Speaker 1: Welcome to Nightcall, a production of My Heart Radio. Because
Speaker 1: of the sensitive nature of this topic and to protect
Speaker 1: our guests from further harassment, some of the names will
Speaker 1: be leaped out in the following segment about the housing crisis.
Speaker 1: It's three am in the bathroom of a bar in
Speaker 1: Amsterdam and you're listening to Nightcall. Welcome to Nightcall, a
Speaker 1: podcast for your strange days and lonely nights. My name
Speaker 1: is Emily Oshida. I'm here in Los Angeles, and with
Speaker 1: me are Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch. Hello. We've got
Speaker 1: a great show today, a hot show, a hot pod. Um.
Speaker 1: We've got two guests coming on later in the show,
Speaker 1: Jed Pariot and Theo Anderson from Street Watch l A
Speaker 1: to talk um a little bit about the homelessness crisis
Speaker 1: in l A and recent violence against unhoused people. UM,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned for that. It's a really good conversation.
Speaker 1: We were really glad to have them on. Uh. First
Speaker 1: things first, though, we got to talk about fashion. Blasting fashion,
Speaker 1: blast fashion, I mean, I even I mean, I do
Speaker 1: you should blast the fashion? We stand by, but this
Speaker 1: was an email that came to us after I guess
Speaker 1: it was sort of inspired by talking about my my
Speaker 1: face massage, which I have to say, like in the
Speaker 1: time since that, since I was into face massage, I
Speaker 1: did end up kind of bruising, right, So you went
Speaker 1: too far and not not visibly, but just enough where
Speaker 1: it was like sort of tender and uncomfortable. Also and
Speaker 1: you're like, my skull is right under my face and
Speaker 1: you can also make yourself like, um no, we we
Speaker 1: we've we we've established this, We've said every time we
Speaker 1: talk about it. I just like I want to leave
Speaker 1: my body. A skull is under a face, under a face,
Speaker 1: Like if you go in the crevices of your skull,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel good, but it also feels like you're
Speaker 1: not and sometimes you can flame it and you can
Speaker 1: also just get like break out because you love touching
Speaker 1: your face will make you break out. Anyway, Um I
Speaker 1: still enjoyed my time doing the face massage, but anyway, uh.
Speaker 1: In response to that, we got an email from Amanda
Speaker 1: who says, um, re your facial massage discussion, I guess Ray,
Speaker 1: it's Ray, it's Ray guarding guard. Well, it's Latin. Did
Speaker 1: you know that Ray is Latin? What? Okay, we can
Speaker 1: discuss this later mind blowing facts on short for re artgard.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's that's a common misconception. Find out.
Speaker 1: Let's never leave it to chance. It is anyway. Um.
Speaker 1: I perform a very effective, albeit terribly named method of
Speaker 1: myofascial release called fashion Lasting. It uses a tool parentheses
Speaker 1: blaster to essentially comb and remodel the connective tissue in
Speaker 1: your body. It increases blood flow, encourages lymphatic drainage, increases
Speaker 1: your ability to recover from muscle fatigue. It got popular
Speaker 1: because it also produces a reduction in cellulight appearance and
Speaker 1: improve skin tone. If you haven't looked into it yet,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. It's improved my quality of life,
Speaker 1: my posture, my skin and energy level. Thanks for reading.
Speaker 1: Not an ad. I just love this tool. Um. I
Speaker 1: think this might be an ad, but it's okay. You're cool, Amanda.
Speaker 1: Um So, Emily was right. I just looked it up.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I can't prove it's rain, but it says
Speaker 1: Latin in re Latin for in the matter of yep. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's Latin. Um So okay, Amanda. Hashtag it's Latin, hash jack,
Speaker 1: it's Latin um. Oh God, that reminds me of that
Speaker 1: horrible tweet about how they shouldn't speak uh languages other
Speaker 1: than English at the debate and then like SETTI floor
Speaker 1: baunam in the same tweet. Anyway, that's hopefully old news
Speaker 1: by now. I think I missed that one. I never
Speaker 1: look at Twitter, and you guys are just avoiding the
Speaker 1: really important stuff, which is talking about fashion. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so Amanda with the fashion blaster, Um, I just had
Speaker 1: to look this up. So I think you're being a
Speaker 1: little disingenuous, no offense. But the reason it became popular was, yes,
Speaker 1: it can you know, some people report a reduction in
Speaker 1: stelly light, but also the Kardashians endors It was a Kardashiana,
Speaker 1: it was Chloe Gwyneth, also in Dorset. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: seemed like a thing where they sent out a bunch
Speaker 1: of product to influencers and rich people to be like,
Speaker 1: check out this new thing, and then everybody promoted it.
Speaker 1: But if you look into the woman who invented it,
Speaker 1: Ashley Black. Ashley Black, not to be confused with the
Speaker 1: TV writer, Um, it is a scam. Seemingly well first
Speaker 1: thing I did because I had never really heard a
Speaker 1: flash of blasting before was I went to as always
Speaker 1: my resource for all things um possibly scams that have
Speaker 1: to do with the body and face real self dot com. Oh,
Speaker 1: I looked on Reddit, Um I look at real self.
Speaker 1: Look at skincare addiction on Reddit skincare addiction. Real self
Speaker 1: tends to be as much as it is sort of
Speaker 1: like a way for um plastic surgeons and um like
Speaker 1: dermatologists to advertise. It also tends to eventually kind of
Speaker 1: weed out some kind of truth about all these procedures,
Speaker 1: and like there's there's a percentage of like because people
Speaker 1: report their experiences and say whether or not they had
Speaker 1: a good experience or not. So it's a it's worth
Speaker 1: it right now. Um, that's a little on the low side.
Speaker 1: It's not on the it's on the damning end of things.
Speaker 1: UM like cool sculpting I think has a lower um
Speaker 1: worth it right is just like they gave a new
Speaker 1: name to liposuction, right, No, it's not come on Verez,
Speaker 1: but it's the same LPO section sucks the fat out
Speaker 1: actually work, Yeah, and it's like an actual way to
Speaker 1: treat like if you want to actually remove fat from
Speaker 1: your body. That's the only doesn't actually work. No, you
Speaker 1: like to out some like you lose some water way.
Speaker 1: I think there's also that one for your chin. Then
Speaker 1: I forget what um kibella kibella, and it's like the
Speaker 1: kind of that's it's supposedly freeze off your skin. No,
Speaker 1: they don't freeze off your skin. You want your skin.
Speaker 1: They freeze your fat that you suppose the we don't want.
Speaker 1: And then it's it is like expelled by your body
Speaker 1: anything like that where it's like and then your body
Speaker 1: will either reabsorb it, because I've seen that a lot
Speaker 1: about lip injections too. It does well, that's just tire
Speaker 1: high lauronic acid, but apparently that yellowronic. I guess how
Speaker 1: people respond to lip injections totally just depends on random
Speaker 1: stuff having to do with themselves. Well, and some people
Speaker 1: reabsorb it like immediately. Yeah, no, everybody metabolizes it differently. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to fashion blasting. The fashion blaster looks like um,
Speaker 1: like five baby octopus is a stick and apparently you
Speaker 1: have to use it hard. But I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It looks like a green thresher for your leg. I
Speaker 1: had a thing that was not this, but it was
Speaker 1: sort of like this that was just like such a
Speaker 1: pain to use. I never did that was supposed to
Speaker 1: reduce silly light or whatever. I don't. I think I
Speaker 1: got it for free and it was just but it
Speaker 1: was like the same kind of concept. It was these
Speaker 1: like it was hard plastic, but the nubs on it
Speaker 1: were soft so you could just kind of rush. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was saying, I know from personal experience, this does
Speaker 1: not work for me, because I did it once accidentally
Speaker 1: with like a back massager tool, where I just was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my hip feels tight. I'm just gonna like dig on
Speaker 1: this pressure point until it makes a bruise. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I realized that I probably what I really needed
Speaker 1: was probably the stretch. Stretching is good, like even starry
Speaker 1: brushing is good. Dry rushing, improved circulation doesn't like leave
Speaker 1: you bruise. The problem with fashion lasting is that it
Speaker 1: if you're doing it as in as directed, you get
Speaker 1: these huge bruises. And then I was talking with like
Speaker 1: a bunch of my friends who are real deep into
Speaker 1: the self care and a lot of them were doing
Speaker 1: fashion blasting, and they said that it made them after
Speaker 1: they started, it made them feel sick like they had
Speaker 1: like a virus, and then they thought it was the
Speaker 1: talks sins that were being stored somehow. I mean it
Speaker 1: just like I didn't actually like sweat that. I think
Speaker 1: you need to like go in a sauna then, and
Speaker 1: it's doing something like even with that, there's so little
Speaker 1: that we know about what's actually happening that it seems
Speaker 1: to me a little buck and made me to be like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to rub this thing all over my thighs,
Speaker 1: get bruises, and then I'm gonna like sweat out whatever
Speaker 1: was in there. And I believe in this stuff. I
Speaker 1: have to say, if you believe in it, it feels
Speaker 1: like you probably get a little of the effects. If
Speaker 1: you think it's working, it's gonna work. But I think
Speaker 1: the thing with stuff like this, where you're you know,
Speaker 1: actually possibly doing damage to like tendons and muscles and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, well, I mean, there was there was
Speaker 1: a period of time during our tenure at Grantland, uh,
Speaker 1: during a certain story that I was working on where
Speaker 1: I was working so hard on it that I ended
Speaker 1: up having to go to the hospital because I couldn't
Speaker 1: move the right side of my body. And apparently this
Speaker 1: was all just from an I had dislocated my right
Speaker 1: shoulder at one point. Um no, I mean it wasn't
Speaker 1: dislocated then, but I had done it years ago. But like,
Speaker 1: your muscles are never fully recover when you do that,
Speaker 1: and if you're not getting enough rest and enough sleep
Speaker 1: and just generally taking care of yourself, your muscles will
Speaker 1: start really complaining. And so I had that and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm gonna go do a really intense massage,
Speaker 1: and it was the worst idea. I came out like
Speaker 1: so in so much pain. So I think like there's
Speaker 1: this tendency to be like, oh, I have a like
Speaker 1: I have a problem. I'm gonna like hit it. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like the thing, the computer isn't working. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say also, maybe being hunched over computers for like
Speaker 1: a full decade probably wasn't good for anyone, even though
Speaker 1: we know it wasn't the skull horns or whatever. Just
Speaker 1: just talking about it, I'm just yeah, move your body.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these things are trying to
Speaker 1: provide a quick fix for something that seems like it
Speaker 1: probably is a process. Yeah. Um. I think also anything
Speaker 1: that says it's going to get rid of cellulate to
Speaker 1: me just always pings the scamometer. Cellulate is not something
Speaker 1: you need to feel bad about. Everybody has it. It's
Speaker 1: fun and also don't damage. But it's fine. But it's
Speaker 1: just Actually Demilovato just posted a photo with all her
Speaker 1: cellulate and she said it's cellulate trying to start do
Speaker 1: it really quick. BuzzFeed had an article or in seventeen
Speaker 1: um where they the title is women say a popular
Speaker 1: new device to get rid of cellulate left them injured
Speaker 1: and it's people talking about fashion blasting gone wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: So if you do decide to fashion blast, which we're
Speaker 1: not saying don't, but just like look into it first,
Speaker 1: make sure you're apprepared. And I want to say that
Speaker 1: I fully endorse foam rolling a thing that I don't
Speaker 1: understand how it works at all, and it also works
Speaker 1: in some mysterious way involving your fascia. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why I think. I thought phone rolling with something different
Speaker 1: than it is. I thought it's when you lie on
Speaker 1: the on the phone noodles and that's all it is.
Speaker 1: But it's like you give yourself a massage. It's like
Speaker 1: a deep tissue massage, but you give it to yourself
Speaker 1: you have to wiggle around. I didn't even makes you
Speaker 1: feel like a cat's the best. It's like masturbating your
Speaker 1: whole body is how that's such a good That's how
Speaker 1: Mary H. K. Choi by Mary H. K. Choys new
Speaker 1: book Permanent Record, That's how she described it. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's the best description of it. But it is just like,
Speaker 1: if you do it for long enough, it releases endorphins,
Speaker 1: and there's just something about rolling around on the floor
Speaker 1: that does feel really good. Um So, we're not against
Speaker 1: all pseudoscience. Just just don't hurt yourself. Stick. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: your octopus stick makes you feel good, like, by all means,
Speaker 1: keep keep doing it. Just be be safe, don't don't
Speaker 1: bruise yourself. Um So, we wanted to talk about the
Speaker 1: Internet dust up of the week. Um like not. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously there's a zillion Internet dust stops every day, but
Speaker 1: this is one that feels very specifically of a certain
Speaker 1: a certain echelon of Internet life that I feel like
Speaker 1: we all have a lot of favorite story of the year,
Speaker 1: my favorite story of the year, my favorite phenomenon. We're
Speaker 1: being sarcastic. She is not into it. We have to
Speaker 1: talk about nat and Caroline. Unfortunately at this point have
Speaker 1: been a couple of weeks. People will Nat Caroline just
Speaker 1: just on call it or Nat instead of Natalie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and care Net and care but we should just say
Speaker 1: they were referring to Caroline Callaway and Natalie Beach and
Speaker 1: their toxic friendship that exploded onto the cut, We're going
Speaker 1: to play a video clip and stay tuned while we
Speaker 1: watched them explode their friends. It does sound like there
Speaker 1: should be a go to, like clip real from a
Speaker 1: reality show or it's like you said that you would
Speaker 1: write this and that I don't know whether would picture
Speaker 1: the movie, which is why I think this was a
Speaker 1: smart movie. I can picture of the movie, and I
Speaker 1: am ready to take a nap. Look, I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: if you're going to be trapped in a toxic friendship
Speaker 1: for a decade, use it to me. Everything is poppy.
Speaker 1: I guess I can we do some background for people
Speaker 1: who might not because I actually like you feel about Caroline.
Speaker 1: You didn't know, Okay, So Tessy were like, the Caroline
Speaker 1: Callaway story is going to come out, and like, is
Speaker 1: she the lady who had all the jars? Like I can't,
Speaker 1: but I don't I wasn't following it. I'm so ash. Well,
Speaker 1: I okay, I hadn't been following it forever, but I
Speaker 1: had heard tell someone someone I follow on Instagram had
Speaker 1: mentioned her a couple of months ago, just in an
Speaker 1: off hand way, and I clicked and then I was
Speaker 1: like this, this doesn't interest me. But it's the thing
Speaker 1: that did interest me was that she had so many followers,
Speaker 1: but the content did not seem to warrant it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, it seems like people I know are
Speaker 1: following this woman. Why I can't understand. And then a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, someone was like, oh, I you
Speaker 1: know the there's going to be this big story on
Speaker 1: the cut Caroline Callaway. So of course I just went
Speaker 1: to Caroline Callowie's page and went back in time to
Speaker 1: basically the beginning of time. Did you find Natalie Well,
Speaker 1: I mean Natalie on the photographs? This is part of
Speaker 1: the Natalie's but Natalie was mentioned like obviously you know
Speaker 1: the story broke, But for a couple maybe like two
Speaker 1: weeks or something before that, Caroline had been alluding to
Speaker 1: Natalie talking have you ever had a friend a friendship
Speaker 1: that ended? Have you ever hurt someone in Amsterdam in
Speaker 1: a way that and I was like, what does she mean?
Speaker 1: And it totally worked on me. It built up this
Speaker 1: anticipation for something that I knew logically I didn't actually
Speaker 1: care about, but I was so desperate for something that
Speaker 1: was a low state, exciting thing. So Tess and I
Speaker 1: are the defense. We're defending the Natalie and Caroline saga.
Speaker 1: On the ground that it was like a breath of
Speaker 1: fresh air and a horrible climate where it's very hot
Speaker 1: and everything is going to die. It was like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember remember the two thousands when you could just have
Speaker 1: like a long read. I remember like long reads, remember
Speaker 1: like crown nuts, Crown Nuts, just like a petty drama,
Speaker 1: A lot of things like gladly or not our priorities anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: it reminded me of waiting for a season finale of
Speaker 1: a show before you had the ability to record it
Speaker 1: and watch it whenever or binge what you watched, because
Speaker 1: it was like, you have no choice but to wait.
Speaker 1: They made it a content event, a content event, but
Speaker 1: also you didn't know what's going to happen. You knew
Speaker 1: it was going to happen, but you didn't know it
Speaker 1: wasn't Maybe Natalie was going to back out and not
Speaker 1: publish it. You didn't care what was in it. You
Speaker 1: just wanted to see if it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: When it's exactly sure, guys, we can't lower stand here. Okay.
Speaker 1: You want to say also that I agree with Emily
Speaker 1: that the way that this type of content is like
Speaker 1: feminized only published on women's interest sites. I totally am
Speaker 1: against that. I've been rereading Peter Biskin's Easy Writer's Raging Bulls,
Speaker 1: and like every relationship between seventies directors is like a
Speaker 1: Caroline and Natalie relationship. They all are like frenemies, like jealous,
Speaker 1: but also like close but petty and always plotting about
Speaker 1: how to get back at people. Men do that too.
Speaker 1: It's not a female behavior in any way. Um. I
Speaker 1: thought Natalie was was like very self aware about what
Speaker 1: are you fucking kitty me? I thought she was writing
Speaker 1: the story with the perspective of somebody who was like,
Speaker 1: I did some dumb ship in my early twenties. I
Speaker 1: forgot so I forgot to explain what it was because
Speaker 1: I just got a lot story short. There's an Instagram
Speaker 1: influencer who became a scammer when she decided to have
Speaker 1: these like this work shop line. Caroline, Caroline Callaway. She
Speaker 1: is like an upper middle class person's ch okay, fine,
Speaker 1: she's rich. Her parents, we found out her parents or
Speaker 1: great grandparents developed Sara Sota, Florida. Somebody was like, why
Speaker 1: does she have a real leopard skin coat? And that
Speaker 1: was the answer. Yeah, So she she became she and
Speaker 1: and it turns out that like a lot of her
Speaker 1: popularity was fabricated. She bought followers and stuff. But she's
Speaker 1: like a rich person who ended up making a friend
Speaker 1: at n y U and it was this really toxic friendship.
Speaker 1: Mostly Caroline was just treating this this girl terribly, and
Speaker 1: she ended up having this girl whose name was Natalie
Speaker 1: Beach writing her Instagram captions, basically ghostwriting, and then Caroline
Speaker 1: for free. And then Caroline got a book deal with
Speaker 1: an advance, and she told Natalie that she would give
Speaker 1: Natalie thirty of this and then Caroline like couldn't, wouldn't
Speaker 1: flaked out on writing the book, screwing Natalie over and
Speaker 1: then the wind the book because that's all somewhat reass
Speaker 1: And I've also seen people arguing from Caroline's side, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this girl is like clearly having drug issues and like
Speaker 1: mental illness. Yes, how dare you like make it look
Speaker 1: like she just scammed you because she didn't get the
Speaker 1: money herself either. She just like didn't follow through and
Speaker 1: a bunch of this stuff that she did. You could argue,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're getting natalie side of the story because
Speaker 1: she published this in the cut. But for instance, say
Speaker 1: you're in a bar in Amstagram in Amsterdam, in Amstergram,
Speaker 1: which is the Instagram Amsterdam. Uh, You're there with a friend.
Speaker 1: The friend is like, I'm interested in the bartender. You
Speaker 1: can go home, and you do go home and you
Speaker 1: go to bed. Your friend is calling you. It's like
Speaker 1: maybe you're asleep. There's a lot of like detail in
Speaker 1: some of the things that Caroline supposedly did to Natalie
Speaker 1: that are immediately picking holes in the story. Picking holes,
Speaker 1: poking holes. Yeah, both of them fashion fashions. Holes in
Speaker 1: the story about whether Natalie really worked at a pencil store,
Speaker 1: she did. It was proven she worked at the pencil
Speaker 1: store on the indignity of the pencil community came out
Speaker 1: to pencil store owners were like, Natalie never worked here.
Speaker 1: It wasn't our pencil so we only pencil but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was it's the one in like Soho or that
Speaker 1: one Natalie. They were like, she didn't work here, and
Speaker 1: people were like, see she's lying, and then they were like, no,
Speaker 1: she worked at the one on York longhand I think
Speaker 1: it's called Wait. But when they said the pencil store,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, in Highland in Highland Park, but
Speaker 1: I thought she worked in I thought it was in
Speaker 1: New York. No, she moved here and got a job
Speaker 1: at the pencil store. It's hard to keep it. There's
Speaker 1: so many locations of her, all of her quick name
Speaker 1: checking of her supposedly so in like undignified jobs that
Speaker 1: she had to take while Caroline was off traveling the
Speaker 1: world made me so mad because she was like, I'll
Speaker 1: be an urban farmer, like a carpenter or something. It's
Speaker 1: like they're all totally like if you're if you want
Speaker 1: to be a writer, people have fucking odd jobs, get
Speaker 1: over yourself, Like I don't know, I just like they weren't.
Speaker 1: It's like not like you're slinging hamburgers for minimum wage
Speaker 1: at McDonald's, like you're working in an organic farm and
Speaker 1: go wanness like you're fine, it's just like a lot
Speaker 1: of ship talking about Goanes. I felt bad. I was like,
Speaker 1: that was a real job, that there's a job harvesting
Speaker 1: there for whole foods. It's the Whole Foods is very good.
Speaker 1: It's true. So no, but they paid they they just
Speaker 1: cut healthcare for like a billion people. But this was
Speaker 1: before before that, before the Amazon probably look, so I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just saying that. I'm just like she's
Speaker 1: trying to like paint this woe is Me picture and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you still like live in New York when
Speaker 1: you have like you know, like fine jobs, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, and you're trying to be a right, you're
Speaker 1: young and you're trying to be a writer like what
Speaker 1: Caroline was snobby and a dick, and May and Natalie
Speaker 1: feel bad because Caroline was like, I'm living this lavish lifestyle.
Speaker 1: But also Carolyn didn't have that life at all. That
Speaker 1: was the whole point was that she went to visit
Speaker 1: her and she was like, I've been imagining that everything
Speaker 1: this person posts on Instagram is true and it's all
Speaker 1: made up and they're just living in their dorm, ripping
Speaker 1: the carpet up up. My favorite details I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of people be like, Oh, anyone who's done adderall
Speaker 1: can tell you about They were like, you know, do
Speaker 1: an adderall? Sometimes you just clean the house, do Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we've all heard stories about how speed makes
Speaker 1: people clean the house. Um. Um made me also be like,
Speaker 1: was I the only blogger not taking adderall right? Probably
Speaker 1: the only time I ever took into my life was
Speaker 1: when I worked at a grocery store and it was
Speaker 1: like perfect for like stocking shelves. Just your brain doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So here's my issue with the story. I have a
Speaker 1: few issues with the story. Um. One, I think both
Speaker 1: main characters, including the narrator, are boring as paint. Um
Speaker 1: I think you mean unreliable. Um, They're not unreliable in
Speaker 1: an interesting way. Like I so like a lot of
Speaker 1: comparisons could be made with this story and with the
Speaker 1: n A alb story. Also, because that was another cut
Speaker 1: story that's probably is going to be turned into a
Speaker 1: show or maybe Shanna Ryans has it. Um, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a Netflix thing, I think. Um, anyway, somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: make a lot of money off of that at the cut.
Speaker 1: So um, good and good job everybody. Um, But that
Speaker 1: at least you had a person who was like a character.
Speaker 1: Like the thing about Caroline Callaway is that she's like
Speaker 1: fundamentally quite boring and I and I and like she
Speaker 1: had to pay for her followers because there was nothing
Speaker 1: really that interesting or compelling or even just like esthetically
Speaker 1: cool about what she was doing all like Natalie did
Speaker 1: all of her photographs apparently and their ship like she's
Speaker 1: bad at photographic graphing. I think that was the arc
Speaker 1: that I thought was interesting with that she thought she
Speaker 1: was helping build this brand and then halfway through she
Speaker 1: found out it was all bought, Like she hadn't built anything.
Speaker 1: She was just helping make content for somebody who was
Speaker 1: already like buying followers to one end, right, but see
Speaker 1: the other end of the story that I just don't.
Speaker 1: I just I'm frustrated with the amount of real estate
Speaker 1: that has taken among us and again like among a
Speaker 1: very certain segment of the Internet, like it might feel
Speaker 1: to us like everybody was talking about this story and
Speaker 1: was in past them, because because I think most people
Speaker 1: have already moved on, and they've definitely moved on. By
Speaker 1: the time this episode is coming out, there will be
Speaker 1: five new developments, but like they'll get back together. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, like when you have a story like
Speaker 1: this and if you're doing especially if it's like a
Speaker 1: personal essay or like and it happened to me, like
Speaker 1: at this elevated New York media level, Like the question
Speaker 1: that an editor will ask is like, what does this
Speaker 1: story say about? What? What is the story talking about?
Speaker 1: And what does it have to say about that thing?
Speaker 1: And I don't I truly don't find anything that this
Speaker 1: story when I think the story is saying to be
Speaker 1: interesting or untold. At this point, this is the most
Speaker 1: told story about being a millennial women, like living in
Speaker 1: the internet economy or the social media economy. It is
Speaker 1: so overdone, Like there have been so many movies and
Speaker 1: stories written by men about this because nobody, like everybody
Speaker 1: loves to tell a story about how women are fake
Speaker 1: and stupid on the internet and like how how being
Speaker 1: a an influencers like some kind of scams what I'm
Speaker 1: saying too, I don't think it's a scam either. Like
Speaker 1: when I saw what Caroline did, I was like, everybody
Speaker 1: does stuff like this the workshops and then not delivering
Speaker 1: the promised well that experience and so when that story
Speaker 1: happened and like that was just a new story. That
Speaker 1: was like the one woman fire festival. Like she's just
Speaker 1: that's sort of interesting, Like when that's when that's just
Speaker 1: a story, she's low stakes. Like the better story about
Speaker 1: a fraudulent convention was Tana Mongoes like ton of con were,
Speaker 1: which was a big influencer YouTube one way, Remember there
Speaker 1: was a disaster um and uh butt con. Did you
Speaker 1: guys read about coon haird down read about butt Con
Speaker 1: on Jezebel. That's my favorite scammer story. It's about her.
Speaker 1: I think her name is Mickey Agriball, who founded thanks
Speaker 1: the period company that it turned out she was like
Speaker 1: harassing all her female employees, so she started a new
Speaker 1: company that's called like butt Con and thinks because thanks
Speaker 1: the product, Well she went somebody went to the convention
Speaker 1: and they were like the woman who was like the
Speaker 1: shamed influencer. She was like wearing just like a giant
Speaker 1: like butt around her head like all night and there
Speaker 1: was like a butt kissing booth. Just the whole thing
Speaker 1: seemed like her plan to like bring it back that
Speaker 1: that woman's side Hustle is the worst pizza place I
Speaker 1: have ever been to. What is it in my entire life? Wild?
Speaker 1: It's in Park Slope. It's a gluten free pizza place.
Speaker 1: Is the crust made of path? It might be very no,
Speaker 1: but it's not because it's really dry and doesn't Actually
Speaker 1: I don't think it would be that insorbit because it's
Speaker 1: like a cracker sauce. Is that weird blue liquid? But
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, it is like an oblong pizza.
Speaker 1: Isn't it weird that period? It is really weird? No,
Speaker 1: that's that's like I feel like that's something we talked
Speaker 1: about when I was like doing ads studies as like
Speaker 1: a middle school gifted class program, Like we had to
Speaker 1: like watch ads and analyze them because everybody was really
Speaker 1: into like subliminal messaging and like average anyway, um from
Speaker 1: the message was women's mouthwash. I would staying, um cloud
Speaker 1: juice anyway juice, I just women secret vape juice. That's
Speaker 1: why it's illegal. It'll damn it. It'll give you popcorn
Speaker 1: popcorn for Oh. Speaking of which, check out our September
Speaker 1: book club pick Oh Yeah, Smash. We're going to have
Speaker 1: a book club podcast up soon for our Patreon subscribers,
Speaker 1: And if you go to patreon dot com slash Nightcall.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and get access to that episode and
Speaker 1: our past book Club episodes, so check it out. Also,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been scammed to four oh four six
Speaker 1: night we really want the scams. I'm really not sure
Speaker 1: how she feels about it, but come on, tell us
Speaker 1: one so good that we'll all come around and No,
Speaker 1: I like scams. I'm just like it's also like this
Speaker 1: thing that started with girls where it's like all female
Speaker 1: friendships are fake, which is like I understand the like
Speaker 1: impetus to do that or to like do a counter
Speaker 1: narrative against like some kind of friends forever, like um
Speaker 1: babysitters club type female friendship narrative, but it's like, at
Speaker 1: this point it feels very old and very done. Well,
Speaker 1: we were talking about that before the podcast. How none
Speaker 1: none of us really related to like having a Caroline
Speaker 1: or being in a layer vice versa. I relate to,
Speaker 1: I know what this friendship is, but this friendship is
Speaker 1: like overrepresented right now. Yeah, it's over represented. And also
Speaker 1: I think most people have like a glimpse of that,
Speaker 1: but it's very it's rare to stay in that really,
Speaker 1: just telling you John Millius and Paul Schrader had such
Speaker 1: a similar dynamic. John Millius is such a Caroline and
Speaker 1: Paul Strader such a Natalie. But Paul Strader is a
Speaker 1: better writer than Natalie. Paul Strader is the biggest scammer, actually,
Speaker 1: is what I learned from Love Paul Strader. I know,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, let's take on mail scammers the
Speaker 1: way that we take on fel um, and let's take
Speaker 1: on the big scammers instead of just the rinky ink
Speaker 1: ones I think speaking of. Yes, we are gonna switch
Speaker 1: over to our interview real quick with Jed and Theo
Speaker 1: UM about the homelessness crisis in l A, about some
Speaker 1: real scammers in l A who are just sucking up
Speaker 1: the city and UM in the name of business improvement
Speaker 1: and business development. So yeah, we'll be having them on
Speaker 1: after the break. And now we are joined by our
Speaker 1: guests today, Theo Henderson and Jed Parriott from street Watch
Speaker 1: l A. Welcome, Thank you for having us. Great to
Speaker 1: be here, UM, THEO and Jed, you guys are both
Speaker 1: involved a Street Watch l A, which is a group
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles that helps monitor the sweeps that the
Speaker 1: police do of homeless encampments. UM THEO you are unhoused
Speaker 1: and live in Los Angeles. We wanted to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about sort of the way that the city
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles has been presenting the homelessness crisis, UH
Speaker 1: and some of the invective people have been using. UH.
Speaker 1: There was a fire a couple of weeks ago in
Speaker 1: Eagle Rock, a big fire that turned out to be
Speaker 1: essentially like an act of terrorism, uh, towards a homeless encampment. UM.
Speaker 1: The people who set the fire, one of them was
Speaker 1: named Daniel Noguerra. It was a twenty five year old
Speaker 1: from Igle Rock, who it turned out his father was
Speaker 1: is the head of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce,
Speaker 1: Daniel Noguerra, who has also been in the news for
Speaker 1: sort of refusing these bus lanes to come into Eagle Rock.
Speaker 1: So we just wanted to talk about sort of the
Speaker 1: state l A is in. UM. Yeah, Jed, could you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about street watch l A. Yes.
Speaker 1: So Watch l A is really like a network of people. UM.
Speaker 1: You don't have to pay. It's not an official organization,
Speaker 1: but UM the work is a volunteer based and UM
Speaker 1: it's a collaboration between It started as a collaboration between
Speaker 1: members of d s A, l A Democratic Socialist America
Speaker 1: and l A CAN that a community action network who
Speaker 1: for decades have been fighting for human rights in skid Row,
Speaker 1: which is the homeless epicenter of the world really UM
Speaker 1: and the criminals Asian epicenter in that regard as well.
Speaker 1: I think skid Row's most police community per capita outside
Speaker 1: of Baghdad. That's that still stands. But yeah, for a while,
Speaker 1: that's true. And THEO you lived downtown UM in another area,
Speaker 1: I live in Chinatown, and as I personally have an
Speaker 1: experience of the increased harassment of the l aspd UM
Speaker 1: neighborhood prosecutor and the Business Improvement District executive director. Initially
Speaker 1: I had moved in Chinatown. I lived in Chinatown before
Speaker 1: the Great Recession, and due to life happening that I
Speaker 1: became an house due to illness and you know, the
Speaker 1: rising costs of medical things that I had to do
Speaker 1: to survive. I became an house. And I had usually
Speaker 1: stayed in the other areas like skid Row and Mo Tokyo,
Speaker 1: but it became much more dangerous, it became a little
Speaker 1: more aggressive with the police ease, and I wanted somewhere
Speaker 1: that people knew me, and I didn't. I had a
Speaker 1: sense of safety there. So their aim is to get
Speaker 1: me to make a mistake so they can make issues
Speaker 1: that they can justify be staying out of the park. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like what we're really seeing a sort of
Speaker 1: the criminalization of poverty and of being on housed and
Speaker 1: it's happening obviously at a structural level through things like
Speaker 1: the Business Improvement District. Well, that was one of these
Speaker 1: things that came out of this, this Glendale fire story,
Speaker 1: was that there's like these two guys who set this
Speaker 1: fire are actually part of this sort of um like
Speaker 1: a series of Facebook groups, like secret Facebook groups where
Speaker 1: people are kind of coordinating these ways to attack and
Speaker 1: harass and otherwise terrorize on house people in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And so this was like basically and and then there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of smaller examples of this, but
Speaker 1: this was kind of the this became a fire that
Speaker 1: you could see across I mean, this guy through an
Speaker 1: M eighty to a homeless encampment and he was his
Speaker 1: million dollar bail was paid because his father was a
Speaker 1: rich person. But it was also a pointant to note
Speaker 1: that they blamed the house for this encampment, that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of backdoor conversations between a lot of these
Speaker 1: characteristicity Turney's office business in proven districts, UM Chambers of commerce,
Speaker 1: council property owners. Yeah, and I think it's important to
Speaker 1: say that the reason we need things like Street Watch
Speaker 1: l A As a countermeasure to these kinds of vigilante groups.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is also dystopian and Nightmarage is very
Speaker 1: much like the Purge movies. But it does feel like
Speaker 1: it's like they're telling us they're doing their job, but
Speaker 1: they're obviously doing a lot of semi illegal to very
Speaker 1: illegal seeming things in order to make what they want
Speaker 1: happen happen. Um. It just feels very in keeping with
Speaker 1: like the general tenor of times right now that like
Speaker 1: what once was just like nimbism, which has like a
Speaker 1: very kind of it's subourbony sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: mannered but bigoted type of like flavor to it is
Speaker 1: now just actively like like actual vigilante groups and people
Speaker 1: doing actual people are so dumb they think that they
Speaker 1: could have saved I mean, I guess it's also Facebook's fault. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's all of these platforms fault for having a place
Speaker 1: where you can have secret hate groups. Well they're not
Speaker 1: secret either. I mean, I'm in a neighborhood, so I
Speaker 1: I run the night call Facebook and I'm on Facebook.
Speaker 1: I would have left Facebook, but I'm on it and
Speaker 1: I'm the only one. But I'm in neighborhood groups that
Speaker 1: are easy to join. There by no means do you
Speaker 1: have to even prove that you live in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And on a daily basis, this is a topic of
Speaker 1: conversation where people will weigh in with you know, really
Speaker 1: like as if they're trying to make a joke. There's
Speaker 1: no joke to be found about committing violent acts against
Speaker 1: homeless people, about making the streets inhospitable, about moving people away,
Speaker 1: but nobody says to where or how in a way
Speaker 1: that is so you can just feel the animosity there,
Speaker 1: and it's it's extremely scary, and I think it's so dehumanizing.
Speaker 1: And beyond that, I mean, there are now apps like
Speaker 1: Citizen and next door um that don't download Citizen Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's and and the frustrating thing is that
Speaker 1: you know, um Molly recently gave a comment at City council,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about that in a minute. But
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a parent, and I remember I downloaded this
Speaker 1: Citizen ap there was a shooting. You're my son's school,
Speaker 1: and all I knew was that there was a shooting.
Speaker 1: It was on the radio. And eventually I downloaded Citizen
Speaker 1: because I feel I'm very concerned about school shootings and
Speaker 1: I that was where the information was. But then in
Speaker 1: addition to that information, you have an onslaught of these,
Speaker 1: you know, and and so many of them turn out
Speaker 1: to be false alarms. But it creates this sense of paranoia,
Speaker 1: and I think in Ellie especially, the blame often falls
Speaker 1: totally wrongfully on the unhoused. Yeah, so if we could
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the Business Improvement District for
Speaker 1: a minute, because I think there's something there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that have these very instiduously sort of neutral
Speaker 1: sounding names. It's very chinatown Ish. Yes, yeah, um, not
Speaker 1: Chinatown the film, but um yeah, could you explain the
Speaker 1: business with the Business Improvement District? Does the Business Improvement
Speaker 1: District is the it's in lockstep with the l a
Speaker 1: p D. The l A p D cannot do overtly
Speaker 1: illegal things because of lawsuits and criminal charges being brought
Speaker 1: to them. So they have dispatched the business Improvement District
Speaker 1: employees to do their bidding and the respect for business
Speaker 1: owners and keeping property values up. And they would use
Speaker 1: code words of quality of life to use to unhoused
Speaker 1: segregation to unhoused members. Now they are a diversity of
Speaker 1: on house. There is an invisible on house like I
Speaker 1: was because I knew the virtual hall of people out
Speaker 1: there that think all on housed people are mentally addicted
Speaker 1: or mentally ill or in the grip of indiction kind
Speaker 1: of addiction or do some through through uh, some moral failing.
Speaker 1: When the in housed do call the police, they do nothing.
Speaker 1: They nudge each other and give each other high five.
Speaker 1: And I had a friend of mine get attacked by
Speaker 1: one of the employees because he was following his wife.
Speaker 1: And they did nothing. They just uh, he's still working there,
Speaker 1: They still go to his meetings. They park right outside
Speaker 1: of his business. I just want to add to you know,
Speaker 1: um on note of like on housed folks trying to
Speaker 1: get the police to protect them from from house people.
Speaker 1: For the past couple of years that I've been doing
Speaker 1: street watching at a park, Um We've had numerous accounts
Speaker 1: of UM property owners showing up with with a gun
Speaker 1: and threatening people to leave someone through a boulder from
Speaker 1: their pickup truck at a tent was in the tent.
Speaker 1: UM but literally, I mean that could have killed someone.
Speaker 1: Is another thing in Eagle Rock also a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago where some business owners put out lie on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk. That's right, that's right. We documented that, UM.
Speaker 1: And again it's like, that's the thing is, we do
Speaker 1: have to document these things in groups like stre you
Speaker 1: watch l I do have to be at these sweeps
Speaker 1: in order to make sure that they are conducted legally,
Speaker 1: because who often they are not? Yeah, and I would
Speaker 1: I would suggest you, I mean, UM, making sure that
Speaker 1: they're done legally. I mean a lot of these laws
Speaker 1: are bullshit, are laws that we want to abolish, UM
Speaker 1: that they used to do. Suppose what they call clean ups.
Speaker 1: They would take offense of the word sweep the city,
Speaker 1: but that's exactly what they are. They are UM complaint based.
Speaker 1: So a lot of them right, So like homeowners, propertyarmers
Speaker 1: will call in and say, I want you to deal
Speaker 1: with this encampment over here, get rid of it. UM.
Speaker 1: And even if that's a d a complainant. There's no
Speaker 1: trash at all. They'll still like everyone move their stuff,
Speaker 1: which is really hard for especially for disabled folks. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's brutal and being there to document it's not
Speaker 1: only to collect footage for potentially you know, legal purposes,
Speaker 1: but in the moment it's form of harm reduction. They
Speaker 1: see there being watched, they might treat someone a little
Speaker 1: better than they would if we weren't there and raising
Speaker 1: awareness on social media. Like you said, two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I had one of the employees that had came onto
Speaker 1: my Twitter actually has been stalking me for several months,
Speaker 1: and I don't I didn't know her by just basically
Speaker 1: doing she worked at Alpine Recreation Center. And this young
Speaker 1: lady has um taking several months along with some of
Speaker 1: the ritual of the gossip of some of the parents
Speaker 1: that do not like on the house, people in the park,
Speaker 1: and that I have a connection or relationship um tutoring
Speaker 1: kids or teaching their martial arts and things like that.
Speaker 1: So they got together and started to create some sinister accusations.
Speaker 1: She took it a step further and went looking for
Speaker 1: my public page, took some isolated pictures and then tried
Speaker 1: to insinuate that there was some horrific things that I've done.
Speaker 1: And from this point on, it's like, and she still employed. There,
Speaker 1: she's you know, there's nothing been done to her. She's
Speaker 1: they talked to her, but she's bold, she's you know again,
Speaker 1: And if I had the roles were reversed, I would
Speaker 1: have been arrested or or at least discipline or transferred. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think what is very insane about this too, is
Speaker 1: that we live in Los Angeles, which really likes to
Speaker 1: present itself as being sort of a sanctuary, progressive, progressive,
Speaker 1: and it is not clearly the people that empower are
Speaker 1: not haven't done anything to help the homeless this crisis,
Speaker 1: which has only gotten worse and more severe with all
Speaker 1: of their supposed solutions like doing you know these quote
Speaker 1: unquote cleanups. Um, it really seems to me like they
Speaker 1: want to make this kind of superficial clean up of
Speaker 1: the city, but they have no plan ever. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think this is especially the
Speaker 1: case in Los Angeles, but it's true in any big
Speaker 1: city that has any kind of you know, which is
Speaker 1: every big cities, every big city in America. But like
Speaker 1: it's you know, I think if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, this is like terrible, what does
Speaker 1: it have to do with me. It's like if you
Speaker 1: live in one of these neighborhood where people start to
Speaker 1: talk about like, oh, we have nice things now, like
Speaker 1: my neighborhood is nice now, like that's your business improvement district,
Speaker 1: and there there's like this is the way the sausage
Speaker 1: gets made. Like obviously it's nice to be able to
Speaker 1: have like new businesses and stuff in in a in
Speaker 1: a in a neighborhood that has been underserved by that,
Speaker 1: but like oftentimes that comes at the cost of people
Speaker 1: who are just trying to live and UM often they
Speaker 1: pushed I mean in Chinatown, we've seen this, especially with
Speaker 1: groups like UM. Chinatown Citizens for Equable Equitable Development is
Speaker 1: another really great group who's been working for housing rights
Speaker 1: in Chinatown because in their effort to gentrify Chinatown, they
Speaker 1: have been pushing out everybody that lives in low income
Speaker 1: housing or rent stabilized housing. The promise of you know,
Speaker 1: making the place nice and providing services and community for
Speaker 1: the who live there's always a false promise because it's
Speaker 1: always about bringing in new people, richer, wider people, and
Speaker 1: the city is getting sued by c C D l
Speaker 1: A because they built this giant new development called the
Speaker 1: College Station that was supposed to have just this bare
Speaker 1: minimum number of low income units and they failed to
Speaker 1: do that. Well. This is this is one of the
Speaker 1: hugely frustrating things, um. And I think a point of
Speaker 1: contention for even people who would agree on on most
Speaker 1: fundamental issues is that the developments that are being built
Speaker 1: promise a certain number of affordable units and almost never
Speaker 1: deliver on those units. UM. I live in like on
Speaker 1: the border of Hollywood and Louis Filas. I've seen it
Speaker 1: now with two big developments. They promised a certain amount
Speaker 1: of low income housing. They then ameliorate that. It's oh, well,
Speaker 1: if you wanted, we would have to build it too tall,
Speaker 1: and now we're going to build it a little bit
Speaker 1: smaller and the number of units is going down. And
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people would argue that
Speaker 1: a solution to this is to build more and that
Speaker 1: the market will adjust, and it's it's so impossible. There's
Speaker 1: a story this week about this thing pod Share, Oh
Speaker 1: my God, that everybody was furious about because it was
Speaker 1: essentially selling hostile bunk best. It was like, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and all these developments too, even the ones that have
Speaker 1: low income, they're all majority market rate, which drives everywhere,
Speaker 1: and low income, like what they consider low income is
Speaker 1: so much money. It needs to be free. Um. We
Speaker 1: also need supportive housing. And I think that this is
Speaker 1: something like that. I heard that the Section eight list
Speaker 1: is like years. I'm on it and I still as
Speaker 1: ten years, ten to fifteen year waiting list. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: good luck. And I mean I I have a friend
Speaker 1: who's in Section eight and she was in a violent
Speaker 1: situation and had to leave, and she was so afraid
Speaker 1: that she couldn't find another place, and it was dealing
Speaker 1: with the bureaucracy was absolutely impossible. You know, it's it
Speaker 1: gets people stuck in situations. THEO and Jed, could you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what things you feel
Speaker 1: like the current on house population needs just right now?
Speaker 1: I know I will spink for Chinatown and I've been
Speaker 1: saying this and it's been basically ignored. And if today
Speaker 1: if someone says, well, we're gonna get you off the street,
Speaker 1: what do you need? This is what I need. I
Speaker 1: don't need a shelter. I need affordable housing where I
Speaker 1: can be able to pay my rent with the benefits
Speaker 1: that I have, and I will need to have some
Speaker 1: supportive services in order if if something happens to me,
Speaker 1: if I get sick or things like that, that I
Speaker 1: don't end up like where I began and on the street.
Speaker 1: That's part of the reason why it was on the street,
Speaker 1: because I had the choice between um eating or high
Speaker 1: rent or war and getting I was scared to go
Speaker 1: to the doctor because God knows, if they was gonna
Speaker 1: tell me I need a new medication, how was I
Speaker 1: going to pay for it? Or you know, even though
Speaker 1: I'm now on medical but if I happen to were
Speaker 1: or get a part type job, those real concerns. And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have family to fall on because
Speaker 1: my older is I have. It's eighty years old and
Speaker 1: she's in declining health. So you know, then they have
Speaker 1: families and responsibilities of their own, and this is life happens.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean I'm a moral failure. Doesn't mean if
Speaker 1: I could work, I would have definitely worked, because who
Speaker 1: in the heck wants to to be out here and
Speaker 1: be harassed? But there's there's the working on house that
Speaker 1: lives in their car at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: so that that doesn't guarantee that I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be on the house if I work. Can we talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the criminalization aspect of that sitting
Speaker 1: in cars, um and other things that are covered under
Speaker 1: I would just say this issue is decades in the making.
Speaker 1: It's a result of the commodification of housing and healthcare
Speaker 1: and all these basic human needs and our capitalist white
Speaker 1: supremacists system. The way you address it, as we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, is a cover up, essentially, is to erase
Speaker 1: it with police, more capitalism exactly exactly, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's all proven to fail. Criminalizations proven to fail. Capitalism
Speaker 1: is proven to just create more poverty, uh and inequality
Speaker 1: and UM. And so in the short term, yes, the
Speaker 1: criminalization policies must end. I mean, this is what we're
Speaker 1: pushing for. As THEO talks about services that he needs,
Speaker 1: um before he gets housing and and when you do
Speaker 1: eventually get the housing, which is going to take a while,
Speaker 1: and so immediately another thing I've talked to you about
Speaker 1: getting a shower. Uh. Yeah, it's only one bathroom in
Speaker 1: Chinatown and it opens up late. So if you have
Speaker 1: to relieve yourself, which they always complaining on house are
Speaker 1: using the bathroom, you have to go almost two miles
Speaker 1: to the Starbucks and pray it's open to be able
Speaker 1: to use the bath And it's so scary as that.
Speaker 1: In the business I provement districts by the way, Um,
Speaker 1: what business business provement district is a when a group
Speaker 1: of commercial property owners come together and say we'll pay
Speaker 1: more taxes to the city to get more services and
Speaker 1: will and services to them is privacy security guards that
Speaker 1: go use their power. Um, it's gentrification. It is like,
Speaker 1: really they talk about tenants to talk about business tenants
Speaker 1: when they use the word tenant, which is so fed up,
Speaker 1: so they don't really they're not looking out for the
Speaker 1: people who live in the community of looking out for
Speaker 1: the people who are there to make money. Um. And
Speaker 1: they do not want any of these services that they
Speaker 1: do not want house people to to be present at
Speaker 1: all because it hurts their bottom line and they have
Speaker 1: so much control right now. Unfortunately, I saw a crazy
Speaker 1: sign Hollywood. They've also been doing a big sort of
Speaker 1: gentrification slash, you know, harassing everybody constantly to try and
Speaker 1: make it, you know, touristy. And they had a sign
Speaker 1: up in a store that said it was like put
Speaker 1: up by the business improvement in district and it said
Speaker 1: if you see any like unsavory people like, you know,
Speaker 1: please report them to the security guard. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you're just saying what you really mean. There was an
Speaker 1: extremely offensive sign in a restaurant and in town that
Speaker 1: I used to go to, where it basically explicitly said,
Speaker 1: if you're homeless, please don't come in, you know, even
Speaker 1: if you have money to spend, We're not interested in
Speaker 1: your business. And it was mind blowing. And because it
Speaker 1: assumes everyone agrees with that. Yeah, And one of the
Speaker 1: things people have been talking about in terms of which
Speaker 1: is a bill that would limit the unhoused in l
Speaker 1: a from sleeping anywhere near a school, anywhere near a
Speaker 1: public park, anywhere near a sports venue. It's kind of
Speaker 1: an absurdist bill because it's just like, it's a long
Speaker 1: winded way of saying basically anywhere, because where is where
Speaker 1: are you not close to a park or school or
Speaker 1: driveway or doorway? That's one of them lays are all
Speaker 1: the supposedly public spaces in Los Angeles, But it's clear
Speaker 1: that they're only public for some people. But here is
Speaker 1: the criminal part about it. The criminality of it is
Speaker 1: not the unhoused people. It's our elected officials, it's l
Speaker 1: A p d. Is in the city attorney. They are
Speaker 1: violating constitutional rights. I'm going to read that something that
Speaker 1: was said many years ago. We know through painful experience
Speaker 1: that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It
Speaker 1: must be maddened by the oppress. Dr King wrote that,
Speaker 1: he wrote that in the height of segregation and Jim Crow,
Speaker 1: and right now we are in a new manifestation of
Speaker 1: black holes Jim Crow in the same way, because they
Speaker 1: are criminalizing people of color that are unhoused, and they
Speaker 1: are making propaganda that states that all in housed people
Speaker 1: are violent, mentally ill, and drug addicted. And can you
Speaker 1: talk a little more about how it plays into racism
Speaker 1: because and sort of the statistics about the in housed community.
Speaker 1: I say that as white supremacies tenues all of us.
Speaker 1: Everybody is impacted by white supremacy, even the whites that
Speaker 1: are not are trying to prolificate it. It's the fact
Speaker 1: that you can send out a propaganda message that states
Speaker 1: that unhoused people that you see African American and on
Speaker 1: the news they're violent and such as such that they
Speaker 1: see them and they can call the police and put
Speaker 1: them in jail. The park that I'm at most of
Speaker 1: the days, which is my constitutional right, school is near
Speaker 1: cassel Er. They've created this such a horrific uh narrative
Speaker 1: that the school has tried to ban me from getting
Speaker 1: employment at the school because they are afraid the parents
Speaker 1: will unenrolled their child because they feel that I, because
Speaker 1: of my condition, I would be a danger to the children.
Speaker 1: Can I actually throw it to Tess here for a
Speaker 1: minute to talk about um, you have some good things
Speaker 1: to say about sort of the connection between schools. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I so Molly. I wrote a letter that
Speaker 1: Molly read um at the city council meeting about this bill.
Speaker 1: And I have two kids in school right now. They're
Speaker 1: in two different neighborhoods. Um. They are both neighborhoods with
Speaker 1: large unhoused communities, as I would say every single neighborhood
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles has. And I think the difficult thing
Speaker 1: is is that the people who send these you know,
Speaker 1: their kids to these schools. One of the schools is
Speaker 1: a public school. It's a free school, so it's very
Speaker 1: difficult because there will be a group of people who
Speaker 1: will speak as if everyone's on the same page. Our
Speaker 1: children should not see on housed people. Now you live
Speaker 1: in l A, you drive around and you are going
Speaker 1: to see people of every income level, people with disabilities.
Speaker 1: We are really telling our kids that being poor is
Speaker 1: a crime, and it is not. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: it should go without saying. But it's very frustrating. And
Speaker 1: you were saying also, it's like one in what was
Speaker 1: the statistic about the number of kids and they I will,
Speaker 1: without like outing anybody. I know for a fact that
Speaker 1: there are several children in my son's school who are
Speaker 1: not living, who are living on housed and their parents,
Speaker 1: um are sending them to a school they had a
Speaker 1: you know, choice of schools. They're involved parents, and it's
Speaker 1: not discussed because obviously, I mean, I think many people
Speaker 1: with good intentions wouldn't want to out these people, and
Speaker 1: many people would be put off by the school or
Speaker 1: treat the children differently. But I mean, it's really it's
Speaker 1: so frustrating because I feel like we have to talk
Speaker 1: to our kids, starting from a young age, about rejecting um,
Speaker 1: this sentiment that that being poor as a crime and
Speaker 1: that being on houses a crime. Because our kids are
Speaker 1: in classrooms with children who are unhoused, and the idea
Speaker 1: that we start teaching them this early to treat those
Speaker 1: kids differently, it's it's repulsive to me. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it makes me very like that it's very important to
Speaker 1: talk about and especially to bring something in like this,
Speaker 1: To try and bring this bill in at this time
Speaker 1: is so horrific and evil, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: people at the meeting we're referring to it as a
Speaker 1: new form of apartheid, and I absolutely agree. Uh, the
Speaker 1: on housed community is overwhelmingly made up of people of color,
Speaker 1: and in Los Angeles it is uh yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: would just say, um, so in l A nine percent
Speaker 1: of the population roughly is African American, but of the
Speaker 1: homeless population, just to give you an idea, anden by
Speaker 1: the way, um it's actually it's an old law Municipal
Speaker 1: Code D specifically used to say you can't sit, sleep,
Speaker 1: or lie on the sidewalk or does say that right now.
Speaker 1: Judges have over the years come out, federal judges and
Speaker 1: said that's unconstitutional. Um, unless there's a shelter bed or
Speaker 1: housing available, you can't punish someone for sleeping on the street. Um.
Speaker 1: And recently another judge said that it's a case Martin
Speaker 1: versus Boise, the City of Boise, Idaho. UM. And so
Speaker 1: the city attorney decided recently, well, you know we're gonna
Speaker 1: address that. So we're gonna mend for eighteen and we're
Speaker 1: gonna say yes, it's legal to sleep on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: We're just going to tell you where you can and can't.
Speaker 1: And that's where they think they're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: get away with it, or they've thought there. Now they're
Speaker 1: hearing all the all of us, the community coming out, um,
Speaker 1: and now we're starting to rethink this. But one of
Speaker 1: the big things they've added, aside from all the sidewalk
Speaker 1: restrictions is c which is basically a standard own law.
Speaker 1: It says that you can be criminalized for talking to
Speaker 1: someone in a way that makes them feel threatened. And
Speaker 1: it actually says in there that if someone commits a
Speaker 1: violence on you for making them feel threatened, it's your fault.
Speaker 1: And so it basically allows people to become vigilantes and
Speaker 1: it gives them the power to attack al most people
Speaker 1: and say that they're attacking them because they were afraid
Speaker 1: of their life. So it is actually enabling violence. And
Speaker 1: they've also been really ramping up this stuff on Fox News.
Speaker 1: I haven't been told that Trump is suddenly very interested
Speaker 1: in the homelessness crisis in California, and people were saying
Speaker 1: it's because there was a lot of violent anti homeless
Speaker 1: rhetoric on Fox News recently, sort of also encouraging people
Speaker 1: to kind of take up vigilante violence against the poor. Um,
Speaker 1: what do you guys think about Trump coming to l A.
Speaker 1: It's not positive. I can tell you that. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: differently this can started because why it? And then I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised because even though the Carcetti and the city
Speaker 1: mayor are not Republicans, um, they share his views because
Speaker 1: they are enacting weaponizing the police to do exactly what
Speaker 1: he's been saying. So I mean, and I would argue
Speaker 1: that that the city has already been enacting Trumpian policies
Speaker 1: against the homeless and they really want to be able
Speaker 1: to enforce which which they can they can do if
Speaker 1: they get enough shelter beds. So I actually am worried
Speaker 1: that Trump is going to say, well, hey, what if
Speaker 1: I put up enough shelters then you could legally maybe
Speaker 1: enforce the We all know how his buildings end up.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you so much for joining us today,
Speaker 1: THEO and Jet. This was really great and we'd love
Speaker 1: to help you guys back again some time. And thank you.
Speaker 1: Where can we find your guys work? And um and
Speaker 1: you know, support what you're doing online? Well, for me,
Speaker 1: I'm on Facebook and my Facebook name is the Theodore T. E.
Speaker 1: O D O R. E. Henderson and I have a
Speaker 1: support page, THEO Henderson's Support Committee, and I was looking
Speaker 1: for in my Facebook is not showing up to it.
Speaker 1: And I have for THEO Henderson PayPal if you want
Speaker 1: to reach in and help me out for some basic things.
Speaker 1: And you check out as street watch l a dot
Speaker 1: com if you're interested in network. And I don't say
Speaker 1: on a policy side, because a lot of people will
Speaker 1: say that, oh, you guys are just against criminalization. You
Speaker 1: just said, what what's the solution? I would recommend checking
Speaker 1: out services not sweeps dot com, because that's a policy
Speaker 1: that is a coalition of people that have come together
Speaker 1: and said here's what you should be doing, and here's
Speaker 1: what you shouldn't be doing right. Services not housekey's not handcuffs.
Speaker 1: It's another slogan, So yeah, services not sweeps dot com.
Speaker 1: Check that out. Cool. Thanks, thanks, thank you. That is
Speaker 1: it for Night Call this week. Thanks so much to
Speaker 1: Jet and THEO for coming by, and thank you all
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