Speaker 1: A life's lesson from the TSA. It's one more thing.
Speaker 1: I'm one more.
Speaker 2: And then we're gonna let people over arbitrary things they
Speaker 2: can't possibly know in advance.
Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about the idea of reopening Alcatraz, which,
Speaker 1: ah rock, I assume Katie, you grew up in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area. You've done Alcatraz?
Speaker 3: No a million times?
Speaker 1: Did they do? Used to do school trips and stuff? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: I believe it was summer camp where we did the
Speaker 3: trips out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went on one too. Yeah. The night tour
Speaker 2: is awesome. Oh really, I've heard. Oh I wish i'd
Speaker 2: done that.
Speaker 1: Should have done that before they opened the back up.
Speaker 2: Now you got to like do federal crimes to get
Speaker 2: the night tour if you know it's not going to
Speaker 2: turn into a prison again. More on that in a moment.
Speaker 1: Get to that in a second. So my life lesson
Speaker 1: from the TSA. I've thought about this quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I know I mentioned this on their air in a
Speaker 1: while back, but I see it almost every time I fly.
Speaker 1: Now you just flew, didn't you, Katy? You observed this.
Speaker 1: I saw very starkly, side by side two people handle
Speaker 1: human beings a different way, and have attempted to commit
Speaker 1: myself to one way and not the other way. It was,
Speaker 1: we're just waiting in line. Is a crowded day at security,
Speaker 1: and you know, the booths open up where they take
Speaker 1: your driver's license, and you're waiting in line, and there
Speaker 1: are two of them, and the one guy would say next, next, next, next,
Speaker 1: like if he didn't get your attention right away, and
Speaker 1: then the other person would say ready for the next person, Hey, honey,
Speaker 1: we're ready for you now, accomplishing exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1: One of them was furiously angry and making other people
Speaker 1: they interacted with have worse days. The other one was
Speaker 1: happy and making other people have a better day, accomplishing
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing, although I would say probably with
Speaker 1: much less energy expelled the happy, cheerful person than the
Speaker 1: angry person. And I've seen this happen many times now
Speaker 1: at TSA. Now that I observe it, two people in line,
Speaker 1: you got the you don't have to take off your
Speaker 1: shoes versus no need to take off your shoes, sweetheart,
Speaker 1: exactly the same message. The one is just as easy
Speaker 1: as in fact, it's easier to go with the nice one,
Speaker 1: and I've tried to employ that with my kids with
Speaker 1: everything that I'm doing now, just because it's just obviously
Speaker 1: on a million levels, a better way to live your life, certainly, yeow.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing how many people, and I've done this
Speaker 1: myself plenty of times. We're just out of your frustration
Speaker 1: or whatever. You're making your life worse, You're making other
Speaker 1: people's lives worse. You're like probably shaving seconds off of
Speaker 1: your life by being angry. It's just completely self defeating.
Speaker 2: So, Katie, when I was a fairly young lad, had
Speaker 2: my sainted mother go ahead, Gladys, why not?
Speaker 1: Uh hey, glad, it's a little faster on the harm
Speaker 1: to see I just did it.
Speaker 2: Oh lord, no, see you're still a work in progress. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was a fairly young lad when my I
Speaker 2: think I was explaining why I had behaved so badly
Speaker 2: and whether it was my sister or something else. I
Speaker 2: had told my mom that they just made me so mad,
Speaker 2: and and my lovely gentle mother said essentially, and I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 2: because she made it, you know, understandable for a kid
Speaker 2: of my age is probably seven or eight. At that point,
Speaker 2: she explained she said, why would you let them have
Speaker 2: that power over you? And I'm like, wait what she said?
Speaker 2: It's it's your emotions. Don't let other people drive you
Speaker 2: to one or the other. Be aware of the way
Speaker 2: you're feeling and and and be responsible for.
Speaker 1: Your own feelings.
Speaker 2: And you know I'm not Saint Francis of ASSISI over here,
Speaker 2: mister s I mean, uh, and neither is anybody else.
Speaker 2: The two great influences in my life, right to two examples,
Speaker 2: and mister Spock right. But yeah, that that guy, the
Speaker 2: TSA guy, was letting his frustration with the general public
Speaker 2: not towing the line the way he thought ruin.
Speaker 1: His day, probably every day.
Speaker 2: Well right, Uh, terrible for his emotions, terrible for his body.
Speaker 2: I mean just everything about that interchange is unhealthy for everybody.
Speaker 1: And unhappiness to other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well right, and as the other person illustrated so clearly, uh,
Speaker 2: it's not necessary. Now. I will also say this, having
Speaker 2: raised three children from a conception to adulthood, some people
Speaker 2: are born wound up tight and it's a lot harder
Speaker 2: for them to be the mellow, helpful, cheerful person. And
Speaker 2: I don't judge people who fall short. I've fallen short
Speaker 2: of many of my I you know, principles. That's why
Speaker 2: they're principles. They're like a north star, you try for them.
Speaker 2: But anyway, yeah, just don't let other people control your
Speaker 2: motions to whatever extent you can.
Speaker 3: I had a little situation at the airport coming back where,
Speaker 3: and it's like, you know, when you go to the
Speaker 3: doctor and they send you your little after visit summary,
Speaker 3: and it's it's in doctor jargon, so you usually will
Speaker 3: like write them and be.
Speaker 1: Like, Hi, what the hell does any of this mean?
Speaker 3: So they took our plane out of service, like ten
Speaker 3: minutes before we're supposed to board. So she comes on
Speaker 3: over the loudspeaker, Oh, yeah, if you're a traveling uh,
Speaker 3: we have taken your plane out of service. And then
Speaker 3: she followed it with we hope to be getting another plane,
Speaker 3: but if you need answers right now, please go to
Speaker 3: our website to check for further options. And we all
Speaker 3: looked at each other and went, what on planet Earth
Speaker 3: does that mean? And I found that they're getting a
Speaker 3: little more vague, like they just don't want to like
Speaker 3: if they don't have answers, they just kind of start
Speaker 3: allaying you and like filling in language.
Speaker 2: Oh you know that's so funny because I'm listening to
Speaker 2: you closely. I'm wearing expensive headphones, and you got done
Speaker 2: with that sentence, and I'm like, did I miss something? Yeah?
Speaker 2: What if I if I if I, If I want answers,
Speaker 2: I can what.
Speaker 3: If I want? If you need answers about your flight now,
Speaker 3: please go to our website to find your other options.
Speaker 3: And I swear to you, every single person that was
Speaker 3: with an eyesight of me, we all made this like
Speaker 3: eye contact, like what is she to say? Immediately, forty
Speaker 3: people rushed the booth to start answering questions right, And
Speaker 3: it was that situation where one woman was very calm
Speaker 3: and talking to a couple, and this other woman, the
Speaker 3: one that was speaking the gibberish, was like, I need
Speaker 3: a line right here in front of me. It's just like,
Speaker 3: oh god, we're going back to the.
Speaker 1: Bar well on the boy on the choosing two demeanors.
Speaker 1: What works for me, when it does work, is if
Speaker 1: I being selfish works for me, the most selfish, which
Speaker 1: thing I can do is to go with the relaxed,
Speaker 1: cheerful out that's better for me, whether it's better for
Speaker 1: other people and it is better for other people, but
Speaker 1: it's better for me. It's not gonna speed anything up.
Speaker 1: For me to be angry about it or to make
Speaker 1: other people unhappy, that makes things worse. It makes everything worse.
Speaker 2: Well, and just a little gentle advice for the young folks.
Speaker 2: As a guy who's engaged in many, many, many of
Speaker 2: these things, from negotiations to disagreements to solving problems, you
Speaker 2: can always go to Dick. You've always got that option. Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't start with Dick.
Speaker 1: I almost wish I could like travel around to TSA
Speaker 1: and talk to people, because I think I could do
Speaker 1: them a favor by like pointing it out. They might
Speaker 1: be caught in it and not even realize it. You're
Speaker 1: making your I mean, maybe you've realized you can't deal
Speaker 1: with the public. Maybe you ought to find a different job,
Speaker 1: or you should approach it this way, because you're making
Speaker 1: yourself miserable and for no gain, for no gain toever.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna speed up the line. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: make your day better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the next time I encounter one of those people,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go, oh, I see you start. You started
Speaker 3: with Dick today, did you?
Speaker 2: That's what she chose right to the Dick card.
Speaker 1: You know, Jack, you got to dress That's why people
Speaker 1: go to their driveways. That's that's a lot of TSA people.
Speaker 2: He held back on going to Dick for a long
Speaker 2: time until finally she.
Speaker 5: You driving you anyway, Jack, you gotta dress up as
Speaker 5: a monk, uh to go to the TSA and minister
Speaker 5: to those poor bastards.
Speaker 2: I got the hairstyle and help them with their yeah
Speaker 2: and their struggles.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Speaking of security and that sort of thing. I thought
Speaker 2: this was pretty interesting. The discussion was about Trump saying
Speaker 2: do we have the Trump audio Andy Michael about Alcatraz?
Speaker 4: Nobody's ever escaped from Alcatraz and just represented something uh
Speaker 4: strong having to do with law and order. We need
Speaker 4: lawn oril in this country, and so we're going to
Speaker 4: look at it. Some of the people up here are
Speaker 4: going to be working very hard on that, and we
Speaker 4: had a little conversation. I think it's going to be
Speaker 4: very interesting. We'll see if we can bring it back
Speaker 4: in large form. Add a lot, but I think it
Speaker 4: represents something right now. It's a big hulk that's sitting there,
Speaker 4: rusting and rotting.
Speaker 1: Very Uh.
Speaker 4: You look at it, it's sort of. You saw that
Speaker 4: picture that was put out. Its sort of amazing, but
Speaker 4: it sort of represents something that's both horrible and beautiful
Speaker 4: and strong and miserable weak. It's got a lot of
Speaker 4: it's got a lot of qualities that are interesting, and
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: They make a point.
Speaker 2: I have you ever launched into a rift and realized
Speaker 2: that way through this is not working at all?
Speaker 1: I'll bet I can save it. It's a floor wax
Speaker 1: and a dessert topping.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Trump talking about Alcatraz, it is funny that he
Speaker 2: was essentially confessing that it It's just such a great
Speaker 2: symbol of being a hard ass blah blah blah, which
Speaker 2: is what he wanted.
Speaker 1: And it got out into the main into the bloodstream
Speaker 1: once again, that he's a hard ass on crime, which
Speaker 1: is what he wanted. And somebody probably said to him
Speaker 1: it can't be done. He thought, okay, and never thought
Speaker 1: about it again since then, right, and never will.
Speaker 2: Right. But I found this interesting from its beginning. The
Speaker 2: San Francisco prison was an expensive pr stunt for the
Speaker 2: cinematically minded public, a way of showing that the Feds
Speaker 2: were getting tough. You perhaps remember that a constitutional amendment
Speaker 2: a stupid one banned alcohol, and it had fueled the
Speaker 2: rise of organized crime in the nineteen twenties. At the
Speaker 2: same time, the popularity of automobiles is getaway cars turned
Speaker 2: largely local crimes like robbery and kidnapping into interstate offenses,
Speaker 2: and so all of a sudden they had this explosion
Speaker 2: in federal crimes.
Speaker 1: So a federal prison was.
Speaker 2: Needed that really looked the part, and Alcatraz stood ready
Speaker 2: for its close up, towering out post on a craggy
Speaker 2: aisle surrounded by white capped seas. So was it just
Speaker 2: a rocky island out there in San Francisco before Alcatraze
Speaker 2: with nothing on it?
Speaker 1: Don't know that? Oh oh oh, it gets to that
Speaker 1: in just a second. Anyway.
Speaker 2: Unlike other obsolete military out posts, Oh okay, there you
Speaker 2: have it, this one was in plain view of a
Speaker 2: bustling city full of journalists ready to hype its story,
Speaker 2: which premiered in nineteen thirty four. Among the new prisons
Speaker 2: first inmates were Chicago mob boss al Capone, wasting away
Speaker 2: from syphilis, and Alvin Carpus, whose name I don't know
Speaker 2: with a K, the last person to be designated Public
Speaker 2: Enemy number one FBI impresario Jay Edgar Hoover had personally
Speaker 2: stage managed Carpus's arrest part of his image polishing project
Speaker 2: to turn a pudgy DC paper pusher into America's toughest
Speaker 2: g man. As Hoover was, you know, a well known
Speaker 2: publicity hunt, but minus its celebrity occupants, Alcatraz was a
Speaker 2: pretty average prison, no more fearsome than other maximum security
Speaker 2: who's goals, and indeed some inmates preferred it to their
Speaker 2: previous assignments because the cells were single occupancy, and one
Speaker 2: long time inmate, Robert Stroud, was even allowed to keep Patsy's,
Speaker 2: the famous bird Man of Alcatraz of the film. But
Speaker 2: Alcatraz cost a fortune to operate. Harsh conditions, wind, surf,
Speaker 2: and salt shortened the life spans of buildings and equipment,
Speaker 2: and as the depression ended in the Bay Area boomed,
Speaker 2: labor costs for guards and other staffers rose steeply. Virtually
Speaker 2: everything the prisoners and their keepers needed had to be
Speaker 2: ferried to the island on boats and barges, including nearly
Speaker 2: a million gallons of water per week, wow, plus tons
Speaker 2: of food and fuel for the generators. A scant twenty
Speaker 2: five years after Alcatraz opened, the FEDS began hatching plans
Speaker 2: to close it. Prisoners were just as secure at the
Speaker 2: federal prison in Atlanta for one third the cost, a
Speaker 2: study concluded. At the time, the Bureau of Prisons broke
Speaker 2: ground on a new maximum security facility in rural Illinois,
Speaker 2: and when it was completed in sixty three, Alcatraz was
Speaker 2: relegated to its legend, which is absorbed daily by tourists
Speaker 2: and on TV by impressionable old men. They say, hinting
Speaker 2: that Trump is one of them, and then they mentioned that, uh,
Speaker 2: the federal government already has a lock up four more,
Speaker 2: far more secure, remote, and intimidating than an Alcatraz. Ever,
Speaker 2: was the super max prison near Florence, Colorado.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There there are people claiming that Alcatraz played on
Speaker 1: TNT like Saturday Night at eleven or something, and they
Speaker 1: think Trump was flipping through and saw it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the rock was it Alcatraz or Alcatraz?
Speaker 1: I can't remember. What's the one with Clint Eastwood in
Speaker 1: it where he escapes escape from Alcatraz. That's a good
Speaker 1: one with the Orangutang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no one there are no great apes in
Speaker 2: this one boxes an orangutang on a.
Speaker 1: Gutras for his freedom.
Speaker 2: That's right, as I recall, And everybody dances, even though
Speaker 2: the mayor is a fundamentalist. And a great.
Speaker 1: Movie the Rock Well, I guess that's it. Everybody dances.