Hour 2 | A.I. Country Music @ConwayShow @RadioGasBag

The Conway Crew sings and debuts the next country song of the summer that AI wrote in 4 minutes. // Guest Dave Williams comes on to talk about how he used AI to create a country song about a truck leaving their owner. // It’s the 4th anniversary of Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s death. Steve Gregory comes on the show to look back at that tragic day.Steve Gregory continues his conversation with Doung McIntyre about Kobe’s death 4 years ago.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's KMF. I am sixty andyou're listening to the Conway Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. A lotof changes coming when you go shopping and
all of a sudden, we're notjust consumers, but we're also final assembly
for pretty much everything we buy.And I blame Ikia. We'll get into
that in just a bit. Ialso have a first date in radio story

(00:23):
I'll tell later on. But thismorning, I'm surfing around as I do,
looking at the Facebook, like allthe kids doing, checking out MySpace,
you know, doing all the coolthings, and I see a post
my old radio buddy Dave Williams,and he posted a joke that I guess
it was a meme that somebody elsemade, and it was a picture of

(00:44):
a cowboy with kind of a tearin his eye, and the captions to
the meme said, with the riseof self driving vehicles, it's only a
matter of time until there's a countrysong where a guy's truck leaves him.
I thought that's a pretty good joke. Dave did too. What Dave did
was he asked, I think barredchat GPT or barred AI. It's called

(01:07):
it's one of these chat GPT kindof AI programs where he can ask it
to write something, and he said, write the song. Write a country
song that where the truck leaves thedriver, a self driving vehicle leaves the
driver. Five seconds later, itspits out the lyrics, including verse and

(01:29):
chorus, and it sounds something likethis. Used to roll down Roots sixty
six sunset like a bleeding wound,my trusty Dodge. She'd hum along,
gravel rumblin. Needs you know,this isn't doing it, is it?
I tell you what, you knowwhat it needs. It's a country song.
It really needs it needs, youknow, twang, It needs some
Let's bring in the KFI singers.We got erin, we got Michael Krozier,

(01:53):
we got some drunk that I sawin the hallway. I don't even
know who that was, but bringthem on in. Okay, gather around,
Grab a microphone, grab a microphone. Okay. I'll take the lead,
which is painful enough, and thenyou guys will sing the chorus.
Ready, go ahead, hit it. Used to roll down Route sixty six

(02:19):
sunset like a bleeding wound, mytrusty dog. She hum along, rabbled,
rumble beneath the moon. Ain't nevermet a curve she couldn't chase,
ain't seen a dusty miles sheets fear, but Progresstolma dusty queen replaced her with
a chroma tear self drive. That'sher name, a computer aste old kale.

(02:53):
She scanned the road. No root, oh dream no nothing hope me
too, miss, No rustant banders, just agover thing Macy. Maybe I'm

(03:16):
just a relic stuck in dust ofdays gone by. But there's a fire
in this soul heart that's stellicn't denythe feel of leather, wind and hair,
the freedom in the open road.I guess I'll find a four wheel
friend, one with a soul,one that won't go cold drivestell. That's

(03:40):
her name, a computer, Asteal cold kale. She scanned the road,
No root, oh dreams, nonothing hope me too, miss,

(04:00):
no rusted off bands, just downgo thing song roadless tish. We stuck

(04:24):
the ending anyway, We absolutely stuckthe ending, all right, ladies and
gentlemen. That song was written infive seconds by and I know it sounds
like a seven second project, butit was five seconds by Ai and Uh
and then recorded by the KFI singers. But it was written by AI,
and I actually was taken by howwell written the song is if you actually

(04:46):
can get past our horrible singing,especially my horrible sing But thank you to
Erin and Michael Krazier for and touh Bellio forgetting and Steph for getting involved
in this nonsense. I want tobring on board a voice that many of
you heard on LA Radio for along long time, can X and over
where I used to work and formany years. Just just retired from a

(05:09):
great radio career down in Dallas.It's a pleasure to welcome here. Dave
Williams, Dave, how are youpal Well? I'm going to be okay
after listening to you sing that song. It's just going to take me a
few minutes. I know you getsome smelling salts handy, I hope.
But the reality is is that thesong that you asked, was it called

(05:30):
barred AI? Was that the appyou used? Yeah, it's Google.
It's Google's aid. I always kindof liked it a little bit better than
chat GPT. I think it's Ithink it's a little bit better. But
I haven't really played with either oneof them too much, not in a
while. But I'll tell you whatreally surprised me about that other than what

(05:51):
as you said, it literally didwrite the whole thing in five seconds,
just as long as it took thewords to appear on the screen, and
you only did less than half ofit. Yeah, well, kind a
couple of courses and it, andyou're right, the writing is really phenomenal.

(06:12):
I mean, it has a senseof humor, which is something new
for AI written material. And Idon't know what else to say about it
except that it surprised me. Butit didn't. I knew this is what
it would do, but the resultwas astonishing and more than just a little

(06:33):
bit unsettling. Well, it's aneye opener because AI. You know,
everybody's talked about AI since this thingjust exploded on the scene, and somebody
had described it about six months agoas basically it's Google in nineteen ninety eight.
You know, it's just the machinesare running twenty four to seven,

(06:57):
just scooping up data, scooping updata endlessly, and you know, so
it triples and I made that numberup. It's more than probably quadruples,
if not greater, every day inwhat it knows, and it gets more
sophisticated in terms of its ability toget the subtleties of language, and it's

(07:19):
reflected in some of the and I'mgoing to use this word specifically the poetry
that it managed to put into thissong based on the premise of a meme
of a joke. With the riseof self driving vehicles, it's only a
matter of time until there's a countrysong where the guy's truck leaves him.
Okay, that's the old country jokeabout the record. You know, if

(07:41):
you play a country music back youget your girlfriend, your dog back,
and your car back. You know, if you play a country song backwards,
right, something like that. Dave, hang on, I want to
continue this conversation with you, ifyou will, Dave Williams with us.
We're gonna gab a little bit aboutthe profound impact that disrepresents this AI will
represent to all of us, nomatter what profession. You're not just songwriters.

(08:03):
You're listening to Tim Conway Junior ondemand from KFI AM six forty.
We got something very important to getinto. IKEA has somehow changed the world
for the worst. I'm blaming theSwedes. I'll get into that in just
a bit. Dave Williams is onthe line with us. We just played
you a terrible rendition by the KFIsingers with myself in quote unquote the lead

(08:24):
of a song that was written byAI in five seconds, based on a
premise a joke that was floating onthe internet about self driving vehicles. Just
a matter of time until there's acountry song where the guy's truck leaves him
okay instead of the other way around. And Dave Williams, old radio pal
who you heard here in La atKfW B, started up in Sacramento KBFK

(08:50):
and just retired from a great careerafter fifty years k Liff k l IF
in Dallas, and of course Iworked with them across the street here in
Los Angeles. Year's Dave, thanksfor hanging on with us. So you
put in you like the joke,and you thought, hey, somebody should
do this. You tried it withAI. And you're a writer, You're

(09:11):
a playwright and excellent you write forBarrett Media Colinus. You're a writer,
a really good writer. I've readmany of your things and we were both
impressed by the actual literary merit thatthe AI app came up with for this
song. Yeah, yeah, it'sstunning. And as you well know,

(09:33):
having your first novel out and havingit be a hit and it's selling,
and it's a wonderful book to read. Just go ahead and finish the plug.
Frank's Shadow, Doug mcintie. That'swhy we booked to Dave. That's
why we have you on the show. But you know, you know,
as well as anybody who's ever triedto write a book or a story or

(09:58):
a play, or even just ad an article for a magazine or newspaper,
it's hard work. It's really hardwork. But that's because we have
brains that you know, are requiredto piece all of these thoughts and these
ideas and this understanding of the literaryform and so forth. We've got to,

(10:18):
you know, we've got to putall these little pieces together. But
artificial intelligence is nothing more than anaggregator. It aggregates all of that information
that is out there on the Internet, and as you said, it is
compounding faster than I think, fasterthan anybody can conceive on a daily basis,

(10:46):
and it's getting to the point whereit's very good stuff. Yeah,
it's getting better and better every secondof the day, twenty four hours a
day, three sixty five. It'sand the consequences in the reap hushers of
this are going to be enormous.And it's not just the printed page,
it's the spoken word. We sawit in the New Hampshire primary that somebody
allegedly was putting out Joe Biden artificialintelligence robocalls that sounded just like Biden,

(11:13):
including fumbles. I mean, theycan just replicate the way people actually talk.
The visual arts, photographs, thedeep fake videos that can go out
where you actually see people talking oncamera and it's not them. It's not
a human being, it's a digitallycreated character that's an amalgam of different qualities
and qualifications. So the question iswhat does it mean for us obsolete human

(11:37):
beings, us carbon based life formsthat still you know, make mistakes and
screw up, et cetera, etcetera, and stumble through life when the
machines can do things instantaneously in fiveseconds, something that would have taken a
songwriter maybe weeks to write. Well, you know, I imagine that you
stumbled across the story. A coupleof days ago, they moved the doomsday

(12:01):
clock up to ninety seconds from midnight. That first means that's how close we
are to total destruction and in humanextinction. This is the dumbest thing I
ever I You know, somebody cameup with this many years ago in the
forties. I think like they doit every year. It's like, what
a stupid thing to do. What, what's the point? It just scares

(12:22):
us all to death. Yeah,but like we have any control over any
of AI. Right, AI isnow part of it. The concerns over
artificial intelligence are right alongside the riskof nuclear obliteration and climate change and and
everything else because because of the emergenceof artificial intelligence, where we won't we

(12:45):
won't be able to we won't knowwho's saying what, who's doing what,
and who's not doing you know whatI'm saying. It's like the misinformation is
going to get to uh, toa national level. Government. Government's fighting
with each other with misinformation, creatingbiotechnological warfare, and yeah, we're not

(13:07):
going to know where We're nervous.Well, we're not going to know where
anything comes from, whether it's isthis being put out, is false information
being put out or propaganda or spinbeing put out by a person, a
political party, an agency, agovernment, or are the machines starting to
self generate, and literally this isthe shark being jumped. Is it creating

(13:33):
original content of its own desires?In other words, it's somewhere along the
line of the comp I know thissounds sci fi, but it's not.
It's actually happening now. We're onthe road to this if we aren't already
technically at the point where it canhappen, where the machines will start making
decisions based on their own concept ofwhat would be good for the world.

(13:56):
And then you know who knows ifit shuts down the power grid starts launching
missiles, we have no idea.We're talking about Dave Williams. I'm gonna
slightly name drop here, but leaveone name out. I had a friend
of mine about I don't know,six seven years ago, when this was
just still something that was over thehorizon, who was invited to a private
dinner party with Elon Musk, andshe worked in the comedy business at a

(14:20):
very high level, and she gotinto an argument with Musk over whether Ai
could could have a sense of humor, could write comedy, and she insisted
it would be impossible, and Muskinsisted it was not only possible, but
it was absolutely going to happen.And his attitude was it was just a
matter of compiling enough data to learnhow human beings what makes humor work.

(14:46):
And I think he was right,because we're already starting to see it even
in this song. The song,as you correctly pointed out to day I
wrote in five seconds, is infusedwith humor based on a humor. Yeah,
now there's still now Here's where I'mgoing to try to be Pollyanna and
optimistic, which is not an easyputt for me under any circumstances, but

(15:09):
I'll give it a shot in thiscase. You know, my wife is
an actress. She's been an actressfor her really, her entire adult life.
And you know when I showed herthis song. She writes songs and
she writes poetry, and she readthis and she goes, we're done.
We're done for And at some levelthat's true. And all the people who
make a living or aspire to makea living in the arts or using their

(15:33):
creative imaginations can look at this andrealize that, oh my god, the
competition now is beyond my ability tostay on the playing field with them.
But I wonder if there won't atsome point when this stuff becomes so ubiquitous
that people start to have a realyearning for human contact and go back to

(15:54):
live theater, for instance, togo back to live performance, to say,
everything that's record or on video isartificially generated by robots, and what
they want is they want that humanexperience, and maybe they'll go back to
wanting to sit in a theater withlive people performing for them. That's the

(16:15):
only way you'll know, that's theonly way you'll know you're not dealing with
our artificial intelligence is if you're inthe room with those people and never mind
the fact that they're reciting somebody else'swriting and maybe they're reciting words that were
generated by AI. If that's okay, I mean, as far as a
performance is concerned, you are correct, it would you would be able to

(16:37):
appreciate the artistry, the human thehuman touch in that respect. Yeah,
you know, we see this inthe music world now because so much music
is done in the studio. Theproducers and the engineers who do the mix
and ad and sweeten and you know, fill in notes, et cetera.
So I have a good friend ofmine, Tierney Sutton, who's a nine

(16:59):
time Gramming Knot. She's a brilliantvocalist, a brilliant jazz musician. And
one of the things that always floorsme when I see her perform is that
she sounds live exactly like she soundson the records. There's just nothing being
done in the studio that she can'tdo in real life. And and to
me, that's magical because there's alot of acts that actually can't perform their

(17:22):
songs the way the audience has heardthem right, right, I've been to
concerts for that. That was thecase that not only was it not the
way it was recorded, which iswhat what you want to hear, right,
do you want to hear? Youwant to hear the hits? The
hits I'm gone to say, seesome pretty big name acts who weren't even

(17:44):
good on stage. Never mind theywasn't they weren't the same. Hey,
Dave, you'll appreciate what I'm aboutto say. I'm up on a heartbreak
here at the bottom of the hour. Thank you for being with us,
Appreciate it, and thank you forposting this and doing this. It was
a real, a real textbook lessonon what AI is going to look like.
Dave Williams. You're listening to TimConway Junior on demand from KFI AM

(18:06):
six forty. All right, inaddition to everything else that's going on in
the world, including an eighty threepoint three million dollar judgment in a New
York courtroom against Donald Trump and thesecond libel trial over what he said about
e Gen Carroll, who accused himof sexual assault many moons ago, and
Jose Wezar going up the river forthirteen years. This is the anniversary of

(18:30):
the loss of an icon, agenuine icon, Kobe Bryant, who's really
posthumously really entering icon status in thesense that his legend grows the longer we
don't have him. Steve Gregory iswith us to talk about the passing of
that legend and a special that you'reworking on. You know, that was

(18:53):
a seminal moment for a lot ofpeople, because that rises up there to
one of those what were you doingthat more exactly, and everyone remembers,
Yeah, and I know what Iwas doing because I had to break in
programming on a Sunday morning to announcethat Kobe Bryant had died in a playing
helicopter crash. So yeah, goingback to January twenty sixth, just before
ten in the morning, the Sikorskihelicopter that he and eight others were writing

(19:18):
and including his young daughter Gianna,were headed from Orange County up to the
Mamba Academy. And that's the sportsacademy where his daughter, Gigi and her
friend were about to play basketball andKobe would often coach the team that his
daughter played on. And as theytook off, the day started out pretty
normal, pretty usual down in OrangeCounty, but as they approached La County,

(19:40):
there was a layer of fog,real thick fog, real thick fog.
And the problem is that the FAAdoes not require charter helicopters to have
any kind of a voidance system orany kind of you know, I can't
remember the name of it, theacronym for it, but it's basically an
avoidance system to give you an ideaif you can't see and you're blinded by

(20:04):
fog, you still have an avoidancesystem and alarm that tells you when you're
getting to have it. Cars alot of cars today have a crash detection
thing where a thing starts beeping ifsomeone cuts in front of you. But
the FAA still didn't make it arequirement, especially in charter flights. So
anyway, as the pilot was movingthe helicopter north, he usually took the

(20:26):
route that mimicked the five, thatwould at least mirror the five, I
should say, and go up thecoast and then into Thousand Oaks where the
academy is. But because of thefog, he started to veer more inland,
and as he did, he gotinto Burbank air space. And then
you can go back and listen tothe radio chatter where Burbank air tower is
telling him to divert over and goover. So he was more inland,

(20:48):
and then when he was coming backtoward the west, he got caught in
that very very thick fog, especiallyover there in the foothills, and in
doing so he started to suffer fromspatial disorientation or disorientation. And that's basically
when you have no sense of up, down, right, left, you're
by appen to John F. KennedyJunior on his plane crashed. A lot

(21:10):
of pilots, that's usually that's whatleads to their demise, And in this
particular case, the NTSB said thatwhile he thought he was climbing to get
up above the fog. He wasin fact descending at a very high rate
of speed and then just crashed rightinto the hillside there in Calabasas, causing

(21:30):
a crater and ball of fire andinstantly killing everyone aboard. Now a whole
bunch of things about that my experiencethat day, that helicopter almost went directly
over my house. I live inthe West Valley, And the reason it
was distinctively memorable was because of thefog. The sound of the helicopter going

(21:52):
over was so loud because it wasit was sort of it was pushed down
to the ground ceiling, Yeah,there was. The fog was like a
ceiling, so we could hear it. Now. Of course we didn't know
it was Kobe Bryant's helicopter went outover the house. But then immediately the
word went out when there had beena helicopter crash, You know, it
had to have been that helicopter,because it was very unusual at that time

(22:15):
of day, on a weekend forthem to be that kind of air traffic
going over where we live, rightAnd as I if I recalled correctly,
the air traffic control actually put ahold on that flight somewhere over Burbank right
where we are for a while totry to make sure that they were okay
to proceed, and the pilot thenmade the fatal decision to keep going proceed

(22:37):
and to do visual flight roles rightVFR right, which was would prove deadly
in this case. But you're right, And what was fascinating about it when
the ntsp's go team got here withall the technology going on, the ring
cameras and everything else, you know, we typically get pretty good footage of
calamity, but in this case,there was not one piece of footage that

(23:03):
actually showed the helicopter crash. Butthey did see very faint helicopter shots in
people's reen cameras. There was aspilen's camera and a construction site that caught
a brief glimpse of a helicopter goingoverhead, but not one shred of video
that anyone could find that showed theactual crash. And that's what threw everyone
off, because they were hoping thatthey were going to get a better picture
of what had happenedly happened. Itwas also just it was just an odd

(23:27):
day for weather, because we're allused to the June gloom and the megra
Okay, we see that all thetime, but that was for January.
It was it was like being inScotland and you wait for you know,
the Hound of the Baskervilles to comeout. And I remember here in Burdbank,
you know, and I live here, and even coming over here it

(23:47):
was thick fog. Yeah, Andthat was it for January. Just very
unusual. So we got the legacy, of course of Kobe, who's been
immortalized, not just on NBA courtsand people you know, retired, putting
his number up in the rafters,on all those things you would expect,
but murals. Uh. And andwhat's so interesting is how, uh you

(24:11):
know, very quickly, Uh,he's become this person that I think those
of us who we are lucky enoughto have seen him play either, especially
if you saw him in person.I was I'm not a regular, I'm
kind of a Laker hater. Butuh, that's my problem. I'll deal
with that with a psychiatrist. Iroof of the nets, if you can
imagine, deal exactly our hell.So I went to a Laker game a

(24:36):
year the year the season before Koberetired, and he's playing Toronto. It's
a meaningless game, you know,nobody cares. Lakers weren't really going anywhere.
And I remember watching Kobe thinking,if an alien from another galaxy,
uh, pretty have to be analien from another galaxy because our galaxies don't
have them to they anyway. Ifif an alien, a space alien had

(24:59):
been beamed down to Earth and sawthis game knew nothing about basketball, that
alien could instantly say that guy isbetter than everybody else. He was just
so much better than everybody else thatyou couldn't take your eyes off him.
And in that game, he hadlike three three pointers in the last ninety
seconds to tie the game and thenwon it with fifty points. One of

(25:19):
those crazy Kobe games. But hejust was that good. But he has
now sort of moved into legends status. Yeah, I have never seen him
play other than a few clips hereand there. I've never seen a Lakers
game in person. Me. Yeah, I just don't. I just never
just never interested me. But Imet him and shook his hand at the

(25:42):
Academy Awards, and there was somethingspecial about that night because he had just
won for dear basketball, right,And I'm a huge John Williams fan growing
up as a classical musician. Somy question to him backstage was what was
it like working with John Williams?And he lit up, yeah, and
he wanted to talk more about it. So then when he grabbed his oscar

(26:03):
and got off the platform, Imet him around the side. I said,
hey, Kobe, and he goes, yeah, And I said,
I asked you a question about JohnWilliams. Can we get together and talk
more? Because I do podcast oncomposers, I said, can we do
this? He goes, I'd loveto man get in touch. Okay,
And then what did you think theone thing I didn't get from him?

(26:25):
Yeah, his contact attacked information andgood luck penetrating that. Why And we
tried and then sadly and then Iyou know, saw the breaking news that
morning and it was over. You'relistening to Tim Conway Junior on demand from
KFI AM six forty. Steve Gregory'swith us. We're kind of looking back.

(26:47):
This is the anniversary of the lossof Kobe Bryant, And you know,
it's kind of a cliche, butI always, whenever this comes up,
like to point out the other peoplewho lost their lives that terribly sad
day, not to Kobe and hisdaughter Gia. Because this is why you
should never fly with famous people becauseyou were overshadowed. You are overshadowed.

(27:08):
But it was just a tragic loss. We still feel that loss. Now
tell us about the podcast You Don'tWell. So to commemorate the one year
anniversary, because he crashed in Januaryof twenty twenty. So in December of
twenty twenty, I knew the firstanniversary was coming up, and kay if
I played a big role in thatbecause we were the first broadcast outlet to

(27:30):
break that news. So I wantedto do something with it. So I
grabbed Jacob Gonzalez, who you knowfrom the Gary and Shannon Show, but
he also produces with me and Unsolved. He's a huge basketball guy and he
had gone to Kobe's clinics and he'sgot pictures with Kobe, so I knew
he had that connection. And I'mnot a basketball guy, so I needed

(27:51):
help, so I asked him.I said, hey, I want to
do something to commemorate the win youranniversary. So we put together an eight
part limited series on the iHeartRadio appcalled The Death in Life of Kobe Bryant.
Because we start at the death andwork back, and then we also
actually go forward to to find outlegacy. And I learned so much about
him. And in the murals youtalked about, We actually interviewed a muralist

(28:17):
downtown and he showed us how heput it together and why he put it
together, and all the nuances inthe colors and the positioning of the arm
in the hand and everything had ameaning. We actually interviewed a tattoo artist
talking about how after he died thatyou know anything, Kobe was the most
requested tattoo. Yeah. And whatfascinated me about this journey, this eight

(28:41):
part journey, was how it touchedso many people's lives that the death of
Kobe and his life from all differentwalks of life, socioeconomic background. I
mean, I interviewed a guy who'slike a millionaire if you will, but
his hobby was tracking all of themurals around the world. He's got a

(29:03):
website. I went to China withthe Dodgers. It's a long story,
but I did not as a playerin two thousand and eight, right before
the two thousand and eight Olympics inBeijing, and the airport in Beijing had
pictures of Yao Ming, the Chinesebasketball star played in the NBA, and
Kobe Bryant, yep, and ifwhen they found out that we were from

(29:26):
Los Angeles, everybody wanted to askus two questions. They asked us how
many children did we have? AndKobe Bryant, That's one thing I discovered.
I had no idea the roots thathe has. The brand was interglobal
in its scope. And Wabo,which is the equivalent of like Snapchat or

(29:47):
WhatsApp here that app over in Chinahad dedicated all these platforms. It was
overloaded with Kobe Bryant news after hedied. I mean, it was so
weird to see all the different partsof the lives that he touched. Now,
you know, I've spoken about thison KFI a couple of times when
we had like Jimmy Buffett died,or when Pewee Herman dies, or Tina

(30:12):
Turner or Elvis or Sinatra or anyof the icons. Michael Jackson, why
is it that somebody we never metcould pass and you feel this real grief,
genuine grief, sometimes deeper than ifyou know your cousin Roger dies.

(30:33):
It was like, because cousin Rogers, the guy you know, asking to
pull your finger at Thanksgiving and youknow, borrowing money from you that he
doesn't pay back. Whereas Kobe Bryant, as you talked about across racial demographics
in a very very diverse, sometimeschaotic, and conflicted city and region like
southern California with as many many microcommunities, he became a unifying field that

(31:00):
that that people saw him and hadcivic pride that he played here, that
he was universally recognized as one ofthe best of the best, arguably the
best of the best. I mean, they'll be Michael Jordan. People will
object to that in others, butthe bottom line is is that you know,
those Laker championships, and I saythat as a Laker hater, but

(31:21):
when when they were rolling down,you know, in the parade, the
city came together and if you lookedat the faces in the crowd, Angelino's
were happy and multicultural and conflict freight. And that's not an insignificant thing.
That's that's It's the same way thatwhen musicians, you know, when the
Billy Joels of the world do fiftythousand seat stadium concerts and the entire audience

(31:44):
knows every word to the song TaylorSwift is that got that going on right
now in any language that they don'tspeak English, but they know every single
word and there's something magic about thatwhen that happens. So it's easy to
just say, oh, we youknow, put these people on a pedestal
and blah blah blah. Kobe wasa human and he had his dark side
too, and he had his issuesto in life. But when you weigh,

(32:09):
when the balance, the balance oflife and detriments are weighed, you
look at the positives, is soenormous and that's why people have this attachment.
And you're absolutely right. And Ithink one of the things I learned
from this also is that Kobe didhave the he had a checkered past of
sorts. But I think one ofthe reasons why people really were drawn to

(32:31):
him too is the way he recoveredfrom that. Yes, and the fact
that you know, here's a youngman who was thrust into stardom and you
know how it is. He's youngathletes, he was in high school,
didn't go to college overnight. Theirgazillionaires. They have everything they ever want,
and they emotionally they just can't handleit. And Kobe was one of

(32:52):
those guys, just like they allwere in the beginning. But his recovery
from that and the becoming a familyman and doting on his chin children,
a philanthropist, a successful business person, yeah, you know, giving back.
I think I think those were allthe redeeming qualities that everyone wanted,
and a lot of people admired hislife and they wanted to live his life,

(33:14):
and they thought he was They justthought he was one of the good
ones. We have a very strangerelationship with fame in our culture because the
Genesis story the nothing to everything.We love the rise, and then we
pulled down our heroes. I don'tmean frequently they cooperate, by the way,
with their own behavior, but thefall from grace and then do you

(33:37):
get back up off the mat?That's I think why the Rocky story was
so, you know, so universallyembraced by people, because Stallona created this
character who's from the street. Right, he gets his shot, He doesn't
win, but he wins anyway becausehe gets up. Look at Martha Stewart,
Yeah, her jail time did morefor her street cred than anything she

(33:57):
Snoop Dogg was getting arrested every timehe took a flight for Burbank Airport and
now he's a beloved corporate spokesperson.I'm saying, and you're right, our
relationship with fame is a really weirdone. Well it is strange, and
you know, I'm a Sinatra guy, and Sinatra was a perfect guy at
his you know, he was agreat superstar in the forties where girls were
peeing in the seats, they didn'twant to leave the theater, and all

(34:20):
of that stuff that rock and rollguys would get twenty years later. And
then his career collapsed. He losthis voice, he lost his agents,
he lost his record company deal,the movie studios wouldn't hire him. He
literally lost everything and then had thisincredible second act where he moved to Capitol
Records and reinvented his sound and wenton for the rest of his life as

(34:40):
a superstar. But for that periodof time, is that okay, mister
big shot cover of magazines, We'redone with you, and a lot of
people never recover from that. Kobedid, as you point out, and
what his post basketball life would havebeen, unfortunately they got cut so short.

(35:00):
We're never going to really know.But now he's forever frozen as this
youthful icon that flew through the airand really was a representative of the best
of Los Angeles. So can't waitto hear the podcast. What else you
got? What else you want totell us about? Tomorrow night, seven
o'clock Unsolved with Steve Gregory, weare going out to Riverside County, the
District Attorney's office out there to helpidentify a woman found murdered in nineteen ninety

(35:24):
two. An odd one. Theywere able to convict her killer, but
to this day have no idea whoshe is. Steve Gregory, the best
at CAFI. All right, let'sget to that twenty four hour CAFI News
for another hour to go. Macataryin for Conway. This is KFI AM
six forty Conway Show on demand onthe iHeartRadio app. Now you can always

(35:44):
hear us live on KFI AM sixforty four to seven pm Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadioapp.