Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season two eighty, Episode
Speaker 1: two of Dirty leyshy Guys Stay, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
Speaker 1: into America's share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, March twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Yesterday was the first day of spring.
Speaker 1: Forgot to mention that too yesterday, but yeah, happy first
Speaker 1: day of Spring to all of who celebrate. My name
Speaker 1: is Jack O'Brien aka. But did you know when La snows,
Speaker 1: my thighs become so white that the light that you
Speaker 1: shine can't be seen. That is courtesy of LOCARONI a
Speaker 1: little reference to la weather those happening a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks back, and my blindingly pale thighs that I like
Speaker 1: to talk about on this show. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: am thrilled to be joined by a very special guest
Speaker 1: co host who you know from the podcast This Day
Speaker 1: in Esoteric Political History from Utopia, Good Sport from Ted
Speaker 1: and Pushkin thirty thirty or thirty four thirty with ESPN,
Speaker 1: the five thirty eight politics podcast. Way that can first
Speaker 1: heard him. It's well, I talk about the stuff I
Speaker 1: did in college in high school, and I don't know. Man,
Speaker 1: that's where I heard you, That's where I fell in love.
Speaker 1: So I have to honor it. I have to honor
Speaker 1: my truth of the Jody Abragant experience. Thank you and
Speaker 1: happy first day of Spring that does not feel like
Speaker 1: spring and moth physically and mentally. He's turned a new leaf.
Speaker 1: And you know sen yeah, no, yeah, you're in New
Speaker 1: York so especially we're we're talking Stormy Daniels and you know,
Speaker 1: potential megapro today's lineup, by the way, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: a sure job to introduced it. Gosh. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll start heavy, and I was like, um, okay,
Speaker 1: and I look at the second topic, I'm like okay,
Speaker 1: and that was the third topic. Really it really lined
Speaker 1: it up here for folk. Were that's right, well, the
Speaker 1: news cycle lined it up for us. We are thrilled
Speaker 1: to be joined by the host and reporter behind the
Speaker 1: new podcast from KCYRW City of Tents Veterans Row, which
Speaker 1: I highly recommend everyone go listen to. She also created
Speaker 1: KCYRWS podcast Samaritans. The podcasting talent we have on the
Speaker 1: show today, folks, it's it's intimidating. Get ready, hold onto
Speaker 1: your butts. It's Anna Sky, thank you, thank you. I
Speaker 1: love that. It's like, uh my WWE. That's right. We
Speaker 1: try and bring a lot of WWE energy to the
Speaker 1: news cycle because there's not enough of it with our
Speaker 1: former WWE wrestler ex president, you know, it's we like
Speaker 1: to keep it live. How's everybody doing? How are you
Speaker 1: guys doing? How Spring treating you so far? Well? Does
Speaker 1: not feel like spring in Los Angeles? It is. It's
Speaker 1: a cloudy, it's wet, and like, I know, the the
Speaker 1: wet is good for our client there, we need the rain, etc.
Speaker 1: But I'm over it. I'm really over it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel you all right, well, and we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: know you a little bit better in a moment. First,
Speaker 1: we're gonna tell our listeners a couple of things we're
Speaker 1: talking about today. We are going to talk about city
Speaker 1: of Tense veterans Row and just the issue of homelessness
Speaker 1: in America that you do a lot of reporting on
Speaker 1: and just kind of get your thoughts and insights because
Speaker 1: you have a lot of really interesting things to say
Speaker 1: in the show and just across media. So we will
Speaker 1: talk about that. We will talk about Trump's announcing his
Speaker 1: arrests on today it's supposed to happen, and you know,
Speaker 1: he has called for protests those The response seems to
Speaker 1: be somewhat muted. But it feels a little strange to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, prognosticating how people are going to react.
Speaker 1: But that's what we're gonna do for a little bit today.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that. There's conspiracy theorist dating sites.
Speaker 1: See what I see what I was saying. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: might might skip down to the new rules for social etiquette,
Speaker 1: which is something that I like to throw too when
Speaker 1: things get a little too dreary. All of that plenty more,
Speaker 1: But first Anna, we do like to ask our guests,
Speaker 1: what is something from your search history that's revealing about
Speaker 1: who you are? Well? Yeah, so I looked. I looked
Speaker 1: on my phone, and the most recent one last night.
Speaker 1: I think this is telling enough. So I decided last
Speaker 1: night to rewatch the old Movies Sit in Nancy, Okay,
Speaker 1: old classic. Um, I hadn't seen it for a long time,
Speaker 1: and and then it I So I searched Alex Cox
Speaker 1: diad because it Watching the movie made me curious about
Speaker 1: the director and I'm kind of morbid. I don't know
Speaker 1: My first question was whether the director Alex Cox is
Speaker 1: still alive or at so, and you you had a guess.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you were like watching You're like the
Speaker 1: vision on Green here. This person can't be alive. I
Speaker 1: mean the movie came out of nineteen eighty six, so
Speaker 1: I just thought he's probably dead, but in fact he's not,
Speaker 1: and he's actually not really even that old. He's in
Speaker 1: his sixties. But the search did turn up a big
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. But I guess there is a Netflix true
Speaker 1: crime documentary that has someone in it named Alex Cox
Speaker 1: who is in fact dead and also maybe murdered someone.
Speaker 1: So that that led me down a whole rabbit hole
Speaker 1: and I may have to watch that documentary now. In
Speaker 1: addition to Sit and Nancy, Well, this story is bringing
Speaker 1: up a very interesting question for me, which is you
Speaker 1: referred to this as an old movie nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I wasn't aware of Sit and
Speaker 1: Nancy when it came out in nineteen eighty six, but
Speaker 1: I'm curious what the line is for referring to something
Speaker 1: as an old movie. Yeah, that's a good question. I
Speaker 1: mean thirty years, Yeah, that's thirty years. That's just right
Speaker 1: on the threshold about right right. But that was what
Speaker 1: I was thinking. It's like somewhere right in there. You're right,
Speaker 1: you may have pinned it like like it may be
Speaker 1: that nineteen eighty six is the year that you if
Speaker 1: this movie come out in nineteen eighty seven, would you
Speaker 1: have caught it in an old movie? Maybe not? Maybe not.
Speaker 1: I feel like eighty six is, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Something about the mid eighties seems like a good dividing line.
Speaker 1: So when my son was born in twenty sixteen, so
Speaker 1: that exactly thirty years after the Side Nancy came out,
Speaker 1: So it like the movie that was thirty years old
Speaker 1: when I was born, or Work came out in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: And there are things such as Destination Moon, a sci
Speaker 1: fi film where they're like, what if we made it
Speaker 1: to the moon and then you know it was made
Speaker 1: of cheese or what. I don't know what they what
Speaker 1: their thesis was at the time, but it's very old
Speaker 1: by comparison that those movies were extremely old. As far
Speaker 1: as I can tell. There are I like that you
Speaker 1: went to Destination Moon and not you know, Sunset Boulevard
Speaker 1: are all about eve. Oh yeah, that came out of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty. Those are timeless classics. Those are timeless classics.
Speaker 1: I was, I was trying to make a point that
Speaker 1: we're all very old, but time is slowing down or
Speaker 1: compressing in this weird way. I mean, it really is
Speaker 1: like culture cultural time is like skewing, for sure. For sure.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just gonna be asking you questions but actually
Speaker 1: googling the plot for Destination Moon in the background. But yeah,
Speaker 1: after their latest rocket fails. No, I won't read, just
Speaker 1: read you the IMDb summary of Destination Moon. But how
Speaker 1: did how did Sid Nancy hold up? Um? Well, I
Speaker 1: fell asleep after about twenty minutes because I ambled, So
Speaker 1: I have to Uh, I've got to finish it. But
Speaker 1: so far, so good. Um, it's uh, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't know why this movie came to mind as
Speaker 1: just something i'd like to rewatch, But it's I think
Speaker 1: it's a very it's a very good about being on drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, it's very appropriate that you nodded
Speaker 1: off during sitting names. Yes, yeah, yeah, I nodded off.
Speaker 1: Totally sober but right, but nonetheless still appropriate reaction. Very
Speaker 1: young Gary Oldman in this movie as Sibvicious, which is, uh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to see. Haven't seen a yet
Speaker 1: very young Gary oldman for a while. Also, Courtney Love
Speaker 1: has a small part in the movie, which I've forgotten
Speaker 1: it out. She is I don't know if she comes back,
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but she's she's in it early on.
Speaker 1: In one of the first scenes she's she has a
Speaker 1: brief crying scene because the movie opens with discovering the
Speaker 1: body of Nancy and you know, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if people know this movie it's about the
Speaker 1: sex pistol basically, yea, the Dune romance. Yes, Subvicious and
Speaker 1: Nancy Sponge and so it kind of starts at the
Speaker 1: end and then backtracks, and so Courtney Love is briefly
Speaker 1: in the beginning sobbing and saying something like she was
Speaker 1: a really nice person, kind of chewing the scenery in
Speaker 1: her fifteen second appearance. Yeah, not know. She was like
Speaker 1: an established movie actor when she came on the scene
Speaker 1: and like met Kurt Cobain and all that stuff. That's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so far, so good. What is what something you
Speaker 1: think is overrated? Bacon? Bacon, Bacon overrated overrated, overrated. I
Speaker 1: don't get it, never liked it, don't like it, don't
Speaker 1: understand the fuss. There have to be other people like
Speaker 1: me out there, there's there has to be. And when
Speaker 1: you say this, people immediately or like you've just never
Speaker 1: had good bacon? Right, yes, more they think I'm being
Speaker 1: contrarian on purpose, like I've chosen something that you know,
Speaker 1: just because it's so great and wonderful. But I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't get I don't understand. I don't like it.
Speaker 1: I don't think how did you how did you hold
Speaker 1: up during the bacon craze of the what was that
Speaker 1: like the mid two thousands or something, when there was
Speaker 1: just bacon flavored everything everywhere? I just I just tuned
Speaker 1: it out. I just, I mean, I there must be
Speaker 1: other people like me, right, uh yeah, yeah. I can
Speaker 1: imagine you're the only person on earth who has this
Speaker 1: opinion for me, someone who enjoys bacon a lot of
Speaker 1: the time like I enjoy. I don't enjoy all bacon.
Speaker 1: I don't think bacon is like unfuckupable. It's very hit
Speaker 1: or miss, but like when it's really done to my liking,
Speaker 1: I really enjoy it. But I prefer Super producer Becca
Speaker 1: came in the chat to say, sausage over bacon. I
Speaker 1: think that is generally true in terms of like sausage
Speaker 1: is pretty easy to prepare and replacement level sausage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: replacement level sausage versus bacon. All so I don't feel
Speaker 1: good like cleaning up bacon after the fact. I'm like, what,
Speaker 1: people who don't like bacon are correct, this is gross,
Speaker 1: Like this is this is not something that is meant
Speaker 1: to be consumed by humans. And all the breakfast foods
Speaker 1: to freak out over. I just feel like there's so
Speaker 1: many better ones. Take a pancake, waffle, scrambled eggs, I
Speaker 1: mean almost anything over bacon. There's so many wonderful breakfast foods.
Speaker 1: I just don't get it. Yeah, so you go sweet
Speaker 1: over savory generally at breakfast, I guess. So. I guess
Speaker 1: I am more of a sweet tooth person than a
Speaker 1: salty tooth person. So maybe that is a that is
Speaker 1: a factor here. Tale I like that though I'm a
Speaker 1: salty tooth for real salty tooth. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: like an old sailor or like an old sea captain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is maybe why I didn't take off the way
Speaker 1: Sweet Tooth did, Superducer Bay coming in saying Canadian bacon better,
Speaker 1: which is certainly an opinion I have never gotten on board,
Speaker 1: but I probably haven't had good enough Canadian bacon. And
Speaker 1: it's all it's definitely falls into that same category of like,
Speaker 1: it always seems like it's about the same. Would you
Speaker 1: call the movie Canadian Bacon an old movie? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is from nineteen ninety five. We think we have
Speaker 1: to move our line, so twenty eight years it's ordering
Speaker 1: on the old movie. Yeah, all right, all right, data point,
Speaker 1: it's aged. Yeah. What is something you think is underrated? Baths? Baths? No,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people like taking baths, but
Speaker 1: but I just think I don't think we talk about
Speaker 1: baths enough and how great they are. Probably my favorite
Speaker 1: kind of indulgent thing to do to take a bath
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day if I have time,
Speaker 1: I mean having a young child, and during the work
Speaker 1: week that's usually not possible. But if I find myself
Speaker 1: in a pocket of time during the day when I'm
Speaker 1: alone in the house and I can take a bath
Speaker 1: while the sun is still out and it's midday, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like it's amazing. I feel like we should talk
Speaker 1: about it more. And you can do so many things
Speaker 1: to your bath. You can put bath salts in their bubbles,
Speaker 1: right ducks, Yeah, ducks. Bath beeds like smell good. It's
Speaker 1: like it's going to a spot. But but you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay any money and you don't
Speaker 1: have to leave your house. I experienced a bit of
Speaker 1: a bath renaissance when I had a kid as well,
Speaker 1: just because you know, you remember, oh baths, right, is
Speaker 1: that what happened for you? You feel like it's both
Speaker 1: the ritual of giving him a bath, you know, every
Speaker 1: day or every other day. That kind of reminded me
Speaker 1: of baths and also of mister Bubble, which I advocate
Speaker 1: for as well. And then also I think just having
Speaker 1: an uninterrupted block of time alone is also at a
Speaker 1: high premium after having a kid, so that's probably part
Speaker 1: of it as well. I think baths are for people
Speaker 1: who aren't me, because I like, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: steeping in my filth like a tea bag. Well this
Speaker 1: is bath. Yeah, what's okay? Shower before bath is okay,
Speaker 1: now we're talking. That does make sense because yeah, I
Speaker 1: just like a little soak. See, I've always solve this
Speaker 1: bike going shower after bath interesting. Okay, so yeah, but
Speaker 1: then you're still steeping in your own filth for a
Speaker 1: little bit. The shower before bath had never occurred to me.
Speaker 1: Just a quick rince, you know, because also you don't
Speaker 1: have to kind of I feel like taking a shower
Speaker 1: right after a bath kind of washes away the bath glow.
Speaker 1: I just want to get out to the bath and
Speaker 1: right right, yeah, putting a little oils in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just the bubble bath. I need the
Speaker 1: skim of bubbles to not see below the surface what's
Speaker 1: happening down there when I'm in a bathtub. Personally, that's
Speaker 1: just how I feel. Well, this is this is a
Speaker 1: call back to the thighs thing that you They're distracting.
Speaker 1: I'll say there, it's pretty distracting. My eyes can't see
Speaker 1: the light that you shine. The lyrics to Kiss by
Speaker 1: a Rose are really kind of they seem like a
Speaker 1: day dream that someone like someone trying to write a
Speaker 1: lyric as they're falling asleep. It's very strange. Anyways, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I feel like we've gotten to know you a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Let's take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back. And we're back, and and I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about City of Tents Veterans Row, which is a
Speaker 1: series that you have been reporting out. So you start
Speaker 1: the season off talking about like you say that homelessness
Speaker 1: is an issue that the more you've reported on it,
Speaker 1: the less kind of inerge to it you become, the
Speaker 1: more like kind of outrage you feel. And you also
Speaker 1: say it's a problem that you feel like we could
Speaker 1: solve if we really wanted to. Can you can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about like just that that feeling
Speaker 1: that you get from you know, knowing more and more
Speaker 1: about about the homelessness crisis and in America, and you
Speaker 1: know where that kind of outrage comes from. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there is a certain amount of numbing
Speaker 1: out that happens almost as a defense mechanism when you
Speaker 1: live in a city like Los Angeles where where I live,
Speaker 1: and the homelessness crisis is so visible every day. There's
Speaker 1: encampments under just about every freeway over past parks. So
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people, I mean, the nice
Speaker 1: way to put it is, you know, you is you
Speaker 1: get desensitized, right, it becomes part of the landscape probably
Speaker 1: is a necessity, because otherwise you would be upset all
Speaker 1: the time. I think the not it's a nice way
Speaker 1: to put it, is there's a lot of dehumanizing that
Speaker 1: goes on, I think, on how people are really I
Speaker 1: mean one group of people that a lot of folks
Speaker 1: seem to feel very comfortable generalizing about and saying some
Speaker 1: pretty horrendous things about just in casual company and which,
Speaker 1: and so you know, a lot of my time is
Speaker 1: spent talking to people who are experiencing homelessness because they're
Speaker 1: the most affected by the crisis, and so I think
Speaker 1: naturally that just chips away at that layer you know
Speaker 1: that might otherwise develop, and you know, you get to
Speaker 1: know people on an individual level. You see how close
Speaker 1: a lot of us could you know, are to becoming unhoused.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I say early on in the series,
Speaker 1: just the more I cover it, the more sensitized, if
Speaker 1: that's even a word I feel to it. And it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's outrage because I also get
Speaker 1: an up close look at a lot of the systemic
Speaker 1: failures behind the crisis. But it's also sad and upsetting,
Speaker 1: and yeah, all those things, all those things, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it is a humanitarian crisis that's unfolding in a
Speaker 1: lot of our big cities, and and I guess when
Speaker 1: you are really plugged into it and talking to people
Speaker 1: experiencing it all the time, it's it's just hard to
Speaker 1: hard to backtrack and just kind of oh yeah, like
Speaker 1: accepted as a regular part of the landscape. But I
Speaker 1: also do say in the first episode that it's not
Speaker 1: an intractable problem and there are solutions. I don't want
Speaker 1: people to feel hopeless about it, because I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it can be complicated on to one on one level,
Speaker 1: right when you talk to individuals and get to know
Speaker 1: their stories and all the factors that might have ledged
Speaker 1: someone to falling out of the housing market. But really,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of things that work,
Speaker 1: and we've seen them in One of the reasons with
Speaker 1: this podcast actually that I focused on unhoused veterans specifically,
Speaker 1: is that they've been an interesting case study in recent years,
Speaker 1: in recent decades in this country about what works. Veterans
Speaker 1: are generally more politically popular as a group of people
Speaker 1: than non veterans, so they've gotten more assistance and it's worked,
Speaker 1: and as the series unfolds, we unpack what that assistance
Speaker 1: is and we look at, you know, how these things
Speaker 1: could be applied to non veterans as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can go as far into the weeds
Speaker 1: as you want or stay as big picture as you want,
Speaker 1: but basically, there are things that we know work. There
Speaker 1: are big common you know, drivers of this crisis that
Speaker 1: we can address. But that doesn't mean they're easy to
Speaker 1: do that these solutions are easy, you know, they require
Speaker 1: a lot of resources, in some cases a whole new
Speaker 1: social contract. So I don't want to minimize that. But
Speaker 1: it's not like this is a mystery. This is an
Speaker 1: issue we've been dealing with for decades in this country
Speaker 1: that's been studied a lot, and there's a ton of
Speaker 1: research about it. And yeah, so we do know what
Speaker 1: the causes are and what the solutions are. Just that
Speaker 1: big picture like American reaction too, and I it's probably
Speaker 1: other countries, other Western countries too, but the reaction of
Speaker 1: wanting to dehumanize, And it also reminds me of a
Speaker 1: thing we run into where like billionaires are more popular
Speaker 1: than they should be with the people who they spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time whose lives they spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time like making worse. It's like this American thing
Speaker 1: where we want everyone to be getting what they deserve
Speaker 1: at some level. And so they're like they want to
Speaker 1: blame homeless people who are you know, suffering from homelessness
Speaker 1: for their situation and you know, also give billionaires credit
Speaker 1: for their circumstances. And it's I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how we get out of that, because I go
Speaker 1: it runs deep. It feels like, but I think talking
Speaker 1: to and like hearing reporting where you are actually speaking
Speaker 1: to these human beings and hearing their stories and you
Speaker 1: know that they are here because of like something that
Speaker 1: they sacrificed and like gave to the country is a
Speaker 1: pretty powerful way to do it. I guess, thanks, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is. I mean another reason that this story was
Speaker 1: interesting is because it does focus on a group of
Speaker 1: unhoused veterans, and it definitely I'm always looking for ways
Speaker 1: because as a reporter, I don't I don't want to
Speaker 1: write policy prescriptions or get into that territory. I can
Speaker 1: certainly talk about policies that have worked in certain instances
Speaker 1: or case studies or research, etc. Etc. But I'm not
Speaker 1: going to advocate for this is you know, specifically exactly
Speaker 1: what we should do. I'm going to present you with
Speaker 1: what we know, and you know what has worked before.
Speaker 1: But but something that I do try to do pretty
Speaker 1: actively is just pierce that numbness a little bit and
Speaker 1: hopefully present the issue to people with a fresh lens.
Speaker 1: So that and veterans were an interesting way to do that,
Speaker 1: because there is a kind of general goodwill that Americans
Speaker 1: have for people who have done military service, just kind
Speaker 1: of by and large, and so I think that in
Speaker 1: some ways expanded the audience the people that would be
Speaker 1: receptive to hearing it, and just automatically humanize the people
Speaker 1: of the center of it. For some folks. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I don't know, for better or worse,
Speaker 1: that that is just true. And then also I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to find ways to break the conversation out of
Speaker 1: superpartisan political lenses because this issue, especially in a place
Speaker 1: like where it's a real top issue for people, it's
Speaker 1: become so political and the way people talk about it,
Speaker 1: it's so binary and and a lot of people just
Speaker 1: have these preconceived ideas and it's very hard to break
Speaker 1: through that so I'm always looking for ways, and again
Speaker 1: with veterans, it was it was an opportunity to break
Speaker 1: through some of that because the politics just god all
Speaker 1: turned upside down because of the military angle. So on
Speaker 1: that point, I mean, I take your point about how
Speaker 1: veterans are an entry point for a lot of people
Speaker 1: because people tend to want to support them. But the
Speaker 1: flip side of that is, you know that talking about
Speaker 1: veterans and talking about supporting our troops is just so
Speaker 1: is used so cynically by politicians, you know, on both sides,
Speaker 1: And the GOP loves to talk about supporting our troops
Speaker 1: and then very rarely backs it up with supporting veterans,
Speaker 1: and Democrats don't seem to be doing that much better.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, like, do the people, the people that
Speaker 1: you talk to that you got to know, do they
Speaker 1: feel connected to that being back and forth at the
Speaker 1: political level. Does it matter to them whether a Democratus
Speaker 1: president or Republicans president and how they've talked about supporting
Speaker 1: our troops. Well, the story that I follow over this series,
Speaker 1: it focused. It focuses on one encampment that was on
Speaker 1: a street in LA for more than a year and
Speaker 1: at any given time, there were as many as almost
Speaker 1: fifty people living there, pretty much all the military veterans,
Speaker 1: and so they themselves were really mixed bag in terms
Speaker 1: of their their backgrounds, their own political beliefs, you know,
Speaker 1: how much they were following national politics. That it was
Speaker 1: it was all over the place. It was really hard
Speaker 1: to generalize the issues that they were dealing with, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of service they've done. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: it was all over the map. What was interesting about
Speaker 1: this encampment, which was nicknamed Veteran Row, I mean, one
Speaker 1: of many things that was interesting was how it attracted
Speaker 1: a lot of people who I've never seen at any
Speaker 1: other encampment in Los Angeles. And there are many large
Speaker 1: encampments around in LA and different ones that had become
Speaker 1: flashpoints at different points in time, which this one eventually
Speaker 1: did as well. But it also drew a crowd that
Speaker 1: was really unusual people. I mean, people had political rallies there,
Speaker 1: different candidates running for office, Like back when there was
Speaker 1: a recall effort to try to recall Governor Gavin Newsom,
Speaker 1: there were people who wanted to replace him, who had
Speaker 1: events there that they would broadcast on YouTube. There were
Speaker 1: you know, usually kind of fringe candidates, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but they drew a barbecues. There were people always showing
Speaker 1: up to do different kinds of events. There were always
Speaker 1: people coming with cameras and making documentaries and doing all
Speaker 1: sorts of projects like that. Specifically because of because it
Speaker 1: was Sands, there was Yeah, a Walmart commercial was filming
Speaker 1: there one day, or at least that's what the crew
Speaker 1: told me. I have searched for this Walmart commercial online
Speaker 1: to see if it ever saw the light of day,
Speaker 1: and I haven't found it. But but yeah, early on
Speaker 1: in the series, you hear a crew they're shooting what
Speaker 1: they say is as a Walmart, a documentary stat Walmart commercials.
Speaker 1: So Walmart as a filmmaker, I should just say they're
Speaker 1: very They're like Kubrick. They will do take after take
Speaker 1: until they can get it right. So that's why it
Speaker 1: might not have come out. Walmart is acting filmmaker Stilby, Yes,
Speaker 1: perfecting that. But that was one of the things that
Speaker 1: drew me to it. And you know, in the middle
Speaker 1: of it all, you had these dozens of unhoused military veterans.
Speaker 1: We're kind of being used as a backdrop, backdrop a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, and you know, they themselves, I
Speaker 1: mean they were more concerned day to day with trying
Speaker 1: to get into housing where you know, where's the next
Speaker 1: meal going to come from? You know, they generally speaking,
Speaker 1: they really did not want the encampment to be known
Speaker 1: as a political partisan place. They didn't really want to
Speaker 1: be affiliated with, you know, any particular candidate or party
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But a lot of people showed
Speaker 1: up there genuinely trying to help, but also promoting themselves
Speaker 1: in different ways. And I found that really interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you talk about the barbecues. It is like there
Speaker 1: is this community that's happening there. And you even speak
Speaker 1: to one of the veterans who lives there and is like,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to necessarily be in an apartment by myself.
Speaker 1: Like there's really seems like the having other people around
Speaker 1: and like having this community that has kind of come together.
Speaker 1: They have a dress code kind of they have like
Speaker 1: a homeowners association type role about like having your flag
Speaker 1: facing a certain way. But like, yeah, it's I don't
Speaker 1: know comparing it too so just to for people who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with Brentwood, Brentwood is like, you know, this
Speaker 1: super wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles, if you saw the
Speaker 1: people versus O. J. Simpson, like that's where OJ lived
Speaker 1: and in like the mansions are just up the street
Speaker 1: from where this is happening. The reason it's happening here
Speaker 1: is because there's also the Veterans administration, like right there,
Speaker 1: this massive chunk of beautiful land right in the middle
Speaker 1: of the city that the government is just not doing
Speaker 1: anything with for years. But yeah, it just like when
Speaker 1: you compare the number of like Taco Tuesday parties and
Speaker 1: barbecues and like things that we're coming together with these people,
Speaker 1: there's like just so much humanity there and community that
Speaker 1: you don't see in those surrounding neighborhoods that are like
Speaker 1: fighting so hard to get them out of there in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases. M that's interesting. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 1: encampments are generally communities. Spend time at any given one,
Speaker 1: you know, anywhere in LA and most often it is
Speaker 1: a community, you know, and people have relationships, and I
Speaker 1: think that I think it's easy to underestimate that, and
Speaker 1: I think you know, it's hard to understand like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if you hear something like oh, somebody you know,
Speaker 1: turned down a particular shelter offer for example. You know,
Speaker 1: they must be resistant to all help. You know, they
Speaker 1: must be That just sounds like a totally illogical thing
Speaker 1: to do. But um, but a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: you know, people do have community where you know, they
Speaker 1: make community at often at encampments and and most people
Speaker 1: certainly do want help and they would prefer to live
Speaker 1: in a house or in some other circumstance. But but also,
Speaker 1: you know, you can develop ties and relationships and a
Speaker 1: feeling of community anywhere that you live for a long
Speaker 1: period of time. And so you know, sometimes there can
Speaker 1: be a few steps still finding a solution for somebody
Speaker 1: that that will work for them where you know they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to give up that feeling. But and
Speaker 1: all of that played out Veterans Row. Veterans Row had
Speaker 1: its own unique flavor to its community because it was
Speaker 1: all these unhoused veterans who were in that location for
Speaker 1: a very specific reason. Like you said, it's because they
Speaker 1: were right outside of this enormous, huge campus own and
Speaker 1: ding dormitories. Just like, yes, it's a super weird place
Speaker 1: if you're here in LA I mean, most people, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't have a reason to go there. You
Speaker 1: just drive past it and you kind of are vaguely familiar.
Speaker 1: But it's this huge VA campus with a hospital on
Speaker 1: it and other medical facilities and various things you know,
Speaker 1: that are fully functioning. And then it has all these
Speaker 1: creepy old buildings and open space and a lot of
Speaker 1: people wonder what is going on there. And there's a
Speaker 1: long backstory that we get into, but the important part
Speaker 1: is the reason it's a VA campus is the land
Speaker 1: was donated more than a century ago to be a
Speaker 1: home for veterans. This was at a time when the
Speaker 1: United States actually had these veterans homes all over the country,
Speaker 1: these campuses where people returning from the Civil War and
Speaker 1: later conflicts could live and see doctors and get healthcare.
Speaker 1: So this particular campus was part of that system for
Speaker 1: a long time. But over time we abolished that system
Speaker 1: and the VA evolved into what it does today, which
Speaker 1: is largely healthcare, so all cemeteries benefits, and so this
Speaker 1: campus it really reflects that because it has the medical facilities,
Speaker 1: but then it has these old remnants of what it
Speaker 1: once was, and there was they also leased parts of
Speaker 1: it out to different entities, that have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with veterans at all, like some schools that have athletic
Speaker 1: facilities there, which has always been controversial and even led
Speaker 1: to a lawsuit some years ago resulting in a plan
Speaker 1: the VA, you know, because they were because the government
Speaker 1: was given was you know, given this land or chosen
Speaker 1: to be the stewards, I suppose of this land under
Speaker 1: these particular stipulations that it'd be a home for veterans.
Speaker 1: They ended up agreeing some years ago to create new
Speaker 1: affordable housing there for specifically for homeless veterans. So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that this camp formed right outside that
Speaker 1: property is because a lot of the vests there they
Speaker 1: were receiving services at the VA, they maybe landed on
Speaker 1: the street after trying to get into different VA programs.
Speaker 1: But also they by putting up these large tents that
Speaker 1: they had put up in these flags, they were trying
Speaker 1: to call attention to this plan that still hasn't come
Speaker 1: to fruition although it's underway to build this new housing there.
Speaker 1: They're trying to they're trying to let kind of let
Speaker 1: people know, hey, this is we're supposed to be living
Speaker 1: on this land, but we're what we're on the street
Speaker 1: and so yeah, so it was they had this you know,
Speaker 1: this connection in common to the to the land next door.
Speaker 1: You know, most of them were under the care of
Speaker 1: doctors on that campus. They sort of brought like a
Speaker 1: military flare to the encampment on the street with these
Speaker 1: matching flags that they had, and they had some chore
Speaker 1: rotations and things like that. So it was a very
Speaker 1: unique community. Yeah. Well it's a really it's a great podcast.
Speaker 1: Everyone should go listen. You know, we're just scratching the
Speaker 1: surface here, but it's a it's a really mind blowing,
Speaker 1: you know, snapshot of America in all its good and
Speaker 1: really bad glory on display in like some really yeah,
Speaker 1: just surreal ways, Like it's a it feels like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Veterans campus just it feels like an Ivy League
Speaker 1: school that was just left to like just abandoned like
Speaker 1: decades ago, like and and is just rotting there. Well
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't, we don't have housing for these people.
Speaker 1: It's it's very surreal. Yeah, very strange place and very
Speaker 1: interesting dynamics with this camp next door. And then the
Speaker 1: surrounding neighborhood, as you mentioned, is Brentwood, which is one
Speaker 1: of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. So yeah, all
Speaker 1: of that and how the community interacted with the encampment
Speaker 1: and the encampment and its relationship to the VA, it
Speaker 1: was all pretty fascinating. And you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was a tragic situation and some and some all whole
Speaker 1: things happened. But also you know, there was there was
Speaker 1: a lot of humor in it. I mean just with
Speaker 1: the spectacle that it was and the people that would
Speaker 1: show up, and so yeah, I'm trying to get to
Speaker 1: all of that. There's one veteran who's like, I need
Speaker 1: surgery for my like badly hurt ankle, and a guy
Speaker 1: shows up and like keeps trying to let him pray
Speaker 1: over it, and he's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no
Speaker 1: it helped, Like it definitely feels like five percent better.
Speaker 1: Can I leave now? The guy's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let me let me keep praying over your ankle. Like
Speaker 1: it was just like a small, yeah example, these things
Speaker 1: that would happen all the time, where people show up
Speaker 1: with their own very particular ideas about how to help,
Speaker 1: and you know, and a lot of people were drawn
Speaker 1: to it because it was veterans for different reasons and
Speaker 1: wanted to help, but a lot of the time their
Speaker 1: idea of helping wasn't necessarily connected to what the veterans
Speaker 1: themselves wanted or needed. Yeah, and I found that very interesting.
Speaker 1: So that was the other common thread through the whole series,
Speaker 1: is just me trying to sort out who who is helping?
Speaker 1: Who is actually helping here? Yeah. There were some really
Speaker 1: good examples though, of the of people who were helping
Speaker 1: by just being like, these are humans, what would make
Speaker 1: them feel better? You know? Like what like the person
Speaker 1: who was a former food company exec who started barbecuing
Speaker 1: there and like started the regular barbecues just like brought
Speaker 1: a weaver grill and created a regular kind of community event.
Speaker 1: She did. Now, she also had a very large Instagram
Speaker 1: follow that she was documenting all of this horror, which
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting. There were a lot of people
Speaker 1: that would come to do altruistic things but also would
Speaker 1: promote themselves at the same time, which I felt was
Speaker 1: worth pointing out. But but a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 1: they would look they would come with like basic stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, water, food, socks, things like that, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think, you know, after reporting on this
Speaker 1: issue for so many years, I feel comfortable saying homelessness
Speaker 1: is a big systemic problem in this country that requires
Speaker 1: big systemic fixes, And so people will often ask me like, well,
Speaker 1: what should I do as an individual? How can I help?
Speaker 1: And I just tell them, you know, we'll think about,
Speaker 1: like what what do you want to get out of
Speaker 1: your helping? And you know, I don't think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to go wrong unless you're doing something
Speaker 1: really destructive or or harmful. You know, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a bad way to get engaged because you're not
Speaker 1: you know, you're certainly not going to solve this crisis
Speaker 1: just on an individual level, right and you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're probably going to make it worse either,
Speaker 1: But if you I mean, yes, if you just start
Speaker 1: with connecting with people on a human level, asking them
Speaker 1: what they need, what they'd like, getting to know them,
Speaker 1: that can become hugely, hugely impactful. If I mean, if
Speaker 1: that's something you're comfortable doing and have the opportunity that
Speaker 1: can be transformative in somebody's life, if you can just
Speaker 1: be an advocate and an ally for that person, because
Speaker 1: the system around helping them is very under resourced and
Speaker 1: understaffed and so so that can be a big way
Speaker 1: to start. So can I just quickly highlight the immense
Speaker 1: wisdom and what you just said, which I just clicked
Speaker 1: for me, which is like, when something is so complicated
Speaker 1: and intractable, it actually means that basically everything is worth doing.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's like I will carry that with
Speaker 1: me going forward. I mean, it's such such a brilliant
Speaker 1: articulation of how to approach these things. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: and it feels like a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 1: seems intractable and you know systemic is also the result
Speaker 1: of under resourcing. Like in this country, there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of things that haven't been given the resources for
Speaker 1: decades now that we're seeing the consequences of. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can you know, one example is just I mean,
Speaker 1: the you know, the big underlying factor in places like
Speaker 1: La New York City, San Francisco where we have these
Speaker 1: large homelessness crises is housing affordability and housing availability. When
Speaker 1: you don't have much of either one, people tend to
Speaker 1: fall out of the housing market. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: individuals who are experiencing homelessness don't have other issues going on.
Speaker 1: Some of the time, you know, other than financial issues
Speaker 1: or needing next month's rent. But that's the big underlying fact.
Speaker 1: They all fell out of the housing market at some
Speaker 1: point in time for all different kinds of reasons, and
Speaker 1: it's very hard to get back in once that happens.
Speaker 1: And then once you're on the street, the homelessness crisis
Speaker 1: overlaps with all these other crises that we have. You know,
Speaker 1: there are holes in our mental health care system. Meth
Speaker 1: is ubiquitous on the streets of la because because it
Speaker 1: is unbelievably cheap, and so I think sometimes people conflate
Speaker 1: homelessness with mental health crisis or you know, drug crisis,
Speaker 1: math crisis, but they are not one and the same
Speaker 1: at all. And the big thing when it comes to
Speaker 1: homelessness is housing affordability, housing availability, And one of the
Speaker 1: things that really helped us reduce vetteran homelessness over the
Speaker 1: last decade and a half was putting more resources into
Speaker 1: essentially the veteran version of Section eight, which are these
Speaker 1: are vouchers that provide rental subsidies for low income people.
Speaker 1: So if you qualify, you get a voucher, you can
Speaker 1: take it to a landlord, pay a percentage of your
Speaker 1: income towards rent and the federal government will pay the rest. Now,
Speaker 1: normal Section eight is very oversubscribed. If you want to
Speaker 1: get a voucher, even if you qualify, your chances are
Speaker 1: like one in four maybe nationally and less than that
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. There's a there's a huge waiting list.
Speaker 1: It's it's really hard to get. If you're a veteran
Speaker 1: who qualifies, you have a much higher chance of getting
Speaker 1: one of these vouchers because they have their own pool,
Speaker 1: which which Congress has has been more generous about funding.
Speaker 1: And so those vouchers, paired with services provided through the
Speaker 1: VA are really at the heart of a big push
Speaker 1: that resulted in a huge decline nationally in veteran homelessness
Speaker 1: of twenty ten. So yeah, now, fully funding Section eight
Speaker 1: for everybody would be enormously expensive. It's not politically popular, right,
Speaker 1: But that's like one example of a big system thing
Speaker 1: that you know, we can look at something that worked
Speaker 1: at least with this one group of people that's under
Speaker 1: resourced when you're talking about the general population. Yeah, all right, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to talk
Speaker 1: to us about it and for doing the reporting. Everybody
Speaker 1: should go check out the show, City of Tents Veterans Row,
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break, we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: about some other stuff. We'll be right back, and we're back,
Speaker 1: and we'll probably were the Trump thing. I think we
Speaker 1: all know. Trump claimed these going to be arrested probably
Speaker 1: today and has called for supporters to protest. We talked
Speaker 1: about it on yesterday's Trending. We'll have more updates on
Speaker 1: this afternoon's trending. So Jack, it's almost like it's almost
Speaker 1: like Schrodinger's podcast, Like, right, if the fact that people
Speaker 1: are hearing this means that things didn't melt down, right,
Speaker 1: because if they're truly westcast probably do an emergency episode. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, all right, but uh, for the rest of
Speaker 1: the episode, I wanted to just run down. Did you
Speaker 1: guys see the article in New York Magazine that was
Speaker 1: like the new rules for social Etiquette. It's this like
Speaker 1: grandiose project. It's got hundreds of rules. They are real
Speaker 1: hit or miss, and we've just been kind of checking
Speaker 1: in with the list and talking to our guest co
Speaker 1: hosts and guests about about their thoughts on on these things.
Speaker 1: I think there are a few that we feel like
Speaker 1: could be canon like should be things that we adopt
Speaker 1: into our social etiquette, like never tell someone who they
Speaker 1: look like, yeah, oh yes, it never goes goes like
Speaker 1: Miranda July. And I find it really annoying. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: nobody ever likes to hear that. I think that someone
Speaker 1: is the key word there, which is like, this isn't
Speaker 1: like fodder for small talk with a stranger. I think
Speaker 1: like if you're a friend, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: friend for a while and like, I mean a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine actually texted me today and said what
Speaker 1: he said. I wish I had better news to share,
Speaker 1: but the far right Israeli finance minister is in the
Speaker 1: news for all the wrong reasons and he looks like
Speaker 1: a bizarre, evil version of you. Yes, and I coming
Speaker 1: from a long time friend, I'm happy to hear that,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to hear that from someone who
Speaker 1: at no. And I always run it through the filter,
Speaker 1: like if it's a famous person, it's like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: you're really saying is that I look like this person's
Speaker 1: less hot cousin. Let's be honest. It's like it's just
Speaker 1: never good. It's one more thing on this. I know
Speaker 1: this when you were doing this as a throwaway check.
Speaker 1: But but one more thing about this, which is I
Speaker 1: think so many of these pieces of etiquette sort of
Speaker 1: have this through line, which is like, don't do stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't set someone else some set someone up to
Speaker 1: like respond in a productive way, like you know, and
Speaker 1: a lot and like that, just telling someone who they
Speaker 1: look like, it's like, what am I supposed to know?
Speaker 1: There's no yes and to that right, yeah, okay, And
Speaker 1: a lot of the piece of advice kind of fall
Speaker 1: into that category, just like don't say something where think
Speaker 1: about think about someone's response when you say something and
Speaker 1: whether they're going to be able to kind of pick
Speaker 1: it up and totally Yeah. Another one that I think
Speaker 1: is probably solid for everybody to adopt is actually, it's
Speaker 1: great to talk about the weather. There was like this
Speaker 1: unofficial agreement in the nineties. I think like there were
Speaker 1: stand up comedy bits it was like, don't talk about
Speaker 1: the weather. It's boring. What are you a fifty year
Speaker 1: old man? And it's but we live in strange times.
Speaker 1: The weather is something that should be fine to talk about,
Speaker 1: all right, whether in the sports. So the only two
Speaker 1: things left, yeah, just kind of you start this whole
Speaker 1: conversation talking about the weather. Yeah, yeah, and that's what
Speaker 1: I was using. This list just got exactly all right,
Speaker 1: here's something for discussion. You get can stop me when
Speaker 1: you hear one, but that you have some thoughts on
Speaker 1: you want. Bobby de Niro may go way back, but
Speaker 1: to everyone else, he's Robert. This is aimed at a
Speaker 1: very specific like. So one of the overall notes I
Speaker 1: have on this list is like, the very first item
Speaker 1: is like you don't have to read all your friends books,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, that's like for a very specific
Speaker 1: group of people are constantly yeah. But so on this one,
Speaker 1: it's like their writing specifically to famous people who drop
Speaker 1: the nicknames or people who are you know, in the
Speaker 1: orbit of famous people. This like, I think it's hilarious
Speaker 1: when famous people do this. I it also feels like
Speaker 1: doing it must be the greatest feeling in the world
Speaker 1: because of how ridiculous it makes them look and how
Speaker 1: hard they insist on doing it every time. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't feel like I can make a
Speaker 1: full hard judgment on this one because I don't know
Speaker 1: any famous person well enough to try this shit. But man,
Speaker 1: they really seem to like it. Yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 1: but you're saying when you hear an actor refer to
Speaker 1: and all my examples are basically any people in the
Speaker 1: good felt anyway or any halfway right or like or
Speaker 1: Marty Scoressy Marty. I feel like it's the way you
Speaker 1: hear all the time. But if it's someone who's worked
Speaker 1: with them and it's famous and like that's what they
Speaker 1: get caught on set, then you're okay with that. But
Speaker 1: if it's like me, I happen to have seen them
Speaker 1: at a bar or even like sat next to them
Speaker 1: at a random dinner, I can't. I can't switch over
Speaker 1: to Marty. And I'm fine with it. Oh, I'm fine
Speaker 1: with it across the board. I think it. I think
Speaker 1: you should be willing to accept the consequences of your
Speaker 1: actions when you do that, but I don't. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: that's a that is a choice, but it's a choice
Speaker 1: that I'm glad people are out there making. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily endear me to those people, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that's their goal either, right, Well, yeah, it must be
Speaker 1: kind of an awkward thing too. Like let's say you're
Speaker 1: a celebrity that's worked with one of these people. You're
Speaker 1: doing an interview and you want to say something about
Speaker 1: Robert de Niro, but you know him as Bobby, Like,
Speaker 1: it probably feels just even more pretentious to say his
Speaker 1: full name if you actually know this person and have
Speaker 1: worked with them. Well, me and Robert de Niro, you know,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, I kind of have some empathy for
Speaker 1: the celebrities on this one. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: I recently had a sort of like inverse name dropping
Speaker 1: awkward experience where someone was talking to me about their
Speaker 1: friend Greta for like a long time, yes, and then
Speaker 1: through context clues, I realized that it was Greta Gerwig
Speaker 1: and they were talking like about my friend Greta's movie
Speaker 1: and like going to that and and I was just like,
Speaker 1: just you should have just drop that name from the
Speaker 1: beginning and just owned it rather than trying to like
Speaker 1: overcorrect for not being a name dropper. But it's tough.
Speaker 1: This stuff is tough. Total, it is very high. It's
Speaker 1: up there with not not reading your friends. But we're
Speaker 1: on a podcast dissecting a list from New York Magazine.
Speaker 1: Let's just just be up front about the air in
Speaker 1: which we are operating here I had we we had
Speaker 1: Robert Or, the famous NBA basketball player on our NBA show,
Speaker 1: and I just called him Robert Or the whole time.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, thank you, yeah. But I think
Speaker 1: that's also you could also steer really hard into that
Speaker 1: and just anytime you're referring to your friend Bobby, you
Speaker 1: just say Robert didn't here. Get it all out there,
Speaker 1: all the way out there, all right. Some others never
Speaker 1: send an edible arrangement. What they're great, They're great. Fine. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think that this is a a hard rule.
Speaker 1: This is not a never. Don't use your friends as
Speaker 1: for play is is another one of the ones where
Speaker 1: I felt like I was learning a lot about whoever
Speaker 1: wrote this. What does that mean? So that's what it
Speaker 1: then goes into like a discussion of like friends fighting
Speaker 1: in front of their friends, and like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I had no real world experience to like put
Speaker 1: it onto. I guess like the the assumption is that
Speaker 1: their friends get horny from fighting with each other in
Speaker 1: front of them, and that is so somehow, I don't know.
Speaker 1: My man thought is like you got you sick little
Speaker 1: friends of nested pathology, and yet stop using me to
Speaker 1: get horny by yelling at each other when you got
Speaker 1: to dinner with me and my wife. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like I'm just trying to I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to have a dinner and with my friends argue in
Speaker 1: front of me without it being sexual. Can you just
Speaker 1: can you just argue please and make this a normal
Speaker 1: dinner where my friends to argue in front of me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other example of like huh for for me was
Speaker 1: always wink, always wink. It's just one of the rules.
Speaker 1: No explanation, right. I love that rule. I can tell
Speaker 1: you a story about a buddy of mine who was
Speaker 1: applying for a job at home depot when he was
Speaker 1: a sophomore in college, maybe junior or a sophomore high school,
Speaker 1: maybe junior in high school. And he's going through the
Speaker 1: interview and he's like super nervous, first ever job, and
Speaker 1: the like, you know, the shift manager at home depots
Speaker 1: like being a kind of like big timing him. You know,
Speaker 1: during this interview, he's peppering him with questions, asking all
Speaker 1: his questions, and you know, my my buddy's trying to
Speaker 1: answer be earnest and so forth, and then like three
Speaker 1: cours the way through the interview, he just there. He
Speaker 1: looks at my buddy and goes, stop winking at me, son,
Speaker 1: and my friend just goes okay, but like he hadn't
Speaker 1: been winking at him. It wasn't trying to just thrown off,
Speaker 1: and he didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself like
Speaker 1: question the premise uh and be like no, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Or I'm not He was just like okay,
Speaker 1: and he continued that's like one of those Google mind
Speaker 1: fuck interview questions, where all right, at this point we
Speaker 1: accuse you, accuse the attendee the interviewe of winking at
Speaker 1: us and see how they respond. You can calcely cancel
Speaker 1: almost any plans up until two pm. Specific I don't
Speaker 1: know sure, I'm fine with canceling plans. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: won't be mad at you if you cancel plans with
Speaker 1: me in the world I know, truly, like, oh no,
Speaker 1: unless the plans are two thirty or something right right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And then this one. If your friend is dating someone
Speaker 1: you seriously object to, you have one chance to sit
Speaker 1: them down and tell them. This seems like genuinely bad
Speaker 1: advice because it feels like that like, I can't see
Speaker 1: how this would be true for purposes other than like
Speaker 1: you are writing as rom com screenplay and like you're
Speaker 1: just adding like I understand the overall gist of it is,
Speaker 1: like you don't want to just keep hammering that with criticisms,
Speaker 1: and like you want to do it in a targeted,
Speaker 1: thoughtful way. But at the same time, like being like
Speaker 1: you only got one chance and once you do it,
Speaker 1: it's over and you have to live with the decision
Speaker 1: that you've made just feels like artificial and like they
Speaker 1: wanted to they needed to fill an article full of rules.
Speaker 1: Sounds very arbitrary. I mean, yeah, I'm more of the
Speaker 1: mindset that unless someone asks, I'm not gonna just set
Speaker 1: them down and tell them my opinion. But it also
Speaker 1: depends on why you object to the person. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you know something egregious about this person, or you
Speaker 1: know or they're engaged in really abusive behavior or something
Speaker 1: like that, then maybe it's appropriate. But if it's just
Speaker 1: kind of run of the mill I don't like this person,
Speaker 1: then I don't. I don't see any need to have
Speaker 1: a sit down. I'm yeah, I'm not objecting to this
Speaker 1: based on me wanting to have the conversation, Like I
Speaker 1: do not like conversations like this. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be the person who's like keeps bringing this up. But
Speaker 1: it just it does feel like sometimes you just gotta
Speaker 1: help your friend, like you have to. Sounds like you're
Speaker 1: trying to like universalize something and make it rule about
Speaker 1: something that's kind of just very dependent on the situation. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: I know this is the second time we've talked about this,
Speaker 1: but I need you and your wife to stop trying
Speaker 1: to get horny by arguing in front of me. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, to your to your point, and I mean,
Speaker 1: I you know, that is the exercise I think. And
Speaker 1: they're very like upfront. And that's why I loved this
Speaker 1: list is they're just gonna, you know, we're gonna just
Speaker 1: throw a bunch of very specific and sometimes very outrageous
Speaker 1: things out there and let the internet talk about it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's certainly, but but I respect that it
Speaker 1: felt like a felt like a very ten years ago
Speaker 1: kind of project. Yeah, absolutely, and it worked. And all right, well, Anna,
Speaker 1: such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? Follow you all that good stuff? Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me I'm on Twitter at Anna Scott
Speaker 1: journal for Journalist and you can find my podcast City
Speaker 1: of Tense, Colon Veterans Real anywhere all the usual places Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's a great one. Go check it out. Everyone.
Speaker 1: Is there a tweet or a work of media that
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying. I will say there's a work of
Speaker 1: media that I'm really looking forward to enjoying because I've
Speaker 1: been listening to a ton of podcasts in you know,
Speaker 1: working on one, I want to get inspiration from other
Speaker 1: good ones. And I see that The Atlantic has a
Speaker 1: new one hosted by Van new Kirk, who and they
Speaker 1: did the amazing Floodlines podcast some years ago about Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 1: And they have another one called Holy Week, which also
Speaker 1: takes a historic event and puts new eyes on it.
Speaker 1: And I'm super excited about it. So I don't they
Speaker 1: don't need my help promoting it, but I just feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about it that I'm just talking about
Speaker 1: it everywhere. Amazing Jody, Such a pleasure having you as
Speaker 1: always where can people find you? And as their work
Speaker 1: of media you've been enjoying. I'll mostly plug this new
Speaker 1: series that's coming out right now called good Sport, which
Speaker 1: is an eight episode series about sports, but not really
Speaker 1: mostly about kind of how sports can help us understand
Speaker 1: some bigger things. And it's wherever you get your podcast,
Speaker 1: good Sport. But I'm very happy with them, how it's
Speaker 1: coming out and the reception it's gotten so far, so yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead and check that out. And then in terms
Speaker 1: of media, well, mine is sort of nested. So I've
Speaker 1: been really really just like binging this podcast called The
Speaker 1: Restless History NonStop, which is you know, two historians, British historians,
Speaker 1: and they just sort of go deep on history. It's nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing mind blowing about the format, but it's just really
Speaker 1: good chemistry and really sort of thoughtful and funny. But
Speaker 1: they did a series on the Rise of Hitler and
Speaker 1: the rise of the Nazis, and in that they kind
Speaker 1: of shouted out a number of times a Netflix series
Speaker 1: called Berlin Babylon, which is set in like thirties and
Speaker 1: early forties Berlin. And so now I've jumped from the
Speaker 1: podcast to this recommendation to this Netflix series Berlin Babylon,
Speaker 1: which is a docu series or no, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a scripted series. Yeah, and it's it's fantastic. It means
Speaker 1: really good. It's German, but it's you know, it's really good, awesome.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien,
Speaker 1: I'm still out here. Like in tweets Like three years ago,
Speaker 1: trash Jones tweeted, if at first you don't succeed, think
Speaker 1: about it for the rest of your life when you're
Speaker 1: trying to fall asleep. You can find us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zegeist on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We have a Facebook fan page on a website, daily
Speaker 1: zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our
Speaker 1: footnotes where we link off to the information that we
Speaker 1: talked about in today's episode, as well as a song
Speaker 1: that we think you might enjoy. Superproducer Justin Connor, what
Speaker 1: is a song you think people might addressed? So I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be here tomorrow, so it's up to
Speaker 1: Jack or Brian or whoever takes over for me to
Speaker 1: continue the string of hits that have been coming. The
Speaker 1: pressure is on. But this track is by a composer,
Speaker 1: singer and multi instrumentalist from Toronto who goes by the
Speaker 1: name River Tiber. This guy can really sing and lay
Speaker 1: down some interesting harmonies. The beat was made by Katrinada,
Speaker 1: who I love. I'm a huge fan of his work,
Speaker 1: but this one is an underrated top five for me.
Speaker 1: So this song is Gravity by River Tiber and you
Speaker 1: can find that song in the footnotes footnotes. The Daily
Speaker 1: zeit Geis is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Up going
Speaker 1: to do it for us this morning back this afternoon
Speaker 1: to tell you what is trending and we'll touchy all
Speaker 1: the ye