Speaker 1: The GNC News Blitz with Randy Wang starts No.
Speaker 2: No, No.
Speaker 1: It is the News Blitz with Brandy Wang on Top
Speaker 1: Radio seven ninety YABC. This is your daily rundown of
Speaker 1: everything you need to know that's going on in southern
Speaker 1: California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento, and San Diego.
Speaker 1: I post a list every single day of all the
Speaker 1: stories that I found that you may have missed up
Speaker 1: and down the state of California at Randy Wangradio dot
Speaker 1: substack dot com. You can follow me on all the
Speaker 1: socials on x and Instagram at Randy Wang Radio, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, one of my clips from the John
Speaker 1: Phillips Show has gotten up to like twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: views of us talking about Karen Bass encouraging Matthews. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand views. My goodness, I don't even think
Speaker 1: the video I posted of me doing the bone marrow
Speaker 1: looge at the Market Steer Restaurant got that many hits. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Also check out our YouTube channel. There is not only
Speaker 1: the live show of The John phil Show, but you
Speaker 1: can watch clips from this show and the John Phillips
Speaker 1: Show and segments right there. YouTube dot com, Slash at
Speaker 1: Randy Wang Radio. We start at everybody's favorite airport, lax,
Speaker 1: because here we are in the middle of summer, at
Speaker 1: the tail end of the World Cup. I dropped the
Speaker 1: d on purpose and the people mover. That was supposed
Speaker 1: to be done in twenty twenty three, that then was
Speaker 1: supposed to be done in twenty twenty four, That then
Speaker 1: was supposed to be done in twenty twenty five. Oh,
Speaker 1: we'll have it by January twenty twenty six, we'll have
Speaker 1: it by the World Cup. Well, we have missed another deadline.
Speaker 1: And not only that, it looks like this thing's not
Speaker 1: getting finished anytime soon, as the contractor is now suing
Speaker 1: the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles World
Speaker 1: Airports Authority. And there are a couple of things to
Speaker 1: talk about here. First off, emblematic of everything that goes
Speaker 1: on in Los Angeles, this shove, this project had their
Speaker 1: first shovel in the ground in twenty nineteen. I want
Speaker 1: to say it was a long time ago. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was twenty twenty. Let's go with twenty twenty. I remember
Speaker 1: Mike Bondon was there celebrating what a great thing this
Speaker 1: is going to be, and we're going to get this done,
Speaker 1: but because it's the city of la it is three
Speaker 1: years late and it's still not done, and not only that,
Speaker 1: it is a billion dollars over budget. How did we
Speaker 1: get here? Well, I'm glad you asked. I consider myself
Speaker 1: kind of knowledgeable on this subject, but actually brushed up.
Speaker 1: There's a guy that I follow on YouTube. His channel
Speaker 1: is called Nandert and actually put his video on my
Speaker 1: news blitz at Randy Waning Ready dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1: If you got twenty minutes to spare, it is worth
Speaker 1: your time. It is a deep dive into how exactly
Speaker 1: we got here, including all the disputes that have been
Speaker 1: going on between the contractor that we hired for this
Speaker 1: thing and the city of Los Angeles. But let me
Speaker 1: give you the book report version of everything I learned.
Speaker 1: But if you are interested in this story, I think
Speaker 1: it is very, very interesting. So when we put forth
Speaker 1: the contracts for this project, we decided we wanted one
Speaker 1: giant contract for one giant developer to not only build
Speaker 1: the thing, but operate it for the next twenty years.
Speaker 1: And what we ended up getting was a consortium of
Speaker 1: developers and contractors in a company called Links and part
Speaker 1: of the contract agreements between Links and the City of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, if that there were ever any disputes, which
Speaker 1: happened all the time in these big public projects, look
Speaker 1: at what happened with the high speed rail. We're going
Speaker 1: to have an independent source look at every single claim
Speaker 1: and decide who's at fault so we don't get into litigation.
Speaker 1: And ultimately what was found was this arrangement was highly
Speaker 1: beneficial to the contractor, and the contractor quickly realized they
Speaker 1: had so much leverage over the city that when anybody
Speaker 1: made a mistake, whether it was the city or whether
Speaker 1: it was the contractor, the city was going to have
Speaker 1: to pay. Ultimately, this contractor realized that they can get
Speaker 1: as much money they want out of this project because
Speaker 1: the city promised it would be done, and they know
Speaker 1: every single time the city promises this thing's going to
Speaker 1: be done, they can shake down the city for even
Speaker 1: more money. Now you can look at this story and
Speaker 1: say that, well, this is a crooked contractor, which we've
Speaker 1: all had dealings with at some point, or you've heard stories.
Speaker 1: You know, you go into a home remodel thinking it's
Speaker 1: going to cost so much and it's going to take
Speaker 1: so long, and once they have this, once they've ripped
Speaker 1: apart your kitchen, now they can slow everything down. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of reputable contractors out there, of course, but
Speaker 1: these things do happen. So that's exactly what happened here.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it was both the city's fault and the
Speaker 1: contractor's fault, and sometimes it was just the contractor's fault.
Speaker 1: But regardless, they could threaten litigation at any point, which
Speaker 1: they know the city does not want to do because
Speaker 1: they don't want to slow this project down any further,
Speaker 1: or cancel the contract so that means they're going to
Speaker 1: have to pay through the nose. One of those instances
Speaker 1: is a really stupid on everyone's behalf, and it has
Speaker 1: to do with city codes. When this project was being
Speaker 1: just idealized, when they were just putting down the blueprints,
Speaker 1: they actually had drafted it to be coded as a
Speaker 1: bridge when it needed to be under the seismic code,
Speaker 1: not under the bridge code. Apparently the person who designed
Speaker 1: the plans caught it, but didn't update the plans on paper,
Speaker 1: just said verbally to the contractor, Hey, this is supposed
Speaker 1: to be coded for seismic not bridge. Well, the contractor
Speaker 1: went ahead and built it for bridge anyway, which means
Speaker 1: that cost a whole lot of money and took a
Speaker 1: whole lot of time. Then while back, there was a situation,
Speaker 1: a big power situation where the contractor did not build
Speaker 1: cooling units for an electrical area and led to a
Speaker 1: massive electrical shutdown where work stopped on this project for
Speaker 1: a very long time. And anytime there was any kind
Speaker 1: of dispute like this between the contractor and between the city,
Speaker 1: anytime that you were trying to figure out who owed
Speaker 1: who who was in the wrong, progress on this thing
Speaker 1: would grind to a halt. Even though it was in
Speaker 1: the contract that progress had to continue through litigation, it
Speaker 1: was up to the contractor to say how much progress
Speaker 1: was going on. So instead of a whole crew working
Speaker 1: on this thing, they'd have one guy out there not
Speaker 1: working on this thing. This contractor has effectively held the
Speaker 1: city hostage. And I wouldn't be surprised if we have
Speaker 1: deals like this all the time, which leads me to
Speaker 1: wonder what was the bidding process, Like why did we
Speaker 1: land on this contractor why did we decide this was
Speaker 1: the company we want to do business with, because so
Speaker 1: far it has been an unmitigated disaster, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the road, we still have no We have
Speaker 1: no people mover, we have no easy way to get
Speaker 1: from terminal to terminal. I'm going to Lax in a
Speaker 1: few days, and if the people mover was up, I
Speaker 1: was actually going to try to use it because I'll
Speaker 1: be flying out a Terminal six and I was going
Speaker 1: to try to get to tom Bradley to use my
Speaker 1: MX card to go to the Centurion Lounge. Well, now
Speaker 1: that there's no people mover, the only way to do
Speaker 1: that is to go through security at Terminal six, check
Speaker 1: my bag, and then hoof it for twenty five minutes
Speaker 1: through Terminal six, through Terminal five, through Terminal four to
Speaker 1: tom Bradley to get the Centurion Lounge. Wait in a line,
Speaker 1: get in there, have one drink, and then run all
Speaker 1: the way back until my flight is late. That's not
Speaker 1: going to happen. I have a card now where I
Speaker 1: can use the Alaska Lounge, so we'll see how that is.
Speaker 1: But I knew this thing was never going to get
Speaker 1: finished at this point. And what's the next big milestone
Speaker 1: because we missed the World Cup. Oh, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: this thing by the twenty twenty seven Super Bowl are
Speaker 1: we they're just in testing right now, and apparently the
Speaker 1: testing has not been going great. And yes, this is
Speaker 1: hilarious because if you've been to any other modern airport,
Speaker 1: especially a large airport, these things are everywhere and they've
Speaker 1: been built for a very long time. But this is
Speaker 1: how things happen. You can't even say it's a California thing.
Speaker 1: SFO has great ways to get around. SFO is a
Speaker 1: beautiful airport. There's just something very specific about LA and
Speaker 1: LAX where everything associated with it becomes a disaster. And
Speaker 1: every single thing they've done too improve the airport experience,
Speaker 1: and all the construction they've done for the past decade
Speaker 1: has not improved the airport experience, has not improved the
Speaker 1: traffic I'll give you for instance. And I don't know
Speaker 1: whose idea this was. I don't know if I don't
Speaker 1: know the parking lot lobby had a hand in this,
Speaker 1: but who exactly thought that what we need to do
Speaker 1: to deal with all the ride share that goes to
Speaker 1: LAX is instead of being able to drop you off
Speaker 1: at the curb and pick you up at the curb
Speaker 1: like every other airport, or have a designated space where
Speaker 1: it's very easy to get picked up SFO is easy DFW.
Speaker 1: You just get picked up right at the curb. You
Speaker 1: have a poll, it's ready to go. But no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. At LA, if you're using Lift or Uber,
Speaker 1: you have to go to the LA exit lot. You
Speaker 1: have to go to the lot where you have to
Speaker 1: take a shuttle to get to a giant parking lot
Speaker 1: where you're going to stand in line with a thousand
Speaker 1: other people and try to figure out which prius is yours.
Speaker 1: That is, of course, unless you're willing to spring for
Speaker 1: black and this is the lax of all of it.
Speaker 1: If you're willing to pay through the nose, you don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with the laxit lot. You don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with getting dropped off at the place where
Speaker 1: you don't need to be. You can actually get dropped
Speaker 1: off in front of your terminal, picked up in front
Speaker 1: of your terminal, if you're willing to pay. And oh boy,
Speaker 1: does that flight does that ride get expensive? I live,
Speaker 1: like what seventeen eighteen miles away from LAX. Actually, I
Speaker 1: can tell you right now. Let me tell you exactly
Speaker 1: how many miles I am from the Los Angeles International Airport.
Speaker 1: All right, so I'm gonna type in Lax in the
Speaker 1: old phone. Here says I am eighteen miles away. And
Speaker 1: there's a specific reason why I try to only fly
Speaker 1: on Saturdays, because if you try to fly home on
Speaker 1: a Sunday night, that drive home from Lax because again,
Speaker 1: in order to get picked up at the curb, you
Speaker 1: gotta go black. Because we've got suitcases and dogs. We're
Speaker 1: going black suv. To go eighteen miles on a Sunday
Speaker 1: night a couple of months ago cost me two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars after tip. Now the flight I had
Speaker 1: paid four on points, so I guess it kind of
Speaker 1: evens out now when I try to use the Uber
Speaker 1: black excuse me, I use Lyft exclusively because I get
Speaker 1: a benefit with my credit card. When I use Lyft
Speaker 1: black Suv on a Saturday afternoon, then it's like one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars, but it's still it's incredibly expensive,
Speaker 1: but that's what you have to do, so you don't
Speaker 1: wait in that line. And we have made it so
Speaker 1: impossible to get around that airport in all of the shuttles.
Speaker 1: The stupid train that we built you still can't use
Speaker 1: because the people mover's not going We have a metro
Speaker 1: line that goes to Lax, but it doesn't go to Lax.
Speaker 1: It puts you on a shuttle bus and you're once
Speaker 1: again going through the horseshoe. I have so many distinct
Speaker 1: memories of so many awful experiences sitting in Lax specifically,
Speaker 1: And this is before we would do the ride share.
Speaker 1: We thought we had the hack. Everyone thinks they have
Speaker 1: their hack of how to deal with Lax. Oh, I
Speaker 1: know we're gonna get We're gonna get parking at one
Speaker 1: of the hotels. So we're gonna park at the Hilton,
Speaker 1: and the Hilton will charge you like ten dollars a
Speaker 1: day to park, which is way cheaper than Wally Park.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that. And then you just take the
Speaker 1: hotel shuttle to the airport. When you get to the airport,
Speaker 1: the hotel shuttle takes you to the hotel. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: did that once. And then I remember very distinctly we
Speaker 1: had flown to Santa Fe. We were flying home. This
Speaker 1: is before they had the This is before they had
Speaker 1: direct flights Albuquerque to Burbank, before they had direct flights
Speaker 1: Lax to the Santa Fe airport. This is like twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: my wife and I are after a two hour fly
Speaker 1: from Albuquerque to lax Southwest Terminal one, get out into
Speaker 1: the Horseshoe on the lower level, which if you're the
Speaker 1: first time you've ever come to Los Angeles, you're on
Speaker 1: that lower level. All you see is smog and all
Speaker 1: you hear is honking and is a great welcome to
Speaker 1: the city of la And we sat there waiting for
Speaker 1: our Hilton shuttle to take us to Dark Car, which
Speaker 1: was two miles down the road, for ninety minutes, with
Speaker 1: our little doggies sitting in their carriers trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what the hell was going on. That's when we
Speaker 1: stopped doing that immediately. So that's not a hack. And
Speaker 1: even if your wally park or the parking spot are
Speaker 1: those rackets, well you've got to get on a shuttle
Speaker 1: to get on those. And all the shuttles for the
Speaker 1: rental car parks, all the shuttles for the hotels, all
Speaker 1: the shuttles for the parking lots, they all fight with
Speaker 1: each other. They all honk with each other, and it
Speaker 1: is non stop mayhem. The is a joke, and everything
Speaker 1: we've done with it to improve it since we actually
Speaker 1: improved it in nineteen eighty four. Has been a monumental disaster.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why. Well, I do understand why, because
Speaker 1: the people in charge of the airport are also somewhat
Speaker 1: in charge of the other airports. LAX has some kind
Speaker 1: of authority over Ontario because we could be expanding that airport.
Speaker 1: There was an idea for a long time to build
Speaker 1: a second big airport in the LA area up in
Speaker 1: the Palmdale area. That's an idea, But no, we stick
Speaker 1: to this tiny little footprint with nowhere to expand DFW
Speaker 1: is the size of a city, and they put it
Speaker 1: in between two cities. We put ours right in the
Speaker 1: middle of a city. New York has LaGuardia and JFK
Speaker 1: and Newark to an extent, we've just got LAX. Unless
Speaker 1: you're flying regionally and you can fly Burbank and I
Speaker 1: can't wait for that beautiful new Burbank term all to
Speaker 1: open up. I do love my Burbank Airport. I always
Speaker 1: find it is worth it, although most of the flights
Speaker 1: that I take are to Santa Fe and Southwest has
Speaker 1: kind of been weird about that LAX to Albuquerque or
Speaker 1: the Burbank to Albuquerque flight they don't have on the weekend.
Speaker 1: So you know, trick that I have with LAX is
Speaker 1: understand you're paying through the nose, get dropped off at
Speaker 1: the curb, and try to fly on a Saturday. It's
Speaker 1: like the least busy day. I know, you kind of
Speaker 1: lose part of your day off or your vacation, but
Speaker 1: it's just less of a headache. But I'm pretty confident
Speaker 1: at this point. I have trips in and out of
Speaker 1: LAX booked in August and October and December, and I'm
Speaker 1: pretty damn sure there will be no people mover, even
Speaker 1: though that's not entirely the fault of LAX, and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of the fault of links the contract to
Speaker 1: hear that is now suing LAX and suing the city.
Speaker 1: They're the ones that hired them and decided to give
Speaker 1: so much power to a contractor where not only were
Speaker 1: they going to be the ones in charge of building it,
Speaker 1: but they were going to be the ones operating it
Speaker 1: for the next forty years. So someone really needs to
Speaker 1: look into who thought that was a good idea. It's
Speaker 1: the News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. It's the
Speaker 1: News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk Radio seven ninety
Speaker 1: KAB C. Hey, I got something nice for you, well
Speaker 1: present from us to you the listening audience. Seven ninety
Speaker 1: KABC welcomes Nelly with special guests Too Short at the
Speaker 1: Pacific Camp Theater at the OC Fair on August second.
Speaker 1: Tickets are on sale now at pacamp dot com, but
Speaker 1: right now colling number nine at one eight A eight
Speaker 1: seven ninety five two two two gets a pair of
Speaker 1: tickets to the show. All concert tickets included mission to
Speaker 1: the OC Fair. Tickets furnished by the Pacific Amphitheater. Good
Speaker 1: luck dialing. If you haven't checked out our new podcast,
Speaker 1: The Accountability Podcast, I highly recommend you do so. It
Speaker 1: is John and I Uncensored and Raw accountability, Accountability, accountability.
Speaker 2: Specifically not us doing the cussin, but in this latest episode,
Speaker 2: it's us listening to the town hall in Boyle Heights
Speaker 2: last week where Barbara Ferrara and Karen Bass got an
Speaker 2: earfull for nonsense like saying that the toxic smoke from
Speaker 2: the solar panels in the Boyle Heights fire was safe
Speaker 2: and Barbara Ferrara offering health clinics that were giving nothing
Speaker 2: more than tail and all to people that had fluid
Speaker 2: in their lungs, just really.
Speaker 1: Really really fantastic stuff. We really enjoyed putting that episode together.
Speaker 1: And you've got to check out that feed YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash at Accountability Podcast. If you have any trouble
Speaker 1: finding that, just say send me an email at Randy
Speaker 1: wangradio at gmail dot com. We're up to twelve hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight subscribers, which means we're almost halfway there
Speaker 1: to our next stretch goal. When we get to twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred subscribers on the Accountability Podcast, we're going to
Speaker 1: unveil a website that you can use all you want
Speaker 1: for free, your very own John Phillips Show soundboard. Absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: you can play all the shaggy drops all you want.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: I like that. That amazing. We cannot give you that
Speaker 1: website until we get to twenty five hundred subscribers on
Speaker 1: the Accountability Podcast. So tell your family, tell your friends,
Speaker 1: post the show in your Facebook groups and your Reddit threads. Heck,
Speaker 1: post it on next door. That's sure to start a fight.
Speaker 1: It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk Radio
Speaker 1: seven ninety KABC. It is the news Blitz with Randy
Speaker 1: Wang on Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily
Speaker 1: rundown of everything you need to know that's going on
Speaker 1: in southern California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento,
Speaker 1: and San Diego. I put together a list every single
Speaker 1: day of all the stories that I found that you
Speaker 1: may have missed, All local, all important at Randywangradio dot
Speaker 1: substack dot com. You can follow me on the socials
Speaker 1: on x at Randywang Radio on Instagram at Randy Wang Radio.
Speaker 1: That clip of John and I talking about Karen Bess
Speaker 1: encouraging Matthews is at like twenty nine thousand views. That
Speaker 1: is wild. And of course you can check out our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash at Randy Wang Radio
Speaker 1: to watch the John Phillips Show live from noon to three.
Speaker 1: You can watch clips of this show clips of the
Speaker 1: John Phillips Show. I put a whole bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: up there, so if you've got nothing to watch or
Speaker 1: nothing to listen to tonight, check out the channel and check
Speaker 1: out the Accountability podcast YouTube dot com slash at Accountability Podcast.
Speaker 1: Let's get back into today's news blaze and we start
Speaker 1: in Chino Hills, where residents are very upset of a
Speaker 1: planned battery storage facility in their neighborhood and one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that the people there have a concern. This
Speaker 1: is very different from the concerns over data centers, because
Speaker 1: that's one fight, and a lot of those fears may
Speaker 1: be a little unfounded. There's just an inherent residual anger
Speaker 1: over AI. But a lot of those data centers, they
Speaker 1: do use reclaimed water. They're not as much of a
Speaker 1: drain on the utilities as you would like to believe.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just that the utility companies are ripping us
Speaker 1: off and using the AI data centers as an excuse.
Speaker 1: But the battery storage facilities are another thing. Because we've
Speaker 1: got to go back to Monterey County last year and
Speaker 1: Moss Landing, where this battery store orage facility caught fire
Speaker 1: and the entire immediate neighborhood had to be evacuated because
Speaker 1: of the toxic fumes emitting from lithium ion batteries. And
Speaker 1: while the developer of this battery storage facility says that
Speaker 1: things are completely different here and that this will be
Speaker 1: an outdoor facility, not indoors, so it'd be easy for
Speaker 1: firefighters to get in there, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: using a different kind of battery technology. We've seen this
Speaker 1: happen so many times. If it catches fire, it is
Speaker 1: a toxic disaster. Look at what's going on in boil
Speaker 1: Heights right now. The reason there's all this talk of
Speaker 1: the toxic chemicals in the air. Forget the rotting food smell.
Speaker 1: The initial concern was all of the toxic chemicals coming
Speaker 1: from the burning solar panels. Part of the reason the
Speaker 1: destruction in Palisades was so devastating was of how many
Speaker 1: EV batteries burned in that fire, how many TESLA backup
Speaker 1: solar battery walls. These things are made of chemical that,
Speaker 1: when caught on fire, create all kinds of hazardous things
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, things that can cause cancer, things that
Speaker 1: can cause all kinds of health problems down the line.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if I'm in a neighborhood, I don't want
Speaker 1: that anywhere around me. So what do you do here?
Speaker 1: Do we not have a situation where all these things
Speaker 1: are so highly concentrated. Maybe that's the idea. You know,
Speaker 1: I kind of like this. You know, we need all
Speaker 1: these batteries right well, why do we need to have
Speaker 1: them in one giant cluster. Remember we talked about last
Speaker 1: week this idea that I had heard from a guy
Speaker 1: on the All In podcast when he was a guest
Speaker 1: on the Bulwark. It's like, it's I heard this podcast
Speaker 1: thirdhand that at some point we won't need the data
Speaker 1: centers because the AI companies will just pay you, the homeowner,
Speaker 1: to get solar, get the backup battery, and then we'll
Speaker 1: put a couple servers in your garage and that's how
Speaker 1: you get it all for free. But we get to
Speaker 1: use those servers. Well, then why don't we think about
Speaker 1: that when it comes to okay, we need to have
Speaker 1: these giant do we need to have these giant battery
Speaker 1: storage facilities when it is so dangerous to have them
Speaker 1: all close together like that? Maybe what we need to
Speaker 1: do is that same idea, but from the state. The
Speaker 1: state wants more batteries, so why don't you put them
Speaker 1: right there in the homes. Make a program where it's
Speaker 1: very easy to get one of these things. It's not
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars on the idea that Okay, if
Speaker 1: the state needs it, they can borrow from it, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's yours. You know, there was
Speaker 1: that whole talk years ago. How about they want EV
Speaker 1: batteries to be able to go two way, so you
Speaker 1: cannot only charge your car from your home, you can
Speaker 1: charge your home from your car. Let's work on that,
Speaker 1: and let's put the batteries in the neighborhoods. By actually
Speaker 1: giving the people something for them, you might get a
Speaker 1: little more buy in when it's like, Okay, you get
Speaker 1: to use the but it also helps power the grid,
Speaker 1: and then you're balancing the load. And if something awful happens,
Speaker 1: like a fire, only one of these is burning, not
Speaker 1: an entire cluster of them. I think I just cracked
Speaker 1: the code. I think that's a pretty good idea. If
Speaker 1: you think it's an insane idea and stupid, well let
Speaker 1: me know. Send me an email Randy Wangradio at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Sometimes this is just the brainstorming hour, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm just talking to myself in my room while
Speaker 1: my cat stares at me asking for food. Neighbors in
Speaker 1: Teluca Lake and Lake Hollywood are very, very very upset
Speaker 1: with Universal Studios. And it's not because of the movie business.
Speaker 1: It's because we're in the middle of the testing phase
Speaker 1: for The Fast and the Furious Roller coaster, the first
Speaker 1: outdoor roller coaster at Universal Studios, the one that because Universal,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the Lax of theme parks. And
Speaker 1: I mean this in only this way because I love
Speaker 1: Universal Studios, but it's in a very small physical footprint,
Speaker 1: so it's very hard for them to expand that's the
Speaker 1: only comparison I will give to Lax, because I love
Speaker 1: Universal Studios. So this giant roller coaster, which they need
Speaker 1: because they need the hot, flashy new thing. It actually
Speaker 1: like part of it wraps around the big escalator and
Speaker 1: part of it wraps around the edge of the park,
Speaker 1: and it's got all It looks very exciting. If I
Speaker 1: was ten years younger, i'd be lining up to ride it.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what happened. I grew up a
Speaker 1: huge coaster head. I mean, you're born and raised in
Speaker 1: southern California, you live in Valencia, you work at Magic Mountain,
Speaker 1: you go to these places all the time. There was
Speaker 1: a period where I was very underemployed and I was
Speaker 1: only working one day a week, I because this was
Speaker 1: my priority of the time. But like the Premium Disney
Speaker 1: Pass and went like thirty times in a year. I
Speaker 1: loved my theme parking, but and you know, it's something
Speaker 1: I used to do quite a bit with my wife
Speaker 1: when we first got together. We go to Universal Studios,
Speaker 1: We go to Disneyland. We were great going to Disneyland.
Speaker 1: Since COVID, I have not gone to a single theme
Speaker 1: park and I don't feel like I have the drive
Speaker 1: to do it. And like the the thrills and all
Speaker 1: the chills, everything you get from the roller coasters. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm not feeling it lately. But that's just me.
Speaker 1: Tastes change, you know, my kind of adventure changes. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been to those parks a bazillion times. What do
Speaker 1: I want to do in an adventure? I want to
Speaker 1: go to a beautiful foreign land where I can try
Speaker 1: food I've never had, where I can talk to people
Speaker 1: from other places, other experiences. Or I want to go
Speaker 1: to Santa Fe and have some innchilladas at the Shed,
Speaker 1: which reminds me I need to call the Shed and
Speaker 1: make a reservation for next month. But the residents in
Speaker 1: these neighbors hoods are complaining because as they're testing this ride,
Speaker 1: it is very, very very loud, and this is not
Speaker 1: what they had signed up for. And the people putting
Speaker 1: the ride together, said they did a lot of things
Speaker 1: to make sure that they cut down on the sound
Speaker 1: that it was emitting. But this inevitably will happen. And
Speaker 1: it reminds me so much of when I worked at
Speaker 1: Magic Mountain because, even though they got rid of it recently,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest attractions in Magic Mountain when I
Speaker 1: was growing up and when I was working there was
Speaker 1: the Superman Ride. It was revolutionary for its time because
Speaker 1: you would go one hundred miles an hour up into
Speaker 1: the sky and then back down. And the thing with
Speaker 1: the Superman ride was where they built it was right
Speaker 1: in the middle of the park. Like to get to it,
Speaker 1: you had to go all the way up the mountain,
Speaker 1: but the structure was so massive that there was actually
Speaker 1: a major walkway through the park where like Goliath is,
Speaker 1: where you have to actually walk under this thing, and
Speaker 1: there's an eatery there where I had worked several times,
Speaker 1: and you hear that thing every thirty seconds, over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, the most loudest wishing sound you
Speaker 1: can imagine, followed by it going down over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, and it became quite the ear sore
Speaker 1: for anybody that ever worked there and had to deal
Speaker 1: with that. So I understand the plight, but I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anything that's going to happen. I don't think
Speaker 1: they're getting rid of the Fast and the Furious ride
Speaker 1: anytime soon. And this story has not come to California yet,
Speaker 1: but it's on its way. I'm sure there is a
Speaker 1: lot of concern nationwide about I'm sure I'm going to
Speaker 1: pronounce this wrong cyclosporiasis. I think I did pretty well,
Speaker 1: which is a disease that is leading to all kinds
Speaker 1: of gastro intestinal problems. I'm not going to use the
Speaker 1: term that you're hearing on the news all the time, explosive.
Speaker 1: You know what. Well, apparently, even though we haven't directly
Speaker 1: tied this disease to and you can't make this up,
Speaker 1: Taco Bell, Taco Bell is taking preventative measures. And the
Speaker 1: funny thing is, do you know what the ingredient at
Speaker 1: Taco Bell they're thinking gives you the cyclosporiasis. It's not
Speaker 1: the beans or the beef or the nacho cheese with
Speaker 1: a Z. Does it sound like I'm talking down to
Speaker 1: Taco Bell people, even though I ate most of that
Speaker 1: for many, many, many years. Yeah, I might be a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's actually the lettuce that is the problem
Speaker 1: child here. And once again we have a situation where
Speaker 1: for everyone that tries to eat clean and eat green,
Speaker 1: a lot of the people getting sick are the people
Speaker 1: that bought like pre bag salad. So it is a
Speaker 1: reminder to wash your produce. And if you're going to
Speaker 1: Taco Bell, good luck, but order your chiloupa with no lettuce.
Speaker 1: Be careful out there. Again, it hasn't come to California yet,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I had to mention it since
Speaker 1: Taco Bell is a California company headquarters right there in Irvine,
Speaker 1: and they claim that it might be their lettuce. That's
Speaker 1: the culprit for cyclos bariasis. It's the News Blitz with
Speaker 1: Randy Wang on Talk radio seven ninety KABC. It's the
Speaker 1: News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk radio seven to
Speaker 1: ninety KABC. It's Thursday, so that means we get some
Speaker 1: big movies coming out this weekend. And talk about big movies,
Speaker 1: maybe the biggest movie of the year. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's going to be the most successful movie of
Speaker 1: the year, but it would definitely be the biggest movie
Speaker 1: of the year. The Odyssey is in theaters this weekend.
Speaker 1: The Odyssey, which you probably all had to read at
Speaker 1: least some of in high school. I think I read
Speaker 1: the back cover. The Odyssey follows Odysseus, which is Matt Damon,
Speaker 1: the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, on his perilous journey
Speaker 1: home after the Trojan War, depicting encounters from mythical beings
Speaker 1: such as the Cyclops, Polyphenus, the Sirens, the witch goddess Circe,
Speaker 1: culminating in the long awaited union with his wife Penelope.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering how I was able to pronounce
Speaker 1: all those names correctly, it's because I just played Hades two,
Speaker 1: and in Hades two, Odysseus is a character that helps
Speaker 1: you on your adventure, and Polyphenus, the psyclote, says one
Speaker 1: of the bosses you fight. Oh, it's a good game.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are excited about this.
Speaker 1: It has a ninety six percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic epic film.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine sitting in a movie theater for that long.
Speaker 1: How long is this thing? Four hours? Three and a
Speaker 1: half hours. Let's see does it say the Odyssey run time?
Speaker 1: How long is this movie? Oh? Maybe I'll just type
Speaker 1: it in how long is the Odyssey movie? If I
Speaker 1: typed in how long is okay, it's only two hours
Speaker 1: and fifty two minutes. So do they still have that
Speaker 1: website runp dot com where it tells you, like the
Speaker 1: perfect parts of a movie to go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: because nothing that's exciting is happening. There was one big,
Speaker 1: long epic movie where I was like, there's no way,
Speaker 1: I am definitely not getting up at any time. It
Speaker 1: was the culmination of hype for the Marvel movies. I
Speaker 1: got invited with a press pass to the Disney lot
Speaker 1: to see a screening of the Avengers Endgame movie, and
Speaker 1: I was really hyped on all that Marvel stuff. Back
Speaker 1: then twenty nineteen it was a different world. And I
Speaker 1: sat in that theater and with the people with like,
Speaker 1: you know, all the kinds of people that would get
Speaker 1: an invite to stuff like this, you know, media people, reviewers,
Speaker 1: what have you. It was like a room full of
Speaker 1: film geeks that were so excited to see this thing. Now,
Speaker 1: one person got up to p in the three and
Speaker 1: a half hour movie, and everyone was cheering when Captain
Speaker 1: America picked up the hammer what have you? It was great,
Speaker 1: But a second as that movie was over and you
Speaker 1: were sure that you got through all the end redit scenes,
Speaker 1: it was a mad dash to the bathroom. What else
Speaker 1: is going to be out there on Hulu? There's gonna
Speaker 1: be a movie called twin Lits a young man grieving
Speaker 1: the loss of his twin brother joins a support group
Speaker 1: for twinless twins. Okay, and the Hawk, the Will Ferrell
Speaker 1: movie on Netflix, which is Will Ferrell is a golfer.
Speaker 1: It's Will Ferrell. It's also got Molly Shannon in it.
Speaker 1: How can you go wrong? I don't see any reviews
Speaker 1: for that right there, But if it's on Netflix and
Speaker 1: it's got a big name like that, it's probably going
Speaker 1: to do very very well. Now, before we get out
Speaker 1: of here, on a sad note, we're moving to a
Speaker 1: story coming out of the Central Coast. It is the
Speaker 1: end of an era. It's been this way for a while,
Speaker 1: but this really you can feel it now in Bueleton, California,
Speaker 1: place that I visit many, many, many times because that
Speaker 1: is the gateway to Santa Barbara wine country. But Buelton
Speaker 1: wasn't always known for wine. In fact, for many many
Speaker 1: years before, even before the Santinez Valley was discovered as
Speaker 1: a wine region, Buelton was just a town that you'd
Speaker 1: stop off in between Santa Maria and Santa Barbara and
Speaker 1: maybe you'd get some gasoline, and maybe you'd stop at
Speaker 1: Anderson's pea soup. You probably if you're on the one
Speaker 1: to one freeway, saw billboards over and over and over
Speaker 1: again Anderson's is coming eat some of that pea soup. Well,
Speaker 1: Builton has changed a lot in the last fifty years,
Speaker 1: and at some point the drive for pea soup just
Speaker 1: wasn't what it used to be. There is a lot
Speaker 1: of wineries in that region, specifically in the town of Bulton.
Speaker 1: Now there's a lot there. I mean, gosh, that's where
Speaker 1: the hitching post is. But it is a landmark. And
Speaker 1: if you're from a certain era, it's not my era.
Speaker 1: But I know there are people list right now they
Speaker 1: remember being on those road trips they stopped at Anderson's.
Speaker 1: It was a very special place. So the restaurant and
Speaker 1: hotel closed in twenty twenty four, and now it looks
Speaker 1: like the building is going to be demolished to make
Speaker 1: way for whatever comes next. But the city of Buleton
Speaker 1: is trying to do everything they can to save the signage,
Speaker 1: saying the big sign turn those into some kind of
Speaker 1: landmarkt is a huge part of California history. But it's
Speaker 1: it is a sign of the times. Things have changed.
Speaker 1: But it's funny to me to even think about it,
Speaker 1: as they used to have a different opinion like now.
Speaker 1: I understand how important this was to people because I
Speaker 1: remember going up to wine Country and wondering, why are
Speaker 1: all these billboards for who wants split pea soup? The
Speaker 1: stuff that comes out of the Exorcist? I did not
Speaker 1: understand it, because to me, Buleton is just where all
Speaker 1: the great wineries are, where the hitching post is. You
Speaker 1: know what, you should blame Sideways for all of this
Speaker 1: really changed what everyone thought about Buleton for But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that Anderson Split pea Soup
Speaker 1: was a part of their childhood, a part of their history,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they are sorry to see it go.
Speaker 1: So I hope that its legacy is honored in some way,
Speaker 1: and I hope they keep some of the signage up
Speaker 1: somewhere for a while, and we were just up there
Speaker 1: a few months ago. You still saw the sign. There
Speaker 1: was nobody there. The building was abandoned. Apparently they have
Speaker 1: to demolish it because the vandals are getting in there,
Speaker 1: which it says something when you're saying vandals in a
Speaker 1: town of four thousand, But like someone could have got
Speaker 1: stuck in the dumbwaiter and people were like breaking glass
Speaker 1: in there. It's just it's never good to have an
Speaker 1: abandoned building, even in a small little town like Bulten.
Speaker 1: But hey, if you've never been to Buleton, you've never
Speaker 1: been to the Sandinez Valley. Send me an email at
Speaker 1: Randy Wang Radio at gmail dot com. I do this
Speaker 1: for my Santa fe people. Well, and I'm not even
Speaker 1: getting paid to promote wine Country, although I'd love to.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to go up to Santa Barbara
Speaker 1: Wine Country, I'll give you my list of all of
Speaker 1: my favorite wineries, the places I like to go to dinner,
Speaker 1: just because why not. Go to Fiddlehead, go to Section Wines,
Speaker 1: go to foxin' Oh. There's so much good stuff out there.
Speaker 1: Have a great evening. If you need more stuff to enjoy,
Speaker 1: check out my YouTube channel. There's all kinds of segments
Speaker 1: from The John Phillips Show and this show YouTube dot com,
Speaker 1: slash at Randy Wang Radio, It's the Newsplitz on KABC