Pat's Peeps Podcast

Ep. 344 Today's Peep Peeks Behind the Mic: When Breaking News Hits (Helicopter Crash) the Whole Show Plan Changes- You Learn how a Daily Show really gets built

• Pat Walsh

Share episode

Plans vanished the moment the phones blew up. We set out to walk you through how a daily show gets made—music cues, topic lists, the dance between light and heavy—and then a Medevac helicopter crashed on Highway 50. What followed was a live pivot: verified details, road closures, the improbable luck of a construction zone, and the kind of bystander courage that makes you stop and breathe. You’ll hear how we balance urgency with empathy while keeping the lines open for a city that needed clarity and a calm voice.

Once the ground steadied, we rewound and opened our notebook. We talk through the real mechanics of building ten shows a week: collecting weekend observations, scoring topics for caller energy, and using “stuff we couldn’t get to” as both a promise and a pressure valve. From Rite Aid closures and the future of Thrifty ice cream to why adults love going all-in on Halloween, we map how a night’s tone gets set—and why it matters for engagement and time spent listening. We dig into Uber’s women-only request option and the trade-offs baked into California’s red-light camera bill, where lower fines, looser identification, and higher collections collide with fairness and oversight.

To keep the ride human, we layer in culture and wonder: rock-world spats for levity, sports quick hits for communal rhythm, and Voyager 1’s improbable radio revival 15 billion miles away for perspective. We also shout out local artists and share merch that celebrates Sacramento staples like Tower Records and Sam’s Hofbrau, because the show lives where the community lives. Hit play for a night that teaches exactly how a talk show breathes under pressure—craft, chaos, callers, and care working in sync. If this resonated, follow, share with a friend, and drop a review telling us which segment stuck with you most.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the uh Pat's Peeps podcast number 344. This is gonna be one of the uh, I don't know how I would I'm gonna put this together. This one will be different. 344 is gonna be a little different. So it's interesting that um by the way, it's October 6, 2025. I'm staring out my studio window from my home studio right now. It's night time. It was a beautiful day, but it's night now. So things are kind of backwards today on the podcast on 344. So it's just so ironic that today I decided that, you know, people are always asking me, and I was running out of time today to get a podcast in. But a lot of times people will ask me, man, Pat, how do you get so many, how do you get ideas for uh 10 shows a day? It's between five podcasts and my five radio shows on the Pat Wall show. How do you come up with ideas all the time? So today I thought, well, maybe I'll take just a few minutes and I will share with you sort of behind the scenes how you come up with topics, how you kind of bring things together to create a show on a daily basis. I don't want to repeat everything I've already said in this. So I so I did it earlier, but then I was kind of running out of time. And I was giving you all of these thoughts that I had tonight about what kind of a show I was gonna have, some possible topics, things I've been trying to get to, stuff we couldn't get to, which you're gonna hear again in a minute. But the point is I just finished my radio show. See, this is why everything's backwards tonight. Usually my podcast comes up early in the day, in the afternoon, but it's backwards tonight because I just finished my radio show and I do my podcast before that, and I go, I started at topics tonight, and man, the phones lit up. We started talking about right aid closing, all this all the right aid stores closing today, and then that led to oh no, now what's gonna happen to thrifty ice cream because right aid served thrifty ice cream. So we started talking about that in high school reunions, and yeah, we got a bunch of calls. During these calls, there was breaking news. We just I came across that a helicopter, a Medevac helicopter crashed on Highway 50. You know, when something like that happens, being that I work for a a news talk station, which is a great combination, news talk, here's the news, and hey, now we talk about the news. But means how we're on that type of station. This was huge news. It made national news. And so all of the stuff I'm I'm uh that I was telling you earlier, I didn't do any of it tonight. The helicopter crashed on the Sacramento Freeway. At least three were critically injured. Those were the uh the the crew of the Medevac helicopter. I cannot believe that they didn't hit any cars on Highway 50, this busy freeway. The construction zone turned out to be a blessing tonight to get some of the cars out of there. I cannot believe that the helicopter didn't crash and blow up. You know, so many times we see fire associated with that didn't happen. So again, time to pray for these people. And 15 good Samaritans summoned by the police and by the fire department to come and lift the helicopter off of one of the crew, apparently, that was in the helicopter. And so at this point, yes, officials are investigating after this medical helicopter crashed on Highway 50, uh, went down at 7.10 p.m., eastbound Highway 50 near 59th Street. Three crew members on board, all taken to the area hospitals, critically injured. According to Justin Sylvia, it was the Sacramento Fire Department who did a great job. Two crew members were located in the roadway. One of the crew members was trapped under the helicopter when the first unit from the fire department arrived, according to Sylvia. Fire captain. Bystanders offered help, were able to lift the aircraft off of the trap crew member. Then it was completely closed down, the freeways, according to the Highway Patrol. Highway 99, northbound, to Highway 50, eastbound, Highway 51, southbound, to Highway 50, eastbound, shut down. People stranded in their cars. So they're investigating it now. And so, yeah. I was gonna do a whole different show today. But that never happened. But now this is what we were talking about earlier. So we're going in backwards order here today. We're going backwards on 344, which is okay. So I started off earlier playing, so this is my intro. I so this is the second time I've done my intro. But this is what I did earlier. I didn't have time to play. So I'll let you take a listen to this. And here we are once again. It is uh it's uh Monday. Back to work Monday. It's the Pats Beeps Podcast. Good morning. Well, it's actually afternoon. It's actually afternoon, way late in the afternoon, to be perfectly honest. I don't even know if I should be doing this. I mean, it's late. I'm at the point right now, by the way, as I look out my studio window into the beautiful foothills of Northern California, where I've been running errands all day. You know, it's one of those days where you're running errands. You know, you're running errands, and uh you kind of get backed up time-wise. And I went out and did my run today, which was fantastic. But uh, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. A beautiful anyhow, Pat's peeps. Three well, what are we at? 344. Is that right? 344 peeps Monday, October the 6th, 2025. And a good Monday to you. And I come in tonight and I and I started thinking about the fact that, geez, man, you know, hey, you're cutting into your producing time for your actual show. By the way, I'm the host of the Pat Wall Show, KFPK Radio, Monday through Friday, 7 to 10 p.m. We are coming up in just a few days away from our 12th year. October 14th will be our 12th year of doing that show. And as I referenced the other day, wow, we are now, we well, now, apparently we have been for a while, the number one show in Sacramento. That's right. It's amazing. I'm so proud of that. But so thank you for listening and for listening to my podcast. It's because I am so late, I thought, well, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get two things in at once? Well, here's what I thought I would do today. How about this for a clever idea? How's about I take you through people always ask me, how do you come up with stuff every day to talk about? But people say, you know, you're doing uh you do your show, which is three hours a day, uh, you know, and then you do a podcast. So essentially you're doing 10 shows a week. And uh how do you come up with new material? Because they try not to replicate the shows too much, and it's just a thing where you live an everyday life. You live everyday life, you take notes, you observe, you know, you hear news stories that really perk your interest. Really pique your interest. Is it peak or perk? I think both, I think both are sufficient. Either way, it's it's appropriate. But yeah, so yeah, and then you get so many topics for the show that you you get backed up with topics. You have so many things. That's why we used to do this segment with Mark the Voice Guy called Stuff We Couldn't Get To. We'd have little music playing in the background, little musak, you know, and we'd have all this stuff that we didn't get to because we'd give you a lot of phone calls or what have you. Uh and so I thought maybe, just maybe, I could take you through the process of how do you produce a show? How do you do that? Hmm. Well, one of the things you do is well, you come up with music, you have to have bumper music. And I do the uh every day I do birthdays for mus for musicians. And so what do you do? You you go in, you find the the musicians' birthdays, and I have a place that I go for that, so I'm always on top of that, and I'm always playing the bumper music of those bands and those musicians, which is really fun. So you you know, you get those kind of things. Then you take little notes from the weekend, and it's just like little notes, little thoughts, little thought-provoking things, you know, that just you come up with random. Then you, and like I say, then you you have news stories, then what do you do? Well, then you begin to just kind of piece it all together, you know. What and you and you you really give a lot of thought to what would people really like to talk about? And there really is that debate in my head. There used to be, and it kind of is at some point, at some times, where do I, at the end of the day, am I going to talk about something serious or am I gonna talk about something fun? Really, I think my show, my radio show, and for the most part, my podcast is meant for the latter. It's meant to be the uh the stir that the straw that stirs the drink, the cold beer at the end of the day, the respite from all everything else. But again, occasionally, guess what? I get upset, I get all tweaked about things that people are all mad about too. And we got to air that out. So we're not so we do kind of it all, we do it all, but for the most part, we try to be lighthearted. So if you're not gonna go in and you're not gonna just do all of the big top stories of the day, which a lot of talk show hosts do, being honest with you, if you don't do that, then you have to look for other things. What are the other things? What are the things that are kind of slipping through the cracks that people aren't really talking about? The things that people might have fun with, you know, ask people. I always like to do things like, you know, what is your favorite or what is the best or what is the worst? That's always fun too. And then you have a little list of things. You know, you have a list or you throw out whatever it might be. Best one hid wonders, or, you know, a band that uh or a song that everyone likes, but you just can't stand it. Whatever it might be, could be it doesn't even have to be music, it could be whatever. And people love that. I love it because it gets your mind off all the heavy stuff. It's fun to think about, and then it's fun to share that with other listeners and with me, the host of the show, because I love hearing it. And I can't tell you how many times you guys will say, Well, there's there was this song, for instance, or this movie, or you know, whatever it might be, and you should check it out. And then I check it out. I'm like, wow, that is really, really good. So those kind of things. That's so you throw those into the mix. You do you always want to put a little meat on the bone, as they say, a little meat on the plate, which lets people know that you're keeping an eye on all the serious stuff, too, and you have an opinion on that. So, in where as we're looking at tonight's show, I have some stuff we didn't get to. Or like Mark the Voice guy used to say, God bless him, rest in peace. Stuff we couldn't get to, brought to you by Corduroy Pellows, making headlines since 1971. Or, or what was that? This portion of the Pat Wall show, or or stuff we couldn't get to, brought to you by seaweed. Now, fish can smoke their cares away. Ah, we still love that stuff. So I'm looking at some things on a Monday. I don't want it to be a heavy Monday. Um Halloween spending in America. I've been trying to get to that. Like, what are the trends? How much are we spending? You wouldn't believe it. How much money Americans spend on Halloween. It's amazing, you know, because I think we must all have these fond memories of being kids and trick-or-treating and the joy of trick-or-treating and dressing up. Because I swear Halloween is it's not just for kids anymore. It's, you know, it is adults love to dress up and go to these parties, including me. Now, I haven't had a chance to do that last couple of years because I've well, I'm not complaining, but I have been out of the country and I guess they just don't celebrate Halloween as much as we do in Italy as we do here in America. But it's amazing. I mean, people we adults, we just love dressing up for Halloween, don't we? And I like the scary stuff. One of these days, I'm gonna have a party. I always say this, I'm gonna have a party where you have to be really scary and terrifying to get into the party. I'm an oddball like that. It's Halloween, man. Trick or treat, I was a bigger, I was always a bigger fan of the trick than the treat. I always like people that would make like haunted houses, or they'd put a mask on and try to scare you when they open a door. And that's when I was living in neighborhoods before I moved to my mystery hut in the in the woods. You know, you'd have kids come up to the door, and guy used to love messing with them. You get the best candy, you put it in a big bowl, you sit in front of the door, you blacken out the house, you put frightening music on in the background, you change the out uh the porch light from just the uh the regular iridescent light bulb to um like green or red, and it gives you that real atmosphere. And kids will look at you like, is that real? You know, you don't jump and around look crazy, you just sit back in a you know in a chair and you hold that candy in your hand, that and that really good candy, you just don't move. And they don't know, they can never tell, whether it's a real person or whether a dummy. And then when you just barely move, you shift, the kids, ah! The parents don't even want to come up. But it's it's all in fun because when I was a kid, you know, I I there was a guy, we lived in Valley High when that was a brand new Larchmont Homes neighborhood, model homes, and uh Danny Casey's dad. I couldn't wait to get to his house because I knew Danny Casey's dad was always gonna be the guy that tried to scare you when he opened the door, and he did a good job of it. Then the other people around the neighborhood, they'd have they'd have this little like courtyard things leading up into their to their front door, and they would make a little haunted house in there. So I love all that. So we're really into it. I miss doing that. Also, here's another thing I've been trying to get. Maybe, you know what? Maybe this will my maybe the theme of my show tonight will be stuff I've been trying to get to, and just do it the whole show. Because I've been trying to get to this one. Uh, the fact that Uber is now, they have this program called Women Preferences. So women will be able to request Uber rides, and they'll be able to request only women. This is for only women. Another thing I wanted to get to that we haven't is the California Red Light Camera System, which there's a bill now for the private uh red light camera vendors. They want to eliminate the requirement to identify the driver, slashing their operational costs while letting them issue more tickets with less oversight. They want to reduce the amount of the fees when you run a red light. Well, why would they do that? Well, because they think people would then pay. Because apparently now, if you're doing it, the fine the the fees, the fines are so high that a lot of people don't even pay. And so they're trying to figure out a way to enforce that. I don't know what I feel about that. But anyhow, we'll have that on the show. Another thing, and this is how far out it goes, that we stuff we couldn't get to. This was in September, late September, when uh September 24th. Never got to it. Phil Hartman's birthday. I really wanted to talk about the talent that was Phil Hartman and the tragedy that was Phil Hartman and his wife and what happened. I know everyone knows about it, but I but you know, I I wanted to honor him, and you know what? Maybe I'll include that in the show tonight. Here's another one. And this is what we do to produce the radio show. You look through all of this stuff, what would people resonate with? You know, what would people what would draw people's attention? Here's one thing I want to tell you as I break down the ratings on my radio show. I just have to tell you this. There's a few things I want to tell you. I'm just gonna say it. So I hope it's okay to reveal this. We are not only the number one show, 7 to 10 p.m., number one, but we have the longest time spent listening by far. We double most every other radio station in Sacramento. TSL, time spent listening. I talked, I told you about that a couple of podcasts back. It was bigger than I even realized. Double most of the stations. You know, there's a turnover. It's like a turnover, like tune out, the tune out. Who the higher the number, the more people tune out. I have the lowest tune out number on the rating, 7 to 10 p.m. demos 3564. It is amazing. And I think sometimes it's because, you know, if you're on a music station, you hear a song, eh yeah, I've heard this a million times, and you flip it over. On the show, when we talk about things like this, processed foods harm your body and brain. It's dinner time. People want to know more, like, huh? Or maybe they don't want to know more. Maybe they're like, hey, I'm getting ready to eat some Cheetos here. What are you doing? And I'm gonna down it with a Coke. But other people want to hear that news and they want to hear why and how that works. So we have time spent listening. Thank you. I might get into that tonight. Processed foods harm your body and brain. We all knew that. But you know, to actually read that, there's a, you know, in terms of that's reality. Rock feuds erupting between former member of Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath. Beef started last month when Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, blah, blah, blah. We'll get to that tonight. Stuff we couldn't get to. Brought to you by Vizine. We know why your eyes are all are really red. Thank you, Market Voice Guy. The Aging Voyager 1 restarted a radio that it hasn't used since 1981, prompted from 15 billion miles away. 15 billion miles away. So some of the so those are just some of the things that we'll get to on the show. But that I didn't get to. Now I'm back to live. I didn't get as you can tell, I didn't get to any of these because of the helicopter crash anyway. What was I saying? Some random thoughts from the weekend. Maybe you recap some of the NFL. Didn't get to that. Of course, we have the baseball playoffs going on right now, so it's interesting to recap those. Didn't get to that, but go Dodgers. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Got a chance to relax just a little bit. Exactly. Um, because I am running a little bit late tonight. I was. I'm gonna have to kind of cut it short. I hate to say that, but I am gonna have to cut it short a little bit short just due to time constraints. So I guess we can consider this like just a mini pod. No. And I hope that in some way it isn't now that just kind of showed you a little bit behind the scenes. There's a lot more to it, including, you know, lining up guests. One of the things we love to do is we love to bring in local artists and local musicians, we support local businesses on the Pat Wall Show, just like we do right here on Pat's Peeps. Become a Pat's Peep, please. And by the way, in the next couple of days, I've got more exciting news to share with you. So by the way, check out our merchandise, Pat'sPeeps.com. We have an awesome Tower Record shirt, an awesome Sam's Hoffbrow shirt, so comfortable and cool looking, plus the Pat Wall Show t-shirt, plus the Pat's Peeps merchandise, great hoodies for fall, winter. You're gonna love it. PatSPeeps.com. Good stuff, just like last month with Rock and Soul Diner. Some good stuff going on with Pat's Peeps. And uh, so yes, we're gonna keep that in the mix as well. I'm gonna play this for you because I'm gonna play this. Yay! Play it. Super excited about what is next on Pat's Peeps. Yeah, man. There'll be a lot of really good stuff coming your way, I promise. So I thought, why not go out with this tonight? I usually go into my show with this. My theme song to my radio show, She Sells Sanctuary by the Colts. You have a great rest of your Monday, alright? And we'll see you on the radio. But we won't talk about any of that stuff. See you tomorrow night. Like he said on the radio.

Head Shot

Pat walsh

Host