna go
back and I'm gonna end it with this, and that is he got C.
That's it. Maybe a C plus certainly, not a B minus.
You know what, maybe a C plus minus. It's like when I order
a steak, I either have it medium rare plus or medium minus. Does
that work? Sure? Coming up? How France and I'm going to compare
the two, and you don't know where I'm going with this. France and
Nazi Germany. How they're hand in hand. And I'm talking about now I'll
explain. You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from kf I am six forty
Neil. As we finished that last segment about Joe Biden and how I had
said his speech yesterday was press conference that I had said, he's just not
very quick, and I mentioned other presidents and I had said Ronald Reagan,
for example, was not very quick. And you immediately disagreed with me,
and you said, yes, he was great. Right. No, No,
I didn't say that. I said he wasn't quick. I thought he
was a great communicator. But that's not the point. That was what people
called it. Okay, the point I'm making here okay is from now on,
and this is for Amy also from now on. The response is Bill,
I agree with you completely. Bill. That was very good insight.
Those are the reply you know, I'm talking to maybe changing up the show
a little bit and talking about making a little fresher here and there. That's
one of them. That's one of them. I'm surprised we get to call
you by your first day, but not mister handle your Hey, it's your
show, yeah, yeah, or your excellency. Okay. I want to
do a little history now. I want to do a little bit history going
back to nineteen thirty six. Nazi Germany. All right, Nazi Germany or
Germany was hit by the depression, probably harder than any other country, including
the United States. I mean, Germany was a mess, and into power
come the Nazis, Adolf Hitler, who turned around. I mean, the
economy exploded. While the rest of the world nineteen thirty six was really into
the depression, we weren't out of it. Germany was doing great and the
nineteen thirty six Olympics were there, and anti Semitism and all the crazy stuff
was still happening. And so you know what Hitler did let's put everything on
hold, Let's make everything look great. Let's downplay the anti semitism, let's
downplay the fact that this is a dictatorship that kills people. We're going to
put on a happy face to make us look great. Okay, that's what
they did and got away with it. By the way, now we move
forward to the Olympics in Paris. We've got to put on a pretty good
face. And we have a lot of homeless people, a whole lot.
Paris has a huge homeless population. So what is the government of Macrone doing?
How does this sound familiar? They're throwing homeless people on buses and moving
them into outlying areas and putting them in shelters, which really there aren't any.
So they're taking homeless people saying we're gonna put you in a shelter,
we're gonna give you some help, we're gonna give you some aid, and
then on a bus and out they go. Sounds a lot like what's happening
here with illegal aliens from Texas, doesn't it being bussed into New York,
et cetera. Say hey, jobs are waiting for you, this is great
stuff. Here you go, And that is what's happening in Paris as we
speak, and by the hundreds of thousands, because Paris has to look fantastic
and it's a beautiful city. Paris is the city of lights because they have
lights. This is deep stuff, Neil, once again, Bill, that
was deep insight. Okay, mister Handel, thank you for that wonderful analysis.
And deep insight wasn't It was the best thing I've ever heard. Top
Okay, Okay, they want to keep their jobs, but it's major cities
still have a huge homeless problem. But major cities don't have the Olympics coming
up at the end of the month, and so they're scrambling and moving people
out by the thousands. And the New York Times picked this up and went
out and interviewed some of these people, the illegal aliens, if you were,
and most of them from North Africa, and they're going to these housing
these encampments and saying what are you doing here, and go well, yesterday
we were in Paris and they put us on a bus and we don't even
know which where we were going. They don't have I don't think they charter
buses. I think they just give them bus tickets. And a couple of
guys interviewed said, we had no idea where we were going. Oh I
know, we had a bus ticket and here it says Orleon, Orleans and
that's where we went. And so you're if you go to Paris for the
Olympics, a lot of people are going because one of the things the Olympics
does is really good for tourism. You're not going to see much homelessness,
at least in the city. Maybe in the suburbs, maybe out there in
suburban land, but you're not going to see much in Paris. No different.
How they tell who the homeless are in France? Okay, how do
they tell Neo they're the ones wearing deodorant? Oh that's the homeless people.
Yeah, it's a joke because they I just didn't get it. They're the
ones wearing deodorant, the homeless people. Now you know how it feels when
no one gets a joke. Coming up, we're moving away from the homeless
of France to anybody who lives, and no, that's not gonna work.
I was about to make an analogy and it was so stupid. I can't
even get halfway through it. The Mirage Hotel is disappearing and it is was
an icon of all icon started the modern hotel trend in Las Vegas. And
excuse me, Michelle, Michelle, do you go to the Mirage at all?
Or have you been to the Mirage a lot times? Okay, so
I'm gonna have Michelle jump into this because she's our league, our Vegas whisper
by a long shot. You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI Am
six forty. The podcast is up, the Bill Handleshow podcast, and right
now you can listen to it on the iHeartRadio app. That's the only place
it's on right now. We're working on a few of the other platforms,
but the Bill Handle Show podcast on the iHeartRadio app. And Neil said he
was he learned stuff about me that he didn't even know. And we've known
each other for the years. I very much enjoyed it. Yeah, both
episodes so fun. Yeah, two episodes, and one of them, I
have a job here at KFI and I started having a job by not having
a job, and there's a whole story there, and that's a lot of
fun. And then my family and going back and just dealing with World War
two with my grandparents is really interesting. Stuff and I'd love to have you
tune in and try it out. And that's the Bill Handle Show podcast on
the iHeartRadio app. Okay, we've gotten oh well for the Anaheim White House,
go to Anaheim white House dot com if you'd like to join us.
There are a few tickets still available. They're very close to sold out.
But come on down and say hello and will and eat eat French food Fromage
Cripe susette some It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. Now a
story that I wanted to do and do a couple of segments on this,
and Michelle is all over this personally, and that is about the Mirage Hotel.
The Mirage Hotel is going away and it broke thirty thirty five years old
and it's gone, but the it broke new ground. It basically reinvented hotels
in Las Vegas. The guy who did it is a man by the name
of Steve Winn. And if you look at the hotels that he was involved
with, both in La and Atlantic City or Las Vegas, the Gold Nugget,
the Gold Nugget in Atlantic City, the Mirage Treasure Island is his.
The Belaggio one in Mississippi. I mean, he has them all over the
world. And of course Win and Encore, right, the Win, the
Encore. I mean that's all him. He's worth several billion dollars. Very
interesting guy. Well, let's first talk about that because I have a story
that a lot of people don't know about Steve Win. But Michelle, you
were there opening day. I was. I was in. It was nineteen
eighty nine, November twenty second, nineteen eighty nine, we were in.
I was seventeen. We were in Vegas because we were visiting my grandparents who
had lived there for many years, and we were there for Thanksgiving, which
was the twenty third, and so when we were visiting, my grandparents were
talking about this new hotel that was going to be opening and it was a
big deal and we got to go see it, and oh my god,
it's nothing like anybody's ever seen. So we went on opening day and we
it was a big crowd of people to go in and just kind of look
at this new kind of hotel that nobody ever experienced before, and it was
incredible. Like at the time it was the volcano obviously was the pano out
in the front yard. Yeah, of the hotel, this exploding volcano.
What's every hour or something, it goes up and people line up to see
it. Today you look at it and you know, it's just pretty cheesy.
Yeah, I mean then it was. It was just enormous. And
you walk when you walked in, I mean, they had the beautiful,
this beautiful atrium that's in there, and they had these aquariums that were behind
where you check in aquarium, massive aquarium, like a major aquarium size aquarium,
like when you go to an aquarium. Uh, and just and that
lobby is unbelievable at the wind and that then he saw then you remember he
had that the gallery of priceless paintings, Yes, that he put up there.
No one had ever ever done that, and it was it was the
restaurants were so amazing, and the lighting in the lobby, I mean,
he took it to a level that no one had ever seen in Las Vegas.
And then I can't remember if it was right when it opened, but
they also had eventually they had the dolphin habitat, oh yeah, Freed and
Roy and the white tiger right the Zick Freed and Roy that they brought.
I think that may have been the first major act that was there permanently in
Las Vegas right that they it's what he is created or we did create.
Was incredible. And I don't know if you ever saw Zeke Freed and Roy.
I loved Zeke. I loved their show. Zeke Freed and Roy a
couple of gay guys who lived together for a zillion years. Headliners made a
ton of money. And these white tigers, very rare white tigers that they
had, that they actually bred, and they lived on their their grounds some
time of Zeke Freed and Roy lived on in there in Las Vegas. And
this is huge enclosure, this walled enclosure where they lived, and tigers would
be in bed with these guys and they would run around and it was terrific
until the night that one of the tigers ate Roy on stage. So obviously,
when I was there at seventeen, I didn't stay there. I didn't
play there, But many many times over the last twenty years have I played
there. I've stayed there. I've seen the I really think their Beatles show
was one of the best Cirk shows. I don't buy that. I loved
it. I've seen it. Yeah, Vente, I'll tell you, first
of all, I didn't like it at all. That means you have to
agree with me. No new rules here on the show. And we'll talk
about that because I just want to share that with you. And then diving
more into the tiger or the roy eating incident of one of their tigers and
what ended up happening, and that's that's a whole story onto itself. So
a little bit more about the Mirage because this is not only is history passing
in front of us, the hard Rock is buying that property, by the
way, and it's going to be a hard Rock hotel in Las Vegas,
but also just some of the stuff. Oh Steve Wynn is blind too,
he can't see. That's how you defined blind. Right. Hey, once
again, Neil, that's very deep, Bill, that is you are correct
sir. That is excellent, excellent analysis as always. Miss all right,
So I'm going to come back and spend a few minutes talking about this because
it is He's amazing, the hotel was amazing, and Lost Vegas well it
is what it is today in large part because of Steve Win and the Mirage
Hotel. You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty The
Mirage Hotel thirty five years is history. It is closing. Michelle was there
on opening day. Not only was the Mirage itself reinvented basically all the high
end hotels in Las Vegas. It created the Las Vegas we know today.
But Steve Wynn who actually created the hotel, and he did so many others.
I mean, he is the hotel yure of Las Vegas. By the
way, he no longer owns any of that. As Michelle pointed out five
years ago, he got caught in a sexual harassment yeah, sexual harassment suit,
improper or sexual advances or whatever he did, and so he had to
leave the hotel. So he's done, and so of course it's just a
major corporation and we don't even know who the CEO is. One of the
interesting things about Steve Wynn is he's blind. He is blind, and he
had and Michelle, you remember this story. One of the things he did
was revolutionary in terms in the aquarium behind the front desk, the volcano in
front of the hotel. He had this multi zillion dollar art collection. It
was I think his personal art collection that was put in the lobby or a
part of the lobby or a room in the lobby and people could go through
it and see it. And there's a great story, which is true.
He's blind and he's walking along, loses his balance and punches his elbow through
a van go that was worth at that time thirty million dollars. I remember
that, and oops, that's a big one. So Michelle's say, and
you've been there, and you were there opening day, well, and I
have been there many times over the years. I think the problem with the
Mirage is it just didn't keep up. I mean, it didn't keep up
after all these other big resorts started popping up. It did update itself a
few times, but after like two thousand, it really stopped updating itself.
So if you stayed there anytime after like the early two thousands, it was
kind of old, you know, like it was just it was just looking
kind of old. They didn't really do any other advancements to it or renovate
rooms or anything like that over the years. And then of course you know
the Zigfreedo and Roy thing. I mean, it just it it brought people
down. Now I stopped playing there because I stopped winning there, so I
started going to other casinos once I you know was gambling, but it just
didn't it if you went to see it now, like the last time I
saw it, I probably was there maybe two years ago. Was the last
time I was at Mirage, and it just looked old and run down.
If you walk into the luxword, it's the same feeling. Yeah, Luxor
is old. Circus Circus is a thrill. Yes, yes, where originally?
I don't know when Circus Circus opened. Was it prior to the wind
or after the Circus Circus opened a very long time ago. Yeah, I
know they and they to save money. They still have the same area lists
who were there, so they're eighty years old and they're swinging a little tiny
bit. I mean, Circus Circus is I don't want to be unfair.
Circus Toilet is what it is. It opened in sixty eight, Circus Circus,
and I don't think they updated it very much except by adding the little
theme park that the big theme park that they did. Yeah, et servius,
you go there, you gonna have an all you can eat bfet for
two dollars and sixteen cents. And you know how buffets have seafood salad.
This is cans of tuna for your seafood salad. The great thing about Circus
Circus back then, though, was they had a whole area of four kids.
They had like a midway area where you coul wind stuff an animals veryly,
and you have to keep up, and it costs a fortune to keep
up. Hotels in Las Vegas. I mean, these are thousands of rooms.
The Win for example, is three thousand rooms, and so the staffing
just running a hotel. It even has the old time shower, the tub
showers in the rooms. How do you do that in a hotel today?
I think at the time the Mirage, I think it had I want to
say, seven hundred rooms, and that was a big deal back then,
Like that's how many rooms that has. Yep, it's not like the hotels
now, like you said, like Venetian, I can't even imagine how many
thousands of rooms of Venetians. Yeah, yeah, and great stories because because
Sheldon Aedelsen was a client of mine and I helped him to create one of
my surrogacy clients, and so I was I was up there a couple of
months before it even opened, and it was pretty exciting to see hotel like
that, and I tried to get the restaurant wasn't open, and I got
really pissed off, really pissed off my bed. I don't know, I
was thinking, the Mirage does have three thousand rooms. I don't know why
I thought it had less than a thousand. All right, they started at
three thousand. Yeah, that's what it. It's okay, So that's another
groundbreaker. Yeah, and so the Mirage and people are going there and going
crazy. It's like Disneyland memorabilia. Disneyland were to close down, the disney
freaks would go out of their minds. Well, much is the same happening
with the Mirage again. Zeke Fried and Roy the best act Las Vegas has
ever ever had. Roy eaten by one of the tigers that was in the
Magic Act, and he never got upset either. He said it wasn't the
tiger's fault. He said the tiger was helping him. Yeah, the tiger
was helping him by ripping open his throat and he almost died and ended up
in a wheelchair. Not the tiger but Roy, and they stopped the ass
a lot. They don't give him the credit, but the Mirage was actually
the first hotel to have all you can eat buffets, for Tigers, so
that was also on the list, yes, consisting of Roy, although Roy
wasn't very big so there wasn't a whole lot. There. We're done,
guys. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app