The Harland Highway - 910 - The sad reality of the VEGAS SHOOTER

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

Harland talks about the horrible slaughter in Las Vegas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, my, my. Hi, guys, gals. It's Harland here. Yes, I know. I missed a podcast. I will talk about that as we get to the other side of the title sequence. I'm a bad boy, Yabbitt. I'm a bad boy.

But we'll talk about that. It happens from time to time. Please forgive. And speaking of bad boys, oh, my God. Spoiler alert, to today's podcast is going to be from start to finish about the Vegas shooter. If you've heard enough of him or you don't want to hear more about him, then this isn't the podcast for you. But I'm going to share my thoughts and opinions. And I'm actually going to say something during this podcast that I hope helps you.

So even if you don't want to hear about it, there is a section in here where I'm hoping it. it could be beneficial to you and could save your life and people in your family's life. I'm going to offer up some suggestions on how you could survive something as horrible as the Vegas shooting event. So today's a podcast, a little somber, a little serious. We'll get back to the funny stuff next time, but this was too big. Had to deal with it. Here we go, ladies and gentlemen, the Harlan Highway. Put on your seatbelt.

It's about to get bumpy. Oh, how perfectly awful. I get my kids above the waistline, suction. When will they take the bandages off? We don't know who we are. We don't know where we are. You're riding down the Harland Highway. Let us out of here!

please let me tell you you're starting something here that that's what you should be frightened of oh fuck yeah but just leave us alone sit down strap in and shut up what's going on what's the matter i thought maybe if i could kill him i could make him stop my mother never breastfed me she told me she liked me he's a friend who are we this is the harland highway what it's the Harlan Highway. It's a cop-box! Hey, look at this guy, eh? Look, look at him.

What you've been doing all day, mate? You've been parting pimples? You've been putting pimples all over your face. What, you wait up this morning and said, Yeah, I'd like to go out in the world and look like a fucking dartboard, yeah. Or just sit at home here in my living room and take my little fingers and pop fucking pimples all over my face, right?

walk out into the world go look at me you like these red blotches eh you like these fucking pimples all over me face fucking pimplepuss right now this fucking guy here looks like a fucking dot or like people at like at a pub hanging in the pub people throwing dots in his face all the little red dots and whatnot look at this fucking guy fucking pimplepus hey fuck me mate There you go. I just, look, I was in the mood to be like a British, like, just ranting at a guy. Is that wrong? Just like a pimple face British rant to start the show?

Come on, gang. All right. Well, I was hoping, you know, I'd suck up to you. And I thought, oh, I go, how can I appease my pavement pounders, my listeners? Because I missed an episode. I thought what will be a good way to lull them into a state of happiness and contentment and what will soften the the what's it called the oh oh oh oh oh the not the flashback what will soften the the blowback from my listeners because I missed missed an episode

And I thought, well, what better than a British guy talking about popping pimples? No? Okay. So here's what happened. I rarely miss an episode. It happens from time to time. Out of the 910 we've done, I've probably missed two or three weeks here and there. But we had some technical issues this last week.

We had some travel issues. We had all kinds of appointments and things. that I was quite busy and compounded with some technical issues I was dealing with. I just was unable to get to the podcast. And this one actually, which is Mondays, is coming in a bit late. So my apologies, I don't like it either. I like to make sure you guys can count on having your podcasts the same time every week. but hopefully you'll allow me this wiggle room here

because so much was happening and speaking of happening oh my God what a week we've had what a last couple of weeks this guy in Vegas the shooter in Vegas it's just

so disturbing and yet so familiar at the same time. And here's what really gets in my craw about. First of all, RIP to all those who died and their families, you know, the families that were disrupted and our sympathies and condolences to everyone who was a victim of this, which I think includes all of us in the country and even globally. This type of activity affects all of us.

subtly, psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, physically, it really takes a toll on us as a species. And it's becoming more and more frequent. And we've got into what I call the video game zone where now it's about the highest score. Okay, we had this freak in Florida who wiped out the nightclub. I think he got 30 or 40 victims. This ass munch in Vegas got like almost 70.

And I hate to say it, folks, but there's a loose cannon out there right now. There's a nutbag. There's a demented, deranged moron right now, who is, as I say this, is planning his massacre or her massacre. massacre, and going for the numbers, going for the highest score. I know it sounds morbid. It may sound cold, but it's the world we live in. It's frightening, it's startling, it's sad.

And good Lord, what has happened to us? What has happened to us as people? Yikes. And what really drives me around the bend is he's politicians and these newscasters and these law enforcement people going, well, we didn't see it on the radar. We had no inclination. He wasn't in our database. The neighbors didn't see anything. No one had any idea, any inkling that this was, this human was capable of this. He lived a secret world, a secret life. What caused this? What made him do this? What?

What was his secret? You know what, folks, forget all that. It's not that deep. It's not that complicated. We're all human beings. It's not as deep as some of these people want to root it out to be. You don't have to be on law enforcement's radar. You don't have to have a profile.

You don't have to have someone in your family or your workplace be suspicious of you. a person can just turn a person can can hide a person can manipulate a person can deceive you humans are very smart we got to the moon remember I think it's easy enough for any human being to walk around and have a facade of like hi how are you today Jim great to see you how is your weekend

but inside their brains going I can't wait to kill I can't wait to kill oh, I'm going to get 70. Oh, I've got it all planned. Now, the human brain is so complicated and has so many layers that it drives me nuts that these, quote, officials and these professionals sit here and think that there has to be a tell-tale sign. There has to be a clue. How did we miss it? Well, easy. We're humans.

We're great at conditions. concealing. We conceal our emotions every day. How many times a day do you not say what you want to say? How many times a day do you see that loud mouth on the cell phone and you want to go over and say, hey, dude, would you shut the fuck up? But you don't. How many times a week does your boss make an inappropriate comment or somebody says something that hurts your feelings or goes against your bleeps or your morals? Or do you say anything? to you chat? No, we're all very good at keeping stuff inside.

Which doesn't mean we're bad or deviant people. It's part of the human experience. But we have to be actors to a degree. We have to learn to contain some of our thoughts and emotions and seal them in. Maybe not always healthy. But, you know, that's just part of how we're designed, how we're wired. So for people to walk around scratching their head thinking it's, you know, incomprehensible that someone's how can the who this guy seems so normal on Wednesday and Thursday he's shooting up a crowd with a machine gun really is it that is it that big of a mind boggler not to me it isn't it's literally like driving your car am i going to turn left or i'm going to turn right these aren't big decisions yeah yeah it's it's a big decision to go

and kill people, yes, of course, that's monumental. But you don't have to be a crackpot. You don't have to be, you don't have to be, you know, ISIS or on a terrorist list. A human being has the capacity to do anything they want at any point in the day. The only thing holding us back are the psychological and societal, you know, perimeters and barriers that we've put up. But there is easy to cross as, let's use as an example, when you're driving down a two-lane road,

the only thing dividing you from a car coming at you at 70 miles an hour is a line of paint, okay? There's a line of paint in the middle of the road, and we know that line of paint is, well, don't go over the line of paint. or you'll hit a car coming at you the other way. But how easy is it to go over the line of paint? All of us could do it.

All you have to do is take your fingers and turn the wheel about two degrees. And you could take someone out. Just cross over that little line of paint. That's how easy it is for humans. If for some reason one guy's normal one day and he wants to go bat shit the next day, we can do that. Now there's also the slow build of someone who's insane or someone who becomes mentally deranged

or someone who becomes mentally challenged or has some kind of brain disease or whatever. Okay, yes, there's that slow-burning human that's like they slowly get worse. They degrade, they become violent, they become psychotic. sure but I could sit here doing my podcast right now grab a light and smash it over my head right now if I wanted you wouldn't see it coming maybe I wasn't thinking it three minutes ago maybe just went you know what I'm gonna I think I'm gonna smash a light over my head right now so quit acting surprise that ooh everyone's gotta be like there has to be signs not everyone's like that and people that are really hell-bent on killing and destruction and destroying life like this guy was they're probably the exact opposite in fact they're probably good at going well i'm planning

to go and murder a bunch of people uh i'd probably like to get 70 or 80 but the last thing i want is to people to know about it so i'm not going to tell them i collect guns i'm not going to going to show any type of animosity. I'm going to be friendly and chipper and be the same old guy. But on this day, on this day, boy, are they going to be surprised? Hey, everybody, who wants to have better sex? No? Yes. Yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have better sex. That's what you want it to be better, not worse. Trust me. And Adam and Eve is offering 50% off just about any item plus free shipping. And more than that, Adam and Eve wants to make your life easy. They offer discrete shipping as your privacy is a priority. Plus, 100% free shipping on your

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This is an exclusive offer specific to this podcast. So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping. Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. And I'll tell you what, you know, I was just at an airport yesterday. Okay? And I've told you this before. I've always been like a cautious guy. This stuff, these kind of mass shootings started affecting me a long time ago. We're talking Columbine. We're talking that freak that shot up the movie theater.

I mean, this isn't new territory for me. I don't know about you. But since Columbine and a lot of these other ones, I mean, there is so much more mass murder and hatred and killing, not just from lone gunmen like this freak, but ISIS and Islamic radical terrorists and suicide bombers and blah, blah, blah. So I'm in an airport yesterday, and I'm looking around, man. I'm standing at my gate. I'm not even kidding. I'm looking around. I'm looking at other people. I'm looking at anyone acting erratic.

I'm looking at what people are carrying. Oh, what's that? A backpack? What's that? Well, that's an odd-shaped gym bag. That's kind of a long gym bag that guy's got with the Black Sabbath T-shirt on. That's the kind of gym bag where maybe one could lay a rifle in. And so now I'm scoping out by my gate, and I look and I see, oh, emergency doors.

alarm will sound if emergency doors are open. Well, if I'm being shot at, I don't give a crap about your alarm. I'm running through that door, man. I'll run out onto the runway. I was looking at some of the restaurants. I was looking at some of the little jewelry booths, you know, set up. And the main thing if a shooting starts in my mind is to get something physical between you and the shooter. In other words, find a place to hide.

find a place to duck. If he can't see you, he's probably not going to waste a bullet just shooting willy-nilly. And even if he does, if there's something between you, hopefully it can take the impact of the bullet or deflect the bullet or whatever. You stand a better chance if you're out of sight, you're out of mind. And if there's an obstruction in front of you,

that could lead to the bullet not finding its way to you. So I'm looking around it. Okay, I'd run. I'd dive over there. There's my emergency. door. There's a counter. Oh, I'd run into the back of, you know, that Burger King. There's probably a back exit where they bring in all the buns and the meat. And so I'll just dive over the counter. I'll run right through the back kitchen out there. You know, why am I thinking this

shit, man? Why has the world forced me to become a strategic thinker when I'm at an airport surrounded by families in Orlando who just finished a fun week at Disneyland. And I'm seeing kids running around with Mickey Mouse ears on, and I'm seeing kids dressed as Ewoks, and there's a big poster of Cinderella and her magic mirror on the wall. And in all this merriment, unbeknownst to anyone around me, see, this is what I mean, the brain, who knows what the brain's thinking? in this crowd of people I'm standing there

scoping out my environment in case I need to take evasive action because I live in a country where I don't know if I'm going to get home anymore. I don't know if I'm going to get a bullet to the brain just for standing in a mall or standing in a subway We're standing in an airport.

It's pretty freaking creepy, man. And it's changing everything. It's changing us. It's changing what we do. It's changing how we interact. I mean, it's just all... This was an outdoor music festival. Wasn't it just a few months ago

that some guy blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert? Wasn't it? Isis that the two years ago shot up the rock concert in Paris, had everyone trapped inside like caged dogs? I mean, it is going to change the entertainment industry. It's going to change the concert industry. It's changing everything. Sporting events.

It's going to make us more shells of people. unfortunately. You know what's going to be your source of entertainment? Now, this stuff, what I'm doing. You're going to be like, do I want to expose my flank by going to see the Partridge family in concert? Do I want to go see Justin Timberlake risk a high point falcon claw bullet

ripping through my rib cage and exploding out my back and taking seven of my organs with it? or do I want to sit on my couch and listen to a podcast for free and not have to leave the safety of my home? You may think, what is Harlan talking about? That's far-fetched. It ain't. It's becoming real, man.

It's becoming very real. It's not becoming. It is real. And it's a very sad thing, man. And something's got to change. Something, somehow it's got to change because if it doesn't, if it doesn't go one way, it goes the other way. Don't think that we're just going to sit neutral. I think that's what happens.

There's a big shooting. And someone goes, okay, we got it out of our system. That's it. There's the shooting. We're good. We're good. No one would ever be more heinous than that individual. No one could top that crime.

And we kind of walk around in denial. And we walk around thinking that the air is cleared, but it hasn't. It's like hurricane season. There's another hurricane coming. Could you be a victim? Could your children be a victim? Could someone you know be a victim? And sadly, as this keeps growing and growing, it's going to be like, remember when you were a kid, it's like,

everyone knows someone who's had cancer, right? We've all heard that, right? Everyone knows somebody. Well, an aunt has cancer, a grandfather has cancer, a sister, a brother. Someone in the family chain or a friend has cancer of some sort. Right? We've all heard that. Well, everyone knows someone.

I know people who have cancer or have had cancer. I know a lot. But guess what the new one's going to be? Everybody knows someone who's been in a massacre. Everyone knows someone who's been in a shootout. Yeah. That's how dire it's becoming. That's how horrible it's becoming.

And so here's what I urge you people listening to do. This is your homework. I'm not the moral voice here. I'm not anybody. I'm a comedian for freak sakes. But, you know, this got my goat, man. And I, again, not a comedic podcast. but I think we're all thinking about this stuff, so I'm talking about it.

Here's your homework, gang, and you might think it's extreme, and you might think it's stupid, and you might think it's over the top. But guess what? This homework could save you or a family member's life. So don't take it lightly. I really want you to think about this and do it. if you're married if you have kids

if you have a family if you have teenagers if you have young kids who can comprehend you they're four years older and up or even three I don't know if you have a girlfriend

a boyfriend a husband a wife whatever you've got or it's just you you're by yourself and I hate to do this because it says a lot about

or society. But I want you to sit the people you love down and talk to them about the word exits, the words exit strategy. It's kind of like you ever see that Born identity movie. There's a scene where Jason Bourne goes into the hotel lobby. He tells the girl to go in. He goes, okay, go in and count how many people are there

and how many people are behind the counter and how many people are coming out of the elevator, what color are their shirts, what colors are their hair, where's the stairway, how many elevators are there? What's the guy wearing? You know, just taking in your environment, right? So I guess what I'm saying is I want you to, in your head, have a strategy when you go out into the world.

Just don't go out into the world and be one of these victims where you hear the gunfire and you stand there and going, is that firecrackers? Who's got the firecrackers? What is that sound? What should I do? Shall I just because that's what happens. You hear a lot of these people. They don't know what it is.

They don't know how to react. So what I'm saying is do a drill. Talk to your family. Talk to your kids. Say, hey, kids. You know, use your house as a staging area. and say, okay, kids, hypothetically, let's pretend this house is a concert venue. Look around the room and tell me what you would do if all of a sudden someone started shooting over there

and you point to a corner of the room and have your kids go, oh, well, I guess I'd just lay down. And you go, no, you see that door over there, you run as fast as you can. You see that couch, you dive behind that couch. You see the, you go left, you hide behind that wall. And basically what I'm saying is you're teaching your family and yourself and your loved ones maneuvering. And you're creating a strategy to survive. Most of us don't think about it. But I want your kids when something goes off at an Ariana Grande concert,

I don't want them standing there looking around watching to see what other people are doing. I want them to take evasive action instantly. So they've already kind of got it wired in their head because you sat them down and you had to talk to them about it about it. And you told them, you said, noises could go off. This is what you do. Don't stand. Move, run, hide, duck, disappear, whatever. Because 99.99% of the, at least, you know, the world in the United States, we're not programmed.

We're not wired to react to almost warlike events breaking out in very mundane places like malls and shopping centers and concerts. We're used to musac and some kid rolling around in a baby carriage and maybe a kid with those rollerblade shoes rolling by. you know, maybe a baby screaming. That's about the height of it at a mall, but we're not ready for a guy on the upper deck, you know, by Aldo shoes, pulling out an AK-24 and spraying the food court. What are you going to do?

Sit there and finish your corn dog and your orange Julius and go, I wonder what that guy's doing up there. Did he buy a machine gun at Toys or Us? That looks so real. Now, the minute you hear that first, your brain goes, oh my God, what did my father tell me? What did my mother tell me? What did I learn?

What? Okay, run, run, hide, hide. Get undercover. Get under the awning. Get under the stairwell. Get under the, dive into the elevator. Get out the back door. Because if you're prepared, if you're wired,

you have a much better chance at survival. So in these horrible days that we live in, and I'm telling you they're going to get worse, sadly, I think you already know this, take the time to prepare, take the time to educate, take the time to have a plan, and hopefully, hopefully when the next big thing happens and you happen to be in it, you get the time. the hell out and you know you might even have a residual effect and save someone else because you know a lot of times in these situations humans become like deer and headlights and a lot of times they become monkey see monkey do and everyone's just standing there then that's the comfortable place to be but if someone's standing there and see someone like you who's been programmed running across the floor and diving behind a wall they might go shit i'm going to follow that guy and you inadvertently help save other lives by demonstrating your quick response.

So there you go, man. Again, just sad commentary that we're at this place. And I know you guys probably, maybe you didn't want to hear all this. I don't know. It's like, it's tough to hear. It's tough to talk about it. It's tough to listen to. But that's, you know, that's what podcasts are for.

Crazy. And, yeah, we'll get back to the comedy. This was just a big, I think you can appreciate and agree with me. This was quite the big event that I feel needed to be addressed. And above and beyond everything I've said, everything I've blathered on about, again, let us send out our deepest, most heartfelt prayers, and, feelings and thoughts to these poor, innocent people who are no longer with us, and the people that are injured and hurting and recovering and might not recover still.

And maybe while we're having those positive thoughts, it doesn't hurt if you're a person who believes in prayer, the power of prayer, it doesn't hurt to put it out there that this stuff stops, that it ceases, that it doesn't happen again, that people who are planning this, maybe we can pray them away. Maybe our prayers help them see something that makes them deviate from the violent path they were maybe going to take. I don't know. During these horrible times, is it wrong to want to grasp at anything to make it stop?

I don't think so. If you want to light candles and do a chant in your living room to make it stop, do it. If you want to light incense and wave it around your house and do an incense prayer, or you want to jump around in the yard or organize some rocks in your garden thinking it'll send the right energy out into the world to stop the slaughter, then do it. I mean, what have we got to lose? So there you go. We'll get back to the funny and silly stuff next podcast. You have my word on that.

But in the meantime, gang, keep on loving each other, man. Keep on just appreciating life, holding on to the gift of a life. That's what's really disheartening. My final thought is that this guy, no longer had the will to live. He took his own life. He no longer saw a path to continue in this world, on this planet, to rejoice in his gift of life. And instead of just taking himself out of the picture, he took it upon himself to decide and take all these other people who had no intention of wanting to give up on life.

This selfish, greedy, demented monster somehow thought that it was his duty to take out as many people as he can because he was going. And that's what's so frustrating and hard. It's like, dude, you don't like your life, you're upset about something. Fuck off.

you want to go shoot yourself in the barn have fun asshole blow your brains out it ain't got anything to do with any of us leave everyone else alone they didn't do anything to you and you took their lives what a dick so there you go there you go i'm not going to do a bunch of announcements. The last thing I want to do is be like, you know, oh, horrible incident. Hey, you know, I'm just going to leave it right there. All right. Let's love, respect, and cherish each other every minute of every hour of every day. We're all human beings, folks. And next podcast, we're going to laugh like human beings. To all the victims. Until next time.

Chicken. Chow main, baby.