Speaker 1: You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty bill Handle.
Speaker 3: Here is a Friday morning, January seventeenth, and as this
Speaker 3: show is continuing on, some massive news is coming down
Speaker 3: the pike as we speak. First of all, it looks
Speaker 3: like a deal has been cut in the Middle East
Speaker 3: between Hamas and Israel, and first stage should start on
Speaker 3: Sunday with a release of hostages and Israel pulling back
Speaker 3: back away from the Philadelphia Quarridor, which is the area
Speaker 3: on the other side of Egypt, which is basically a
Speaker 3: buffer zone between Israel and Hamas.
Speaker 2: Also, some hostages going to be returned.
Speaker 3: I think about thirty six Palestinians are going to be
Speaker 3: exchanged Palestinian prisoners. And to give you an idea of
Speaker 3: a typical exchange policy and what happens during prisoner exchange,
Speaker 3: thirty six hostages are to be released, fifteen hundred Palestinian.
Speaker 2: Prisoners are coming back, isn't that special?
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, the case of Galite Shalid Khalid I
Speaker 3: get the name always confused, which is he was just
Speaker 3: a regular soldier, just a nothing soldier, well not a
Speaker 3: nothing soldier, but he was like you, a corporal, sort
Speaker 3: of the most minor level. He was captured by Hamas
Speaker 3: and it was six years of negotiation and the exchange
Speaker 3: rate was eleven hundred Palestinian prisoners to one Israeli.
Speaker 2: So that was and was a big deal.
Speaker 3: Is a big deal, but it looks like good news
Speaker 3: across the board. We'll see what happens. We'll see how
Speaker 3: this holds. And the other bit of news is the
Speaker 3: TikTok ruling or lack of ruling. Supreme Court has ruled
Speaker 3: that it is not going to get away or get
Speaker 3: in the way of the ban on TikTok, which is
Speaker 3: supposed to start on Sunday. And now that the law,
Speaker 3: there's gonna be a big issue about whether or not,
Speaker 3: well Biden's going to do nothing because two days later,
Speaker 3: of course he's out of the presidency, but whether or
Speaker 3: not Trump is going to enforce the ban or not
Speaker 3: move forward in dealing with the band, because he, that is,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump went from being.
Speaker 2: Totally in favor of the band hated TikTok.
Speaker 3: Because TikTok, owned by a Chinese company, Byte Dance, has
Speaker 3: access to anybody who uses TikTok, all of the information
Speaker 3: can come in and everything, we know everything, we own,
Speaker 3: all of our private information if we're on TikTok is
Speaker 3: available that happens across the board. Well, this is a
Speaker 3: Chinese government that is connected to TikTok. So for national
Speaker 3: security reasons, there was a big, big to do about
Speaker 3: banning TikTok. Virtually everybody in Congress and the Senate, the presidency,
Speaker 3: certainly Trump turned around the other way. Now even the
Speaker 3: Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate and the House
Speaker 3: have turned around. Now everybody loves TikTok, and the President says,
Speaker 3: I have a warm one place in my heart for TikTok.
Speaker 2: And why is that?
Speaker 3: Because he rightly credits TikTok with being a big part
Speaker 3: of his win and that he was able to garner
Speaker 3: many many young people, young men who otherwise probably would
Speaker 3: not have voted, and that's what he got.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you know, do we.
Speaker 3: Take the entire segment on this, I think we did well.
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk about what the news was, and
Speaker 3: it is. It's a lot going on. We're gonna hear
Speaker 3: come Monday a lot more because we'll see what happens
Speaker 3: with TikTok on Sunday, we'll see what happens with a
Speaker 3: cease fire. And none of them have ever really held
Speaker 3: not much and probably would do a little bit more
Speaker 3: explaining about how this is in three phase Phase one,
Speaker 3: Phase two and three haven't really been negotiated yet, sort
Speaker 3: of up in the air.
Speaker 2: So and there's a bunch of different views in Israel.
Speaker 3: The families of the hostages, of course saying we'll do
Speaker 3: anything to bring our family home. And then you have
Speaker 3: the ulternationalists even within the government, says we can never
Speaker 3: cut a deal with Hamas ever. Ever, we do not
Speaker 3: want them to even exist. All right, A story about
Speaker 3: the fire, the fires, and this is a story that
Speaker 3: has not been covered, but I want to connect to
Speaker 3: things that here in southern California particularly are inextricably connected.
Speaker 3: One fires, those are going to go on forever. I mean,
Speaker 3: we're just at the start because we know climate change
Speaker 3: is doing what it's doing. And the other thing is homelessness.
Speaker 3: We know that's a huge problem La County. Seventy thousand
Speaker 3: or seventy five thousand homeless people in La County. I mean,
Speaker 3: the numbers astronomical. So what does the fire have to
Speaker 3: do with homeless people, well, a whole lot. We go
Speaker 3: back to twenty seventeen, the Tubs fire went through Santa Rosa, Okay,
Speaker 3: and it affected homeless ridiculously. And one homeless person or
Speaker 3: an expert who's CEO of Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa,
Speaker 3: the diocese who works with the homeless, said, every one
Speaker 3: of these crises is one just one step away from
Speaker 3: entering big time homelessness.
Speaker 2: And that was happening.
Speaker 3: And experts are worrying that what the fires are doing,
Speaker 3: they will have a dire homelessness crisis. And that's true
Speaker 3: because if you look at parts of California that had
Speaker 3: been burned by past wildfires, communities are still dealing with it.
Speaker 3: And I'm talking about homelessness years later. How does this
Speaker 3: all connect? Well, how about this? People who either too
Speaker 3: little or no insurance on their homes or who rented
Speaker 3: sometimes end up on the streets.
Speaker 2: How does a.
Speaker 3: Homeowner end up on the streets? Well, the house burns down.
Speaker 3: How long do you think it takes to rebuild a house.
Speaker 3: What if there's no insurance, that's done. But if there's
Speaker 3: not enough insurance, that's done. And what happens over that year?
Speaker 3: Were now when you have eight thousand homes and it
Speaker 3: may take years because there just aren't enough contractors. There
Speaker 3: isn't enough labor, there isn't enough building supplies, aren't nearly
Speaker 3: enough supplies.
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of people fall right into homelessness. That's
Speaker 3: the problem. Renters and undamaged buildings. Number One, they get evicted,
Speaker 3: hopefully not because laws are into place. We'll see about
Speaker 3: the enforcement issue. They get evicted. Why because the landlord
Speaker 3: is able to raise rents to the point where a
Speaker 3: render it can't even begin to afford it. Mean, if
Speaker 3: you had a rental anywhere near the Palaceades right now,
Speaker 3: what do you think you could get for that? I
Speaker 3: mean the bidding war that goes on.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: You're not allowed to raise the rents on someone, but
Speaker 3: what if someone offers you twice as much? Are you
Speaker 3: allowed to take it? Also, how many people who lived
Speaker 3: in the Palacetades own property, They own rental property, and
Speaker 3: they've got no place to go. Now in city of
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, you can't throw someone out just to throw
Speaker 3: someone out.
Speaker 2: You can't evict people because we have rent control laws.
Speaker 3: But you know, one of the reasons, one of the
Speaker 3: ways you can evict people if you're moving into the place.
Speaker 3: If you are moving into the place and someone is
Speaker 3: on a month to month rental, you can say sixty days,
Speaker 3: chow baby, And where do people go? Because there are
Speaker 3: no places to rent and there's desperation out there. And
Speaker 3: when a community loses thousands of home at once, like
Speaker 3: the Palisades, where there already is a huge housing shortage,
Speaker 3: prices go up across the board, displacing even more people.
Speaker 3: Each fire threatens to make it already sky high home
Speaker 3: insurance rates even more expensive to the point you can't
Speaker 3: afford it. Here's a little inside baseball. One of the
Speaker 3: big reasons I sold the Persian Palace is that my
Speaker 3: fire rates, my home insurance rates doubled, went up one
Speaker 3: hundred percent, and I said that's enough where I live
Speaker 3: the home, So I downsized dramatically. I just didn't want
Speaker 3: to pay those ridiculous amounts that they wanted, and by
Speaker 3: the way, I would two and a half weeks. I've
Speaker 3: told you that story that I was there. I had
Speaker 3: no insurance for two and a half weeks. Let me
Speaker 3: tell you two and a half weeks when I woke
Speaker 3: up and knew that if the house burned down, I
Speaker 3: was done. So climate change, we're gonna have hotter and
Speaker 3: drier seasons except when it rains. We're gonna have more rains,
Speaker 3: and these wildfires become more unpredictable, extreme and that sets
Speaker 3: back the fight against homelessness. The fires in La County,
Speaker 3: these fires burned more than forty thousand acres, twenty five
Speaker 3: people killed, twelve thousand homes in structures. Basically, it's eight
Speaker 3: thousand and nine thousand homes. It's going to be a
Speaker 3: tough one. In twenty eighteen, remember the campfire up in
Speaker 3: the town of Paradise which wiped out the town of Paradise, Well,
Speaker 3: the people who were still alive, because it killed eighty
Speaker 3: Some of my people went into Chico, about fifteen miles away.
Speaker 2: That was six years ago.
Speaker 3: The Sacramento, this Sacramento Valley city of Chico is still
Speaker 3: feeling the effects of homelessness in a fire that happened
Speaker 3: fifteen miles away and was six years ago. By the way,
Speaker 3: in terms of the number of losses, you think of
Speaker 3: the town of Paradise having lost what a few hundred homes,
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand homes were lost in that fire and let
Speaker 3: me give you another stat You have fifteen thousand homes gone.
Speaker 3: Twenty nine hundred single family homes have been rebuilt out
Speaker 3: of fifteen thousand. How about multifamily units which now the
Speaker 3: state is pushing, pushing, pushing five hundred and fifty of
Speaker 3: those out of fifteen thousand of them. So before the fire,
Speaker 3: Paradise had a few homeless shelters, none now they don't exist.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty CZU Lightning complex made up of a bunch
Speaker 3: of multiple fires. Those are lightning strikes. Those destroyed seven
Speaker 3: hundred homes of Santa Cruz County. Four years later, about
Speaker 3: a third of those homes have been built. So we
Speaker 3: are looking at people who otherwise had great homes. They
Speaker 3: had expensive homes. Palisades is not a cheap place to live.
Speaker 3: But you had people that have homes that were paid
Speaker 3: off twenty years ago, who lost insurance, couldn't afford insurance.
Speaker 3: And by the way, so now they have insurance to
Speaker 3: the California Fairplan. I talked about that yesterday. Insurance as
Speaker 3: a last resort, which is a State of California plan.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have enough money.
Speaker 3: There's no way the state is going to have to
Speaker 3: come in and bail them out, or the California Fair
Speaker 3: Plan doesn't exist as an insurance company anymore. Now, one
Speaker 3: quick sideboard saw bar point I want to make before
Speaker 3: we take a break, and I go into ask handle
Speaker 3: Anything is private insurance companies, and I thought they were
Speaker 3: all going to go broke. The state farms, the farmers,
Speaker 3: the mercuries, they all have enough money to pay off
Speaker 3: the claims because there's something called reinsurance where the insurance
Speaker 3: companies buy insurance from reinsurance companies to cover their losses
Speaker 3: above a certain point. So we're just starting starting to
Speaker 3: deal with all the aspects of these fires. Okay, we're
Speaker 3: going to go into what we normally do on a
Speaker 3: Friday at this time, and that's the segment that I
Speaker 3: call Ask Candle Anything. And this was created a few
Speaker 3: months ago, actually a few weeks ago, where people ask
Speaker 3: all kinds of questions now personal questions, etc. And sometimes
Speaker 3: well I was answering all of them for a period
Speaker 3: of time, and man was I embarrassed. So here's the
Speaker 3: way it works is during the course of the show,
Speaker 3: anybody can call in. You go to the iHeart app
Speaker 3: and there's a go to KFI and there is a
Speaker 3: microphone at the upright hand corner. You press on the
Speaker 3: microphone and you record a question up to fifteen seconds,
Speaker 3: because I don't want to hear anything longer than that,
Speaker 3: and certainly I don't care about your opinion about anything.
Speaker 2: It's just a question.
Speaker 3: And what happens is and Neil go through these questions.
Speaker 3: They're recorded and then they're played. Now I'm hearing them
Speaker 3: for the first time, just like you are. So I
Speaker 3: have no idea what the questions are, and we just
Speaker 3: go for it. And and told me I have to
Speaker 3: repeat the question. Yes, okay, I repeat the question is asked,
Speaker 3: I repeat the question. For example, as you said, at
Speaker 3: beauty pageants, they do that where the beauty contestants go
Speaker 3: up there and repeat the questions. But the answer is
Speaker 3: always the same. World peace. I believe in world peace. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's do it. Someone want to play a question, Cono.
Speaker 1: Hey Bill. Two questions One when did you get into radio?
Speaker 1: And why? I guess that's the two questions. And another
Speaker 1: question have you always been annoying and arrogant and just
Speaker 1: obnoxious today?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, good questions. I'll answer the second question first. Yes.
Speaker 3: As a matter of I was talking to my daughter
Speaker 3: last night, and when people get her name, occasionally people
Speaker 3: who know me Barbie hand, Oh you're Bill Handle's daughter,
Speaker 3: and she says yeah. And the question always is is
Speaker 3: your dad any different on radio? And she goes, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: He just uses language in person that he can't on
Speaker 3: the radio. Question Number one, how long have I been
Speaker 3: in radio? Forty years this year? Forty forty years?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: That is so crazy. Kono. When I started, you weren't even.
Speaker 3: You were thirteen years from actually being born. No, I
Speaker 3: was four years. Okay, I don't care. I can't do
Speaker 3: the math. But that's a long time.
Speaker 2: Forty years. I'm old. I'm falling apart. You are old.
Speaker 2: I know, No, I know, no, I know, I know. Okay.
Speaker 2: So those were that question and there you Bill Cliff
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, love the show. Listen man, Happy New Year.
Speaker 2: Throwing you a softball question.
Speaker 3: What is your favorite type of bagel and how do
Speaker 3: you like it prepared?
Speaker 2: Take care buddy, Well that is okay.
Speaker 3: My favorite type of bagel is actually an onion bagel,
Speaker 3: And how do I like it prepared?
Speaker 2: Toasted with a cream, cheese and sometimes.
Speaker 3: Locks on it, and locks of course smokes salmon and
Speaker 3: the way it really should be done. First of all,
Speaker 3: you need a real jew bagel, which is a plain bagel,
Speaker 3: or an onion bagel or an egg bagel. All the
Speaker 3: rest of it is just crapple. You know, blueberry bagels,
Speaker 3: What the hell is that about? Strawberry bagels? What are
Speaker 3: you doing? And then supermarket bagel that's bread in the
Speaker 3: shape of a bagel.
Speaker 2: So cream, cheese, shmear locks, smoked.
Speaker 3: Salmon, slice, cucumber, tomato, red onion, and then I eat
Speaker 3: about four packs of zelmons because yeah, yeah, that's just great.
Speaker 3: Smelled like an off on a tune a boat. Okay,
Speaker 3: how are we doing for time?
Speaker 4: Next question, Bill, can you tell me where's Steve Gregory?
Speaker 2: We haven't heard from him for a long time.
Speaker 3: Yes see, Okay, Steve is no longer with the station.
Speaker 3: Steve does extraordinary things, including he consults to police and
Speaker 3: fire stations and agencies all over the country, teaching them
Speaker 3: how to deal with the press. He does his podcast
Speaker 3: and frankly.
Speaker 2: He does better there than he ever did here. So
Speaker 2: that's where Steve Gregory is.
Speaker 3: And you can google him, you can look him up,
Speaker 3: and I'll give you an idea. But that's where Steve
Speaker 3: and I talked to him all the time. I called
Speaker 3: him yesterday he was supposed to have lunch with him. Oh,
Speaker 3: watching the two of us seat, watching Neil and Steve
Speaker 3: Gregory and me eat man.
Speaker 2: That is a joy to see.
Speaker 3: I mean, we are talking about people come and stand
Speaker 3: around and watch. You ever seen groups of people around
Speaker 3: a breakdancer. Everybody sits there and watches. That's what happens
Speaker 3: when we eat. Okay, let's do one.
Speaker 4: More, hey handle, What career path would you have taken
Speaker 4: if you didn't get into radio, knowing you're a lousy lawyer,
Speaker 4: what would you have done other than that?
Speaker 2: Male prostitution? No, I wouldn't have done well doing that either,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. Probably sales of some kind.
Speaker 3: You know, at one point I wanted to be an actor,
Speaker 3: but I'm terrible at it. That actually is a pretty
Speaker 3: good question. I will tell you that I fell into
Speaker 3: every career that I've had. I was in business, and
Speaker 3: I would have been in business. I've been a business
Speaker 3: person since I've been forever. And my mother the only
Speaker 3: reason I went to law school is because I have
Speaker 3: Jewish parents, and I decided it is and of course,
Speaker 3: every kid, you know, you need something to fall back on,
Speaker 3: you need a career, you need an education, all right.
Speaker 3: So it was a business decision three years of law
Speaker 3: school versus forty years of therapy as to what I did.
Speaker 2: And I went to law school and had no intention
Speaker 2: of practicing law at all.
Speaker 3: And I fell into my career at surrogacy, and then
Speaker 3: I fell into my career as radio. So I actually
Speaker 3: didn't go out for a career, just one of those people.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people do that, you know, their
Speaker 3: first job and that's what they end up doing. Certainly
Speaker 3: in the legal field, lawyers their first internship, they end
Speaker 3: up at whatever, whatever job, whatever firm, and that's what
Speaker 3: they practiced. So now doctors, I think, want to be doctors.
Speaker 3: That's not something you fall into. And so certainly other fields.
Speaker 3: But no way, let me ask Amy this question real
Speaker 3: quick before we take a break.
Speaker 2: What does you want to do, Amy h other than
Speaker 2: be a man? Be a man? Yeah? I know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, the surgery is very expensive.
Speaker 5: Well, you know what, I kind of fell into it.
Speaker 5: I went to college thinking I want to do broadcasting,
Speaker 5: public relations or marketing, and then I too sort of
Speaker 5: fell into it. I was like, I want to do this,
Speaker 5: and and so I I went in and I trained
Speaker 5: with somebody who used to be the voice of orson
Speaker 5: on Mork and Mindy, and I want, I want to
Speaker 5: do this, but I didn't want to be a DJ,
Speaker 5: and I didn't want to be okay, like I didn't
Speaker 5: want to make commercials. So I walked in and I said,
Speaker 5: I want to work in radio, but I don't know
Speaker 5: what I want to do.
Speaker 3: Yes, people, it's amazing how manyeople fall into their careers,
Speaker 3: and that's exactly what happened. And I have been blessed
Speaker 3: because I love. I loved every minute that I was
Speaker 3: practicing law and every minute that I've been on radio.
Speaker 2: I mean that's that to me.
Speaker 3: Is every minute now of course not okay, I hate
Speaker 3: it here half the time? Okay, Kno, you have another
Speaker 3: couple of questions that I have been recorded that I
Speaker 3: am going to answer.
Speaker 4: Hey, Bill, I started listening back in the day of
Speaker 4: Gallagher and Maratta and the Hawaiian guy whose name escapes
Speaker 4: me right now? Was that your original team or did
Speaker 4: you have a team before that? And if so, who
Speaker 4: were they?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 3: Frankly, I'm so old that I don't remember who the
Speaker 3: real original team was. We did have Ken Gallagher was
Speaker 3: our news guy. Rich Murrada, yes, he started immediately. Rich
Speaker 3: Mrada was sport he had done sports on the Morning
Speaker 3: Crew before me I came on, and that was nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three when this show started. Rich Murato was there,
Speaker 3: so yeah, yeah, that was the original crew. And then
Speaker 3: it was Paul T. Wall who was also part of
Speaker 3: the original team. I think anyway, and thank you very
Speaker 3: much for asking. I've been listening to forever. I'm going
Speaker 3: to give you just a quick one. When people used
Speaker 3: to say I've been listening to you for fifteen years,
Speaker 3: I've been listening to you, listening to you for twenty years.
Speaker 2: I listened. You know, I took it.
Speaker 3: I don't thank you very much, and you know, put
Speaker 3: my finger to my cheek.
Speaker 2: Aw shucks.
Speaker 3: Now when someone starts with I've been listening to you.
Speaker 2: For shut up, just shut up. I don't want to
Speaker 2: hear it.
Speaker 3: Or I get people in their twenties thirties that come
Speaker 3: up to me and go, you know, my parents love you.
Speaker 2: My parents do love you.
Speaker 3: See there you go, and I go, well, how about
Speaker 3: your grandparents?
Speaker 2: They love you even more? Also, my grandma loves you.
Speaker 2: There you go. Thank you.
Speaker 3: And by the way, that's not validation, just to validate me.
Speaker 3: That's the truth.
Speaker 2: All right. Do we have one more Okay, let's do
Speaker 2: one more bill.
Speaker 3: What do we have to do to make Southern California
Speaker 3: a better place to live?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 3: Well let's start with you moving out with those stupid questions.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think that's a good start. You know what
Speaker 2: you got me.
Speaker 3: I don't see Southern California being a better place. I
Speaker 3: have been here since I've been five years old, and
Speaker 3: it was there was a time when there was virtually
Speaker 3: no traffic. My parents bought a house for nineteen five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars in the San Frano Valley and sold it
Speaker 3: six years later for twenty two thousand dollars. Housing actually
Speaker 3: used to be affordable. Now there's some downside. Smog was
Speaker 3: so god awful you couldn't breathe during the summer. That
Speaker 3: was horrific. But the bottom line is, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if you can make it better. But I
Speaker 3: don't know if you can make anything better anymore, because well,
Speaker 3: first of all, I'm a cynic. There's nothing good about anything,
Speaker 3: so I always look at the wrong side of life.
Speaker 3: All right, guys, we're done.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow morning it's Handle on the Law eight to eleven
Speaker 3: o'clock Dean Sharp from six to eight Monday morning, we
Speaker 3: all come back. We're gonna certainly talk about the inauguration.
Speaker 3: It starts with Amy wake up call and hopefully Neil
Speaker 3: comes back. So coming up, it's Mark Thompson and Marla
Speaker 3: Tayas who are filling in for Gary and Shannon, and
Speaker 3: so I'll catch you in the morning. This is KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty live right here on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Speaker 3: Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and
Speaker 3: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.