Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / “What the Hell Happened to L.A.?” with Meghan Daum

Transcript

“What the Hell Happened to L.A.?” with Meghan Daum · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Get out of humans, here we are with the one I only make them down in Los Angeles, California.
• 0:08
  Talking about the decline of this great city, the city of angels, I can hear the horns
• 0:13
  beeping, I can hear the people commorting in the pool party outside.
• 0:17
  I can hear the birds twittering on Memorial Day of all times and you were saying you
• 0:22
  should brought a little Nick pillow because the couches maybe, you know, I like to have
• 0:26
  a Nick pillow or a Nick brace when I do other people's podcasts.
• 0:30
  Right.
• 0:31
  Because I want to distinguish, it's like instead of wearing a flower in my hair, I just
• 0:35
  don't want to let people know, optically, that it's not my show.
• 0:39
  So looking like you're living with a disability, yeah, yeah, yeah, like a big neck brace,
• 0:46
  like a, like you're broken, like a Nick pillow, a Nick pillow, like on an airplane.
• 0:52
  Okay.
• 0:53
  You know what I am?
• 0:54
  Well, really you're having a, I'm going to get you onto some one of the good ones.
• 0:57
  Okay.
• 0:58
  So I've got this thing.
• 0:59
  It's called a turtle, a turtle, not a turtle, but a turtle, because it's T-U-R-T-L.
• 1:04
  Okay.
• 1:05
  To be cool, they have to leave the E off.
• 1:07
  Okay.
• 1:08
  And it has a big, it has a brace on one side, like a hard plastic shell on one side.
• 1:14
  And a soft piece of cloth that wraps around your neck and you wrap yourself up like a mummy
• 1:19
  around your neck.
• 1:20
  And then it velcro is on.
• 1:21
  So it actually holds your neck.
• 1:23
  I have seen this.
• 1:24
  Like up and to the side, because with a conventional neck pillow, you put it on the back and then
• 1:28
  your head sort of swaps forward.
• 1:29
  It doesn't have a point of it.
• 1:30
  It just pushes your head forward and then your chin is lolly gagging against your chest.
• 1:35
  Okay.
• 1:36
  Whereas here, it holds your neck, so I would, a loft.
• 1:40
  So it's like you're, and apparently you can sleep, apparently, because it hasn't been
• 1:45
  effective.
• 1:46
  I'm going to say it for me so far.
• 1:47
  It feels like I'm wearing a neck brace, or like I'm, I'm a cripple.
• 1:51
  I know.
• 1:52
  Well, you fly, you're the long haul flyer.
• 1:55
  Long haul flyer.
• 1:56
  You know, I did the trip yesterday in record time for me, 12 hours and 35 minutes.
• 2:02
  That's a breeze.
• 2:03
  That's a breeze.
• 2:04
  That's a breeze.
• 2:05
  Because you're coming this direction.
• 2:06
  Well, maybe it's going to be worse.
• 2:07
  Yes, you're right.
• 2:08
  Yeah.
• 2:09
  It does do that.
• 2:10
  Yeah, because if you go from here to New York, this is a ribbitting stuff for people.
• 2:13
  It is.
• 2:14
  My audience loves aviation.
• 2:15
  I actually love aviation.
• 2:17
  Me too.
• 2:18
  Yeah.
• 2:19
  So if you fly L.A. to New York, it can be as little as like four hours and about a minute.
• 2:23
  Yes.
• 2:24
  On the way back.
• 2:25
  On the way back.
• 2:26
  17 hours.
• 2:27
  17 hours.
• 2:28
  You end up in Sydney.
• 2:29
  Yeah, that's right.
• 2:30
  So it was quick.
• 2:31
  And there was a tailwind.
• 2:32
  And you know, flying has gotten slower because they save more fuel over and the planes are
• 2:38
  bigger.
• 2:39
  Okay.
• 2:40
  Like that A380, the big lumber.
• 2:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:42
  We need to go around as well.
• 2:43
  You know what a go-around is?
• 2:44
  Where they start to land.
• 2:45
  And then you just blast off again.
• 2:46
  Oh, yeah.
• 2:47
  There's something scary.
• 2:48
  Something on the runway.
• 2:49
  You never had that happen on A380 before.
• 2:51
  It's the double decker, you know, those double decker planes.
• 2:53
  Yeah.
• 2:54
  And it's coming in.
• 2:55
  And we touched down on L.A.X.
• 2:56
  Oh.
• 2:57
  And we touched down.
• 2:58
  No way.
• 2:59
  That L.A.X.
• 3:00
  We're on the runway.
• 3:01
  And then, you know what I mean?
• 3:02
  And the thrusters go crazy.
• 3:03
  On the ground.
• 3:04
  We were on the ground.
• 3:05
  On the A380.
• 3:06
  Very rare.
• 3:07
  And when, and pull straight up vertical, as vertical as the plane can go, pull back in
• 3:11
  our seats.
• 3:12
  They're looking around.
• 3:13
  Things like form around.
• 3:14
  Oh my God.
• 3:15
  Yeah.
• 3:16
  This was yesterday?
• 3:17
  Yes, today.
• 3:18
  How come this wasn't in the L.A.X.?
• 3:19
  Well, that's not 11.
• 3:20
  Because they're on holiday.
• 3:21
  They're all on the moiled day.
• 3:22
  It'll be in tomorrow's day.
• 3:23
  Wait.
• 3:24
  Was everybody freaking out?
• 3:25
  No.
• 3:26
  Everybody was fine.
• 3:27
  But it must have been freaking out.
• 3:28
  But did you say anything?
• 3:29
  Yes, they did.
• 3:30
  After they, after they find their, you know, after they're talking to traffic control
• 3:34
  and they know where they're supposed to go.
• 3:35
  And then they're out over the Pacific again, climbing, then the captain comes on a little
• 3:39
  sheepish.
• 3:40
  And he's like, because I thought there would be something on the runway.
• 3:44
  I was afraid we were going to, like, clip another plane or something as we were trying
• 3:47
  to take back off.
• 3:48
  Right.
• 3:49
  And he said that because of a jet in front that disturbed the wind, the wind was outside
• 3:54
  of the parameters of what they need in order to stop the plane.
• 3:57
  It must have, like, the slip, I guess the slip wind of the jet in front made the plane
• 4:03
  not have the sufficient headwinds to be able to land a plane that big on that one way
• 4:07
  down.
• 4:08
  Wow.
• 4:09
  Is it amazing that they have the equipment?
• 4:10
  Yes.
• 4:11
  And they see the number.
• 4:12
  And they go, well, I don't want to make this.
• 4:14
  Wow.
• 4:15
  I was going to say because I didn't somebody get hit.
• 4:17
  There was a person on a runway a few weeks ago who got hit.
• 4:20
  Really?
• 4:21
  It was like a suicide thing.
• 4:22
  Can you believe this?
• 4:23
  I think it was that, um, I can't remember the airport.
• 4:26
  Uh, but yeah, somebody, I was, yeah, somebody somebody got actually over the fence.
• 4:31
  Some out of their mind person kind of like what we have in Los Angeles.
• 4:34
  That was just.
• 4:35
  This is probably great segue.
• 4:37
  Great segue was probably a John Wayne internationally.
• 4:40
  I don't think it was in Southern California, but it's just somebody who had gotten tired
• 4:45
  of zombieying around in the regular street.
• 4:48
  Yes.
• 4:49
  And they thought, give me a bigger street.
• 4:50
  Upgrade.
• 4:51
  Yeah.
• 4:52
  You know, upgrade to the airport.
• 4:53
  Bigger street.
• 4:54
  Bigger street.
• 4:55
  Bigger vehicles.
• 4:56
  Uh, so yes, zombies in Los Angeles.
• 4:59
  Now I frequent Los Angeles and I can't say, maybe it's because of the rarefied places
• 5:04
  that I go to.
• 5:06
  And I just get on the, the 405 and then I'm away from the zombies.
• 5:10
  But tell me what's happened to the zombification.
• 5:13
  What are we talking about when we're talking about the zombification of Los Angeles?
• 5:16
  Well, yeah.
• 5:17
  And this is to be clear.
• 5:18
  This is not a word that I, that I use.
• 5:20
  No.
• 5:21
  Because you're politically correct.
• 5:22
  Because I know I'm a member of the credentialed class.
• 5:25
  Oh, okay.
• 5:26
  Just as you are.
• 5:27
  Okay.
• 5:28
  Yeah.
• 5:29
  Um, I have a bronze swimming certificate from fifth grade.
• 5:32
  Is that the credential?
• 5:33
  Yeah.
• 5:34
  Great.
• 5:35
  You're more credentialed than a reality star.
• 5:37
  Yeah.
• 5:38
  And empty.
• 5:39
  Delicious beverage.
• 5:40
  Yeah.
• 5:41
  Um, so we have a homelessness crisis in the city, like many cities on the west coast,
• 5:48
  many cities in the US.
• 5:50
  I'm sure you have.
• 5:51
  I'm sure you have some kind of problem like this.
• 5:53
  Now Australia is perfect.
• 5:55
  Okay.
• 5:56
  Yes.
• 5:57
  There are homeless people.
• 5:59
  But they don't, I mean, I've talked about this like with friends here.
• 6:05
  It seems like here, there has been a policy of being like, you, when you're homeless,
• 6:10
  you can just like set up a tent and like start living your life.
• 6:14
  Whereas I feel like homeless people in Australia, I don't want to say that it works better
• 6:20
  there because there's probably no picnic being homeless there either.
• 6:23
  But it seems like they, they, they're not permanent in campus.
• 6:26
  Right.
• 6:27
  You know what I mean?
• 6:28
  It's like here's a person who doesn't want to spend the night at a better, you know,
• 6:32
  mental health facility or something and would rather sleep on the street with his dog.
• 6:37
  But you come back tomorrow and he's not there.
• 6:39
  He's in a different street or a different place, whereas it is a very California phenomenon
• 6:44
  to me to just be driving along and you don't under a freeway on the pass.
• 6:47
  And there's just a whole strip of what look like permanent, yeah, uh, tent.
• 6:52
  This actually tents.
• 6:53
  Yeah.
• 6:54
  Right.
• 6:55
  So a number of things have happened.
• 6:56
  And we should say that when we're talking about street homelessness, we're, we're talking
• 7:00
  about a particular cohort of homelessness.
• 7:03
  So homelessness can, homeless person can be somebody who is couch surfing, for instance,
• 7:08
  like you are technically homeless now in the United States.
• 7:12
  I'm not a boss.
• 7:13
  Don't tell.
• 7:14
  So immigration.
• 7:15
  Right.
• 7:16
  Um, there's some news living in their car or a family in a, somebody who fell behind
• 7:20
  on the ranch and just, you know, out, you know, down on their lot kind of situations.
• 7:24
  Yes.
• 7:25
  These are the unhoused, as we call them, we call them the unhoused mega experience in
• 7:30
  houselessness.
• 7:31
  They're experiencing, they're the unhoused.
• 7:33
  Yeah.
• 7:34
  At the top, you have the unhoused.
• 7:36
  That's me, uh, the couch surfing.
• 7:37
  At the bottom, you have a hobo who's essentially a professional hobo, the hobo, yes, he has
• 7:45
  a, uh, stick over his shoulder with a little knapsack, uh, a, a, a, a, a, a chief tied up
• 7:50
  with all his worldly belongings in it.
• 7:52
  Yeah.
• 7:53
  And then in the middle, you've got this large area of people with shopping trolleys with,
• 7:57
  like, old TVs in them, yeah, and a dog.
• 8:00
  Yeah.
• 8:01
  So we'll get to the dog in a minute, but, um, so what we have is this massive, uh, population
• 8:06
  of people who, um, are, are living on the streets in, in tents, sometimes they're sleeping
• 8:13
  outside, uh, I mean, often they're sleeping outside.
• 8:17
  They are, they are experiencing houselessness or sometimes they're sleeping like on a,
• 8:22
  just on the sidewalk, rough sleeping, I think.
• 8:25
  Yeah.
• 8:26
  We call it that too.
• 8:27
  Yeah.
• 8:28
  Yeah.
• 8:29
  So, um, this population is almost entirely drug addicted and or mentally ill.
• 8:35
  And, uh, so you'll see them, I mean, just the zombie, uh, word has come up because they're
• 8:42
  like staggering around.
• 8:43
  I mean, this has a very dystopian kind of, uh, feel to it and these specifically would
• 8:49
  be probably myths and events that know, so what's happened is this is obviously
• 8:55
  that, you know, we have had this going on in cities for a long time, but when it has
• 9:00
  happened, and I have learned this in the last year or so because I've been covering this
• 9:04
  issue on my podcast more is that, um, you know, over the last five years, methamphetamine
• 9:10
  is much more potent than it used to be.
• 9:12
  The way it's made is different.
• 9:14
  It sometimes is called hyperpure or P2P methamphetamine.
• 9:18
  It just, it's the way it's, and I'm not an expert on this, but the way it is manufactured
• 9:23
  makes it much more easy to get a hold of.
• 9:26
  And also you don't have to, um, actually cut it with anything else.
• 9:30
  It's hyperpure.
• 9:32
  So in the past, people would be doing math, but they'd be cutting it with other stuff
• 9:35
  and it would have like baking soda or other stuff.
• 9:38
  But this is just pure.
• 9:40
  And so it has the effect actually of making you instantly psychotic.
• 9:46
  So the kind of behaviors that you're seeing that I think a lot of people think is schizophrenia
• 9:51
  is actually this new kind of methamphetamine that has arisen over the last five years.
• 9:56
  And so you combine that with fentanyl, uh, which is also, you know, relatively new.
• 10:01
  And, and that is when you see people kind of folded over in half, they call that the fentanyl
• 10:06
  fold.
• 10:07
  Right.
• 10:08
  So you've got those two things.
• 10:09
  And that's because they think that they're taking heroin or they're just taking fentanyl.
• 10:11
  I think it has that.
• 10:12
  No, they want to take fentanyl.
• 10:13
  Yeah.
• 10:14
  Well, this is the thing.
• 10:15
  So, um, so you see them, so it's a kind of, you know, toggle back and forth between
• 10:19
  methamphetanyl.
• 10:20
  And there's some crack and also, so like extremes of hyperactivity and extremes of dosility
• 10:26
  combined.
• 10:27
  Right.
• 10:28
  Right.
• 10:29
  Um, and, you know, if you overdose, there's Narcan, which a lot of the outreach workers will
• 10:33
  have, um, you know, they will, the harm reduction people will actually come to these encampments
• 10:38
  and distribute Narcan and more needles and, I mean, surely the Narcan's good.
• 10:43
  I mean, we don't want them dying.
• 10:45
  Do we?
• 10:46
  No, we don't want.
• 10:47
  We don't want them dying, but, um, this isn't that, well, actually, and I, I have been
• 10:53
  reading more about Narcan lately, and apparently this, some people think that this is kind of
• 10:57
  a boondoggle to sell more Narcans to people addicted, because, you know, like, like librarians,
• 11:04
  for instance, have Narcan on hand because a lot of overdoses are occurring in public libraries
• 11:09
  and the bathroom.
• 11:10
  Oh, man.
• 11:11
  So librarians and a lot of these cities, and it's not just cities.
• 11:14
  I mean, this is happening in small rural areas as well, have become de facto social workers
• 11:20
  and outreach workers.
• 11:21
  So anyway, so this has been, um, an increasing problem, especially since COVID.
• 11:27
  So six years ago, a lot of the laws stopped being enforced.
• 11:31
  I mean, it is illegal to sleep on the streets.
• 11:34
  Really?
• 11:35
  Yes, it is illegal.
• 11:36
  Wow.
• 11:37
  Um, and, you know, during COVID, a lot of things were just, yeah, kind of all that's
• 11:41
  rough.
• 11:42
  So they stopped enforcing those laws, um, in some cases, I think they were distributing
• 11:47
  tents.
• 11:48
  You know, they wanted to keep people safe from COVID.
• 11:50
  Right, right.
• 11:51
  Um, so it was kind of a perfect storm, you know, like a tent is perfectly impermeable to
• 11:56
  bear.
• 11:57
  Well, you know, the homeless population didn't have COVID as much because, well, because
• 12:00
  they were outside.
• 12:01
  Yeah.
• 12:02
  Right.
• 12:03
  So that's what it's actually working with.
• 12:04
  The tent's probably worse than being outside.
• 12:05
  Unless you have a friend.
• 12:06
  Unless you have a friend.
• 12:07
  Unless you have a friend.
• 12:08
  Yeah, but you're going to have a friend over there.
• 12:09
  Absolutely.
• 12:10
  Yeah.
• 12:11
  Connel visits.
• 12:12
  Yeah.
• 12:13
  A little bit of meth sharing.
• 12:14
  So the proliferation of these tents has also meant that law enforcement is much more
• 12:19
  difficult because you can't see what goes on inside of them.
• 12:22
  Right.
• 12:23
  And, you know, police cannot, um, go inside some of it is tent, because that's, even
• 12:27
  if I was in the tent, were the police rounding people up who are homeless?
• 12:31
  Like, it's, what was the, if they were, if, if there was some obvious abuse going on,
• 12:35
  if you were smoking, I guess if you were smoking meth on the sidewalk.
• 12:39
  Yeah.
• 12:40
  Yeah.
• 12:41
  Yeah.
• 12:42
  Um, you could ostensibly get arrested for that, but I see it all the time now and they're
• 12:44
  doing anything about it.
• 12:45
  No.
• 12:46
  Nobody cares.
• 12:47
  You see people just smoking.
• 12:48
  I saw somebody the other day.
• 12:49
  I saw somebody outside of the CVS and drugstore and he was smoking either, I mean, I don't
• 12:53
  know what it was.
• 12:54
  It was a pipe.
• 12:55
  It was a glass pipe.
• 12:56
  And he had, um, he had a cat on a very short leash, a really sick looking cat.
• 13:01
  I mean, that's criminal to begin with.
• 13:03
  Yeah.
• 13:04
  You shouldn't put a cat on a leash.
• 13:05
  Right.
• 13:06
  I don't think anyone don't walk a cat.
• 13:08
  Yeah.
• 13:09
  No.
• 13:10
  You don't need to walk a cat or a thing.
• 13:11
  Yeah.
• 13:12
  Right.
• 13:13
  Yeah.
• 13:14
  So, yeah.
• 13:15
  And the animal thing.
• 13:16
  So basically, uh, the reason we're having this conversation is that, um, we have a very interesting
• 13:20
  mayoral race going on here in Los Angeles.
• 13:22
  Right.
• 13:23
  Because part of the theory is that it's the, yeah, the, those communist Democrats who have
• 13:27
  let the city go to shit.
• 13:28
  Yeah.
• 13:29
  And the whole state indeed.
• 13:30
  The whole state.
• 13:31
  Because it's a one-potty.
• 13:32
  The whole coastline.
• 13:33
  The whole coast.
• 13:34
  The whole coast.
• 13:35
  Yeah.
• 13:36
  Okay.
• 13:37
  Yeah.
• 13:38
  They're not communists, by the way.
• 13:40
  Our mayor is not a communist.
• 13:41
  A lot of people like to say she's communist.
• 13:43
  She's not as far as I know.
• 13:45
  Okay.
• 13:46
  Um, just.
• 13:47
  Would you say that Mam Donnie is a communist?
• 13:49
  No.
• 13:50
  Okay.
• 13:51
  All right.
• 13:52
  Well, I'm just using the term the way that the right tends to use it.
• 13:54
  Yeah.
• 13:55
  Which is anybody who's a democratic socialist.
• 13:57
  Right.
• 13:58
  I think they're, yeah.
• 13:59
  But the mayor, Mayor Karen Bass is not even a democratic socialist.
• 14:02
  Okay.
• 14:03
  Is there somebody who she's in her seventies?
• 14:05
  And she came up in, you know, black.
• 14:08
  She's a black woman, black progressive activism in the in the nine
• 14:11
  seven.
• 14:12
  The ladies and white.
• 14:13
  That's, I mean, that is what the deal was at that time.
• 14:16
  Right.
• 14:17
  She went to Cuba a lot and.
• 14:19
  I don't know.
• 14:20
  Maybe she identified as a communist.
• 14:21
  You're not helping your aunt.
• 14:22
  You're.
• 14:23
  She was.
• 14:24
  She was, you're saying she went to.
• 14:25
  She's not a communist.
• 14:26
  She just went to Cuba a lot.
• 14:28
  She did.
• 14:29
  And she was involved in a radical.
• 14:31
  Probably there was I don't know he would not surprise me if she would have called herself a communist back then
• 14:36
  Been in a fashion-y cool. Yes. Yes. Hips her way. Yes. Just like the take of our
• 14:41
  He's just an entrenched
• 14:43
  Uh, she's an entrenched part of that Democrat establishment
• 14:47
  California
• 14:49
  Local politics and that has there ever been an attempt to make the kind of what I think the deal is in other liberal democracies with crime and homelessness is
• 14:58
  The the right says we don't want people shitting on the streets all over the place
• 15:04
  And the left says but what about all of these poor people we need to take care of them
• 15:09
  And then there's some kind of a grand bargain effectively where the right says all right
• 15:15
  We'll give you enough money to be able to run social programs for them and
• 15:20
  You know how's them somewhere and in exchange the left says okay, you're allowed to
• 15:25
  You know round them up off the streets when they're shitting on the street and harassing people
• 15:29
  And so we'll be tough on the lawlessness aspect but also compassionate on the assistance aspect
• 15:35
  I think I assume without having done much research about it that the reason why Australia and Denmark are different than the United States is because that's basically the mechanism
• 15:46
  But here it seems like
• 15:48
  Every attempt to crack down on the lawlessness aspect is met with from the left by a claim that that's heartless
• 15:54
  And every attempt to it expands the provision of social services is met by the right with a claim that that's
• 16:00
  communism
• 16:03
  Is there not a compromise to be made? I think the compromise that you just described is what most people want
• 16:09
  I mean, that's a very sensible
• 16:11
  Yeah, I don't even know I just invented that I'm pretty proud of that
• 16:14
  Yeah, I think I sure I'm gonna write you in what possible impediment put there be to enacting such a compromise in a city like well
• 16:21
  That's a really good question and you know some people will say because we have this system of non-profits and non-governmental organizations that have contracts with the city and so
• 16:31
  It's the city will say okay
• 16:34
  Instead of having this be like a direct kind of you know local government initiative
• 16:39
  We're gonna contract with this nonprofit that is you know urban alchemy is the name of one of them
• 16:45
  Okay, or path people assisting the homeless and they
• 16:50
  I for early hey, yeah, they and they have
• 16:53
  Their ideas about how to do things and presumably they have made a case for themselves with the with the you know with the city
• 17:00
  They're getting multi multi-million dollar contracts. Yeah, right, but then you know they'll do things like
• 17:08
  Say well, we're going to court and often areas so people can put their tents and we're not gonna have any barrier to entry
• 17:14
  So you can be in our little community, but you don't have to stop using drugs and because it's not our business
• 17:21
  We're gonna meet you where you are
• 17:23
  And there's gonna be there's gonna be no questions on no and that doesn't and that doesn't work
• 17:28
  And so I mean clearly when we're talking about this particular population
• 17:33
  They need to be in treatment and so it really comes down to this fundamental
• 17:37
  You know disagreement some people think that you should be able to
• 17:41
  Mandatory, you know, mandate inpatient treatment for instance like if you're not gonna go yourself
• 17:48
  You you're gonna be forced to go you're either gonna go to treatment or to jail
• 17:53
  More and more people think that but there's also people who say well, that's not fair
• 17:57
  That's you they have rights. They are human beings their citizens. I mean they have rights
• 18:02
  They're all enumerated in the constitution
• 18:05
  But one of the rights is not that you get to smoke meth on the street and harass people
• 18:10
  Yeah, right. It's got it's it's really strange and and the fact that these tensor up means
• 18:16
  All kinds of just unspeakable things are going on unspeakable nice plug. Yeah, yeah, we got the idea for me. Um
• 18:24
  Uh, you know, there's a lot of human trafficking. There's a lot of prostitution
• 18:28
  There's also a lot of gang activity
• 18:30
  Um, so you know the even these you know Mexican drug cartels kind of things will control a lot of these areas
• 18:37
  And are these localized? I mean Los Angeles has always been a strange city in the sense that it is not a city
• 18:42
  It's a collection of
• 18:44
  Previously separate cities that are connected by freeways and sort of bled into one another
• 18:49
  And so you have always had the opulence of Beverly Hills
• 18:52
  You know, and then just down the highway you can have South Central Los Angeles
• 18:56
  Um, is that is it still contained?
• 18:59
  That sounds like a very snitchy thing to care about. No, no, no
• 19:03
  Well, it's a great question because Los Angeles is made up of different municipalities
• 19:08
  Beverly Hills is its own
• 19:10
  Town it has its own mayor. It has its own police. Right. So it has its own mayor and has its own city
• 19:16
  We even in Los Angeles right now you are in Los Angeles, but like we're later
• 19:20
  Don't they say the city of West Hollywood or is that just like we're doing a West Hollywood later
• 19:23
  This is not West Hollywood. No, this is Hollywood. Right. This is Hollywood. Okay. So this is part of the city of LA
• 19:29
  I'd love to see the shape of Los Angeles city then it must have a little thing that little thing is
• 19:34
  It makes no sense. I think a lot of it has to do with redlining and there's all kinds of you know
• 19:39
  Redlining meaning you want to keep certain undesirable people might have areas. Yeah. Yeah
• 19:43
  So but like a lot of people it's funny with the mayor's race because a lot of people don't even realize that they are living in one of these other
• 19:49
  Municipalities and not voting for mayor
• 19:51
  Like why isn't this on my belt Santa Monica is obviously its own city
• 19:57
  But something like Culver City, which I thought was part of LA is its own city
• 20:01
  I should know what that was just a neighborhood LA is downtown LA is um like Northeast LA where I live West LA
• 20:09
  So you're in LA? Absolutely. Wow. Why you you weren't my house. Yeah
• 20:14
  No, I passed a lot of homeless people they got there. Yes. No, I mean, yes
• 20:18
  I bet it's just that if when you think in the imagination of people about Los Angeles
• 20:23
  You think Santa Monica. You think West Hollywood. You think Beverly Hills. You don't think all to Dina. Oh, I don't know
• 20:30
  I know you don't anymore because it's not part of LA. Okay, okay, and Pasadena is not part of LA
• 20:36
  No, but you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's tricky. So downtown
• 20:41
  South Central East you know East LA that kind of stuff
• 20:45
  Um
• 20:46
  Anyway, so you will actually see
• 20:49
  Kind of different uh levels of tolerance for this kind of street camping like you won't see as much in Burbank
• 20:55
  Which is its own city or Glendale for instance. Yeah, Monju there are distance away as well. You're gonna know
• 21:00
  Burbank is right adjacent to to LA Glendale. You can walk
• 21:05
  You know, LA is amazing because your next door neighbor could actually have a different mayor than you. Yeah
• 21:10
  Right. I mean, I went to Burbank this morning and I felt like it had it took me 20 minutes on the freeway
• 21:15
  Well, everything takes 20 minutes
• 21:17
  It's a long way to push a shopping trolley with your cat on the leash
• 21:21
  You know, um actually there was just a story a couple weeks ago. There was a couple who
• 21:26
  Had apparently been in a homeless shelter in Austin, Texas and
• 21:32
  were for a year and the shelter
• 21:35
  Remove them because they needed to get more people in so they bought them a plane ticket
• 21:39
  They bought them plane tickets to Burbank and flew them to Burbank and then the people from where?
• 21:43
  Austin, Texas. Oh, and then the people got off the plane and apparently walked to
• 21:50
  Some you know through the
• 21:52
  They didn't get just by another plane
• 21:54
  They got up. They they walked. There was no quanticide. They walked from the airport wow to
• 22:00
  some somewhere in the valley and
• 22:04
  Had we're living in a park and so one of the you know people in the neighborhood kind of noticed this and
• 22:10
  Started talking to them and got to know them and filmed a little video with them and we heard their story
• 22:14
  And it was just it's very confusing because it's like why are these why is a shelter paying for plane tickets to send them to another place
• 22:21
  And they can do that that no one no one is really confusing Josh because I used to think that this was like a right wing talking point
• 22:28
  Like no way they're shipping in this flying in homeless and I knew that sometimes it was on buses like this does happen
• 22:35
  Yeah, they give them a greyhound ticket. That's right. That's right
• 22:39
  And that does happen and it's funny because when I when I interviewed
• 22:42
  Our man of the hour Spencer Pratt who was now running for mayor
• 22:47
  He was insisting that
• 22:49
  That this plant the flying people around was true and I kept saying no, it's not it's not at least
• 22:54
  It's just the bus so I was actually wrong about that right. They're flying. I mean if that's on the cards then simple solution to the whole problem
• 23:01
  You just get every a whole bunch of on this 80s you put them all you put every homeless person in Los Angeles on them
• 23:07
  And you fly in Austin or we could just fly ours to to Sydney we wouldn't take them
• 23:12
  We wouldn't take them because there's a border but the great thing about these United States of America
• 23:17
  No border or send them to Alaska or something. I mean, you know, I'm being suspicious, but you could like
• 23:23
  In extremists
• 23:25
  There are ways to discourage people from behaving like that
• 23:29
  Say like three strikes and you're at three strikes and you're literally going to move you out of Los Angeles
• 23:34
  And a lot of them are not actually from here
• 23:35
  I mean, that's another thing that gets called a right wing talking point. Oh that they're not here
• 23:39
  They came from elsewhere
• 23:41
  It's really hard to you know the data is confusing and the way they will conduct the surveys
• 23:46
  They'll say well where were where were you living when you became homeless
• 23:51
  And if they were living at the bus station
• 23:54
  Because they just got off the bus
• 23:58
  Or if they got out of a rehab or if they got at the jail for instance, they can say California
• 24:03
  But I mean, it's even clear if you if you talked to any of these people and there's a lot of youtubers for instance that I do skid row
• 24:10
  They do skid row content and skid row is this just unbelievable
• 24:14
  I mean you should go down there a few of time
• 24:15
  Well, I was gonna stay downtown last time I was here
• 24:19
  And you can stay in a time I mean the thing is skid row seems to have been expanding
• 24:24
  Yeah, yeah, a lot of the old illustrious hotels downtown these beautiful old six style hotels
• 24:30
  Theater and beautiful theater you can find them now
• 24:32
  There are 150 bucks a night instead of
• 24:35
  Well, it's funny because then it's like they're five stop places
• 24:39
  But you take us take one or all turn out of the entrance and it's just it's a dystopia
• 24:45
  And if you were a homeless person
• 24:47
  The room would be $800 a night because that is the rate that the city has to pay right because of all these messed up countries that I used to put some
• 24:54
  Chivago. No, they're no they're not using
• 25:00
  And so just on the the boundaries between the different areas
• 25:04
  Does it really then matter what happens in the Los Angeles mayoral race because you could just put up like again in extremists
• 25:12
  You could bound or even the city you could have a you could have barbed wire fences around the city
• 25:19
  Right, and you could be like these are all the people who are supposed to be in the city again very just token
• 25:24
  And you know, you'd have like the around the the highways
• 25:28
  You know, they're kind of like at the border of yeah the border with Mexico
• 25:32
  You don't have like the barbed wire
• 25:33
  Oh, I see right the cars will go through
• 25:36
  But but what's not really like the border with Mexico in that way
• 25:38
  But like the is then there's a little barbed wire
• 25:41
  Abutment that comes out and then people come time borrows you'd have people with machine guns
• 25:47
  In case people try to that's go get around between Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. I'm just people
• 25:53
  Did you want to go to urban planning? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did I did I did. It's all a great idea. Yeah
• 26:02
  Yeah, in other words, it requires a coordination effort between them as of all different cities
• 26:06
  Yeah, because people are moving around all the time and and in fact like it, you know, even though technically
• 26:12
  Burbank has its own
• 26:13
  You know
• 26:14
  government, you know law enforcement etc
• 26:17
  There are still homeless encampments in Burbank. I mean it depends sure so and but anyway
• 26:21
  So imagine if you came to Los Angeles like all these people all these homeless people
• 26:25
  I'm sorry temporarily on house people who come to who are in Los Angeles from elsewhere in the country
• 26:30
  Imagine if they came here to seek the Hollywood dream of some of them have they wanted to be in the next Avengers movie
• 26:37
  And then you tell them you know, even in
• 26:39
  You know, they find themselves in West Hollywood. You're like you're in a totally different city. Yeah
• 26:43
  Santa Monica unfortunately, and this isn't where the dream where dreams are made. No
• 26:47
  If you've been in a Hollywood then you'll be you're to hit a bit. I mean Hollywood itself is
• 26:53
  Hugely affected by this Hollywood is you mean the industry of the place the town the place
• 27:00
  Hollywood Boulevard is just I mean, it's always been a shit hole
• 27:03
  Which is funny because it's like synonymous with glamour and it's really you've walked along square
• 27:08
  Yeah, I mean, but time square is is Disneyland now, but
• 27:12
  Yeah, I mean Giuliani on the Hollywood Boulevard actually yeah, and then Bloomberg after that
• 27:17
  But it's funny because you know New York was really struggling
• 27:20
  Before Giuliani. I mean I the only Republican I think I've ever voted for was Giuliani in his second term
• 27:27
  Running for mayor of New York City. There you go
• 27:29
  I had seen in this was in the mid 90s probably and because I had seen a dramatic change
• 27:36
  And you know to use a horrible corporate slang of learnings. What are your learnings as a New Yorker who lived through that
• 27:44
  One of the two learnings that you take away for Los Angeles. Is there anything that could be good?
• 27:49
  I mean I lived in New York in the in the 90s and then I mean I've lived in Los Angeles since 2002
• 27:55
  And then I did go back to New York between like 2016 and 20, you know, 2022 20 kind of thing and
• 28:05
  You know New York while New York is actually changed now, but I mean when I when I went back to New York
• 28:11
  Around 2016 after having been away for a really long time. I couldn't believe it
• 28:16
  It was people were going out deep into Brooklyn like to bedstie with our laptops open
• 28:21
  Yeah, I was there then it was right. It was great. And I mean, and it was and that was Bloomberg. That was Michael Bloomberg right
• 28:29
  Um, but but I mean back to LA
• 28:32
  So what we have now
• 28:34
  we have uh
• 28:36
  This crazy mayor's race is this an international story like you knew about it. Yeah, but only because I followed people like you. Okay. So
• 28:45
  The the mayor is Karen Bass who's a is a democrat and she's a career politician. Mm-hmm
• 28:51
  She has the Cuban revolution. She has the misfortune of having been the mayor during these horrible fires that happened
• 28:58
  A year and a half ago and she has the misfortune of having been out of town when they started
• 29:05
  Uh, she was having previously said that she would not
• 29:08
  She said that she wasn't gonna leave the country. She said she was not gonna leave the country during her 10 years mayor
• 29:14
  I don't know how common of a promise that is
• 29:17
  so
• 29:18
  You know, we had a very similar thing by the way just incidentally just reminding me that when we had the those terrible fires in 2020
• 29:25
  Either summer of 2019 to 2020
• 29:28
  You know winter here the the prime minister happened to be in Hawaii
• 29:32
  And he didn't cancel his family vacation as the fires were starting to get bad and um he was like photographed some cheeky person took a
• 29:41
  snapshot of him at another tourist like sitting on the deck and you know in
• 29:46
  Why Tiki will lay around him his neck drinking a cocktail while people's homes were burning down. Yeah, it was not
• 29:53
  Pretty. Yeah, that's a French wandering moment. Yeah, exactly
• 29:58
  Yeah, so Karen Bass. I mean she did
• 30:01
  She did get on a plane
• 30:03
  Was she vacationing what was she was actually and she wasn't gonna so she was at the inauguration for it. I guess a new
• 30:11
  Whatever they have
• 30:13
  Yeah, so can't believe you're not up on your Ghanaian concentration on law
• 30:18
  You know the palisades is part of Los Angeles. Okay, Al Tadina where my house burned down is not part of Los Angeles
• 30:25
  Right, so the fire and these were different fires. Yeah, so
• 30:29
  Karen Bass there has no culpability in my fire that was that that's a totally different thing
• 30:35
  Um, but you know there's a lot of
• 30:38
  Feeling that she let the infrastructure go. There was no water in the fire hydrant. Yeah
• 30:43
  There have been you know, there was a lot of negligence on the part of the city to what degree and you know
• 30:49
  The intricacies of it we will we will learn. I mean it is
• 30:53
  Coming from
• 30:55
  I'm touching lots of wood on knocking on lots of wood here because Australia is still very vulnerable
• 30:59
  But coming from a country that has
• 31:01
  persistently suffered from this particular natural disaster worse than any other rich country the idea that
• 31:08
  One of the most bougie
• 31:11
  Like suburbs in one of the most productive and wealthy cities in the country
• 31:17
  Would not have contingency plans and we have no water in the hydrants and would not have had you know proactive has a reduction burns and things taking place around it
• 31:27
  Is yeah mindboggling. It's mindboggling
• 31:31
  So it's kind of a perfect storm for an incredibly dramatic and weird mayors race right now is Karen Bass running again
• 31:40
  Yes, she's running and a lot of people first of all a lot of people don't even know that there's an election going on
• 31:46
  I would say probably most people when is the how close so what's happening now?
• 31:51
  So there's and there's also governors race because and which is relevant because a lot of these problems are happening all over
• 31:58
  California they're happening all over the west coast so it's kind of like
• 32:02
  Where California goes, you know, the rest will go
• 32:06
  So so right now there's a primary on June 2nd. So that's coming out very soon. Yeah
• 32:11
  And so with the governor's race and the mayor's race the top two
• 32:15
  um
• 32:16
  Will then go on to a runoff in november. I see and they can be from
• 32:20
  On at a part they can be from the same
• 32:22
  The mayor's race is nonpartisan so it doesn't yeah, it doesn't matter. There's there's about
• 32:27
  There's like over a dozen people on the ballot for the mayor's race like including people like you never like
• 32:33
  But now if one of those people if one of those twelve gets a majority then they just become the mayor right if you get
• 32:38
  51% that you become the mayor but generally they don't so then the two
• 32:43
  Highly unlikely, right and how frequent is it that the two candidates ultimately if from the same party
• 32:49
  Well in California frequently because nobody wants for Republicans. Yeah, right. So so the top the three people who are in play for mayor are
• 32:58
  Karen Basti incumbent
• 33:00
  Um and the woman a woman named Nithia ramen who is a council woman
• 33:05
  A representing I think this district that we're in right now actually. It's a very big district
• 33:09
  It includes parts of waspilus
• 33:11
  Hollywood and this would be a state representative. No, no. She's a city council. Oh, she's a city council
• 33:17
  Which is important because actually in Los Angeles the city council has an incredible amount of power
• 33:23
  um, I think there are 14 districts
• 33:25
  and even more power than that is the county supervisors
• 33:29
  So because there's all these jurisdictions that are not even part of the city
• 33:32
  So there's a county as well as the city
• 33:34
  L.A. County like county's right
• 33:36
  It's huge and so it's really the county too much governance
• 33:39
  I know yes, yeah, look
• 33:41
  Don't know how to use so the county supervisors like are you know have the most power and then they're
• 33:47
  What does a county do we don't have county? Well the county is like where you know if I live in Altadena
• 33:53
  Then I'm part of the county and so like there's a the county. Does the county have a leader does the county have a room?
• 33:59
  They have a board of supervisors that's I think six think they're all women by the way. Oh look at you
• 34:05
  Go go gynaucracy and what if it and what do they do so they
• 34:09
  The city they basically veto plans that are put forth
• 34:14
  No, it has they just you know the school they deal with school stuff. Okay, you know
• 34:19
  But but my point is that so nithia ramen is a city councilwoman who but I'm still interested in the car
• 34:26
  Yeah, I'm gonna get back to the man's race. I think it's in
• 34:29
  I don't know I'm not
• 34:30
  I'm not gonna explain no
• 34:32
  I don't know he's playing a little bit. So in Sydney
• 34:37
  There will be the the local government areas which are called councils which would be the city
• 34:43
  Okay, right and the city of Sydney would comprise dozens of those things like Los Angeles does
• 34:50
  And those are the people who
• 34:52
  Have met there's a mayor. There's a you know councilmembers. There's they pick up your trash
• 34:57
  They take care of the parks
• 34:59
  They put in the speed bumps and they fix the potholes and they're kind of thing
• 35:03
  And then you have the state government and the state runs the police force the health care system the schools and all that
• 35:09
  Stuff because it's a federation like here
• 35:12
  Who does a police officer work for here the city or the state or the county had in the US?
• 35:18
  We have all kinds of police officers. We have we have we have you know city police officers local police officer
• 35:24
  We have county sheriffs. Oh, and they have state troopers, right? Yeah, so state troopers
• 35:31
  Hang on my house gets burgl I call mine one one who shows up
• 35:36
  If you while nobody at the moment, and that's why we're here where we are
• 35:40
  And that's why crime is down by the crime is down
• 35:44
  Digistically because nobody bothers to report it. Yeah, right. Yeah
• 35:51
  Um, no, but like when I lived in al-Tedina
• 35:53
  That's part that's not L.A. City. So we had we had a county we had a sheriff's station and then wow
• 36:00
  It's like the wild west yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, and the schools are
• 36:05
  Well the state I thought the state government but the state government runs the if someone gets murdered
• 36:12
  Let's assume that the police are doing their job
• 36:15
  Someone gets someone gets hit by a plane
• 36:19
  Someone gets hit by a rogue on a safe
• 36:21
  Re80 in al-A. Yeah, well actually maybe transportation is different, but if someone gets killed
• 36:27
  At murdered the people in bed the detectives investigating that they work for the state of california shortly
• 36:36
  I'm asking the wrong person. I need a constitutional law
• 36:39
  Can I just say that you know because there's also this RV so a lot of in in addition to the tent encampments
• 36:44
  There's all these junkie RVs around and so you know
• 36:47
  You want to give the most famous moments of your podcast ever because when you were interviewing cat rose in field
• 36:52
  And you said yeah, would you rather have a motor home?
• 36:56
  Or something and she thought you were saying murder home
• 37:02
  Yeah, it's brilliant because these RVs are murder
• 37:06
  They should call the murder home. Yeah, she thought she couldn't understand my
• 37:10
  Yeah, she kept saying I wasn't one of it. I of course. I wouldn't want to live in a murder home
• 37:14
  And I was like I was like why what do you want to get some murder homes and uh, yeah
• 37:22
  Yeah, man you do we are you are a fan of the podcast. You still remember that was probably two years ago
• 37:27
  That's great, but it was it yeah
• 37:30
  Okay, so I don't look if somebody gets
• 37:33
  Motor if someone gets noted
• 37:37
  You don't know
• 37:40
  Yeah, not part of my lived you're not a homicidal I think of you as dexter. Yeah, you would know who you're trying to run
• 37:48
  That I think the police would come and then they would probably pretty quickly bring in
• 37:53
  Like a higher level. I mean the FBI I guess involved in something
• 37:57
  Yeah, no, sometimes only if it's into state
• 38:01
  Only if it's a serial killer who's just I guess that's a good question. Why would the idea?
• 38:06
  The state okay anyway, whatever anyway, okay, so
• 38:09
  So you have no idea what a county does
• 38:12
  No, but I can't but it's staying nobody does that's the day get rid of nobody does get rid of them
• 38:17
  But the point is that the main competition the three people in play yeah, her mayor of Los Angeles are
• 38:24
  Karen Bass think come at mayor
• 38:25
  Nithia ramen, who's a councilwoman, and she is a
• 38:29
  Democratic socialist so she
• 38:32
  Identifies as part of the DSA party although interestingly they did not endorse her
• 38:37
  Because I think she said a little thing slightly in favor of Israel slightly
• 38:43
  I think they disompt her that was no good. She likes the blood of Palestinian babies
• 38:48
  That's what she likes a tiny bit just a little just a soup song
• 38:52
  Just a tiny like yeah, just yeah, yeah, yeah, like a dirty martini just rinse the glass
• 38:57
  So she was she was like you know considered a real contender
• 39:04
  Um, and then Spencer Pratt comes along who I don't know about you, but I had no idea who he was
• 39:08
  No, of course not he was on this show called the hills. Yeah, it was an MTV reality show. I've read that much
• 39:13
  That's all I've never saw it and he's a Democrat as well
• 39:16
  No, you know, he didn't even know what he was this guy. Okay. I mean this is you could not even script this
• 39:23
  What does he look like he looks like you know your typical surfer dude, you know
• 39:29
  Just frat bro. Okay, kind of people kind of people hate was he the handsome dumb guy
• 39:36
  On the hill he was a handsome dumb villain right and um and then Heidi Spencer and Heidi
• 39:43
  They became they had their own portmanteau spidey and you could tell me it literally anything right now
• 39:49
  I would not alone
• 39:51
  Have you gone back and watched any episodes of the hills? I'd like to do that on the plane
• 39:57
  I didn't know I'm interested in that. I want to see Spencer in situ and it is made of environment
• 40:02
  Um, I did read his book
• 40:04
  Okay, so and actually the funny thing about that show was I get it was sort of the last era of
• 40:10
  Sort of unscripted show like that
• 40:12
  And it was it started to be scripted like they were like in order to make be maintained your relevance on the show
• 40:19
  You have to have like a very dramatic story. You'd have an uh, kind of it's a soft scripted kind of yeah
• 40:24
  So so he and his girlfriend then wife Heidi
• 40:28
  Work always concocting crazy story line and they go married and they got that on the show
• 40:34
  But they were like jerksing on they leaked somebody's sex tape and all kinds of just you know really really terrible things right
• 40:42
  And so the funny thing is that like a lot of people who watch the show
• 40:46
  Religiously and we're very invested in the show um who normally
• 40:50
  Probably would vote for Spencer Pratt are totally against him because they think that everything that happened
• 40:55
  The show is real right right. He was a real villain. They are they are so invested in it. Okay
• 40:59
  So so what's his base if not the fans of his reality TV? Well, it's funny. But his base are a combination
• 41:06
  Well, that's a very good question
• 41:08
  His base are people who use social media who really enjoy these viral videos
• 41:13
  Okay, I know you have to explain these to me because all I've read is his ads are incredible
• 41:18
  And before we started uh going live there. Yeah, I was like should I watch some of these things?
• 41:22
  I haven't not on Twitter really anymore. No, no, that's why you haven't seen it
• 41:25
  So I haven't seen them but also I'm not on any social media really
• 41:28
  I mean I use it as a publishing platform but apart from sub-stack unless it comes across from sub-stack
• 41:33
  So I'm not gonna see it
• 41:34
  So what is he doing? Is he doing weird larykin? Well, there's a kind of a couple different things going on so the campaign itself
• 41:42
  Will make ads you know short videos um and part of his thing too is that his house burned down the policies
• 41:49
  So that's kind of what started this he was just your regular you know guy regular former reality villain
• 41:56
  Yeah regular regular house been uh living in his house. Right. She little kid. He's married to Heidi
• 42:02
  You know constantly trying to find a figure out his next gig. Yeah, yeah
• 42:06
  House burns down the palisades his parents house burned down as well in the palisades. He grew up there
• 42:11
  and
• 42:12
  It's been very difficult for people to rebuild the permitting process is delayed. Yeah, it's a ton of red tape
• 42:18
  I heard you may know this but I heard that I think muck n brusen was making this point that the
• 42:24
  There were a whole bunch of offers coming in for people and the palisades does sell their burn down
• 42:28
  Oh, yeah, it's a lot of us
• 42:30
  But the city didn't like that or the state didn't like that city
• 42:33
  Yeah, and so they said you're not allowed to contact anybody with an offer of less than what the full house was worth
• 42:41
  As it would have been valued before the fires right so now people are not receiving offers that they would probably like on their land
• 42:49
  Because they're not allowed to be solicited
• 42:51
  Because they want to be able to collect property tax on that price
• 42:54
  That's why they're saying that if they sell it for nothing then they're not going to collect property tax
• 42:59
  Yeah, but I mean you're also preventing people from being able to consider whether or not they want to just get it
• 43:04
  Yeah, no, it's it's no one's going to pay it. No one's going to pay for a house if the house isn't there
• 43:08
  Well a lot of people are are you know
• 43:11
  Lot of those lots of solds. Yeah, you want to build a house
• 43:16
  It's burned down lot is what you want
• 43:18
  Yes, yes, it's infrastructure sort anyway, whatever
• 43:21
  Um, so and so his house burned down he became very activated about this
• 43:26
  And he kind of ended up just sort of going down the rabbit hole
• 43:29
  Well, you know if they're lying to us about the about the permitting
• 43:33
  I'm the they're lying to us about the fire. What else are they lying to us about
• 43:37
  And the homelessness situation is really has really really escalated and
• 43:45
  He was frankly the first person
• 43:49
  In local politics
• 43:52
  Saying out loud what everybody could see with their eyes which had just been consistently denied or diminished by
• 43:58
  Elected officials right like actually these people these are not people who fell behind on their rent
• 44:04
  These are active drug addicted often violent people
• 44:09
  Who are choosing to be out here quite right. I mean they're refusing treatment
• 44:13
  They are refusing shelter and he's just saying it. He's speaking. He's speaking true for man
• 44:18
  Right, and you know, and when you say these were professionally produced ads in addition to that was he doing
• 44:24
  Was he doing viral TikToks of himself film skid?
• 44:27
  Well, he was doing viral TikToks before he and he only announced he was running for mayor in January
• 44:33
  Okay, so he was you know doing stuff about his house and everything
• 44:37
  But he had also you know gone to Washington DC to testify about the fires
• 44:41
  I mean he was quickly he was a very outspoken
• 44:44
  You know fire victim in specific palisades, right?
• 44:48
  So he announces in January that he's gonna run right out
• 44:52
  One-year anniversary of the fire and he's got a campaign nobody can quite tell who he doesn't appear to have a campaign advisor
• 44:59
  Anything you know James Carville is not part of this
• 45:02
  Campaign as far as anybody knows and they do these really beautiful, you know nicely done videos
• 45:09
  One of the things that lost it was times try to go after him and say well, you can't
• 45:14
  Because you're not living in Los Angeles because he was um his family had a place up in Santa Barbara or something
• 45:20
  Well, yeah, they're saying well, you're not take. Oh please. Yeah, oh please
• 45:25
  Yeah, we like a house burn down and now you're not
• 45:28
  So then what he did was bring in an air-stream trailer to sit on the property. He's like, okay
• 45:33
  Here's my house. He's one of the murder home residents
• 45:36
  He's a murder
• 45:39
  So a lot so big motif in the campaign has been this air stream
• 45:43
  And when I interviewed him I actually had to go up to their stream and we did a shoot and everything and what's the oh
• 45:49
  I'll watch it if there was a so in this video
• 45:52
  Yeah, I had to yes, what is it look? What is the palisades look like? It looks like um it looks like just
• 45:58
  Desolate land on you see I should not really ash, but it just looks like
• 46:04
  There's no houses. I mean go to al-Tedina too. It's like you're on the countryside. Amazing
• 46:09
  and
• 46:11
  I mean, it's just astonishing. I mean, it's what it must have looked like when the settlers cave. Yeah, right
• 46:18
  How'd you call it? Yeah, for all the wrong reasons
• 46:20
  But also, I mean god knows what's in the soil is poison. There's all kinds of I don't even know about the like
• 46:27
  Talks, you know all the oxycodone that the rich people were snorting is there in the ashes. Yeah, exactly
• 46:33
  And now they're
• 46:36
  So he's saying does he have plans to clean them up? Or is he just putting his finger on the floor?
• 46:41
  He doesn't you know, he has plans in so far as he says
• 46:46
  I'm going to enforce the laws that exist the laws are now such that
• 46:51
  If you were sleeping on the street you went you can't and if you refuse to move you're gonna go to jail
• 46:57
  And is it true that the mayor can do that or will like that guarantee sheriff come the mayor
• 47:02
  Well, it's the the mayor can um, you know has directed authority over the police department
• 47:07
  I believe the fire department things like that
• 47:10
  Beyond that. Yeah, you have you're gonna start fighting with the city council and the city council people are generally pretty
• 47:17
  progressive yeah, um wild limousine liberal kind of dynamics going on, but you know
• 47:24
  I will tell you that
• 47:26
  What acted what what got me interested in Spencer Pratt and I was very resistant to him in the beginning
• 47:31
  I think you're Pratt go now. Are you away Pratt? You're the only person. Okay. I have torched my reputation. Yeah
• 47:39
  But you know, don't worry. You don't already torch your reputation many times
• 47:43
  I already by being on on your show being on my show
• 47:46
  Being contrarian about various. Oh by the way, yeah, I owe you an apology last time we spoke
• 47:53
  I downplayed whether or not
• 47:56
  Liberals were still crazed about trans issues
• 48:00
  And you were like oh no, they're still off the deep end. I was like it's softened. It's no one believes
• 48:05
  No, I was like no one still believes that like you know, there is no biological difference between men and women
• 48:11
  Like that and you were like no, no, I assure you that they do they really do and I was like
• 48:16
  I think he's living in 2022 and I was dismissive and I apologize
• 48:21
  Because it was subsequently revealed to me that America is still I mean did you get did you
• 48:28
  A lot of people reached out to me and said you just don't live in America so you don't know
• 48:31
  So then I did some digging and just sort of looked at the latent background level of
• 48:38
  Crazy
• 48:38
  Town and concluded that you were right and I meant to send you an email, but I forgot to say I was wrong
• 48:44
  You were transplanting I was transplanting to you. I just didn't think that people would cling to something
• 48:50
  They do I mean I think I think silly for so long you I think it is becoming
• 48:55
  More acceptable to ask questions, but this is what always happens is like the the die-hards the true believers like they drip on even harder
• 49:03
  Right, you know I'm gonna see this in academia still
• 49:07
  So but yeah, okay, well, that's okay. Yeah, okay. Okay. Thank you very much
• 49:12
  So anyway, so you've been canceled a million times and now you've been canceled again because you're a fresco
• 49:17
  Really what's very interesting is that so I kind of you know a lot of a lot of the people supporting it so basically
• 49:25
  I was drawn to him because anybody who knows me knows it for years
• 49:30
  You love the alien but I was not no no, I
• 49:34
  Can't stand seeing homeless people with dogs. I can't stand it you love dogs. I love you don't care for people
• 49:42
  No, I don't share about people. Yeah, no, I do care about people
• 49:45
  But I just am very sensitive about animals. Sure. Yeah, to the point where I look away like I have been
• 49:52
  Avoiding this issue because it obsessed me so deeply the dogs didn't choose this well and the duck and the cat on a leash
• 49:58
  Don't want to be there. No, I mean and then and the thing is that I you know there was a time
• 50:03
  When I might have said okay some
• 50:06
  Homeless people's dogs actually have a good life because they're living outside and it's their close companions and okay
• 50:12
  But especially in this post
• 50:14
  hyperpure meth era and just the absolute
• 50:19
  Just out of it like non-functioning just this level of decay is pretty new
• 50:27
  And I would see people with dogs
• 50:30
  Or other animals and the dog would be trapped. I mean the animal is trapped
• 50:35
  And it makes me so angry and you know, you would see somebody like with a dog
• 50:39
  You know tied to a shopping cart on the hot sidewalk with its feet burning up and the person is passed out next to me
• 50:45
  This kind of stuff and so a friend of mine said, well, you know Megan
• 50:50
  There is somebody who's talking about this issue and that is Spencer Pratt
• 50:53
  And I was like who's that and then I thought I who was and I was like well, that's bullshit
• 50:57
  Great. That's great. He's talking about that
• 50:59
  But I'm not having anything to do with this and then slowly slowly
• 51:04
  And I was also very activated about the homelessness stuff as well. Hmm. And you got Pratt piled
• 51:09
  I got very slowly Pratt piled and at first I said okay
• 51:12
  Well, I said all right. I'll vote for him, but I'm not going to
• 51:16
  Yeah, don't tell me that I will come out and I and I and you know my friend kept saying well
• 51:21
  You should have him on your podcast and I was like no, I'm not going to do that because I'm a serious
• 51:25
  podcaster and the meantime he was like the darling of the
• 51:29
  You know, he had he got he went on Joe Rogan, you know, finally, but he was the darling of like this sort of
• 51:35
  BC list celebrity crew the reality was he sort of was he at all mega coded like he's very mad. He's very
• 51:42
  mega coded and and I'm not
• 51:45
  I think he did vote for Trump a couple of times and that's why and he is a registered Republican
• 51:50
  So the magazine is
• 51:52
  Arguably his biggest liability because you know
• 51:56
  What was the other reality star that we elected to office and look how that worked out right so people are gonna jump to that really quickly
• 52:03
  And I it's it is just personally unnerving to think that people would be
• 52:09
  Looking at me and thinking the same things that I think when I know people are like supporting
• 52:16
  Yes, like yeah, that's very upsetting to me to think that I mean fortunately the mayor of Los Angeles cannot declare war on Iran
• 52:23
  You know, he could block it. He doesn't have control over the straight-of-home moves
• 52:27
  Los Angeles canal. That's right. He could he could block the canal. He really can't do
• 52:32
  We don't even have any water that LA river. Yeah, is a there's no water in the water and there's no water in the fire hydrants
• 52:38
  No, there's nothing. There's nothing you can do. No, he can't like, you know
• 52:42
  Get you know make it illegal to have an abortion. Yeah, and even if he did you can go to Santa Monica and have an abortion
• 52:48
  You know, I there's really I just you know other than like stuff with ice for instance
• 52:53
  Which by the way the mayor doesn't have anything to do with ice raids these mayors and cities like
• 52:58
  Minneapolis for instance, that's just grandstanding. Yeah, ice is not welcome in our city. Yeah
• 53:02
  What do you do? That's not that's not up to you. Yeah, yeah, so that's a bit of a red herring
• 53:08
  Um, so yeah, he's definitely magcoded. He's a lot of baggage
• 53:12
  You know, he he doesn't um, he's not the most he's very excitable and charming
• 53:18
  But he doesn't finish his sentences necessarily not a problem generally. No, um, so I but the optics
• 53:26
  Are hard for a lot of people they were hard for me. So getting to these videos
• 53:30
  So the the campaign was making some really beautiful videos
• 53:34
  ads campaign ads a lot of them having to do with the air stream trailer right
• 53:38
  But then what happened was a lot of fans
• 53:41
  Independent video creators who work with AI were making these like it's very extreme AI videos. Okay, very
• 53:48
  trollish in my opinion
• 53:51
  pro-prat pro-prat, but like you know taren bass the mayor as the joker
• 53:57
  He's Batman, you know, everyone's a comi comi comi comi. Right like I said
• 54:04
  Everyone's a comi every yes
• 54:07
  In the west coast and the ai videos became a huge part of the story and I have been
• 54:12
  Screaming on Twitter about how damaging I think they could be because I don't care how excited
• 54:18
  You know your average you're 22-year-old and Cleveland is about this
• 54:21
  He's got to give votes on the ground. Yeah, in Los Angeles. Right, right. Yeah
• 54:27
  So on the dog thing before we leave it. I don't want to make you cry
• 54:30
  Yeah, but he also said that not only are the dogs being mistreated by a homeless people
• 54:36
  But that actually there are the dog um
• 54:39
  Like there's an illicit economy. Yeah of dog sales and dog fighting and dog reading and testing drugs on dogs
• 54:47
  No, it's it's unreal and I didn't know about about that. I mean
• 54:50
  I I didn't like this, you know, sort of neglect
• 54:53
  I was seeing a lot of neglect. Yeah, and then and now and dog rescue groups
• 54:58
  Especially on skid row, which we should say is a very concentrated 50 block area
• 55:03
  50 blocks. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I thought it was like three blocks. No, no, no
• 55:06
  It's it's own it's like it's own city. They should have it their own council party. Wow. They should have their own
• 55:11
  Yeah, it's gonna be a great kid wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I mean this the the drug use down there is
• 55:19
  Is such that at any given time and I learned this from a guest. I had a fellow Lopez who um runs the business improvement district down there
• 55:26
  She's worked on every 25 years. She explained that at any given time half of the people who were down in skid row
• 55:32
  Are not even homeless. They're drug dealers. They're cartel their traffickers
• 55:36
  They're taking advantage of this addicted very sick population. Right
• 55:41
  Um, and so there's a lot of um, there's you know, and they will there's just a lot of
• 55:49
  There's a lot of dogs down there, right and I guess some of them
• 55:53
  Sometimes they're doing okay, but I mean I mean a lot of really
• 55:57
  You're you're making me want to listen to your episode with a style because the head of the business development district or business
• 56:04
  Business improvement district in skid row. Yeah, it's cool. That's like uh, I mean, that's a satellite life skid
• 56:11
  Like I'm in charge of business development in skid row
• 56:15
  Yeah, it's not a conducive environment to be a small business. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, well the thing is that the
• 56:21
  So it's she's in charge of the the business improvement for the industrial district which which contains skid row
• 56:28
  So the industrial district is an area that's 51 blocks that's 51 blocks
• 56:34
  Um, warehouses cold storage facilities, um, you know old industrial kinds of buildings, you know, factories
• 56:41
  Processing stuff people, you know, like fish cold storage for fish
• 56:45
  Of a fish that is goes to all the restaurants throughout the city
• 56:48
  Conscience being restored in these in these places. You see it when you fly into LIS as well
• 56:54
  And you if you never noticed that you come down over
• 56:57
  The over eastern while San Jose if you're coming in direct from the east coast and you don't have to loop around
• 57:03
  And you're landing like east to west
• 57:06
  Then you could I once looked it up on Google maps when I landed because I was like what is this huge
• 57:11
  Expans of just massive white warehouses. Oh, and it's cold storage and like yeah, warehouse and food warehousing facilities
• 57:20
  Yeah, and there's a lot of that right right so I mean and these
• 57:25
  These business owners have suffered tremendously from this population
• 57:29
  Um, they camped out and you know in front of their buildings with I mean, I mean there was like human
• 57:36
  VCs all over the place. I just realized how don't eat the fish
• 57:39
  Don't eat the fish. I just realized how bougie it sounds to say that
• 57:44
  I'm really familiar with these things because when you fly over it especially when you're in first class
• 57:49
  There's something about the food if you recline your Polaris seat all the way back and here after slide
• 57:55
  Then you can see the poor people down there and their fish warehouses. Yeah, I mean, I would have a go there
• 58:03
  It's like I to know when I go there have sushi
• 58:06
  Where where it comes from but all I'm saying is they look almost like a studio back lock. They're that huge
• 58:12
  Yeah, and there's like there's I mean yeah, Los Angeles is huge. Yes, it's crazy. Yeah
• 58:18
  Um, okay, so that she's worried about the sushi the frozen sushi. Well, she's worried about like heart
• 58:24
  You know she she grew up in in
• 58:28
  East LA or South Central I think and and you know her father was a tailor. I mean she has been part of that this neighborhood for she's I mean, I don't know how old she is she's
• 58:37
  Elite you know at least in her 60s maybe older um and so she just cares deeply about
• 58:44
  The city and especially that area and she's furious. I mean
• 58:48
  Just the the I mean the human trafficking alone. I mean, yeah, that should be a nice about
• 58:54
  You know women being dragged by their hair
• 58:57
  Into tents by the way and people can now get away with this now because it's inside of a tent
• 59:03
  And you've got dogs the dog rescue people
• 59:06
  I mean, they just tell absolutely horrific stories a dog's being set on fire and their eyes stapled shut and just
• 59:15
  Awful so what's happened with Spencer Pratt is that
• 59:21
  He has really tapped into people's
• 59:23
  exasperation and it's that feeling of oh, I'm not crazy actually. I mean, I think part of the reason I'm so
• 59:32
  into this uh
• 59:34
  Ish and into this campaign is it it's kind of like a little microcosm of
• 59:38
  Everything that we have been trying to do in the kind of like counter intuitive space or whatever you want to call it now
• 59:44
  What do you call it like the dissonant like the hetero dog?
• 59:46
  I mean people call it the hetero dog space I suppose but I mean it's like am I crazy?
• 59:51
  Yeah, it's really that feeling like what am I getting wrong and why is it not like why
• 59:56
  Why if I say what I what I'm seeing before me is that then framed as
• 1:00:01
  Wrong thing yes, I mean what what all has always motivated me about it is I just feel like if there are things that that
• 1:00:10
  People say around their dinner table or when they have close friends over for a beer
• 1:00:16
  Or you know at a barbecue with people who they know and like that they
• 1:00:21
  Cannot and and that's very widespread and it cannot be said at a work event or at you know to someone you don't know very well
• 1:00:30
  Then you're kind of living in a sort of softly Stalinist society where there's things that everybody knows to be
• 1:00:36
  Most to be true in private yeah, but cannot articulate
• 1:00:40
  In the public square for fear of being hauled before human resources or something like that's not healthy
• 1:00:47
  Yeah, and it's gonna come out in dysfunctional ways like Donald Trump
• 1:00:51
  Exactly exactly it infuriates me that the
• 1:00:55
  The elites you know, it's a it's a sort of hackney term, but the
• 1:01:00
  mainstream candidates from mainstream parties
• 1:01:03
  Comply with such edicts so thoroughly that people reach a point of exasperation
• 1:01:07
  But send them to off the edge and I like yes, I lost someone simply just noted right simply just noted that
• 1:01:14
  This is not the city that it was 10 years ago
• 1:01:17
  20 years ago. Yeah, I mean even I would say I mean even going to the barbecue can be can be treacherous
• 1:01:24
  Who's there and a lot of people are do I mean I you know I created this thing the unspeak easy
• 1:01:29
  Which I read retreats for you know people to go and talk about these things off the record and people come because they can't even talk to their own friends
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, right. It's not even just HR. It's like yeah, yeah, you know, you're the mom friend
• 1:01:42
  You know, so
• 1:01:44
  so
• 1:01:45
  Yeah, and I mean people always like you know Megan why are you why why did you start yelling at the left like 12 years ago or whenever that was
• 1:01:52
  It's like because I knew I knew that something like it's right
• 1:01:56
  Didn't want to have to vote for Spencer Pratt and it's like you you guys the left you want you take the win
• 1:02:03
  You won the culture war you had it you had gay marriage you had Obama you had everything and it wasn't enough
• 1:02:10
  And had to keep finding more problems, and you just you know got more and more extreme and you got
• 1:02:15
  performative and gay pride turned into like S&M pride or whatever
• 1:02:20
  And it we started and I knew it's like we don't even have rainbow flags anymore now they've got a black arrow on it to
• 1:02:26
  rep. Have you seen the new black arrow as a black arrow on it that represents
• 1:02:31
  Indigenous oh, I didn't know that was some kind of weird and there's no literally no, it's not a sex thing
• 1:02:36
  They've incorporated trans and indigenous and like you know, Gaza and everything into this. So the rain
• 1:02:42
  They thought the rainbow flag was too
• 1:02:45
  Limited oh, yeah, even though a rainbow represents all the colors of the rainbow and by definition is supposed to it
• 1:02:52
  But then they were like but it doesn't include the plus you know on the LGBTQIA plus and it doesn't recognize
• 1:02:57
  You know traditionally just possessed you know owners of the land. So now there's a new flag
• 1:03:01
  You'll see it now that I've mentioned it. It's a rainbow flag, but it's got a black arrow and it's got other colors in addition to the
• 1:03:07
  And so they even took my plan. Yeah, just boss boring old
• 1:03:11
  Yeah, guys who's looking out for the boring old guys and the boring old women. Yeah, the boring old women
• 1:03:17
  But no, I kept saying you are handing this to your enemies
• 1:03:20
  This is the way you guys are acting
• 1:03:22
  In 2010 here. Yes, you just wait. I know and people left at the time like but in 2012 to
• 1:03:32
  2022
• 1:03:33
  People our friends would talk to us and say like why do you bang on about the left when there are so many worse things on the right
• 1:03:41
  That you could be paying on about and my answer was always it's not that I'm particularly more energized
• 1:03:47
  There's not that I think that if the left is in power in acting its woke
• 1:03:52
  Edicts that that's going to be a worse world than if the far right's in power
• 1:03:56
  It's that I think they're the same problem because the far right's only going to come into power if people are so pissed off
• 1:04:02
  At your stupid bullshit on the left that they have nowhere else to go
• 1:04:05
  So I always felt like the real liability was that people would get thrust you know regular normies who aren't super online
• 1:04:13
  We'd get frustrated with why why am I putting out my gender pronouns in my email signature and like why do I what's going on
• 1:04:21
  Yes, I know and you know would have nowhere else to go and enough people were upset about Trump
• 1:04:27
  They don't need me to be upset. I'm upset about Trump. Yes, like exactly
• 1:04:31
  But I don't you don't need me to be I can do this other thing also if they listen to you five years earlier
• 1:04:37
  Then we wouldn't have had Trump. I mean, I've been like this my whole career
• 1:04:40
  I mean honestly, I've always been like picking up little hypocrisies like this even in the 90s. Yeah, but I just I couldn't I would never have imagined it would come to this
• 1:04:50
  Anyway, so but yeah, I this whole election and it's really if I still think it's a very long shot
• 1:04:57
  I don't know if he will make you know survive the primary I'm increasingly thinking he will but it will be very hard to beat an incumbent mayor
• 1:05:06
  Um, and also a lot of stuff is still really turning off normies. I mean you can't
• 1:05:12
  You can't just make a big show of your AI videos when you're trying to get votes from an entire industry of people who've lost their livelihoods to AI
• 1:05:22
  Yeah, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah
• 1:05:24
  Well, I wanted to talk about that as well. How has that affected the industry because most of my friends here in Los Angeles
• 1:05:29
  Working entertainment and they're like it is terrible. I mean, it's bad in Australia as well like production companies are like
• 1:05:35
  Nothing's getting commissioned. We also don't have streamers investing in entertainment Australia the way that you do here
• 1:05:40
  So at least this I mean, yeah, but there's not even you know
• 1:05:45
  It's like there seems to be a lot of stuff being produced when I turn on Netflix and Apple and Amazon
• 1:05:50
  You know in Hulu they seem to have things on that are being produced and that you're like I don't want to watch that
• 1:05:55
  I want no no no the movie the movie business is just huge blockbusters or tiny indies and the whole middle
• 1:06:04
  You know friends of mine who are actors who used to be working actors
• 1:06:08
  are like
• 1:06:09
  Yes, you go to one audition a week instead of eight and yeah, you know, yeah, it's like
• 1:06:14
  And you're a vertical, you know, they they're made in these um, you know content that is supposed to design
• 1:06:19
  Well, they're doing that now. Yes, they're yes, they're all launching into vertical
• 1:06:22
  But I mean, even the actors who used to have good relationships with casting agents in Los Angeles
• 1:06:27
  And now being expected to put themselves on video and submit that submit a video
• 1:06:32
  With the self-tape yeah, a thousand people sending in a self-tape from all over the world
• 1:06:37
  So it's not like there's any curation of local talents where casting agents are like, you know, you really got it
• 1:06:42
  You know, we've seen her
• 1:06:45
  Well, exactly that's the casting couch. Where is the casting couch? This is what's important and I don't even have a tent to hide in
• 1:06:52
  No, we're casting tents. That's where it's gonna come to some methodics with a dog and soap mattress dog with its eyes
• 1:06:59
  Staple shot
• 1:07:01
  So I was living and but so have you noticed a tent? Yeah, I mean, oh, yeah, everybody's leaving. I mean, it's it's a really bad moment. Yeah, and
• 1:07:11
  I noticed I mean, I made a joke about this in my Atlantic piece. I wrote about Spencer Pratt
• 1:07:16
  You know, it seems like everybody's leaving the industry and becoming a therapist
• 1:07:21
  Do you notice this in Australia? I know you guys like your therapy. Yeah, we like there
• 1:07:26
  We have the I cannot tell you how many people they were like art directors or costume designers, right?
• 1:07:31
  And they're like they can't make it anymore. So they they're gonna go back to school
• 1:07:35
  Mm-hmm. They're gonna be holistic and they're gonna be no like like a therapist, but it's like, you know what?
• 1:07:40
  Chat GPT is everybody's therapist now, so what you mean an actual proper credits?
• 1:07:44
  Yeah, they think they're gonna well, I mean like psych not it's you know
• 1:07:48
  The kind that you don't have to be that yeah, right like and yeah, I'm holistic. Yeah, crystal dangling
• 1:07:54
  sense burning
• 1:07:57
  But like a lot, you know licensed license marriage and family
• 1:08:03
  Yeah
• 1:08:05
  I mean you used to go into any Starbucks
• 1:08:08
  Certainly in the parts of LA that I was in Santa Monica or Venice or
• 1:08:12
  You know West Hollywood and it would just be what's feels full of
• 1:08:17
  Young people on Macbooks writing screenplays or learning lines for auditions and it's not
• 1:08:23
  No, where are they? I mean, they're just not they're they're working at the Starbucks. Yeah
• 1:08:30
  Driving Uber. Yeah, it's it's really and again, it's hard to because obviously it's a beautiful day
• 1:08:36
  I mean we're in a beautiful setting. I drove over here and
• 1:08:39
  drove past Griffith Park and people were out of the park. I did not see any homeless people. Okay, so it's not like it's
• 1:08:45
  Everywhere it is possible to live here and miss this entirely especially people who
• 1:08:50
  You know live up in the hills or the Beverly Hills and frankly have assistance
• 1:08:56
  Do they're shopping for them and go to Whole Foods and don't notice, you know people
• 1:09:01
  But I mean if the if the foundations are crumbling and you're on a house of sand
• 1:09:06
  It's gonna come for them eventually
• 1:09:08
  Yeah, but I just I think that's still when you're when you are asking people to
• 1:09:14
  Look at a situation that they don't have any
• 1:09:17
  Occasion to look at I mean, I don't understand people drive around like if you aren't driving around
• 1:09:23
  You you will see it and I'm wondering actually if people are just
• 1:09:26
  Maybe they're all their phones in the back. Yeah, they're back. I think actually that's true
• 1:09:31
  Yeah, I mean that is one thing that I didn't like about Los Angeles
• 1:09:35
  What I lived here in comparison to New York was just the sense that I would go from place A to place B without having to
• 1:09:42
  Experience the rest of the city in the interim by the way you do in New York because you're you in New York
• 1:09:47
  You're getting on the subway or you're walking and so you're actually passing through the other neighborhoods in order to get there
• 1:09:53
  You know, there is something about a car-based city that alienates you from that's true the route
• 1:10:00
  That's true although if you take surface streets you'll learn a lot sure
• 1:10:03
  You have to be watching and also I know this is off topic, but I mean when I first moved here
• 1:10:07
  I moved to 2002. I had the Thomas guide in my left for the first year. He's got the map the map. Yeah, right
• 1:10:14
  I was a book. Yeah, you know, it was during the Eisenhower administration
• 1:10:19
  You were in a jaloppie and you learn and it's like oh actually like I know how to get played
• 1:10:23
  But isn't it terrible your brain just acting? Yeah, now I'm just like whoa
• 1:10:26
  I just plug it in. I mean it does make me wonder
• 1:10:29
  I don't want to be a doomer about Los Angeles
• 1:10:31
  But like the reason why Los Angeles became a global mega-lopolis with because in the early days of
• 1:10:37
  cinema we didn't really have lights that were bright enough to light like fill celluloid needed a lot of light
• 1:10:43
  And they came out here because it's beautiful to shoot. It's always sunny and so they would just jump really
• 1:10:48
  Yes, that's right. The reason Hollywood is here is because it wasn't it's incredibly bright
• 1:10:52
  You get beautiful daylight every day and you know that doesn't rain on you
• 1:10:56
  And they should have gone to a place where it's like like like the North Pole or something like that the size of size
• 1:11:01
  I don't know about this theory. This is this is true. It was like it's like it's
• 1:11:05
  It's beautiful whether it's because it's beautiful weather and you get bright sunlight for a reliable 12 hours every day
• 1:11:12
  That they started making movies here. That's why I met they didn't make movies out of you
• 1:11:17
  And then everything came here because of the movie business
• 1:11:19
  Because of the because of the sun and it's yes because of the lack of rain and the sunshine
• 1:11:25
  And then everything else built up around it and then you ended up with all of the I mean
• 1:11:30
  It's always been a single industry town in the sense that you would talk to people that
• 1:11:34
  At pool parties in Los Angeles and you don't have to scrap like you could jot on the back of a napkin
• 1:11:40
  The 10 occupations that they're going to do
• 1:11:43
  Whereas if you're in it's a bit like DC in that way like in DC people are going to be involved in politics in some way
• 1:11:49
  They're going to be lawyers. They're going to be at think tanks. They're going to be you know political staffers
• 1:11:55
  And similarly here they're going to be writing a screenplay. They're going to be you know
• 1:11:59
  Making directing music videos. They're going to be it's yeah a lot of people doing that in certain circles
• 1:12:05
  I mean, I my life is much less that way now though. Is it yeah
• 1:12:09
  It's funny because when I was living in al-Tedina, that's where the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is so we're NASA facility
• 1:12:15
  And so there were a lot of scientists. That's true. I guess there's a tech boom
• 1:12:20
  Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I thought a lot of people are in tech. I mean, I know a lot of architects. I know
• 1:12:25
  Um
• 1:12:26
  People who work in the arts in various way. I mean, I was at the Los Angeles Times for I knew a ton of like newspaper reporter
• 1:12:32
  I knew I need a lot of schlubby
• 1:12:34
  Journalist kind of thing. So yeah, I look you're a fancier than I am
• 1:12:41
  Okay, maybe just yeah
• 1:12:43
  Yeah, it depends on the neighborhood. Yeah, so LA is a collection of neighborhoods
• 1:12:49
  So if you walk around if you have a dog you do walk around
• 1:12:53
  On the street and you get to know people that way. I mean, I I always lived in places in pots of Los Angeles
• 1:12:58
  where you could walk around in Los feelers and then the next time I came back in Venice Beach now I lived in Venice in
• 1:13:06
  2010 and
• 1:13:08
  It was a little bit edgy
• 1:13:10
  Right, but it was the kind of place where if you'd said to me but like Abbott Kenny was already hip and booming and like great restaurants and cafes
• 1:13:18
  But if you walked too far away from that, you know, on to the wrong street
• 1:13:21
  And you would feel unsafe about the types of people that were hanging around
• 1:13:24
  But it was obviously gentrifying and if you told me in 2010 what this place gonna be like in 2025
• 1:13:30
  Which is like as far away as 2040 one is right from now right a long way away
• 1:13:36
  Then I would have been like always gonna be mansions. It's gonna be clean and
• 1:13:41
  You know totally gentrified you can see the beginning of the you can see that zooming kind of arc of like
• 1:13:46
  Presterity in a place where it's just it's wealthy people moving in that the the old dingy
• 1:13:53
  You know corner stores are being replaced by macchiato shops with baristas with twirling moustaches and stuff
• 1:13:59
  Um, it didn't that didn't happen
• 1:14:02
  Um, it's gonna happen. Well, I mean Venice Beach is just a place to get your car broken into
• 1:14:07
  Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you're talking about Venice itself
• 1:14:10
  I mean certainly
• 1:14:10
  Uh, neighborhood like marvista, which is adjacent to Venice
• 1:14:14
  had a lot of um kind of mid-cent you know small mid-century kind of houses like you know
• 1:14:20
  Not not not fancy mid-century, but like yeah, um, and that neighborhood is just seems to be like nothing but architectural
• 1:14:27
  houses like rebuilds. I mean a lot of what a tech money. I think
• 1:14:31
  Where's the Google campus or something was in
• 1:14:34
  No, I don't know. I mean Venice itself that this might also have to do with um
• 1:14:38
  Like zoning ordinances and stuff and coastal commission. It's very hard to develop on the on the coast there. So
• 1:14:45
  I don't know. Have you ever been to the west side of Los Angeles? Have you ever been to Santa Monica? I was planning on it
• 1:14:51
  I've been here for 25. Yeah, where do you fly? You will probably fly you could fly from I'd like to take my
• 1:14:57
  John Wayne airport plan
• 1:14:59
  No, I did I lived in Venice when I first moved here. I've lived until Panga Canyon
• 1:15:02
  And then I lived in Venice and then I'm like I slowly made my way east
• 1:15:06
  Over the years where the cool kids are yeah, so uh what happens to Los Angeles in the next like uh 10 or 20 years
• 1:15:13
  What's what's prognosis? I really don't know. What's the down prognosis? I I think that uh
• 1:15:20
  I think that
• 1:15:22
  If Spencer Pratt manages to win
• 1:15:25
  I mean I he's gonna have a it's gonna be tough. He's he's not as somebody put it perfectly this morning
• 1:15:31
  I saw somebody said he's he's the least qualified and the best pick
• 1:15:37
  Right, and I think that's true. I just think we're in a really weird moment. He definitely
• 1:15:42
  It's it's it's a wild card. I think he's gonna have a really hard time doing what he wants to do
• 1:15:48
  Um, what if he had a partner in the governor's
• 1:15:52
  Mansion because you mentioned the gubernatorial race as well. I mean, I mean the governor is also running for president
• 1:15:59
  Oh, oh, no, sir. Yeah, is right. Yeah, president. Let's face it
• 1:16:04
  Yeah, so with his term I assume he's running the governor isn't gonna like Pratt. They're not
• 1:16:09
  No, no, no, but I mean in that when is that election?
• 1:16:13
  The presidential election
• 1:16:16
  So what every excuse to say gubernatorial as many times as I
• 1:16:21
  It's the primary is the same thing and so that if there's a top two
• 1:16:25
  And so that'll be you some definitely right? No, no, no, no, no, he's not running. Oh, okay
• 1:16:30
  He's getting ready. I see that's what I was gonna ask if he's there
• 1:16:33
  Yeah, there's gonna be a new governor. Okay, so um, and does he have a hand picked air?
• 1:16:39
  Newson yeah
• 1:16:41
  Is there who's the is the lieutenant governor running for governor? I don't even
• 1:16:44
  You don't know anything about this all you know, you've been so practical
• 1:16:49
  I know because solely on the marital right, okay
• 1:16:54
  Well, I mean, there's a couple little concern. There's this guy Steve Helton who is a who's a conservative like tech bro
• 1:17:01
  You know the all-in podcast loves him, you know, all right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and they also love Spencer by the way
• 1:17:08
  This is a conservative
• 1:17:10
  And he's a British guy weird way. So it's a very he's not related to the Hilton hotel chain
• 1:17:15
  Um, I don't
• 1:17:17
  But he's a British no, okay, I don't know. All right. He's a I mean, it's kind of it's very strangely here
• 1:17:23
  somebody with a with a British accent being yeah, you're a governor. I don't know. It's weird
• 1:17:28
  Um, so he's and you know, there's a couple more conservatives that he's a Republican
• 1:17:33
  Yeah, but he's not gonna win you know, I don't know people are so fed up
• 1:17:38
  I think it we have had
• 1:17:41
  Over two decades of one party rule in the state and city
• 1:17:45
  And that's how we've gotten to this place and it just think it's it's really hard for so many people who identify so strongly
• 1:17:54
  As not only being Democrats, but hating Trump hating Trump. Yeah. Yeah, so anything that has the tiniest whiff of it
• 1:18:01
  There it's terrifying to them, but but
• 1:18:05
  I just
• 1:18:06
  I don't know it so I guess to answer your question if Pratt wins
• 1:18:10
  I think he's gonna have a hard time. I also just have said
• 1:18:14
  Even if he can get nothing done and I think he can get a few things done
• 1:18:18
  He can do help with the animals. I mean the animal shelters themselves are like absolute
• 1:18:24
  Apparently, just there's abuse going on when the shelters
• 1:18:27
  Um, he can do a few things but even if he did nothing for four years
• 1:18:32
  But state say the obvious over and over and over again and hold other elected officials accountable
• 1:18:38
  I think that would be a huge improvement. Um, whoever came next would have no choice then
• 1:18:43
  But so who is the who is the the base of the current man? I mean, it doesn't sound like people are very happy with the way
• 1:18:50
  Robo democratic voters. They is it the unions of unions. They all they're like
• 1:18:55
  Everyone is a union member, although it's funny because it's like police officers
• 1:19:00
  They're gonna vote for Pratt
• 1:19:01
  I mean, but their unions don't necessarily yeah, yeah, so
• 1:19:07
  I look most people they they don't um you look I sent a letter out to
• 1:19:13
  You know, everyone I know in LA or at least everybody who I thought would vote in the city of LA
• 1:19:18
  So not people who live in Perbank, right? Um, this was about almost a month ago now
• 1:19:23
  You know is the case for Spencer Pratt and I worked really hard on it and it was
• 1:19:29
  Quite you know, I was threading the needle and I was saying look you guys. I know this is really weird
• 1:19:33
  And I'm gonna tell you why and I haven't been invited to any barbecues. No, there's no barbecues. No
• 1:19:40
  You're Pratt-pilled you're Pratt-pilled crazy. Yeah
• 1:19:44
  It's hot breaking isn't that like that we've gotten here
• 1:19:48
  That that's just the way it is there's no one from the mainstream parties. I mean the
• 1:19:53
  Yeah, okay, we can we'll talk I think we should have no part
• 1:19:57
  I mean, I think the thing is a Spencer Pratt is running a very non-partisan
• 1:20:00
  He should have put a d in front of his name. Maybe one of them made in California doesn't have anything in front of his name on the ballot
• 1:20:06
  But I think I think what it is what it portends
• 1:20:10
  People are tired of the two-party system and maybe
• 1:20:14
  This will just have to force the conversation forward a bit. Yeah. Yeah, so either way. I think it's a win
• 1:20:21
  Um, but I do think that
• 1:20:23
  They will do nothing but go after him for it will be like Trump. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, all right
• 1:20:28
  Well god bless the city of angels. Yeah, I wish you all the best
• 1:20:31
  Thank you for thank you for coming Megan. I'm so glad you're here people should listen to
• 1:20:35
  Unspeakable the podcast. Yeah, it's now called the unspeak easy because I like to make I change my name
• 1:20:41
  But it was confusing for people because people were like wait
• 1:20:44
  She's got the unspeakable podcast. No, she's got the unspeak easy, but as long as they type in unspeak
• 1:20:50
  Whatever they can just type in my name. They're gonna get it. Uh, yeah. Okay. Okay. We're gonna go out to dinner
• 1:20:56
  I know we're gonna go and have some fun and I'll see you I'll see you all
• 1:21:00
  On uh, what would all we're gonna be a new I'm gonna New York tomorrow. So it'll be lots more interesting stuff