You're listenings KFI AM six forty the Bill Handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio
app. And this is KFI AM six forty Bill Handle here on a Tuesday
morning, July nine, still looking at Hurricane Barrel, now a tropical storm
wreaking havoc, certainly as it goes up through the Mid States, mid part
of the United States. And here's another bit of news, Guests, what
starts today. The Alec Baldwin trial for that shooting on the Rust set Rust,
by the way, is finished. They went ahead and finished it a
few months ago. So that's done. And of course we all remember,
I mean this was news national news that exploded October twenty one, twenty twenty
one. Okay, it's coming up to three years. So on the set
in New Mexico, Alec Baldwin points a gun at the camera. Well,
sitting behind the camera is cinematographer, right, Helena Hutchins, And the gun
was live, there was live ammunition. He shoots it, hits her in
the chest and kills her. And then this became enormous news. Was Alec
Baldwin at fault. Then you have the armor, you have the assistant director
because Alec Baldwin was told the gun was cold, and that means that there
was no live ammunition in the gun. Theoretically he was told there's no live
ammunition. Turned out there was live ammunition and somehow it got into the gun.
We still don't know how we do know that there was live ammunition in
the cart there is. From what I understand, the gun is placed in
a locked cage on wheels and the armor has to go in check the gun,
load the gun with blanks, and so you have the armor responsible and
then you have a redundancy where the assistant director also has to check out the
gun to see if it is live. So what ends up happening. Well,
here's the uproar. Alec Baldwin is accused of involuntary manslaughter pointing a loaded
weapon at someone well, which is against the law. Of course, his
defense is, hell, I didn't know it was live. Are you actually
going to accuse me of not checking when I have two people on the set.
So why is Alec Baldwin getting nailed? Because I questioned it and I
still question it. So what happened? Why is he getting nailed? Public
pressure? Sure for one thing. A bunch of high stakes, legal maneuvering.
That's another one and pure hubris on Alec Baldwin's part, because he actually
shot three people that day, one Helena Hutchins, who was killed, the
other one the assistant director who was standing behind and who was wounded. And
what is not particularly known very well is he also shot himself in the foot
and why what did he do? Well weeks after the shooting, he goes
on ABC and has an interview with George Stephanopoulos stepanop Pulis Stephanot pull Yeah,
the great guy, George Stephanopolis and says, I didn't pull the trigger the
gun. How do you say that in Greek? By the way, the
gun just unloaded by itself. Well, because of such high profile of the
case, it goes to the FBI for investigation where they go through it with
a fine tooth comb and they say the trigger was pulled. Of course it
was pulled. There was no other way for the gun to go off if
the trigger wasn't pulled. That very gun, and Alec Baldwin said, I
never pulled the trigger. Okay, caught in that one, and that doesn't
help his case. So where did he shoot himself in the foot? What
kind of idiot is he He goes and does an interview, and no lawyer
in the world would let him do an interview. Hey, if anybody asks
you about what happened, you shut up. I have no comment. Don't
think that's hubris of an actor to think like I can pull this off.
I can, Yeah, I can. I can sell this like I sell
That's exactly correct, that's exactly You're not talking about a semi automatic modern weapon.
You're talking to about an old gun that with probably a nine pound pull
on it, that's not going to be drapped. Is I think it is
an actual gun and it fires, and it's a big honkin bullet, and
it kills Helena Hutchins. And his argument, by the way, he's being
charged with involuntary manslaughter. He can get years in prison. So a couple
of things that don't help him. One it's Alec Baldwin. Two, of
course Helena Hutchins was killed, but he's the producer of the film. And
it's the buck stops here philosophy, and it has been alleged and no one
is refuting it. Alec Baldwin as the producer low budget film that he's the
one that I'm sure financed, if not all of it, part of it.
On the set, all kinds of safety requirements were ignored, They rushed
the production. Safety issues were overlooked, and so this entire per option of
what happens, and the jury is going to have to look if he is
responsible. I don't get it. How he can be charged with manslaughter is
beyond my comprehension. He is told it is a cold gun, he aims
at the camera. He doesn't aim at Helena Hutchins. It's not like she
was standing ten feet away and he aims at her and pulls the trigger.
Even though it was a rehearsal, it wasn't during actual filming. And I
don't know if that's important or not, But the bottom line is I think
his defense is absolute. I have people on the set who tell me that
gun is cold. If you convict me, what you're saying is every actor
who is handed a gun has to check to see if the ammunition is live
or not. Okay, how do you do that? Literally? Do you
stop shooting now? Neil? You have pointed out earlier that today you don't
have to even have a shot. You can literally point the gun at anybody
or at the camera and you put in the sound, which they do anyway,
and CGI and show the blast and the firing. Oh yeah, flash
of fire, smoke and the mental flash. So it's so the fact that
he did it, maybe it's a lot cheaper, which I'm sure because there's
no CGI involved. Well, here's the thing, though, you're never if
someone's behind that camera, you're never My understanding, and I have a friends
and family in the industry, is it never gets pointed at someone? Well,
how do you do that? Wait a second, If you are shooting
at the camera to show them a shot, they do a mirror. They
do it so that they are never ever pointing it, or that the camera
person or the cinematographer is not behind the camera at the time. All right,
So the shift is that they shoot it off to the side. Okay,
I understand that. Okay, assuming that's correct, Assuming that's correct,
who is responsible for that? Is it the cinematographer who handles the camera?
Is it the director? Is it the assistant director or the or the star
in this case, or the producer, because that's where the buck stops.
You have a star and the producer. I would think that because he's the
one who hires the director. Yeah, basically the boss of everybody. Well,
he's also but not only is he being blamed overall, he's being blamed
specifically for that gunshot. And that's where I think I believe he's going to
win. But the case starts today. It's going to be eight days and
in front of a jury. Jury selection starts today, and we'll see what
pans out. All right, For the first time, there is a report
that has just been issued ninety two pages by the state insurance Department, California
State Insurance Department. This was a bill that was passed in twenty twenty two
that mandates the state to come out with a report and just tell us what
it costs, not necessarily the deaths, but the actual cost in terms of
insurance, in terms of infrastructure costs. So the fourth of July holiday was
the hottest fourth of July on record, the holiday and the insurance department looked
at it. Matter of fact, they compared the seven extreme heat events in
the state from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty two, and we know that it
took the lives of hundreds of people, and it's getting worse. We had
massive new records. Palm Springs hit what one hundred and twenty something. Death
Valley hit one hundred and twenty eight. There was one death. Cyclist was
traveling along Death Valley and oh, one hundred and twenty eight temperature heat killed
them. Well, what a shocker that is. And we have what Phoenix
had record highs. Las Vegas hit one eighteen. My best friend lives in
Las Vegas and all he admitted it was hot. Thank you, savill always
accept the heat. He's okay with it, not when it's one hundred and
eighteen degrees. So these events had a total economic impact of seven point seven
billion dollars of lost wages, productivity, agricultural manufacturing disruptions, power outages,
infrastructure damage, and a whole lot more. And on top of that,
we've had five of the deadliest wildfires in the history of California, I think
in the last ten years. So we're moving very quickly to every record being
broken. The death toll from the extreme heat events identified by the Insurance Department
estimated nearly four hundred and sixty in It is first of a kind report,
and here is a major issue. Heat waves of this magnitude are not considered
natural disasters per FEMA, per the United States, per the insurance companies,
floods are, earthquakes are. Certainly hurricanes are not. Heat waves, and
heat waves kill more people than any other natural occurrence in the country. And
so there's an argument saying, listen, you have to put heat waves on
the list of natural disasters. It's called the silent killer because it's not as
if someone drowns or as swept away, or a building or a piece of
furniture falls on them during the course of an earthquake, or a road that
falls on them. If you remember, in a north Ridge quake, there
was a cop who flew off of an overpass he was driving and the whole
thing collapsed under him. And in Reseda during one of the earthquakes, the
entire office or the entire apartment building just pancaked. It wasn't built, it
was built to code, but it was old and the whole thing came down.
So the argument is we have to look at heat waves and give them
numbers. What category is the heat wave? Much like we give earthquakes a
number on the Richter scale, we give hurricanes number category four category five.
Heat waves should go from well I don't know. One to ten, but
I don't know. Maybe it's one to five. I don't know. You
have to talk to the experts on that one. Who delineated. And the
insurance companies don't cover heat waves? They don't and people die. Now the
argument is, how does insurance cover a heat wave? Do you insure yourself
if you don't have air conditioning? Well, if you can afford air conditioning,
you assure as hell it can afford insurance. But here's the problem.
What if your air conditioning breaks? You can buy home insurance that fixes your
air conditioning. If you have a power outage and someone dies, let's say
is shocked or a piece of equipment blows up because of the utility doing something
wrong with the power, you have power surges, you can make a claim
someone dies because of a heat wave. Nope, insurance companies don't cover that.
I mean your life insurance will cover it. And as always in the
report, who gets nailed Hispanic Black Pacific Islanders, people that are poor,
the elderly, who are most susceptible. Of course, there isn't a story
I do that doesn't include and who gets hurt the most Hispanics, Blacks,
poor people always the case. So the argument for making these heat waves a
natural occurrence, a disaster, a coverable occurrence, Well, that argument I
think is gaining legs big ones. All Right, Joe Biden is in a
little bit of trouble after that disastrous debate. Was it last week or the
week before? Now are we all? So we're wow week and a half
out of the speech that a lot of people think to completely destroy his candidacy,
as I do. And so what is he doing to somehow rehabilitate himself
in the mind of the Democratic Party hierarchy, in the minds of voters,
in the mind of just Democrats, both national and state officials. Well,
what he's doing is having interviews, having rallies. So I'm going to take
you back to nineteen fifty two, and this is a fun part of history
I want to share with you. Dwight Eisenhower was running for president, and
in a very rare run for president, he was offered the presidency or the
candidacy of both the Democrats and the Republicans, and he chose the Republicans,
and he chose as his running mate this relatively little known at that time,
senator from California Nition, a senator maybe just was in the house, and
he was known and Nixon was known as the Communist fighter and was absolutely disgusting
in going after the communists. He was more a Joe McCarthy congressperson than anyone
else. So he is now running for he's chosen as the vice presidential candidate.
And he got into trouble because there was a report that came out that
a fund had been raised to help pay his expenses by eighteen thousand dollars,
and he was making in the three thousand dollars range. And he got into
trouble and all of a sudden people were looking at hey, eighteen thousand dollars
was raised by contributors to help Nixon. And Nixon was about to lose the
vice presidential candidacy. Dwight Eisenhower was about to bounce him from the ticket.
So what ni And did. This is a brilliant move, is he came
up with a speech that he was going to do to the American people nineteen
fifty two radio and television, an extraordinarily brilliant move. And he went on
TV. He bought half an hour of primetime TV where the Republican National Committee
did, and he talked about that fund. He talked about that money,
and he said, this was for expenses only. I didn't take a dime
of that money. If you look at the expense sheet, the most of
it was for mail, a lot of it was for travel, and not
a dime went to me for personal expenses. And this was the famous checker
speech. And I'll tell you why it's called checker checkers. So he's in
front of a television camera. He does it here in Los Angeles, and
does it at a sound stage and Pat Nixon, his wife, is off
to the corner and the camera occasionally pans to her, and there she is
completely stricken by what's going on. And he says, I didn't do it.
I didn't take any personal funds. My wife doesn't have a mink coat.
She has a good Republican cloth coat. And he was as Richard Nixon
was pleading, he was defensive. He did admit to one thing, and
he said, there was one thing that I did take one of my supporters.
We went to the airport. There was a package waiting for us,
and it turned out to be a crate, and inside the crate with a
little black and white dog who had heard Pat Nixon during one of the speeches
or one of her rallies, say my daughter wants a dog. So there
is this black and white dog, and his six year old Tricia named it
Checkers. And he said, that's one thing I am going to keep.
I am going to keep Checkers. The kids, like all kids, love
the dog, and I just want to say this right now, regardless of
what they say about it, We're going to keep Checkers. Therein lies the
famous Checkers speech. His reputation turned around immediately. It was one of the
most successful comebacks rehabilitations that have existed in modern politics. Dwight Eisenhower after hearing
the speech, I got together and reporters heard Dwight Eisenhower, who had originally
said, you know, I'm going to dump you, he said, that's
my boy. And Nixon went on to become vice president, ran against JFK,
lost that race, came back in nineteen sixty eight, and became president
in another extraordinary comeback. And we look back at the that speech, at
that comeback, and is it gonna happen? Can it happen with Joe Biden?
No, Joe Biden already has his dogs, So that's a problem.
That's the start. Joe Biden buying national television would do nothing because he has
all the national television coverage he wants the president. The president coughs and it's
reported. So while it helped Richard Nixon, it saved his political career.
Will the performance of Joe Biden a week and a half ago in the debate
help him? No? Doesn't he wish that someone gave him a dog?
We're keeping although someone giving him a dog? Is that a violation of a
campaign contribution? Personal contribution? Not going into the campaign? Here's a dog
unless the campaign owns the dog? What and loans the dog to the Biden
family. I think that would be within the campaign laws. What if it's
a seeing eye dog, that's different, that's different. I think that.
No, No, I don't think so. I think Joe Biden has to
buy the dog. He can't accept the gift of a dog. Didn't his
dogs like bite the crap out of the sea? Yeah, that's yeah.
The dogs. Yeah, the dogs ate a couple of Secret Service people to
the point, and I mean really ate them to the point where the dog
had to be well, had to be sent away to I was gonna say
dog Heaven, but that's not the case. Sent away to Doggyville, wherever
presidents send their doggies to some kind of boarding facility. All right, now,
I don't know if you have noticed, but there has been a huge
increase in street performers. You know, they're playing guitar or saxophone or violin
or dancing around and there's always a can in front where people put tips.
Now, I've always called street performers beggars, that's my name for them.
But why are we seeing more and more of them? I'll tell you why.
Because you've got malls, you've got cities where people that go to these
places aren't going anymore. I mean particularly malls and places of businesses, and
places of business have to do something to bring people in, and so they're
becoming places where destination places and great street performers out there, and so you're
seeing a lot more. By the way, these guys can make up to
one hundred dollars an hour they're being hired. There's a Wall Street Journal story
about a Martini Shakers who goes across the South and plays little gigs and got
hired. And when I talk about little gigs, barn Raisings, Hog Killings
South. That's a little gig, but got hired by a business district and
I think it was one of the Southern cities, if I'm not mistaken,
Jacksonville or one of those cities. It gets paid one hundred dollars an hour
for being out there and gets the tips because it's fun to see street performers.
Robin Williams started as street performer in San Francisco, and you've got cert
to Slay started as street performances and look where that's gone. And if you
go up to I get Peer thirty nine in San Francisco, which always has
a street performer in front of this little mall area, this little strip area
with a bunch of restaurants. I once saw saw a guy juggle chain saws
three chainsaws. Now, juggling a chainsaw or three of them is no easy
trick. How about chainsaws that are working that we're on and he was juggling
them. I mean that's pretty impressive. Now it's you've got street performers saying
there's a you know, there's an issue. Sometimes I don't get many tips.
One street performer that was interviewed by the Wall street Journal said, I
have seen people steel tips that were in my tip jar. I mean,
come on, you know, I mean there's disgusting, and there's disgusting,
and why would you do that in front of a steep performer? I mean,
I can see if you're doing in front of a blind performer that works,
but you know, it's it's just not that easy to do. So
this is a kind of performance that you're going to see more and more all
the time. Now, is there a downside? Yeah, you only get
a couple hours, So we get a couple one hundred dollars a week or
every few days because they tend to rotate them. Also, I wonder what
the the initial interview is all about, Right, the cattle call you out
there to perform, I guess in front of a group of people and the
city fathers or people that run them all, and you perform. And what's
the weirdest one you've ever seen? Mine? Is that juggling of the chainsaws?
Neil Michelle Amy. I had a friend who did that. I had
a friend who was a street performers. Yeah, did all knives, all
kinds of things, yeah, knives or but you know, I've seen bowling
balls. I've seen fire batons. Yeah yeah, but that's it. I've
seen some really good ones. Mine's are a big one. I mean tell
you, I like the guys who look like statues. Oh yeah, those
oh yeah, and then they scare you. Yeah. Oh, you know
that. It's a street performance when in front of a statue there's a tip
jar or a cane, which usually regular. You should do that. We
should go buy a real statue and just put a tip jar in front of
it and make a couple of bucks. That makes sense, I look it
up at the end of the day. I was at City Walk Universal City
Walk the other day with the family, and they hire performers to come out
and play music and it's lovely. They're usually just a singer with a guitar
or maybe a keyboard or you know where. You can find a ton of
street performers in the London underground, in the subway. Yeah, at all
the stations. And that's by the way, you auditioned for that. These
are good musicians, and they don't it's not like they set up. It's
almost a permit process. And there are some really terrific musicians that do that.
There are also some terrible ones. That's a lot of fun. Heckling
a street performer. That is great stuff. All Right, we're done.
This is KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been
listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my Show Monday through Friday six am
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