December 13, 2024 • 28 mins
Swamp Watch. Gary and Shannon are joined by a special guest at this hour!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty The Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Macy's is ramping up store closures this year, struggling to
revive its business. In February, they announced that they're going
to shutter one hundred and fifty of the underperforming Macy's
stores within a few years, including fifty five by the
end of this year. Now, they said they're going to
close sixty five locations by the end of this year.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
They said they're going to.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Stay open through the holidays, let you shop, and then
do probably a massive clearance sale before they close for
good before the end of December. At this point, Macy's
has not yet announced which of the sixty five which
of their stores would make up the sixty five that
are supposed to be closing. Rams beat the forty nine
(00:45):
Ers last night, twelve to six. Thursday Night football and
Army Navy game is tomorrow afternoon, and then the college
bowl season starts Jackson State Tigers against South Carolina State
Bulldogs at the Cricket Celebration Bowl and the Salute to
Veterans Bowl between South Alabama Jaguars in the Western Michigan Broncos.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Trump is going to the Army Navy game. That's where
we start swampwatch. Swamp is horrible.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The government doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Man.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
We're gonna make us like an reality TV show. Corn
wasn't bad? Doos always a pleasure to be anywhere from Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Ay Joe, a town all too clearly built on a
swamp and in so many ways still a swamp.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I have a bunch of malarkey.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
When he said drained the swamp, I said, Oh, that's
so he'll keep wash, you know the thing. So this
is Trump's fifth appearance at the game, the Army Navy
game he went as president, elected in twenty sixteen, and
then as president in eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. He's also
going to be on the sideline with Pete Haig Seth.
(01:49):
Of course, his pick for Defense Secretary, former Army Major
Ron DeSantis, will be there. Former Navy lawyer who will
join Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Jd.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Vance has invited Daniel Penny, the marine veteran recently evacuated
on the homicide charges.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Up in New York.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So that's going to be a good, low scoring game,
I think, is it Armies or Navy. One of them
is ranked at like number twenty two in the country.
They've had a great year, so it might not even
be a close game, but it will not be an
airborne game.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
They will not. It's just they never passed the ball.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I mean, I think last year they one of those
last one of the last couple of years they combined
for I think five pass attempts the entire game, like
it was being played in nineteen twenty eighth, something like that.
Nancy Pelosi is in the hospital. She was put in
the hospital in Luxembourg today after she was injured while traveling.
Now at this point, the spokesperson for the speaker Amerita,
(02:54):
said that she sustained an injury during an official engagement.
No details on the nature of the injury or how
it happened, but said that she was admitted to a
hospital for evaluation. According to somebody who was familiar with
the incident but is not authorized to comment, they said
that Nancy tripped going down marble stairs at the Grand
(03:15):
Ducal Palace and took a hard fall, which is never
good news and could be particularly bad news for someone
who's the age of eighty four. Regardless of what kind
of condition she's in going into that fall. This has
become a nursing home, and that's not necessarily good news
(03:36):
for the country. Mitch McConnell, of course, tripped and fell
in the Capitol after the Republican luncheon. He sprained his wrists,
sustained a small cut on his face. He's the one
who's frozen up several times. Nancy also wears four inch
stiletto heels wherever she goes, so that may have been
an issue on the marks.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
So silly.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
We've heard about the pardons, of course, the commutation and
pardons that President Biden handed out earlier this week. One
of those pardons is commutations, I should say, is getting
particular attention because a judge, a former judge, Michael Conahan,
was convicted of corruption and sentenced to jail for seventeen
(04:24):
years because he was taking kickbacks for sending kids to
for profit detention facilities. He was sharing in two point
eight million dollars in the illegal payments from the builder
and the co owner of a couple of for profit lockups.
Another one of the judges also involved in the scheme.
(04:46):
The scandal is considered Pennsylvania's largest ever judicial corruption scheme,
with the state Supreme Court throwing out some four thousand
juvenile convictions involving more than twenty three hundred kids. After
this thing was uncovered again, the judge Michael Conahan pleaded
guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, but was released
from prison to home confinement because of his age over
(05:09):
the age of seventy and COVID when he had six
years left in his sentence. So some of the people
in what Joe Biden likes to refer to as his
hometown of Scranton, PA are a little pissed off that
he let this judge commuted the sentence for that judge.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I just want to corrections and retractions. I mean, not
really corrections or retractions, but something to keep an eye
on if you're going to watch the Army Navy game.
Bryson Daly is the quarterback for Army, and his twenty
nine touchdowns is a record in the AAC. He's having
a hell of a year, breaking all the one.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Team nine touchdowns.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, actually a lot of upsetment that he wasn't in
the Heisman conversation. Apparently he is. He's a toss it.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
He can run it.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
He's like a linebacker running the ball, they say, so
that might be exciting to watch.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's gonna be chili. It's not gonna be a snowy
like it was before, but it is going to be chili.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Everywhere's chili. Aren't we under the Lake effect for more?
Most of the northeast where it's like below zero this weekend.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I didn't think it was gonna be that cold. I
thought it was gonna be like twenties maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Remember the woman who claimed she was raped by the
duke all lacrosse players.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Can you believe that was nearly twenty years ago? That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Now, she says she made up the whole story. It's
the first time she's admitted that publicly. She was on
a podcast. Crystal Magnum. Is her name, Crystal Mangum, Mangum.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Excuse no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I fell for that too. I did that multiple times.
I said her name wrong, but I checked the spelling
a couple of times. Crystal Mangum.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
They trusted me that I wouldn't betrayed their trust, and
I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped
me when they didn't, and that was wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I already a whole conversation of race black. These were
white lacrosse players. She was black, and about just class
and race and wealth in this country and privilege.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And does do those things give you more or less
believability when something happens or you say something happens.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
You know?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That was That was well before we had the Me
Too movement where we talked about believing all women.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
But everybody jumped onto her train.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
To support her because her description of it was was
so egregious. And these kids, I mean, these were college
kids whose reputations were completely destroyed by her. There continues
to be some earthquakes that are rattling right along the
one hundred and fifty mile long New Madrid fault line
(07:56):
in the Midwest. Scientists have warned that the fault line
could general rate of magnitude seven or higher in the
next fifty years. And the earthquakes in the last few
days have all been really small, especially by California standards.
They've been three point zero or less smaller. But they
said that even that many quakes of that size are
very unusual in that area. For us, it's Tuesday, for them,
(08:17):
it's batten down the hatches. The big one is coming.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Back in DC.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Big report that came out from the Inspector General of
the Justice Department took a long time, but he said
that there were more than two dozen confidential human sources
in the crowd outside the Capitol on January sixth. And
there's an important distinction, and it depends on where you
read this story. The headline is there were no FBI
agents in the crowd. That's one headline. The other headline
(08:45):
is there were twenty six chs's and the confidential human
sources in the crowd. Now, many of them were not
instructed to go there by the FBI, but a few
of them were because they they were following or providing
information to the FBI about some of these suspect groups.
(09:06):
Proud Boys was one of them, and they said that
many of the people of the two dozen who were
there at the Capitol on the January sixth, they said
seventeen of them did enter the restricted capital buildings or grounds.
None of those guys have been arrested. Three of the
(09:28):
informants referred to in the report as confidential human sources
were tasked specifically by the FBI field officers to go
to DC to report on subjects that were part of
domestic terrorism investigations. So they're keeping their eyes on specific
people for the FBI. But the FBI for a very
long time. I mean, if you remember, Christopher Ray, the
(09:50):
director of the FBI, had said that there was no
violence that was perpetrated by FBI agents or sources.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Asking whether the violence at the capital on January sixth
was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and
or agents, the answer is emphatically no, saying not violence
orchestrated by FBI sources or agents.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
And it's one of those where it's kind of splitting hairs.
People are banging on Christopher Ray for lying about whether
or not FBI sources were there that day. He's saying
there were no agents there that day and that none
of the agents or sources did anything to foment any.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Of the violence.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Democrats may be getting honest with themselves. At least one Democrat.
Her name is Molly Murphy. She has delivered a speech.
This is the first post election meeting of the DNC
and the leadership there and she was Molly Murphy was
upholster to the Harris campaign. And she said today to
(10:54):
top Democratic Party officials that they must confront Trump far
differently differently than they did during his first term. She
had an urgent message for them not to focus on
every outrage but instead argue that he's hurting voters' bottom
lines their pocket books. It was a quiet indictment of
(11:16):
much of the party's long standing approach to Trump, and
they say it marked one of the most candid conversations
that Democrats have had. She said, the twenty twenty five
playbook cannot be the twenty seventeen playbook. This was at
the Higatt Regency in DC. She said that most Americans
support Trump's transition and that voters don't care about who
(11:36):
he's putting in cabinet positions. She said that Trump's going
to take office more popular than he was when he
first started his first term, though not as well liked
as Joe Biden and Obama when they were inaugurated. But
she stresses that Trump's strength for years has been that
voters approve of his handling of the economy and that
Democrats should aim in his second term to change that.
(11:59):
She said, these votes are saying I will give him
a pass on the outrageous if my costs come down.
That's what they need to hear.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, that's what they want. I mean, well, they don't
may not want to hear that. They don't write that
is what they do.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
That was probably be a very unpopular speech because they
love the outrage. They love the can you believe this guy?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The incoming president elect administration to Trump administrations likely, they said,
to bring changes to seafood. Some of the industry said
the returning president will be I've never heard that term before,
but it makes sense. The returning president will be more
responsive to the seafood sector of the US economy. More
complicated picture, they said. Trump's pending trade hostilities with some
(12:40):
of our trading partners they set on the table for
tariffs with Canada and China, of course, could make an
already pricey kind of protein more expensive. But conservationists are
fearing that the president's emphasis on deregulation might jeopardize the
fish stocks that are already suffering. Many in the commercial
fishing and seafood processing industry said they do you expect
Trump to allow fishing and protected areas cracked down on
(13:03):
some of the offshore wind expansion, which can threaten some
of those populations. Also, Donald Trump's cabinet choices are not
normal to sen its confirmation process should be to be
published alongside one that made the opposite point. But because
of a tight deadline and because, according to The New
York Times, the LA Times editors were baffled by his demand,
so they just spiked the article and couldn't come up
(13:25):
with the second version of it in time. Prior to
the election, of course, you remember he spiked the planned
endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Guess whose birthdays are being celebrated today?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Today is December thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yes, two celebrities, Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift and Front of
the Show John Bon, Jovie, Dick Van Dijk.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Oh, if it's right, ninety nine today?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yes, yes, safe marked safe from the Malibu fire.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Escape the fire with his wife Arlene and his cat Bobo.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Thanks to a couple of neighbors. If I'm not mistaken,
they helped them get out. That's why we check on
our friends when the fires come, right, you don't.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Listen to them. Of Jesus, Well, we hears it different
in sound.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Well, three years ago did the Center of our lives.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Something like that? Maybe it was two years ago. It
was two years ago because it was while mom was
not well.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
This is the story is I was traveling up the
Central Coast to visit my mom when she was not well,
she was getting sicker, and as I'm driving home, this
song comes on the radio and I had never heard
it before. I guess i'd never heard I don't remember
(14:43):
hearing it.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
One Sleep Sound the World of Difference.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Man, it was just the perfect song, perfect timing, it was,
and we can't get away from it now.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And then when my dad was dying, I would put
this on just and it's got got this like cathartic
feeling to it, right, So it's become kind of a
song we play all the time on the show, as
you know, and today we get to we get to
interview and talk to the singer of the Trumps of Jesus,
Russ Taff.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Russ, Thanks guys, it's good to be here.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
Man.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I saw.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
When we first started kind of learning about the song itself,
and then of course the recording that the Imperials did
that was the name of the group that you were
a part of. It brought in some pretty amazing things.
Tell us about your career in music. Was there something
you wanted to do as a kid and then you
get involved with it.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Well, yeah, I grew up by Fresno, in a little
town called Farmersville, California, by Bothelia and daddy was a
Pentecostal preacher and small little church about twenty people, and
music was just a big part of my family. And
(15:58):
my mother and her sisters for great singers, and they
told me I sank my first solo when I was
four years old. Mom put me on the altar and
I sang, and it was just a part of me.
I mean, I couldn't play sports very well. You know,
I'm short and slow, and there's not like a big
demand for that. But my deal was Mom taught me
(16:21):
how to play guitar when I was twelve, and I
would through the week, I would learn a song and
then Sunday night there was time and I would sing.
But something would happen to me when I sang. I
felt at home. I felt glory, I felt caught up
(16:43):
in something that was much bigger than me, and it
satisfied me. And when there's a lot of trauma in
the home, there's just places of escape. That's just peace.
And music has always been that for me, and I
mean I've done it my whole life, but it you know,
(17:04):
even alone. Music makes me cry, music makes me laugh,
music brings peace, you know, music makes me dance. And
so I have just been absorbed in it and never
knew that I would have a career, moved to Nashville
and travel worldwide, you know, writing songs and singing. But
(17:27):
I've just been blessed. I've been out here now forty
eight years and just came out with a new record
and new tours and everything else. So I've just been
so blessed, so blessed. But yeah, that song was one
of the first records I made with the Imperials, So yeah,
I still get a lot of requests for that. When
(17:49):
I traveled.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Russ you talked about trauma and the home, and I
was reading about your life and you had a rough
start there.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yes, yes I did. My daddy, like I said, he
was a preacher, but he was also an alcoholic and
there would be you know, he would preach like six
seven months and do really really well, and then he
would relapse big time and lay in the back bedroom
(18:18):
and drink and sober up and he loved to preach,
and there really was a call in his life that
he never got a handle on it. And so you know,
when when their addiction is going on in the home,
you know, you can stay out till like five in
the morning. Nobody cares because you know Mom's caught up
(18:41):
with him and her life is falling apart. But it was,
you know, and I've had three three brothers die from addiction.
It was just I don't know, it was by the
time I was seven years old till he died in
ninety seven. He never got a hold of sobriety. And
(19:05):
so there was just constant chaos, just constant chaos. And
when you're a kid and you have to protect what's
going on in the family, you know, you can't talk
outside the family, and so you know, you had to lie.
You just had to lie. And when you're a kid
and you love Jesus and you've been taught to be
a Christian, and all of a sudden, you're having to
(19:30):
not tell the truth of people when they wanted to know,
why is your dad not going to where? You know?
Why's your dad not in church? And so it just
tore the family all the pieces and I left the
home when I was seventeen. It was just I was
at a point I just could not live there anymore,
and so I moved in with the family when I
(19:53):
was seventeen that just basically adopted me, and they've been
my parents of choice since I was seventeen. But trauma,
it follows you, you know, it just follows you. And
being told constantly in that household that you'll never be
good enough, you're not worth the bullet to shoot you with,
(20:14):
and you're just told that constantly. But that's what their
parents told them. And so I get with the Imperials
when I'm twenty two years old and you're winning Grammys
and I remember the first one, and you know, the
party after the Grammys, and then you go back to
the hotel with my wife and within an hour, it's
(20:35):
gone the joy of the whole thing because I'm not
good enough. I shouldn't be getting this, I don't deserve this,
And you know, you never could really accept the success
and you're singing in front of thousands of people and
you don't feel worthy because of those messages that were
(20:57):
just ingrained in your brain that you're not worthy, you're
not good enough. You'll never be good enough. But yet
you know you're living your dream, what you've always wanted
to do, and it's the greatest thing that can happen
to a singer. But when the concert was over, I'd
go to the back of the bus or go back
(21:19):
to the hotel, and then depression would come. I'm fooling everybody,
I'm faking out everybody, and I don't deserve this. So
you know, I went into my career just insecure and
afraid and afraid people will find out that I'm not
good enough to do this and I'm faking everybody out.
(21:41):
But it all started at trauma, you know, when I
was seven years old when dad started drinking. So it
caused chaos in my life. It's just absolutely retaboc. And
then you get married and because you grew up in
a home like that, you don't know how to love.
You know, love is conditional. And I tell you what
(22:06):
I've been in therapy thirty years. And then I had
my own doubt with alcoholism myself. I was twenty six.
I never drank, and I remember I had a beer
and those voices, those condemning voices, got quieter, and so
I had the second beer, and the voices got quieter,
(22:30):
and by the third beer, the voices were silent, those
condemning voices that haunted me, and honest to God, I
began to thank God. I you know, I'm Pentecostal, so
I lifted my hands and I began to say, this
must be the way, you know, ordinary people are, and
I can live this way. I can enjoy life, not
(22:51):
knowing that it would turn on me so fast. And
then all of a sudden, I'm hiding and I'm lying,
and I turned into my dad and I hate myself.
I just absolutely hate myself. But there were some people
around me that I saw what was going on, because
I was hiding and I was lying, and I was
(23:11):
terrified I'd be found out. And here's this gospel singer,
you know, talking about Jesus and he can't wait to
get back to the hotel and just numb. I just
wanted to be numb all the time. And everything I
sang from the stage, everything I said from the stage,
I meant it from the bottom of my heart. But
(23:31):
now I'm addicted and I can't get free. And I
would beg God and I would pray, and but somebody
saw what was going on, and it was my mother
of choice confronted.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Russ, your story of redemption is incredible in the documentary
you get me. The thing is the thing is your
story is so a.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Lot of people. Yeah, it's a twenty eighteen documentary. It's
called Russtaff I Still Believe, and it's incredible.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Once I get rolling fun to real it back, Yes,
depend when a miracle has happened in You're a lot.
But anyway, let me just say real quick, if there's
a document and it's on YouTube. One of them is
called I Still Believe Russtaff and I did one with
Mark Leida called Softwrite Underbelly that I did about five
(24:28):
months ago, and it tells this whole story. But forgive
me for just rap.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Now listen, it's a story that I think a lot
of people could listen to for a long time. Russ
hailed as the single most electric fine voice in Christian music,
three time inductee into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
It's just an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Thank you for that song, and thank you for all
of the songs that you've recorded.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
We greatly appreciate them.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Let me just say this before I get off. You
can get free from trauma. There is a way out.
But let me just say that as we say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Or not, Russ, thank you.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Oh I'm sorry you went away.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Oh oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that. Have a
great day, Russ. Thanks for your time.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
And thanks for the work you guys are doing. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Absolutely say hi to Nashville.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
For us, all right, that will bye bye.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Maybe that is a statement to Russ's longevity in the business,
in the industry. Yeah, you know, people moved. Plenty of
people moved to Nashville for music, just like they come
out here to be actors and never do anything and
never materializes. But he's been able to He's kept at
it for forty something years years, he said, And like
(25:50):
I said, three time member of the Gospel Music Association
Hall of Fame, one as Russ Taff, one as a
member of the Imperials that we talked about, and then
one as a member of the gays Or Vocal Band,
which is a long time well known gospel.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Group as well the Imperials.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I wanted to ask him, if I had a chance
to keep him on a little longer, I would ask
him about the ninety plus members or whatever it is
that have been part of the Imperials since that group
started in the sixties, just this rotating cast of people,
but that they kept the name of the band the
whole time, as opposed to changing it. And so that's
(26:29):
a yay. It's a good interview. He was a good guy.
Most electricalis a lot a lot it. Yeah, did you
make it through that?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
I mean yeah, I just you know, some people go
through a lot and addictions a wild thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
And here's the takeaway that I have in stories like
that or from stories like that. Everybody's got some story
of something happening in their family. They're addicted to something,
whether it's drugs or alcohol or abused or everybody's got
something going on in their family. We're all humans and
that's just that's the way it is. But it puts
into context, what's what your problems really can be?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
You know, we're upset about the traffic this morning.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you're upset because the boss wants
me to stay until four thirty on a Friday.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
You thought it was weird that your mom put up
dead birds in the house.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Right, No, not abusive at all.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
And the fact that he's able to come out on
the other side of that of not just his father's
and mother's abuse and addiction, but his own, and that
he was able to overcome all of that is incredible. Well,
and it's so powerful and important, especially this time of
year when people struggle arguably the most.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It was interesting he said he didn't have a beer
until he was twenty six years old, and when he did,
the voices in his head were the things that were quieted,
and then after another one they were quieted even more.
And I think at that point, you know, up until
that point, he'd probably feared alcohol because of his father's
struggle and never quite understood what the feeling it was
(28:10):
that that alcohol gave his dad. Yeah, right, I mean
if he was, you know, sober and then drunk and
then sober under trunk.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
What his dad's father was like, right, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
That probably is a key in all of that too.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
What was that line about the bullet you weren't worth
the cost of the bullet to kill you or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Lord, that's rough. That would that would be abuse? Yeah,
that would I would qualify. You've been listening to the
Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty The Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Macy's is ramping up store closures this year, struggling to
revive its business. In February, they announced that they're going
to shutter one hundred and fifty of the underperforming Macy's
stores within a few years, including fifty five by the
end of this year. Now, they said they're going to
close sixty five locations by the end of this year.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
They said they're going to.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Stay open through the holidays, let you shop, and then
do probably a massive clearance sale before they close for
good before the end of December. At this point, Macy's
has not yet announced which of the sixty five which
of their stores would make up the sixty five that
are supposed to be closing. Rams beat the forty nine
(00:45):
Ers last night, twelve to six. Thursday Night football and
Army Navy game is tomorrow afternoon, and then the college
bowl season starts Jackson State Tigers against South Carolina State
Bulldogs at the Cricket Celebration Bowl and the Salute to
Veterans Bowl between South Alabama Jaguars in the Western Michigan Broncos.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Trump is going to the Army Navy game. That's where
we start swampwatch. Swamp is horrible.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The government doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Man.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
We're gonna make us like an reality TV show. Corn
wasn't bad? Doos always a pleasure to be anywhere from Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Ay Joe, a town all too clearly built on a
swamp and in so many ways still a swamp.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I have a bunch of malarkey.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
When he said drained the swamp, I said, Oh, that's
so he'll keep wash, you know the thing. So this
is Trump's fifth appearance at the game, the Army Navy
game he went as president, elected in twenty sixteen, and
then as president in eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. He's also
going to be on the sideline with Pete Haig Seth.
(01:49):
Of course, his pick for Defense Secretary, former Army Major
Ron DeSantis, will be there. Former Navy lawyer who will
join Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Jd.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Vance has invited Daniel Penny, the marine veteran recently evacuated
on the homicide charges.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Up in New York.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So that's going to be a good, low scoring game,
I think, is it Armies or Navy. One of them
is ranked at like number twenty two in the country.
They've had a great year, so it might not even
be a close game, but it will not be an
airborne game.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
They will not. It's just they never passed the ball.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I mean, I think last year they one of those
last one of the last couple of years they combined
for I think five pass attempts the entire game, like
it was being played in nineteen twenty eighth, something like that.
Nancy Pelosi is in the hospital. She was put in
the hospital in Luxembourg today after she was injured while traveling.
Now at this point, the spokesperson for the speaker Amerita,
(02:54):
said that she sustained an injury during an official engagement.
No details on the nature of the injury or how
it happened, but said that she was admitted to a
hospital for evaluation. According to somebody who was familiar with
the incident but is not authorized to comment, they said
that Nancy tripped going down marble stairs at the Grand
(03:15):
Ducal Palace and took a hard fall, which is never
good news and could be particularly bad news for someone
who's the age of eighty four. Regardless of what kind
of condition she's in going into that fall. This has
become a nursing home, and that's not necessarily good news
(03:36):
for the country. Mitch McConnell, of course, tripped and fell
in the Capitol after the Republican luncheon. He sprained his wrists,
sustained a small cut on his face. He's the one
who's frozen up several times. Nancy also wears four inch
stiletto heels wherever she goes, so that may have been
an issue on the marks.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
So silly.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
We've heard about the pardons, of course, the commutation and
pardons that President Biden handed out earlier this week. One
of those pardons is commutations, I should say, is getting
particular attention because a judge, a former judge, Michael Conahan,
was convicted of corruption and sentenced to jail for seventeen
(04:24):
years because he was taking kickbacks for sending kids to
for profit detention facilities. He was sharing in two point
eight million dollars in the illegal payments from the builder
and the co owner of a couple of for profit lockups.
Another one of the judges also involved in the scheme.
(04:46):
The scandal is considered Pennsylvania's largest ever judicial corruption scheme,
with the state Supreme Court throwing out some four thousand
juvenile convictions involving more than twenty three hundred kids. After
this thing was uncovered again, the judge Michael Conahan pleaded
guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, but was released
from prison to home confinement because of his age over
(05:09):
the age of seventy and COVID when he had six
years left in his sentence. So some of the people
in what Joe Biden likes to refer to as his
hometown of Scranton, PA are a little pissed off that
he let this judge commuted the sentence for that judge.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I just want to corrections and retractions. I mean, not
really corrections or retractions, but something to keep an eye
on if you're going to watch the Army Navy game.
Bryson Daly is the quarterback for Army, and his twenty
nine touchdowns is a record in the AAC. He's having
a hell of a year, breaking all the one.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Team nine touchdowns.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, actually a lot of upsetment that he wasn't in
the Heisman conversation. Apparently he is. He's a toss it.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
He can run it.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
He's like a linebacker running the ball, they say, so
that might be exciting to watch.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's gonna be chili. It's not gonna be a snowy
like it was before, but it is going to be chili.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Everywhere's chili. Aren't we under the Lake effect for more?
Most of the northeast where it's like below zero this weekend.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I didn't think it was gonna be that cold. I
thought it was gonna be like twenties maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Remember the woman who claimed she was raped by the
duke all lacrosse players.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Can you believe that was nearly twenty years ago? That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Now, she says she made up the whole story. It's
the first time she's admitted that publicly. She was on
a podcast. Crystal Magnum. Is her name, Crystal Mangum, Mangum.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Excuse no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I fell for that too. I did that multiple times.
I said her name wrong, but I checked the spelling
a couple of times. Crystal Mangum.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
They trusted me that I wouldn't betrayed their trust, and
I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped
me when they didn't, and that was wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I already a whole conversation of race black. These were
white lacrosse players. She was black, and about just class
and race and wealth in this country and privilege.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And does do those things give you more or less
believability when something happens or you say something happens.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
You know?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That was That was well before we had the Me
Too movement where we talked about believing all women.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
But everybody jumped onto her train.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
To support her because her description of it was was
so egregious. And these kids, I mean, these were college
kids whose reputations were completely destroyed by her. There continues
to be some earthquakes that are rattling right along the
one hundred and fifty mile long New Madrid fault line
(07:56):
in the Midwest. Scientists have warned that the fault line
could general rate of magnitude seven or higher in the
next fifty years. And the earthquakes in the last few
days have all been really small, especially by California standards.
They've been three point zero or less smaller. But they
said that even that many quakes of that size are
very unusual in that area. For us, it's Tuesday, for them,
(08:17):
it's batten down the hatches. The big one is coming.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Back in DC.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Big report that came out from the Inspector General of
the Justice Department took a long time, but he said
that there were more than two dozen confidential human sources
in the crowd outside the Capitol on January sixth. And
there's an important distinction, and it depends on where you
read this story. The headline is there were no FBI
agents in the crowd. That's one headline. The other headline
(08:45):
is there were twenty six chs's and the confidential human
sources in the crowd. Now, many of them were not
instructed to go there by the FBI, but a few
of them were because they they were following or providing
information to the FBI about some of these suspect groups.
(09:06):
Proud Boys was one of them, and they said that
many of the people of the two dozen who were
there at the Capitol on the January sixth, they said
seventeen of them did enter the restricted capital buildings or grounds.
None of those guys have been arrested. Three of the
(09:28):
informants referred to in the report as confidential human sources
were tasked specifically by the FBI field officers to go
to DC to report on subjects that were part of
domestic terrorism investigations. So they're keeping their eyes on specific
people for the FBI. But the FBI for a very
long time. I mean, if you remember, Christopher Ray, the
(09:50):
director of the FBI, had said that there was no
violence that was perpetrated by FBI agents or sources.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
Asking whether the violence at the capital on January sixth
was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and
or agents, the answer is emphatically no, saying not violence
orchestrated by FBI sources or agents.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
And it's one of those where it's kind of splitting hairs.
People are banging on Christopher Ray for lying about whether
or not FBI sources were there that day. He's saying
there were no agents there that day and that none
of the agents or sources did anything to foment any.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Of the violence.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Democrats may be getting honest with themselves. At least one Democrat.
Her name is Molly Murphy. She has delivered a speech.
This is the first post election meeting of the DNC
and the leadership there and she was Molly Murphy was
upholster to the Harris campaign. And she said today to
(10:54):
top Democratic Party officials that they must confront Trump far
differently differently than they did during his first term. She
had an urgent message for them not to focus on
every outrage but instead argue that he's hurting voters' bottom
lines their pocket books. It was a quiet indictment of
(11:16):
much of the party's long standing approach to Trump, and
they say it marked one of the most candid conversations
that Democrats have had. She said, the twenty twenty five
playbook cannot be the twenty seventeen playbook. This was at
the Higatt Regency in DC. She said that most Americans
support Trump's transition and that voters don't care about who
(11:36):
he's putting in cabinet positions. She said that Trump's going
to take office more popular than he was when he
first started his first term, though not as well liked
as Joe Biden and Obama when they were inaugurated. But
she stresses that Trump's strength for years has been that
voters approve of his handling of the economy and that
Democrats should aim in his second term to change that.
(11:59):
She said, these votes are saying I will give him
a pass on the outrageous if my costs come down.
That's what they need to hear.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, that's what they want. I mean, well, they don't
may not want to hear that. They don't write that
is what they do.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
That was probably be a very unpopular speech because they
love the outrage. They love the can you believe this guy?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The incoming president elect administration to Trump administrations likely, they said,
to bring changes to seafood. Some of the industry said
the returning president will be I've never heard that term before,
but it makes sense. The returning president will be more
responsive to the seafood sector of the US economy. More
complicated picture, they said. Trump's pending trade hostilities with some
(12:40):
of our trading partners they set on the table for
tariffs with Canada and China, of course, could make an
already pricey kind of protein more expensive. But conservationists are
fearing that the president's emphasis on deregulation might jeopardize the
fish stocks that are already suffering. Many in the commercial
fishing and seafood processing industry said they do you expect
Trump to allow fishing and protected areas cracked down on
(13:03):
some of the offshore wind expansion, which can threaten some
of those populations. Also, Donald Trump's cabinet choices are not
normal to sen its confirmation process should be to be
published alongside one that made the opposite point. But because
of a tight deadline and because, according to The New
York Times, the LA Times editors were baffled by his demand,
so they just spiked the article and couldn't come up
(13:25):
with the second version of it in time. Prior to
the election, of course, you remember he spiked the planned
endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Guess whose birthdays are being celebrated today?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Today is December thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yes, two celebrities, Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift and Front of
the Show John Bon, Jovie, Dick Van Dijk.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Oh, if it's right, ninety nine today?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yes, yes, safe marked safe from the Malibu fire.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Escape the fire with his wife Arlene and his cat Bobo.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Thanks to a couple of neighbors. If I'm not mistaken,
they helped them get out. That's why we check on
our friends when the fires come, right, you don't.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Listen to them. Of Jesus, Well, we hears it different
in sound.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Well, three years ago did the Center of our lives.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Something like that? Maybe it was two years ago. It
was two years ago because it was while mom was
not well.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
This is the story is I was traveling up the
Central Coast to visit my mom when she was not well,
she was getting sicker, and as I'm driving home, this
song comes on the radio and I had never heard
it before. I guess i'd never heard I don't remember
(14:43):
hearing it.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
One Sleep Sound the World of Difference.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Man, it was just the perfect song, perfect timing, it was,
and we can't get away from it now.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And then when my dad was dying, I would put
this on just and it's got got this like cathartic
feeling to it, right, So it's become kind of a
song we play all the time on the show, as
you know, and today we get to we get to
interview and talk to the singer of the Trumps of Jesus,
Russ Taff.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Russ, Thanks guys, it's good to be here.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
Man.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I saw.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
When we first started kind of learning about the song itself,
and then of course the recording that the Imperials did
that was the name of the group that you were
a part of. It brought in some pretty amazing things.
Tell us about your career in music. Was there something
you wanted to do as a kid and then you
get involved with it.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Well, yeah, I grew up by Fresno, in a little
town called Farmersville, California, by Bothelia and daddy was a
Pentecostal preacher and small little church about twenty people, and
music was just a big part of my family. And
(15:58):
my mother and her sisters for great singers, and they
told me I sank my first solo when I was
four years old. Mom put me on the altar and
I sang, and it was just a part of me.
I mean, I couldn't play sports very well. You know,
I'm short and slow, and there's not like a big
demand for that. But my deal was Mom taught me
(16:21):
how to play guitar when I was twelve, and I
would through the week, I would learn a song and
then Sunday night there was time and I would sing.
But something would happen to me when I sang. I
felt at home. I felt glory, I felt caught up
(16:43):
in something that was much bigger than me, and it
satisfied me. And when there's a lot of trauma in
the home, there's just places of escape. That's just peace.
And music has always been that for me, and I
mean I've done it my whole life, but it you know,
(17:04):
even alone. Music makes me cry, music makes me laugh,
music brings peace, you know, music makes me dance. And
so I have just been absorbed in it and never
knew that I would have a career, moved to Nashville
and travel worldwide, you know, writing songs and singing. But
(17:27):
I've just been blessed. I've been out here now forty
eight years and just came out with a new record
and new tours and everything else. So I've just been
so blessed, so blessed. But yeah, that song was one
of the first records I made with the Imperials, So yeah,
I still get a lot of requests for that. When
(17:49):
I traveled.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Russ you talked about trauma and the home, and I
was reading about your life and you had a rough
start there.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yes, yes I did. My daddy, like I said, he
was a preacher, but he was also an alcoholic and
there would be you know, he would preach like six
seven months and do really really well, and then he
would relapse big time and lay in the back bedroom
(18:18):
and drink and sober up and he loved to preach,
and there really was a call in his life that
he never got a handle on it. And so you know,
when when their addiction is going on in the home,
you know, you can stay out till like five in
the morning. Nobody cares because you know Mom's caught up
(18:41):
with him and her life is falling apart. But it was,
you know, and I've had three three brothers die from addiction.
It was just I don't know, it was by the
time I was seven years old till he died in
ninety seven. He never got a hold of sobriety. And
(19:05):
so there was just constant chaos, just constant chaos. And
when you're a kid and you have to protect what's
going on in the family, you know, you can't talk
outside the family, and so you know, you had to lie.
You just had to lie. And when you're a kid
and you love Jesus and you've been taught to be
a Christian, and all of a sudden, you're having to
(19:30):
not tell the truth of people when they wanted to know,
why is your dad not going to where? You know?
Why's your dad not in church? And so it just
tore the family all the pieces and I left the
home when I was seventeen. It was just I was
at a point I just could not live there anymore,
and so I moved in with the family when I
(19:53):
was seventeen that just basically adopted me, and they've been
my parents of choice since I was seventeen. But trauma,
it follows you, you know, it just follows you. And
being told constantly in that household that you'll never be
good enough, you're not worth the bullet to shoot you with,
(20:14):
and you're just told that constantly. But that's what their
parents told them. And so I get with the Imperials
when I'm twenty two years old and you're winning Grammys
and I remember the first one, and you know, the
party after the Grammys, and then you go back to
the hotel with my wife and within an hour, it's
(20:35):
gone the joy of the whole thing because I'm not
good enough. I shouldn't be getting this, I don't deserve this,
And you know, you never could really accept the success
and you're singing in front of thousands of people and
you don't feel worthy because of those messages that were
(20:57):
just ingrained in your brain that you're not worthy, you're
not good enough. You'll never be good enough. But yet
you know you're living your dream, what you've always wanted
to do, and it's the greatest thing that can happen
to a singer. But when the concert was over, I'd
go to the back of the bus or go back
(21:19):
to the hotel, and then depression would come. I'm fooling everybody,
I'm faking out everybody, and I don't deserve this. So
you know, I went into my career just insecure and
afraid and afraid people will find out that I'm not
good enough to do this and I'm faking everybody out.
(21:41):
But it all started at trauma, you know, when I
was seven years old when dad started drinking. So it
caused chaos in my life. It's just absolutely retaboc. And
then you get married and because you grew up in
a home like that, you don't know how to love.
You know, love is conditional. And I tell you what
(22:06):
I've been in therapy thirty years. And then I had
my own doubt with alcoholism myself. I was twenty six.
I never drank, and I remember I had a beer
and those voices, those condemning voices, got quieter, and so
I had the second beer, and the voices got quieter,
(22:30):
and by the third beer, the voices were silent, those
condemning voices that haunted me, and honest to God, I
began to thank God. I you know, I'm Pentecostal, so
I lifted my hands and I began to say, this
must be the way, you know, ordinary people are, and
I can live this way. I can enjoy life, not
(22:51):
knowing that it would turn on me so fast. And
then all of a sudden, I'm hiding and I'm lying,
and I turned into my dad and I hate myself.
I just absolutely hate myself. But there were some people
around me that I saw what was going on, because
I was hiding and I was lying, and I was
(23:11):
terrified I'd be found out. And here's this gospel singer,
you know, talking about Jesus and he can't wait to
get back to the hotel and just numb. I just
wanted to be numb all the time. And everything I
sang from the stage, everything I said from the stage,
I meant it from the bottom of my heart. But
(23:31):
now I'm addicted and I can't get free. And I
would beg God and I would pray, and but somebody
saw what was going on, and it was my mother
of choice confronted.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Russ, your story of redemption is incredible in the documentary
you get me. The thing is the thing is your
story is so a.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Lot of people. Yeah, it's a twenty eighteen documentary. It's
called Russtaff I Still Believe, and it's incredible.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Once I get rolling fun to real it back, Yes,
depend when a miracle has happened in You're a lot.
But anyway, let me just say real quick, if there's
a document and it's on YouTube. One of them is
called I Still Believe Russtaff and I did one with
Mark Leida called Softwrite Underbelly that I did about five
(24:28):
months ago, and it tells this whole story. But forgive
me for just rap.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Now listen, it's a story that I think a lot
of people could listen to for a long time. Russ
hailed as the single most electric fine voice in Christian music,
three time inductee into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
It's just an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Thank you for that song, and thank you for all
of the songs that you've recorded.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
We greatly appreciate them.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Let me just say this before I get off. You
can get free from trauma. There is a way out.
But let me just say that as we say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Or not, Russ, thank you.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Oh I'm sorry you went away.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Oh oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that. Have a
great day, Russ. Thanks for your time.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
And thanks for the work you guys are doing. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Absolutely say hi to Nashville.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
For us, all right, that will bye bye.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Maybe that is a statement to Russ's longevity in the business,
in the industry. Yeah, you know, people moved. Plenty of
people moved to Nashville for music, just like they come
out here to be actors and never do anything and
never materializes. But he's been able to He's kept at
it for forty something years years, he said, And like
(25:50):
I said, three time member of the Gospel Music Association
Hall of Fame, one as Russ Taff, one as a
member of the Imperials that we talked about, and then
one as a member of the gays Or Vocal Band,
which is a long time well known gospel.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Group as well the Imperials.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I wanted to ask him, if I had a chance
to keep him on a little longer, I would ask
him about the ninety plus members or whatever it is
that have been part of the Imperials since that group
started in the sixties, just this rotating cast of people,
but that they kept the name of the band the
whole time, as opposed to changing it. And so that's
(26:29):
a yay. It's a good interview. He was a good guy.
Most electricalis a lot a lot it. Yeah, did you
make it through that?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
I mean yeah, I just you know, some people go
through a lot and addictions a wild thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
And here's the takeaway that I have in stories like
that or from stories like that. Everybody's got some story
of something happening in their family. They're addicted to something,
whether it's drugs or alcohol or abused or everybody's got
something going on in their family. We're all humans and
that's just that's the way it is. But it puts
into context, what's what your problems really can be?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
You know, we're upset about the traffic this morning.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you're upset because the boss wants
me to stay until four thirty on a Friday.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
You thought it was weird that your mom put up
dead birds in the house.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Right, No, not abusive at all.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
And the fact that he's able to come out on
the other side of that of not just his father's
and mother's abuse and addiction, but his own, and that
he was able to overcome all of that is incredible. Well,
and it's so powerful and important, especially this time of
year when people struggle arguably the most.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It was interesting he said he didn't have a beer
until he was twenty six years old, and when he did,
the voices in his head were the things that were quieted,
and then after another one they were quieted even more.
And I think at that point, you know, up until
that point, he'd probably feared alcohol because of his father's
struggle and never quite understood what the feeling it was
(28:10):
that that alcohol gave his dad. Yeah, right, I mean
if he was, you know, sober and then drunk and
then sober under trunk.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
What his dad's father was like, right, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
That probably is a key in all of that too.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
What was that line about the bullet you weren't worth
the cost of the bullet to kill you or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Lord, that's rough. That would that would be abuse? Yeah,
that would I would qualify. You've been listening to the
Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Gary and Shannon News
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.