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: in 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.
Speaker 2: It is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk
Speaker 2: Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown of
Speaker 2: everything you need to know that's going on in Southern
Speaker 2: California as well as 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 have missed, covering stuff up and down the Golden
Speaker 2: State at Randangradio dot substack dot com. You can also
Speaker 2: check out our YouTube channel for clips of this show
Speaker 2: and where you can watch the John Phillips Show live
Speaker 2: every single day from noon to three at YouTube dot com,
Speaker 2: slash at Randywang Radio, Follow me on x and Instagram
Speaker 2: at Randywang Radio. Check out our accountability podcast at YouTube
Speaker 2: dot com, slash at Accountability Podcast, and send me an
Speaker 2: email at Randywang Radio at gmail dot com. We start
Speaker 2: in Sacramento with cigarettes and bananas. What do cigarettes and
Speaker 2: bananas have to do with each other, you ask, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's a funny, funny story. So Sacramento, like many municipalities,
Speaker 2: has been trying to crack down on tobacco use and
Speaker 2: trying to limit tobacco use in the state for obvious reasons.
Speaker 2: I mean, we all get it. We've all seen what
Speaker 2: happens the effects of smoking. We all know that smoking
Speaker 2: is bad for you. And so one of the things
Speaker 2: that local leaders want to do is have as few
Speaker 2: places to buy cigarettes as possible. And in Sacramento they
Speaker 2: were actually stricter on this than many other parts of
Speaker 2: the state because they didn't want people smoking that leads
Speaker 2: to all kinds of cancer, leads to all kinds of littering,
Speaker 2: and all this other stuff. But then a few years
Speaker 2: ago Sacramento came out with a strange idea will allow
Speaker 2: you to open a shop that sells cigarettes if you
Speaker 2: also are selling health food. So if you say that
Speaker 2: you're selling fresh produce, whether that's bananas, carrot, what have you,
Speaker 2: then you can also sell your tobacco products. That is
Speaker 2: a strange, strange, strange way to logic your way into this.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that this ordinance allowed for a
Speaker 2: huge proliferation of smoke shops in Sacramento because they were
Speaker 2: abiding by the health food Ordnance, except upon inspection they
Speaker 2: really weren't because when looking at these smoke shops that
Speaker 2: also sold health food, the health food options were sparse
Speaker 2: and sometimes the bananas were rotten. Now they're re looking
Speaker 2: at this program thinking does this really really really make sense?
Speaker 2: And no, no, oh it doesn't. But it just goes
Speaker 2: to show you the bizarre thinking that goes towards all
Speaker 2: aspects when we talk about cigarettes, tobacco and smoking in
Speaker 2: the state of California. Because you know, we've had municipalities
Speaker 2: that have enacted smoking bands can't smoke indoors at bars,
Speaker 2: which I think we can all collectively agree is a
Speaker 2: good thing. But now you have ordinances, like in some
Speaker 2: parts of the Bay Area, where you cannot smoke even
Speaker 2: outside of a bar, and you've got to walk all
Speaker 2: the way to the street corner, what have you. We've
Speaker 2: made it more difficult to buy cigarettes. We've made it
Speaker 2: more you know, we've made it more expensive to buy
Speaker 2: cigarettes as well, with all the taxes that is the
Speaker 2: you know, one of the original sin taxes, the X
Speaker 2: size tax on cigarettes, is to deter you from buying it.
Speaker 2: But well, nicotine has a powerful addictive substance and people
Speaker 2: are still going to pay ten bucks a pack. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, where we're trying to better health
Speaker 2: and we're I guess trying to promote it by well,
Speaker 2: the cigarettes are okay as long as you're buying fresh produce.
Speaker 2: That made no sense whatsoever. But we also talk out
Speaker 2: of both sides of our mouth because at the same time,
Speaker 2: where we're trying to restrict tobacco use, we seem to
Speaker 2: be encouraging at every step that we can on cannabis use.
Speaker 2: And while the things that you are smoking, the things
Speaker 2: that you are consuming are wildly different. I know, there
Speaker 2: are plenty of medicinal benefits for marijuana. You don't need
Speaker 2: to tell me about that, although some people would say
Speaker 2: there's also medicinal benefits to tobacco and nicotine, but the
Speaker 2: harms vastly outweigh any kind of benefits to calming your nerves.
Speaker 2: That being said, one thing that I think is objectively clear.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're just talking about consuming tobacco compared
Speaker 2: to consuming THHC, yeah, one of them is definitely less
Speaker 2: harmful than the other. But when you're talking about just
Speaker 2: the act of smoking, whether you are smoking tobacco, whether
Speaker 2: you're smoking weed, whether you're smoking salvia, which is a
Speaker 2: strange thing that they sell in headshops, smoking is not
Speaker 2: good for you in any form. And I should know well.
Speaker 2: I was never much of a cigarette smoker. I mean, sure,
Speaker 2: there were a couple of times when I was a
Speaker 2: seventeen year old working at Magic Mountain and one of
Speaker 2: my coworkers offered me a Marlborough light and I'm like, sure,
Speaker 2: why not. I didn't really understand the fascination with it,
Speaker 2: but sure felt cool for a minute plus it was
Speaker 2: like five minutes we didn't have to work. It's almost
Speaker 2: like for certain jobs, especially hourly jobs, like if you're
Speaker 2: a smoker, you get a lot of extra breaks because
Speaker 2: you got to go outside to do that. And sure
Speaker 2: I would try to, I don't know, get into it.
Speaker 2: I remember trying a few times to get into cigars
Speaker 2: never my thing, and ever since I've been with my
Speaker 2: lovely wife, who I've been together with for nearly thirteen
Speaker 2: years now, she won't kiss this face if it's been
Speaker 2: anywhere near tobacco or cannabis. I had to learn that
Speaker 2: one the hard way. By the way great way to,
Speaker 2: you know, encourage somebody to stop smoking is well, you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to brush your teeth and use mouthwash after
Speaker 2: every use, or you're not kissing me. But the only
Speaker 2: time I was really, really really into cigarettes was a
Speaker 2: very specific time in my life, and I was going
Speaker 2: to music festivals and raves, because when you're dancing around
Speaker 2: on molly, there's nothing like the feeling of a camel crush,
Speaker 2: which I don't even think they make those anymore. You
Speaker 2: remember camel crush, That's where it was a regular camel cigarette,
Speaker 2: but you could crush this little pellet with your fingers
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden it turned into a
Speaker 2: menthol cigarette. I can't explain it, and UH probably lost
Speaker 2: a few brain cells to the activity, but there is
Speaker 2: some real euphoria going when it comes to menthol, and
Speaker 2: it comes to ecstasy at kids at music festivals, this
Speaker 2: is what the kids are doing. I had about a
Speaker 2: six month tenure where I was really into this stupid stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't do it anymore. You know. It was another one.
Speaker 2: This is a strange one. Vix vapo Inhaler's. What you
Speaker 2: do is is you put it in your mouth and
Speaker 2: you blow it so like the vapors like put them
Speaker 2: into your hands and have them kind of scooped so
Speaker 2: they hit your eyes. I don't know why that's really
Speaker 2: good for the e kids as well, But I'm not
Speaker 2: here to tell you about all the stupid things kids
Speaker 2: do on ecstasy. Don't even get me started on light shows.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is that I've never really been a
Speaker 2: cigarette smoker, but for about ten years I was a
Speaker 2: heavy pot smoker, and I was never really into edibles
Speaker 2: because I felt like with edibles you could not control.
Speaker 2: I think it's different now and they're a lot more regulated,
Speaker 2: But back in my day, when you get the space
Speaker 2: cakes at the medical pot store to deal with your
Speaker 2: glaucoma or I think I told them I had insomnia,
Speaker 2: you never really knew how strong any of this stuff was,
Speaker 2: and then you could be way too high for way
Speaker 2: too long and not for me, I felt like I
Speaker 2: could control the buzz a lot more with the smoking,
Speaker 2: because the feeling dissipates unless you keep reapplying it every
Speaker 2: twenty minutes throughout a twenty four hour period. And the
Speaker 2: fact is, when you smoke daily cannabis, you smoke a lot.
Speaker 2: You smoke out of pipes, you smoke out of bongs,
Speaker 2: your friends convince you to do nail hits. And even
Speaker 2: though you have deluded yourself into believing that the CBD
Speaker 2: and the THHC is very good for you, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure there again, I'm not knocking the medicinal benefits of cannabis,
Speaker 2: but the act of smoking, whether it is pot, whether
Speaker 2: it's tobacco, what have you, will never be good for you.
Speaker 2: I should know because many times, and I know I
Speaker 2: bring this up just to educate because it is kind
Speaker 2: of gross, But there were many times in the throes
Speaker 2: of my pot years where I started coughing up blood
Speaker 2: because my throat and my lungs were so irritated from
Speaker 2: all the smoking. My nickname was the Valley Village cough.
Speaker 2: So I am well aware that it's not great for you.
Speaker 2: Maybe you know the drinks and the edibles are the
Speaker 2: way to go, or you know, now they've got the salves,
Speaker 2: or there's all different kinds of ways to consume that stuff.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, the smoking is not great, and the smoking
Speaker 2: of tobacco is never going to be good for you.
Speaker 2: You know, if that's what you need to do and
Speaker 2: that's your relaxation, you do you It does smell really
Speaker 2: bad though, that all being said, this ordinance in Sacramento
Speaker 2: that allowed more smoke shops because okay, they're gonna sell
Speaker 2: health food, that made no sense to begin with. And
Speaker 2: of course it's another one of these ordinances where it's
Speaker 2: who's actually enforcing it. So when they finally did a study,
Speaker 2: they found, oh, nobody's actually following this, and now we
Speaker 2: allowed a lot more of these things. And I hate
Speaker 2: to stereotype, but you know, it's one thing if you're
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, a convenience store, a mini mart,
Speaker 2: what have you. But when it comes specifically to the
Speaker 2: very California smoke shop, I'm not a fan of these things.
Speaker 2: You see them in almost every strip mall, which already
Speaker 2: is confusing because not that many people consume tobacco, you know,
Speaker 2: it's on a major low, So how are there so
Speaker 2: many of these places. Well, it's because smoke shops sell
Speaker 2: way more than just tobacco and tobacco accessories, which, by
Speaker 2: the way, for all the pipes and the bongs. Who
Speaker 2: actually uses a pipe for tobacco unless it's an old
Speaker 2: school corn cob pipe. But these smoke shops, and I
Speaker 2: have one. I like to point out the dinky little
Speaker 2: strip mall next to a seven to eleven in my
Speaker 2: neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. One place is a
Speaker 2: vacant see a vacant office that was a bake shop
Speaker 2: that went out of business. One place is an illicit
Speaker 2: massage parlor, you know, because it's open late at night
Speaker 2: and it's got black bars on the windows. And one
Speaker 2: is a smoke shop. And the smoke shops sell all
Speaker 2: sorts of weird things, you know. We just did a
Speaker 2: story on the Accountability Podcast a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: about one of the things that you can buy at
Speaker 2: smoke shops is nitrous oxide, so you can do whippets
Speaker 2: because for some reason it's legal to buy that for
Speaker 2: any reason, whether you're you know, trying to make lily
Speaker 2: koy foam to make your very own monkey pod. My
Speaker 2: top one of the greatest cocktails in the world. Go
Speaker 2: to Maui. You'll love it. It'll make you very happy.
Speaker 2: So you have that, or you could be just inhaling
Speaker 2: it from balloons because you want to do whippets. And
Speaker 2: that's one of the things you can buy at smoke shops.
Speaker 2: What else can you buy at smoke shops? Have you
Speaker 2: ever heard of kretum? Okay, I'm not the expert on this,
Speaker 2: but I highly recommend checking out a deep dive video
Speaker 2: that John Oliver did on gas station drugs, which are
Speaker 2: also things you can buy at smoke shops, including kratum,
Speaker 2: which is something that people use as a pain reliever
Speaker 2: because it is similar to opiates, and it also can
Speaker 2: be nearly as addictive as opiates for some reason, even
Speaker 2: though people have actually died from this stuff for some reason,
Speaker 2: that's legal and you can buy it. You guessed it
Speaker 2: at a smoke shop and another one, and I mentioned
Speaker 2: it before. What's the actual medicinal purpose of salvia? I
Speaker 2: remember on a podcast many years ago, We're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to try this salvia thing, see what this
Speaker 2: all is about? And all I remember is feeling for
Speaker 2: two minutes like my head was in a vice gript.
Speaker 2: It was disgusting. I did not understand that. But that's
Speaker 2: another substance that's legal. Remember all the synthetic pot that
Speaker 2: was able to be bought legally at these smoke shops
Speaker 2: before pot was recreational K two spice, All of these
Speaker 2: bizarre things things that come out, all of these supplements
Speaker 2: that are not regulated whatsoever. Let's not even get to
Speaker 2: all the stuff that's supposed to affect your junk that
Speaker 2: you can buy. All of this stuff is barely regulated
Speaker 2: because it comes out faster than the regulators can pay
Speaker 2: attention to it. And the place where you buy all
Speaker 2: of this, of course, is a smoke shop. The smoke
Speaker 2: shops also sell a lot of things they're not supposed to,
Speaker 2: including cannabis when they're not a licensed cannabis stores. But
Speaker 2: as we know, the enforcement for that is so pathetic
Speaker 2: in the city of La that the City of La
Speaker 2: just passed a ballot measure where they can now send
Speaker 2: a tax bill to an illegally operating pot store and
Speaker 2: they think they're actually going to get the money for it.
Speaker 2: So I'm not a fan of these places at all,
Speaker 2: and it is so ridiculous that we allowed so many
Speaker 2: of them to be built and operated in Sacramento under
Speaker 2: the guise of, well, if they just sell bananas with
Speaker 2: the cigarettes, everything's going to be a okay. It's the
Speaker 2: News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk radio seven ninety KABC.
Speaker 2: It's the News Plans with Randy Wag Talk Radio seven
Speaker 2: ninety KABC. All right, here's one while we're on the
Speaker 2: health food kick. I'm sure you've seen a lot of
Speaker 2: products that are advertised these days that are made with
Speaker 2: avocado oil. In fact, last week I consumed not in
Speaker 2: one sitting, it was like five or six sittings, but
Speaker 2: an entire bag of those new Trader Joe's Sea salt
Speaker 2: and vinegar potato chips made with avocado oil, and they
Speaker 2: are delicious. I actually need to find out from do
Speaker 2: you know who Samantha the Smalia is? So this girl
Speaker 2: on Instagram, Samantha the Somalia. She does food and wine pairing,
Speaker 2: specifically with stuff you get at Trader Joe's. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: you know, like one of them can be the buffalo
Speaker 2: chicken dip and what kind of you're going to pair
Speaker 2: with that, and what kind of chip you're going to
Speaker 2: have with it, I get to find out what pairing
Speaker 2: she has. I think it's a reasling, and then it's
Speaker 2: usually one of the other Trader Joe's dips. With those
Speaker 2: sea salt and vinegar chips, they are excellent. Well, Trader
Speaker 2: Joe says they're made with avocado, and I trust Trader Joe's.
Speaker 2: I always do. But it turns out, thanks to a
Speaker 2: UC Davis study, a lot of products that are advertised
Speaker 2: is made with avocado oil, which is known as one
Speaker 2: of the healthier oils. Turns out it's not and it's
Speaker 2: seed oil. And if you're trying to avoid seed oils
Speaker 2: like canola or grape seed, what have you, well you
Speaker 2: may be being misled. So I don't know what other
Speaker 2: further regulation we have to have on this. Interesting though,
Speaker 2: the same study found while a lot of products advertised
Speaker 2: is made with avocado oil weren't made with avocado oil,
Speaker 2: almost every product that's advertised that's made with olive oil
Speaker 2: was olive oil. Soh I like that. Trader Joe's does
Speaker 2: have some very good olive oil potato chips, so maybe
Speaker 2: that's the way to go. Hey, if you ever miss
Speaker 2: an episode of this show, we put everything up not
Speaker 2: only on audio but also on video. I tape this
Speaker 2: every single day now because I'm paying for the software,
Speaker 2: so I might as well do it. And you can
Speaker 2: check out the News Blitz on YouTube. I usually post
Speaker 2: it around, you know, sometime in the evening, but check
Speaker 2: it out. Go to YouTube dot com, slash at Randy
Speaker 2: Wang Radio and that is also where you can check
Speaker 2: out the John Phillips Show. Every single day live from
Speaker 2: noon to three. We get a lot more coming up.
Speaker 2: It's the News Blitz with Brandy Wang on KABC. It's
Speaker 2: the News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. I compile
Speaker 2: a list every single day of all the stories that
Speaker 2: I found interesting in the state of CA California. So
Speaker 2: check it out for yourself. It's free to subscribe. All
Speaker 2: that means is you put in your email address and
Speaker 2: when I post it. And because I'm in Toronto this week,
Speaker 2: I've been getting them up pretty early, like at seven
Speaker 2: am California time. Because I'm three hours later. I'm getting
Speaker 2: so much done. It's great. Randywangradio dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2: There was a town hall in West Hollywood where industry
Speaker 2: officials tried to discuss new steps, new efforts to stop
Speaker 2: runaway production in the state of California, specifically in southern
Speaker 2: California and Los Angeles. And unfortunately, a lot of these
Speaker 2: efforts are just way too little, way too late. The
Speaker 2: state of California took so long to even try to
Speaker 2: be competitive with tax credits when you're talking about other
Speaker 2: states like Atlanta, when you're talking about other states like
Speaker 2: now New Jersey, what have you mean? So many states
Speaker 2: have a film program. Now New Mexico has a thriving
Speaker 2: film program. You know that if you've ever seen Breaking Bad,
Speaker 2: or there's even that show Dark Wins that shoots in
Speaker 2: Santa Fe. So there's all kinds of production happening all
Speaker 2: over the place. And California was not competitive with the taxes.
Speaker 2: And sure they'd say, well, yeah, Atlanta operates as a
Speaker 2: loss leader, and yes, that's true. They give out so
Speaker 2: much in tax incentives, but they still make it back
Speaker 2: because of all of the other down the line effects
Speaker 2: from these productions, the job creation, the people that have
Speaker 2: to support the jobs, the caterers, what have you, the
Speaker 2: truck there's so many jobs that go into it's a
Speaker 2: wild thing to think about, and it is one of
Speaker 2: the changing aspects of the economy of the entertainment business
Speaker 2: is how many people are required to do a television production,
Speaker 2: a movie production, even a commercial production. It is a
Speaker 2: lot of people, and budgets are only getting smaller and
Speaker 2: so a lot of productions have to do more with less,
Speaker 2: and that is why the tax credits are a big
Speaker 2: part of this. And California recently shot themselves in the
Speaker 2: foot by passing a new part of the budget where
Speaker 2: the tax incentives they do have, which have brought some
Speaker 2: productions back to the state of California notably. And it
Speaker 2: was a weird one where Apple TV, who I think
Speaker 2: makes some of the best streaming shows that nobody watches,
Speaker 2: they announced that the Vince Vaughn show Bad Monkey was
Speaker 2: going to film their season two in LA which I
Speaker 2: found to be really strange because the show is takes
Speaker 2: place and for the most part I was under the
Speaker 2: impression was shot in the Florida Keys, so I don't
Speaker 2: know why they wouldn't keep it there, but we'll see.
Speaker 2: I do really like that show. So we have seen
Speaker 2: some productions move back. Some productions have been very successful.
Speaker 2: The Pit shoots in Los Angeles. I think it shoots
Speaker 2: at WB and Burbank but we passed a part of
Speaker 2: the budget that said now companies cannot claim more than
Speaker 2: five million dollars in a year, which means any big productions,
Speaker 2: well they're not going to be making enough. But that's
Speaker 2: only one part of it. You also have the localism
Speaker 2: is determinative part of it. To sound like Gavin Newsom
Speaker 2: when it comes to the production permits, when it comes
Speaker 2: to all of the insane fees, when it comes to
Speaker 2: having to have city workers paid on your staff to
Speaker 2: monitor the production. The city of La is notoriously awful
Speaker 2: with this. And Karen Bass, who offers incremental change and
Speaker 2: no real progress, is late to the party on this
Speaker 2: as well. Remember when she held a press conference talking
Speaker 2: about a game change to bring back production and that
Speaker 2: we were going to reduce the permit fees to shoot
Speaker 2: at the Griffith Griffith Observatory by thirty percent. That's not
Speaker 2: big enough thinking. And again it is one of the
Speaker 2: things as I'm looking at this La Mayor's race where
Speaker 2: we are faced with two bad decisions. Can it really
Speaker 2: get any worse with Nythia? I don't know. The one
Speaker 2: thing I will say is Karen Bass comes from a
Speaker 2: generation and especially being in Congress, where she's not really
Speaker 2: used to getting anything done, thinks that the tiniest little
Speaker 2: improvement is a big award, and La has bigger problems
Speaker 2: and I don't think she's prepared for it. Nythia might
Speaker 2: also be a disaster, But after four years of Karen Bass,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can really check that box
Speaker 2: once again. And I'm saying that as a huge critic
Speaker 2: of Nythia Ramin, but I think at this point having
Speaker 2: somebody who in their forties and is open to thinking
Speaker 2: differently might be more helpful because when it comes to policy,
Speaker 2: they're the exact same person. So you've got the tax structure,
Speaker 2: you've got the permitting. But then there's another aspect of
Speaker 2: this that doesn't get talked about enough, and it's actually
Speaker 2: why so much production is now leaving Atlanta and leaving
Speaker 2: some of these more tax friendly states for the UK,
Speaker 2: for Canada. I'm in Toronto right now. You know all
Speaker 2: those Hallmark movies where someone's having Christmas in New York
Speaker 2: because they met a prince, what have you. Those are
Speaker 2: all shot in Toronto. A lot of things are shot
Speaker 2: in Toronto because well, Toronto from a close up shot
Speaker 2: can look a heck of a lot like New York City,
Speaker 2: and it's not just a more attractive tax and permitting
Speaker 2: structure here. And this is the difficult part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: And I say this as a union guy that is
Speaker 2: a dues paying member of SAG after and the unions
Speaker 2: are usually the ones who are at the press conference
Speaker 2: with Karen Bass saying this is it, this is the
Speaker 2: game changer, This will bring production back, when it may
Speaker 2: be the unions themselves that are a hinderance to production
Speaker 2: coming back, because if your budget went from three hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars an episode to two hundred thousand dollars an episode,
Speaker 2: but the minimum pay, minimum healthcare payouts, what have you
Speaker 2: for the union jobs makes it so you cannot properly
Speaker 2: staff a production. The only way to go non union
Speaker 2: is to flee the country. And that's what's going on
Speaker 2: right now where Marvel Studios left Atlanta and now they
Speaker 2: have created their own giant production studio in the UK,
Speaker 2: and the unions are just getting in their own way
Speaker 2: with this one. You know, anecdotally, I think we've all
Speaker 2: heard stories from you know, dues paying members of Iozzi
Speaker 2: that would love to work, especially work in the town
Speaker 2: where they live. But because of the minimums, they can't
Speaker 2: do it. They would love to take a pay cut
Speaker 2: just to be able to work, but they can't. And look,
Speaker 2: you can definitely make the argument that the studios just
Speaker 2: are you know, a lot greedier than they used to be.
Speaker 2: Look at all the mega mergers what have you. But
Speaker 2: it's the dollars and cents of the entertainment business and
Speaker 2: with the salary minimums that the unions are putting out,
Speaker 2: there's just there isn't enough money at the end of
Speaker 2: the rainbow to make those happen. The entire business model
Speaker 2: has changed where now television productions are majority of them,
Speaker 2: they go to the streaming services and outside for a
Speaker 2: few that go super viral, you're not really sure what
Speaker 2: added value they bring. You know, they're not really bringing
Speaker 2: in advertising revenue the way that television shows and the
Speaker 2: system was rated. And the entire entertainment industry is losing
Speaker 2: so much market share to YouTube and podcasts. Forget the
Speaker 2: Netflix aspect of it, because Netflix is also a part
Speaker 2: of this game. But the biggest streamer is not Netflix,
Speaker 2: It's YouTube and a lot of it is user generated content.
Speaker 2: Most of it is user generated content. A lot of
Speaker 2: people are watching podcasts. This is a podcast right now,
Speaker 2: and podcasts can give you a lot of the entertainment
Speaker 2: value of a television show, except it has no staff,
Speaker 2: no crew. I put on what I like to think,
Speaker 2: Humble Brag is a fairly sophisticated looking cable news style
Speaker 2: video podcast that streams every single day on the John
Speaker 2: Phillips Show. We are able to bring in guests on video.
Speaker 2: We're able to play clips from the local news. I've
Speaker 2: even got lower thirds on the screen. I mean, what
Speaker 2: am I doing that the other networks are not doing?
Speaker 2: And the difference between me and ms NOW and CNN
Speaker 2: and Fox and Bloomberg what have you is that I'm
Speaker 2: doing it all by myself. I'm doing it all with software.
Speaker 2: I'm controlling every aspect of it. I do all the research.
Speaker 2: Am I trying to say that I wear way too
Speaker 2: many hats because I also usually have to do this
Speaker 2: while also running the radio board and co hosting the show. Yes,
Speaker 2: but the point is what the cable companies and what
Speaker 2: the cable news channels have to spend millions and millions
Speaker 2: and millions of dollars on with staffing and salaries can
Speaker 2: now be done with software. The industry is changing, and
Speaker 2: the unions have to figure out some kind of balance
Speaker 2: to keep the productions here, some kind of leeway to
Speaker 2: work with everybody's because believe you me, it's not like
Speaker 2: it's free to move your production out of the country.
Speaker 2: There are other costs, including immigration, which is a whole
Speaker 2: time sink and money sink. And think about that. If
Speaker 2: it is so expensive and onerous to shoot in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles that it is cheaper to immigrate one hundred people
Speaker 2: to Canada or the UK, there has to be some
Speaker 2: kind of happy medium we can figure out, because I'm
Speaker 2: sure a lot of productions would like to stay in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles if this was a more habitable ground. But
Speaker 2: you're competing not just against other states, now, you're competing
Speaker 2: against the world. And when you go out of this country,
Speaker 2: the unions don't have any power there. And again I
Speaker 2: say this as a duce paying member of Sagafter. Sagafter
Speaker 2: helped me out a lot when I first got into
Speaker 2: the union because well I was so I don't know
Speaker 2: if people know this story, but when I was originally
Speaker 2: hired to do the sports reports on the morning show
Speaker 2: that was supposed to be a union position, but union
Speaker 2: positions have a minimum salary that the station could not
Speaker 2: afford because well, station was broke. So instead of making
Speaker 2: the scale, I was making less than that, and no
Speaker 2: one was gonna know because while we're on seven ninety
Speaker 2: at five o'clock in the morning. Then I got a
Speaker 2: Golden Mic award. And then at the Golden Mic Awards,
Speaker 2: my old boss, or one of my old bosses from KFI,
Speaker 2: Chris Little, who was the guy who runs the RTNA,
Speaker 2: he introduced me to a member of the union who said, wait,
Speaker 2: you're not in our union. What's that about. So they
Speaker 2: called the radio station said hey, why isn't this guy
Speaker 2: in the union. He's been talking and doing your sports reports.
Speaker 2: So they actually had to bump up my salary to
Speaker 2: scale and negotiate backpay. So that worked out pretty well.
Speaker 2: But I do see how sometimes the unions can be
Speaker 2: a little too rigid in their thinking, and if there
Speaker 2: are options to go elsewhere, the studios will go elsewhere.
Speaker 2: And the last thing we need is any more strikes.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty three was devastating to this injury and industry,
Speaker 2: and it changed people's viewing habits forever. More devastating than COVID.
Speaker 2: It's the Newsplitz with Randy Waang on Talk Radio seven
Speaker 2: ninety KABC. It's one of those stories that you seem
Speaker 2: to hear almost every single year that even though we've
Speaker 2: had a heck of a lot of rain, it's not
Speaker 2: enough and the Colorado River is getting dangerously low. The
Speaker 2: reservoirs that fill the Colorado River, like Lake Mead, are
Speaker 2: at very dangerously low levels, and the Colorado River is
Speaker 2: the major source of water for seven states. Now, this
Speaker 2: could be because we've had not so great snowpacks the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, but the idea of well we
Speaker 2: just need to stop consuming so much water, that's just
Speaker 2: not going to happen, especially with the proliferation of data centers. Hey,
Speaker 2: I said that on the first Tribe. This time, we're
Speaker 2: not going to see that, that's for sure. But what
Speaker 2: doesn't get talked about when we talk about water policy
Speaker 2: in the state of California is that the technology is
Speaker 2: here to make these problems go away. Specifically, I'm talking
Speaker 2: about high tech new age desalinization plants, and this isn't
Speaker 2: even something that's in theory. There is a high tech
Speaker 2: new age desalinization plant where the residual salt goes into
Speaker 2: the deepest parts of the ocean, where it has a
Speaker 2: much smaller effect on the ocean environment. We're not trying
Speaker 2: to create extra salty mackerel on the top layer. It
Speaker 2: has worked so well in Carlsbad in San Diego County
Speaker 2: that they are now actually a net exporter of water.
Speaker 2: They are able to produce so much clean, potable drinking
Speaker 2: water from this desalinization plant that is doing it in
Speaker 2: the most ecologically friendly way possible, that they actually are
Speaker 2: now selling water or they're working on building contracts to
Speaker 2: set water to Arizona, to Nevada, maybe to Utah as
Speaker 2: well these other states that depend on the Colorado River.
Speaker 2: And I love that idea, and I don't understand why
Speaker 2: we don't go further into this. I mean, we're not
Speaker 2: you know, we're not. We're not a landlow state. We
Speaker 2: have the entire Pacific Ocean. We can do something with this.
Speaker 2: That being said, we also should be making sure that
Speaker 2: we're keeping our ocean as clean as possible and our
Speaker 2: rivers as clean as possible too. And this is one
Speaker 2: of the things California loves to teut that we are
Speaker 2: the most environmentally conscious state, which, by the way, living
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles. Now, anytime I travel to any other
Speaker 2: major international city, and I'm in one right now, I'm
Speaker 2: in Toronto. The first thing you notice as being a
Speaker 2: Los Angeles resident is how clean everything is here. And
Speaker 2: apparently to Canadians, Toronto is dirtier than a lot of
Speaker 2: other Canadian cities. We'll see. I haven't been to Vancouver yet,
Speaker 2: but La is so filthy. And what do we know
Speaker 2: about Los Angeles. We know that whenever it rains in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, all of the trash, the illegally dumped debris,
Speaker 2: the toxic waste, human excrement, drugs that are in encampments
Speaker 2: all get washed out into the La River and then
Speaker 2: get washed out into the ocean. It's another thing where
Speaker 2: you know, I was not much of an ocean swimmer,
Speaker 2: even though I'm born and raised in southern California. I mean,
Speaker 2: come on, we're the home of the beach boys. But
Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean was always cold and dirty. Okay, if
Speaker 2: you go in July, it's not that cold, but it's
Speaker 2: always been dirty. And how many times a year do
Speaker 2: we get alerts that you can't go swimming in Santa
Speaker 2: Monica because there is too much bacteria in the water.
Speaker 2: Then you go to other parts of the world. I
Speaker 2: remember the first time I touched a different body of
Speaker 2: water than the Pacific Ocean, and it is when I
Speaker 2: was invited by my then girlfriend to go to Costa
Speaker 2: Rica Pua Vida and we were for the first time,
Speaker 2: I was able to see warm, clean, pure ocean water
Speaker 2: and it was gorgeous and it felt magical. And then
Speaker 2: a year later I got to go to Hawaii and gosh,
Speaker 2: I you take me to Maui, you take me to
Speaker 2: Napilei Bay, which, by the way, I love to watch
Speaker 2: that webcam all the time when I'm feeling extra jealous.
Speaker 2: The Napili Kai Resort has a great webcam of that,
Speaker 2: and that is such a great swimmers beach because the
Speaker 2: water can be deep enough. And then you come home
Speaker 2: and you have friends come from out of town and
Speaker 2: They're like, I'm going to go to the beach and
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, not me. I don't do that. That
Speaker 2: is not a me thing because I think, especially in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles County, our beaches are kind of gross. So
Speaker 2: maybe we could work on cleaning them up and then
Speaker 2: the ocean would be cleaner. That then we can use
Speaker 2: for more desalinization plans so we can replenish the Colorado River. Also,
Speaker 2: what happened to all those reservoirs we were supposed to
Speaker 2: build with a bond in twenty fourteen? Still having started
Speaker 2: construction on any of them? Have? We thank y'all so
Speaker 2: much for being a part of this show. Check us
Speaker 2: out on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash at Randy Wang Radio.
Speaker 2: That's where I have clips of this show and full segments,
Speaker 2: as well as the John Phillips Show live every single
Speaker 2: day from noon to three. If you have not watched
Speaker 2: it and you're not around to watch it live, everything
Speaker 2: up there is on demand. It is a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: YouTube dot com slash at Randy Wang Radio. I'll see
Speaker 2: you tomorrow for another Newsblaze with Randy Wang. I'm KABC