Speaker 1: Well, the city council might only give you sixty seconds
Speaker 1: to where your grievance is.
Speaker 2: Oh hi, I'd like to go to the first caller
Speaker 2: on the phone.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're lucky, now we're giving you a both
Speaker 1: sixty minutes. It's a KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 1: and our long recap of the day's top local stories
Speaker 1: on your drive home. And unlike the City Council, we're
Speaker 1: the perfect vehicle to actually get your voice heard. The
Speaker 1: KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang starts no, No, No.
Speaker 2: It is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on top
Speaker 2: radio seven to ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown
Speaker 2: of everything you need to know that's going on in California,
Speaker 2: Southern California, the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego, and the
Speaker 2: Central Valley. I curate a list every single day of
Speaker 2: all the stories that I went through that I found
Speaker 2: interesting that I think you should check out at Randywangradio
Speaker 2: Dot Substance, And of course check out our YouTube channel
Speaker 2: and all the on demand content for this show and
Speaker 2: the John Phillips Show and the Accountability Podcast at Johnny
Speaker 2: don't like dot com or Randy Wangradio dot com I
Speaker 2: bought both domain names and they go to the exact
Speaker 2: same place. We start in Orange County, where concern residents
Speaker 2: are very upset about the use of herbicides and pesticides
Speaker 2: in waterways. It is a great piece from ABC seven,
Speaker 2: as there are very legitimate concerns as to why we're
Speaker 2: putting what is effectively, when you talk about an herbicide
Speaker 2: or a pesticide or anything that ends with side, it
Speaker 2: is poison. And why, oh why are we putting poison
Speaker 2: in a waterway, whether it be a creek, a river,
Speaker 2: what have you. You know, calif is a very interesting place.
Speaker 2: Of course, we have so much beautiful splendor. We have
Speaker 2: so much majestic beauty, whether you want to talk about
Speaker 2: the beaches or the mountains. We have every kind of
Speaker 2: climate you can imagine. And I understand why there is
Speaker 2: so much environmentalism in this state. And I understand why
Speaker 2: there's so much environmental activism in this state because it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful place and we want to keep it that way. Now.
Speaker 2: Of course, we've covered extensively how our environmental and climate
Speaker 2: policies constantly fall short or are just incredibly short sighted
Speaker 2: or misdirected. I mean Heck, look at what happened in
Speaker 2: Boyle Heights, where the mayor of Los Angeles won't even
Speaker 2: say out loud that the cause of that fire was
Speaker 2: the solar panel farm. Not that you know, solar panels
Speaker 2: by themselves are that big of a deal, but when
Speaker 2: you have so many solar panels next to each other
Speaker 2: and they can catch fire, it's a much harder fire
Speaker 2: to put out than a regular fire. And when you
Speaker 2: had that many in the proximity of a single family neighborhood,
Speaker 2: it was a disaster, a disaster that may cost her
Speaker 2: the election. And you've got to think about that for
Speaker 2: a second. Of why they won't talk about the solar panels,
Speaker 2: it's because that would mean that if it's not the
Speaker 2: refrigerator that's the problem, it's the solar panels that there
Speaker 2: are the problem. Well, there are solar panel farms, not
Speaker 2: that big, but there might be one at your kids'
Speaker 2: school in their parking lot. They're all over the place. Well,
Speaker 2: this is a different kind of story in Orange County,
Speaker 2: where you have activists and one Orange County Supervisor, Katrina Foley,
Speaker 2: that are rightfully saying, hey, why are we doing this?
Speaker 2: And you have other supervisor, there's like Don Wagner saying, Oh,
Speaker 2: don't worry, this is the safe amount of poison that
Speaker 2: we can put into the riverways. So you might be
Speaker 2: asking yourself, why are they putting herbicides and pesticides into
Speaker 2: the creeks of Orange County. Apparently they say it's to
Speaker 2: control the vegetation so we don't have bad flooding, which
Speaker 2: is interesting because like, what did we do before we
Speaker 2: had these things. But one of the things that came
Speaker 2: out in this investigation is that while the state and
Speaker 2: the federal government have certain standards for what is an
Speaker 2: acceptable amount of poison to put in your river ways
Speaker 2: and your waterways, turns out the people that we were
Speaker 2: contracting to do that work to get the brush out
Speaker 2: of the creek, we're putting way more in than was
Speaker 2: the acceptable level. And there have been all kinds of
Speaker 2: studies that have shown all kinds of links to these
Speaker 2: herbicides and pesticides, whether you want to talk about round
Speaker 2: up what have you, that have led to all kinds
Speaker 2: of cancer diagnoses. So why are we even thinking about
Speaker 2: doing this and putting this in our beautiful backyard, putting
Speaker 2: this in our places? There has to be in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six. There's not a smarter, greener, easier way to
Speaker 2: deal with the potential flooding of our waterways when it
Speaker 2: rains every once in a while, then putting poison in
Speaker 2: the river. Now, other counties, by the way, have backed
Speaker 2: away from this. LA County's not doing this is one
Speaker 2: of the rare stories where Orange County, which is usually
Speaker 2: the most common sense of the counties, is far behind
Speaker 2: because La County is cutting this out and San Diego
Speaker 2: County is cutting this out, and there are real consequences
Speaker 2: to even you know, so I think, honestly, we need
Speaker 2: to move away from all these kinds of things. You know.
Speaker 2: Part of the reason that I buy organic food, outside
Speaker 2: of the fact that, you know, maybe it's healthier, is
Speaker 2: I don't want pesticides near me. I don't want to
Speaker 2: consume them. And I think when it comes to trying
Speaker 2: to clear out some brush from waterways, this is the
Speaker 2: wrong way to do it. Let's not forget what happened.
Speaker 2: And we talked about this just a few weeks ago
Speaker 2: in Ladera Heights. You remember Matthew Sedor from Fox eleven
Speaker 2: went down there. Ten Hall in Ladera Heights also in
Speaker 2: Orange County. You excuse me, Ladera Ranch, excuse me. You
Speaker 2: add so many different families that had people that developed
Speaker 2: rare cancers when they were young, and nobody can figure
Speaker 2: out what the link is. But you had a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of young people, including people who got cancer when
Speaker 2: they were teenagers and died in their early twenties, and
Speaker 2: they're trying to figure out what it is and the
Speaker 2: only thing they can connect it to is these poisons.
Speaker 2: Round up what have you, the herbicides, the pesticides. So
Speaker 2: I just happen to think there has to be another way.
Speaker 2: And you know what, La and San Diego, who stopped
Speaker 2: putting the poison in the waterways, haven't seen a big
Speaker 2: problem with flooding. So I think we need to do better.
Speaker 2: And I think I'm glad that Katrina Foley is addressing
Speaker 2: this issue. I'm also very glad that ABC seven is
Speaker 2: addressing this issue. And you know, when you're talking about
Speaker 2: actual environmental dangers, this is one that not only affects
Speaker 2: our wildlife, our plant life, but also our human life,
Speaker 2: and we don't even know what's going on. And again,
Speaker 2: there could be an acceptable level of poison to put
Speaker 2: in the water. I bet you there could be, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that that's what we're actually doing. And
Speaker 2: so we're doing a lot of harm out there, and
Speaker 2: it seems incredibly short sighted. Now. Of course, this is
Speaker 2: going on while there are so many other environmental disasters
Speaker 2: that we some do not even care about, including what
Speaker 2: goes on every single day at the Tijuana River. And
Speaker 2: of course we have talked about everything that has been
Speaker 2: going on in Boil Heights, but just something to think about,
Speaker 2: why do we need to be putting roundup into the waterways?
Speaker 2: And the companies behind this will tell you, well, there's
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with our product, yet they have paid out
Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions in cancer settlements over and
Speaker 2: over and over again. You probably see and hear the
Speaker 2: ads all the time of somebody that got cancer from
Speaker 2: these poisons. So maybe we got to figure out a
Speaker 2: way to get the poisons out of our system in
Speaker 2: our food ways that there are so many other ways
Speaker 2: to do this, and we know there are other ways
Speaker 2: to do this, So let's start thinking smarter. Because it's
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six already, all right. I got a little
Speaker 2: update on Mia Ventura aka Adva Lavie that is apparently
Speaker 2: her real name. She is the former fiance a former
Speaker 2: gubernatorial candidate Stephen Klubec, the guy who made a bunch
Speaker 2: of money in time Shares that decided to run for governor,
Speaker 2: dropped out endorsed Eric Swalwell, and when the Swallwell thing
Speaker 2: blew up, Klubec was hosting him at his house. So
Speaker 2: Clubec goes away after that whole thing he had, the
Speaker 2: whole don't bust the trust thing that he told Matthew Siedorfay,
Speaker 2: that's two shoutouts for Seedorf. Poor guys sitting in an
Speaker 2: airport in Bozeman, Montana right now. Hopefully you know, we
Speaker 2: might have to get him on to talk about what's
Speaker 2: going on. He got trapped in Canada because of an
Speaker 2: airline strike. So Stephen Klubec shows up in the news
Speaker 2: again a few months ago when he's accused by the
Speaker 2: La County District Attorney of witness tampering and making threats
Speaker 2: to witnesses because of his fiance, a woman who I
Speaker 2: didn't originally know was connected to him. Her name Adva Levi,
Speaker 2: and she's been known to find rich men on dating apps,
Speaker 2: date them, and then rob them. She also on camera
Speaker 2: stole a bunch of stuff from a green room from
Speaker 2: a Las Vegas podcast, So she was facing a whole
Speaker 2: lot of charges, and apparently a lot of the men
Speaker 2: that she duped were going to testify against her, and
Speaker 2: Klubec was making threats against them not to testify. So
Speaker 2: she's awaiting trial. She's out on bail on an ankle
Speaker 2: monitor when all of a sudden last week, she gets
Speaker 2: arrested in Beverly Hills. Turns out she wasn't wearing the
Speaker 2: ankle monitor and they bust her because there are new
Speaker 2: charges of a case going back to Riverside where last
Speaker 2: year at Coachella. She's staying at Airbnb with some friends
Speaker 2: of friends. Boy, I bet this guy is really pissed
Speaker 2: off at whoever invited mea Ventura. She wants a free
Speaker 2: ticket to Coachella. Nobody has one, so to get revenge,
Speaker 2: she breaks into this guy's cyber truck and steals his
Speaker 2: watch and his glasses and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 2: So she had a court appearance of the weekend. And
Speaker 2: the first thing that's strange is even though she obviously
Speaker 2: speaks fluent English, because she's an Instagram and OnlyFans model
Speaker 2: what have You and has been on podcasts. She asked
Speaker 2: for an Israeli translator, maybe that'll help win her over
Speaker 2: with the jury. And then as a woman was testifying
Speaker 2: in the preliminary hearing of some of the robberies that
Speaker 2: she's accused of, she had an outburst in the courtroom
Speaker 2: where she called that woman a drunk. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of fun and silly things about this story, but I
Speaker 2: bring it up for a very important reason because I
Speaker 2: don't want to skip over that little detail of she
Speaker 2: wasn't wearing her ankle monitor. The state of California has,
Speaker 2: in its bid to decarceerrate, put more people on probation
Speaker 2: than ever before. Especially one of the side effects of
Speaker 2: AB one oh nine, the prison realignment that pushed so
Speaker 2: many people from the state prisons to the county jails.
Speaker 2: The county jails became overcrowded, so so many people with
Speaker 2: non serior, so nonviolent offenses, are out on bail or
Speaker 2: out on probation, and they're wearing ankle monitors. Ankle monitors
Speaker 2: are supposed to be tracked by the probation officers. But
Speaker 2: here's the situation that we have in Los Angeles County,
Speaker 2: and it's something we have talked about for a very
Speaker 2: long time, but it is worth remembering. Why did it
Speaker 2: take her getting arrested again for someone to find out
Speaker 2: that she wasn't wearing her ankle monitor. Well, it's because
Speaker 2: probation departments, specifically LA County Probation, they don't really have
Speaker 2: anybody to check on. You see, in LA County, the
Speaker 2: Probation Department has two different jobs. They're supposed to check
Speaker 2: up on everybody who's on probation, on parole, make sure
Speaker 2: they are staying on tracks, staying out of trouble, going
Speaker 2: to their hearings, going to whatever diversion they're supposed to
Speaker 2: go to, wearing their ankle monitor, and that's one part
Speaker 2: of the job. Then there's the other part of the job,
Speaker 2: and that is dealing with the juvenile justice system. The
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department runs the jail, the Department of Corrections run
Speaker 2: the prisons. The Probation Department runs the juvie and LA
Speaker 2: County's juvenile halls, whether you're talking about Barry Nightharf or
Speaker 2: Los Padrinos, have become complete disasters and they've always had problems.
Speaker 2: Believe you me. The County rote a check for four
Speaker 2: billion dollars to settle decades of abuse claims, whether they
Speaker 2: be violent or sexual or both against people who spent
Speaker 2: time in Los Padrinos and Barry Nightdorf in What have
Speaker 2: You Now. The district attorney says, a bunch of those
Speaker 2: are fraudulent, but we wrote the check anyway. But over
Speaker 2: the last half a decade, when we had a different
Speaker 2: district attorney in charge, a man by the name of
Speaker 2: George Gascone, he decided we were no longer going to
Speaker 2: try any child as an adult, no matter what the crime.
Speaker 2: And that ended up meaning that a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: very violent people, maybe very violent gang members, murderers, what
Speaker 2: have you. Instead of going into the prison system, they
Speaker 2: went into the juvenile justice system. And you don't know,
Speaker 2: you don't. When you're in the juvenile justice system, you
Speaker 2: don't go to prison once you turn eighteen. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: You stay in the juvenile justice system till you're twenty six,
Speaker 2: and then you're released because now you're an adult. And
Speaker 2: that put the most violent people possible in proximity with
Speaker 2: a lot of other not as violent people that were
Speaker 2: very vulnerable. And that's how the fight started. That's how
Speaker 2: the assaults on probation officers started. And that's when you
Speaker 2: had a whole bunch of staffers start calling out to
Speaker 2: work because they are afraid for their lives. They are
Speaker 2: afraid for their safety. And what did probation do. They
Speaker 2: decided to transfer all their field deputies, the people checking
Speaker 2: to make sure mia Ventura is wearing her ankle monitor
Speaker 2: and said, well, we don't have time for that. We
Speaker 2: need to say and you to the juvenile hall. So
Speaker 2: for as many people as we have on probation right now,
Speaker 2: the silly little story of mia Ventura, the only fans
Speaker 2: scam artist should let you know that we're not really
Speaker 2: checking to see if anybody is actually doing what they're
Speaker 2: supposed to be doing on probation. It's the News Blitz
Speaker 2: with Randy Wang on KABC. It's the News Blitz with
Speaker 2: Randy Wang on Talk Radio seven ninety KABC. Well this
Speaker 2: is exciting. Seven ninety KABC welcomes Jackson Brown to the
Speaker 2: Hollywood Pantagious Theater on November nineteenth. Tickets are on sale
Speaker 2: now at ticketmaster dot com. But right now collar number
Speaker 2: nine at one eight eight eight seven ninety five two
Speaker 2: two two gets a pair of tickets to the show.
Speaker 2: Tickets furnished by Nita Lander Concerts. Good luck dialing if
Speaker 2: you haven't had a chance to well. As soon as
Speaker 2: I put out the number, the person that calls every
Speaker 2: single day for every single contest is the first person
Speaker 2: to do it. Well. I guess I should applaud it.
Speaker 2: But isn't there supposed to be a limit to how
Speaker 2: many tickets you can win? Maybe we need to play
Speaker 2: that contest rules thing more often. We have now for
Speaker 2: over a month, been doing live video streaming of the
Speaker 2: John Phillips Show on my YouTube channel and it has
Speaker 2: really really been exciting. If you haven't had a chance
Speaker 2: to check it out because maybe you're too busy working
Speaker 2: or driving from noon to three, all of that stuff
Speaker 2: is available on demand, as well as the best segments
Speaker 2: of the day that I put up there, and this
Speaker 2: show on video you can watch on demand, and of
Speaker 2: course the Accountability podcast. I put it all up on
Speaker 2: the YouTube channel, and the easiest way to find it
Speaker 2: I have a domain name Johnny don't like dot com
Speaker 2: or Randywangradio dot com. Either way, it takes you to
Speaker 2: the exact same place, and if you haven't seen our podcast,
Speaker 2: exclusive content that you can only get on the channel
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. The Accountability Podcast. We've
Speaker 2: done five episodes so far. Episode one we talked about
Speaker 2: how Gavin Newsom is never going to be president. Episode
Speaker 2: two we talked about whippets in San Francisco. Episode three
Speaker 2: we talked about Karen Bass and Barbara Ferrera getting boot
Speaker 2: and boil Heights. Episode four we talked about Gavin Newsom's
Speaker 2: dirty diaper dealings, and episode five we talk about Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris's idea that she might run again for the presidency.
Speaker 2: If you have missed any of those episodes, after this
Speaker 2: show's over, check it out. It's right there. Johnny don't
Speaker 2: like dot com or Randywangradio dot com. When there's no
Speaker 2: live show, it's literally the first thing there. Accountability Podcast.
Speaker 2: We have a new episode coming out this week. I
Speaker 2: don't want to spoil anything, but I'm just gonna say
Speaker 2: I think we're gonna have Steve Hilton on the show,
Speaker 2: and if that happens, it will premiere on Wednesday at
Speaker 2: three pm. We got a lot more to do here
Speaker 2: on the news Blitz. Check out today's list at Randywangradio
Speaker 2: dot substack dot com. It's the News Blitz with Randy
Speaker 2: Wang on KABC. It is the News Blitz with Randy
Speaker 2: Wang on Talk Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your
Speaker 2: daily rundown of everything you need to know that's going
Speaker 2: on in California, Southern California, the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego,
Speaker 2: and the Central Valley. I compile a list every single
Speaker 2: day of all the stories that I found that you
Speaker 2: may find interesting at Randy Wangradio dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2: That's Randy Wangradio dot substack dot com. Check out our
Speaker 2: YouTube channel clips of this show, The John Phillips Show,
Speaker 2: and The Accountability pot as well as the John Phillips
Speaker 2: Show live stream at Johnny don't Like dot com or
Speaker 2: if you prefer, Randy Wangradio dot com takes you to
Speaker 2: the exact same place. And if you haven't seen the
Speaker 2: noon to three live stream, it is a lot of
Speaker 2: fun and we got a chat room in there is
Speaker 2: a good old time, but check it out on demand
Speaker 2: if you're not available from noon to three. Minimum wage
Speaker 2: is going up in the state of California once again,
Speaker 2: because our minimum wage in the state of California is
Speaker 2: tied to inflation. Now this actually goes all the way
Speaker 2: back many many years when the minimum wage was ten
Speaker 2: dollars an hour, and you remember how often you would
Speaker 2: hear the story of the fight for fifteen. We just
Speaker 2: got to get to fifteen dollars an hour, and that'll
Speaker 2: be enough. But the thing about California's minimum wage fight
Speaker 2: is it's not you know, it's about to go up
Speaker 2: to seven forty. That's not enough. The fast food workers
Speaker 2: are making twenty dollars an hour, that's not enough. The
Speaker 2: tourism workers for the Olympics want to get thirty dollars
Speaker 2: an hour. That's not enough. It is so unbelievably expensive
Speaker 2: to live in the state of California, to live in
Speaker 2: the city of Los Angeles, I really don't know how
Speaker 2: you get by on minimum wage, even with a minimum
Speaker 2: wage that is almost three times higher than the national
Speaker 2: minimum wage, because the cost of living here is so
Speaker 2: exponentially higher. But I will say I prefer the flat
Speaker 2: minimum wage over the We need to have specific minimum
Speaker 2: wages for specific industries because that is just getting weird. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, you look at Gavin Newsom's council, which also
Speaker 2: hasn't met in a few years on the fast food
Speaker 2: minimum wage, which was twenty dollars an hour, but it
Speaker 2: only applied to certain places. In fact, there is a
Speaker 2: handles ice cream in the Bay Area that still hasn't
Speaker 2: gotten clarity if that rule affects them. And do you
Speaker 2: have this weird distinction of depending on where you work
Speaker 2: on you fall under that ordinance or you don't. You
Speaker 2: look at the strange one that came out of La
Speaker 2: City Council, which now they're trying to walk back because
Speaker 2: it's going to kill our tourism industry, the thirty dollars
Speaker 2: an hour minimum wage for tourism workers. And you ask yourself,
Speaker 2: what is a tourism worker? Is that like the guy
Speaker 2: who drives the bus for TMZ or the guy who
Speaker 2: drives the bus for Ripley's believe it or not. No,
Speaker 2: it's not that. It's not the people that work on
Speaker 2: Hollywood Boulevard. It's definitely not the guy dressed up as
Speaker 2: dirty Superman. No, tourism worker means people who work at
Speaker 2: hotels and people who work at the airport, specifically airport concessions,
Speaker 2: which is kind of strange. So the way that this
Speaker 2: one works, which now they're wanting to delay it, it's
Speaker 2: not finalized, but they want to delay it until twenty
Speaker 2: thirty instead of twenty twenty eight. Is you would get
Speaker 2: thirty dollars an hour. If you're the barista at Starbucks
Speaker 2: at Lax, you would be getting thirty dollars an hour.
Speaker 2: If you're the barista at Starbucks on Century Boulevard just
Speaker 2: outside of Lax, you'd be getting whatever the minimum pay
Speaker 2: is for Starbucks, which I don't think the fast food
Speaker 2: law applies to them, but they probably pay better. Let's
Speaker 2: see starting wage at Starbucks in California, and he guesses, oh,
Speaker 2: they pay way more than twenty Starting wages for a
Speaker 2: barista is twenty twenty five to twenty two ninety nine,
Speaker 2: slightly seating the state's fast food minimum wage. But of
Speaker 2: course you have to consider that that's still not thirty,
Speaker 2: and you get thirty if you're working at the airport.
Speaker 2: How about if you work at a restaurant at a hotel,
Speaker 2: you'd be getting thirty dollars an hour. But if you
Speaker 2: work at a restaurant outside the hotel, like I don't
Speaker 2: know TGI Fridays to pull from personal experience, you're getting
Speaker 2: minimum wage and then also tips and thank goodness for
Speaker 2: the tips. Although California did just get declared the stingiest state,
Speaker 2: and this is true, it's not by much. The national
Speaker 2: average is eighteen percent and California is like seventeen percent.
Speaker 2: If you ever worked in the service industry, you're probably
Speaker 2: always tipping twenty percent unless something really bad happened, because
Speaker 2: you know how hard those jobs are. But those kind
Speaker 2: of strange distinctions just kind of irk me. It always
Speaker 2: made me laugh though, that, like, you know, the minimum
Speaker 2: wage needs to be twenty dollars an hour, but what
Speaker 2: think the minimum wages or the starting wage for in
Speaker 2: and out in California is twenty two to twenty three
Speaker 2: dollars an hour, always paying above and beyond. And I've
Speaker 2: always said and I'll say it again. For some reason,
Speaker 2: I became completely unemployable in the radio industry, which I
Speaker 2: don't think will happen, but you never know. I think
Speaker 2: I've built a pretty good career for myself over the
Speaker 2: last twenty years. I am doing about seven different jobs
Speaker 2: at once. I could probably keep this going another twenty years.
Speaker 2: But if for some reason I became completely unemployable, or
Speaker 2: the market tanks, what have you, I know that that's
Speaker 2: a job I could go to I could do well,
Speaker 2: and I could probably work my way up to becoming
Speaker 2: a restaurant manager. And I'm pretty sure the restaurant manager
Speaker 2: in and out Burger makes more than I do right now.
Speaker 2: So it's a nice little backup plan. But I feel
Speaker 2: for the people who are making the least I do.
Speaker 2: I've been there, although when I was making minimum wage,
Speaker 2: I was a high school student, so still living at home,
Speaker 2: and the minimum wage was six dollars and fifty cents
Speaker 2: an hour. Yeah, that was my first year at Magic Mountain,
Speaker 2: and then I think I got bumped up to six
Speaker 2: seventy five the next year. But yeah, the first time
Speaker 2: I've worked. I am sure there are people listening where
Speaker 2: their minimum wage was a buck fifty a buck seventy five,
Speaker 2: and it's wow, have things have changed now? Things were
Speaker 2: considerably cheaper. I mean you think about how wages were
Speaker 2: in comparison to cost of living. I live in a neighborhood.
Speaker 2: This neighborhood was built in the late fifties. It is
Speaker 2: a post war neighborhood. Some of the homes were actually
Speaker 2: built where all of the appliances are lower to level,
Speaker 2: assuming that they were for veterans of the wars, and
Speaker 2: they were in wheelchairs, what have you. There are some
Speaker 2: people I have a name. She's an original owner. She's elderly.
Speaker 2: She bought in this neighborhood, which is a decent neighborhood
Speaker 2: in the San Fernando Valley, full of three and four
Speaker 2: bedroom houses. And don't quote me on the price here,
Speaker 2: but I believe the house that they bought, they bought
Speaker 2: four like fifty or sixty thousand dollars back in the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties, and you translate to what today is, where
Speaker 2: the cost of living is so exponential. You know, even
Speaker 2: when I was just starting out in my career and
Speaker 2: I was making I was making okay money for like
Speaker 2: a twenty year old in ninety seven point one, I
Speaker 2: think I was making fifteen an hour. I don't think
Speaker 2: I was making more than that. Once I got the
Speaker 2: f I was working full time. I got a lot
Speaker 2: of overtime hours because the overnight board ops would constantly
Speaker 2: call in sick, and I'd pick up those extra hours,
Speaker 2: except that at some point they didn't have any more
Speaker 2: money for that, so they'd give me an extra vacation day.
Speaker 2: And I would never take vacations because I had no
Speaker 2: life all I wanted to do was work at this
Speaker 2: radio station. But then when the place flipped formats and
Speaker 2: I got laid off, I had an extra like two
Speaker 2: months of vacation days they had to pay out. That
Speaker 2: was a nice little payday. And then I went broke.
Speaker 2: But when I was working that entry level job at
Speaker 2: the radio station, I could afford a studio apartment. A
Speaker 2: studio apartment. In my studio apartment was pretty nice size.
Speaker 2: I think it was like nine hundred square feet. I
Speaker 2: loved that place. You know, the carpet stunk to high
Speaker 2: heaven of pot because of what I did in that apartment.
Speaker 2: But I think my rent was eight hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 2: maybe eight hundred and seventy five. Maybe it went up
Speaker 2: to nine hundred by the time I left. And you
Speaker 2: what people have to pay now, where starting wages are
Speaker 2: not double what they were twenty years ago, but the
Speaker 2: starting rents are, so how exactly do you get ahead?
Speaker 2: It's very difficult. And this is all going on at
Speaker 2: the same time where costs for being a business owner
Speaker 2: keep going up and up and up. One of the
Speaker 2: unfortunate side effects of that twenty dollars an hour fast
Speaker 2: food minimum wage is that less and less kids out
Speaker 2: of high school, or kids in high school, or even
Speaker 2: getting hired because if you have to pay twenty dollars
Speaker 2: an hour, you're more likely to hire somebody that's got experienced.
Speaker 2: So you look at the average age of people that
Speaker 2: are working at Taco Bell del Taco Jack in the Box,
Speaker 2: and a lot of them are adults. Maybe they're working
Speaker 2: two jobs, maybe they're working more, but you don't see
Speaker 2: a lot of kids. And I think not having that
Speaker 2: work experience when you're fifteen sixteen is it was probably
Speaker 2: one of the most valuable things that I ever don did.
Speaker 2: It taught me so much about responsibility when I worked
Speaker 2: those four summers at Magic Mountain. So not giving kids
Speaker 2: that opportunity that's tough too. But again, I totally get
Speaker 2: the cost of living thing is insane. And then we
Speaker 2: also have this weird situation in California. And I've talked
Speaker 2: about this before and I don't know what the answer is,
Speaker 2: but California, even though it is a state with an
Speaker 2: incredibly high cost of living, if you're under a certain
Speaker 2: income threshold, you do get a lot of very nice benefits.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're making under a certain amount of
Speaker 2: money you get cal Fresh, the food stamp benefits, which
Speaker 2: include a cash benefit, which include you know, being able
Speaker 2: to go to the grocery store, what have you? I mean, gosh,
Speaker 2: I was jealous of these things because I knew that
Speaker 2: people could use them at McDonald's and Pizza Hut, and
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, I'm spending forty dollars a day
Speaker 2: on fast food. I want the government to pay for that.
Speaker 2: I was only making like three hundred dollars a week.
Speaker 2: I did not qualify for an EBT card, but I
Speaker 2: was making twelve hundred dollars a month. If I made
Speaker 2: eleven hundred dollars a month, I would have qualified. And
Speaker 2: that's where the math didn't math for me to use
Speaker 2: the term that the kids say, because I made twelve
Speaker 2: hundred a month, and if I made one hundred dollars less,
Speaker 2: I would have qualified for six hundred dollars a month
Speaker 2: in benefits. So it's almost like I would have benefited
Speaker 2: to be making less. And that's just food, and you
Speaker 2: know you can eat pretty cheap, just go to Trader Joe's.
Speaker 2: But the healthcare one is wild. I know people who
Speaker 2: it made sense to be underemployed or even unemployed because
Speaker 2: of how generous California's medical system is. And again I
Speaker 2: understand it. We want people to be able to go
Speaker 2: to the doctor. You know, I think our whole system
Speaker 2: is a joke to begin with, the fact that thirty
Speaker 2: three percent of the state is on medical is like,
Speaker 2: what are we doing. We're already practically at single pay.
Speaker 2: But the benefits that you get for medical where now
Speaker 2: you have no premiums, you have no copays, you have
Speaker 2: quality care that's accepted everywhere. And as soon as you
Speaker 2: get out of the bracket where you are making more,
Speaker 2: maybe it's because of a minimum wage increase. Maybe you
Speaker 2: got that thirty dollars an hour working as the tourism worker,
Speaker 2: and now you don't qualify for SNAP. Now you don't
Speaker 2: qualify for medical. Maybe now you're actually pushed into a
Speaker 2: tax bracket where you don't get money back, you have
Speaker 2: to pay taxes. Now you're actually losing more money. And
Speaker 2: so the way that we've devised our system of these benefits,
Speaker 2: these means tested benefits programs, have we actually incentivized people
Speaker 2: to be making less. It's just it's just something to
Speaker 2: think about, and it's a phrase that I use more
Speaker 2: often than I want to on this show because I'm
Speaker 2: not the guy with the answers. If I was, I'd
Speaker 2: go run for office. No, I wouldn't. I would never
Speaker 2: do that. I love this. This is playtime that's like
Speaker 2: real nonsense. But I don't know what the answer is
Speaker 2: or what the balance is. I understand that the cost
Speaker 2: of living is too high, but whatever we're increasing it
Speaker 2: to still isn't enough. And at the other end of this, we're,
Speaker 2: you know, part of these benefits programs have gotten so expensive,
Speaker 2: it's so hard to operate a business, so hard to
Speaker 2: keep people employed. So I don't know what the balance is.
Speaker 2: But here you go. Minimum wage in the state of
Speaker 2: California will be up to seventeen forty starting in January.
Speaker 2: It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. It's
Speaker 2: the News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. Well look
Speaker 2: at this, it's the biggest box office opening of all time.
Speaker 2: Spider Man brand New Day came in and I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna say came in swinging, although if you just google it,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's about one hundred news outlets that wrote
Speaker 2: that today three hundred and sixty million dollar opening weekend,
Speaker 2: beating out the previous record holder Avengers Endgame at three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty seven million dollars. That is a massive,
Speaker 2: massive opening. And maybe the uh Marvel Cinematic Universe thing
Speaker 2: isn't done. Maybe they were just making way too many
Speaker 2: of these things and way too many TV shows and
Speaker 2: less is more, and the it was an appetite for it.
Speaker 2: Spider Man always does pretty well, and there hasn't been
Speaker 2: a spider Man movie in four years, but wow, that
Speaker 2: is a big, big opening. In second place, The Odyssey,
Speaker 2: still doing great, brought in fifty one million dollars to
Speaker 2: a total of three hundred and ninety five million. Also,
Speaker 2: Tom Hollins in that Toy Story five in third place
Speaker 2: with another six million. It's grand total four hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty two million. Minions and Monsters in fourth place six
Speaker 2: million dollars. That's at one hundred and sixty eight million.
Speaker 2: I think people might be over the minions. The Mawana
Speaker 2: reboot brought in another five million, at one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifteen million. Haities Town the musical pro Shot, which again
Speaker 2: I forgot was a thing, and I can't wait for
Speaker 2: that to come out on streaming because I like Haitiestown
Speaker 2: great show. That one's brought in two million to a
Speaker 2: total of eighteen million, But for a pro shot, I
Speaker 2: can't imagine the budget was more than eighteen million dollars.
Speaker 2: The Invite, Evil Dead Burne, I Want Your Sex, and
Speaker 2: Young Washington. Look, this was all about Spider Man and
Speaker 2: it got me to go to the theater, and I
Speaker 2: haven't been to a movie theater by myself in a
Speaker 2: very long time. I think I could have talked my
Speaker 2: wife into this one, but it's almost like better if
Speaker 2: I go see it, and then it's like, oh, we
Speaker 2: can go see it together. To make sure it's not
Speaker 2: one of these Marvel movies where you need to know
Speaker 2: what happened in the last seventeen movies to understand what's
Speaker 2: going on. That's the first thing I'll have to tell, Like,
Speaker 2: you don't need to do that much homework for this,
Speaker 2: cause I don't. I don't think she's seen all the
Speaker 2: Tom Holland Spider Man movies. So I'm like, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go see it, and you know what, I had a
Speaker 2: great time. I went to a one o'clock matinee at
Speaker 2: the AMC Theater in Porter ranch, which that shopping center
Speaker 2: is so packed I had to park all away on
Speaker 2: the other side at the Whole Foods, but worth it
Speaker 2: so then I can walk into the Whole Foods and
Speaker 2: get a peach waterloo and sip that on my way
Speaker 2: over to the theater. Now, as much as I love
Speaker 2: movie theater popcorn, I was not gonna do that because
Speaker 2: I'm by myself, so I would down the entire bucket,
Speaker 2: probably have a stomach ache halfway through. I have to
Speaker 2: go to the bathroom, like I'm not doing that. Sorry, theater,
Speaker 2: I know you make a lot of money on concessions.
Speaker 2: All you got for me was the sixteen dollars for
Speaker 2: the matinee ticket. I wear kliner seat laser screen, whatever
Speaker 2: that means. And I gotta say AMC Theaters do a
Speaker 2: great job putting on the movie. Way too many self
Speaker 2: congratulatory promos about how great AMC is, including they don't
Speaker 2: play the whole thing anymore. But it's been four years.
Speaker 2: I think we could retire the nicole kidman thing. Need
Speaker 2: to hear that heartbreak feels good in a place like this.
Speaker 2: Everyone's seen it, We're all over it. But that being said,
Speaker 2: it was a two and a half hour experience where
Speaker 2: I was in complete darkness and silence and not checking
Speaker 2: my phone and completely paying attention to the story. Now,
Speaker 2: I think that it was a good movie. Made it
Speaker 2: a lot easier to just pay attention to what was
Speaker 2: on the screen, but I had a blast. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to tell you anything about the movie because you're
Speaker 2: either gonna see it, already saw it, or have no
Speaker 2: interest whatsoever. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I thought
Speaker 2: it was a very good standalone Spider Man movie and
Speaker 2: happy to see that it is the big record holder
Speaker 2: that it is. Have a great rest of your night.
Speaker 2: Go to the website Randywangradio dot com to watch more.
Speaker 2: See you later.