WEBVTT - Inside LA's Most $$$ Supermarket 🍏

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<v Speaker 1>Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms.

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<v Speaker 2>This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>It is Flex and Rooms on Cats. I went to LA.

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<v Speaker 2>I think you should call it Los Angeles. La sounds

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<v Speaker 2>like your head's up your ears?

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<v Speaker 1>Respectfully, who says Los Angeles?

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<v Speaker 2>And I sounded about LA.

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<v Speaker 1>I've been people in the room who said and adamant

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<v Speaker 1>no free.

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<v Speaker 2>Say I was in Los Angeles? What city of Angels?

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<v Speaker 1>If I said I was in California, you'd be like,

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<v Speaker 1>who is this girl?

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<v Speaker 2>I'm being serious.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, I was in the city of Angels and I

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<v Speaker 1>went to the most expensive grocery store. It's a chain.

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<v Speaker 1>It's called air one, which is an anagram of nowhere,

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<v Speaker 1>very very very LA. Now you might not know the

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<v Speaker 1>name of this chain, but you might recall the viral

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<v Speaker 1>Belahadide smoothie. It was nineteen dollars or Bury and some

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<v Speaker 1>other miscellaneous ingredients and superfoods. It popped off. I didn't

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<v Speaker 1>want to tell you how much it would cost the conversion,

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<v Speaker 1>roughly forty Australian dollars. It's ridiculous. So when it was

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<v Speaker 1>time to go to Air one, I was like, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm not even gonna deal with it because up until

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<v Speaker 1>that point I already spent I couldn't even tell you

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<v Speaker 1>how much money spent a Coachella just on nonsense food.

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<v Speaker 1>Twelve dollars fifty hot dogs. That's twenty bucks for a

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<v Speaker 1>common hot dog. I was done spending money. So my

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<v Speaker 1>best friend's go into Air one, and, as you can imagine,

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<v Speaker 1>it just feels like a bougie Coals with overpriced everything

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<v Speaker 1>forty dollars sushi, twenty dollars Asaii, all of the whatever.

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<v Speaker 1>My friend rolls up to the checkout. She's like, really

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<v Speaker 1>stoked to get this tote bag, right, I'm like, okay, cool,

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<v Speaker 1>Like we love a souvenir. She picks one up. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>maybe it's like a durable cotton twill, nothing special. But

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<v Speaker 1>when it gets ringed up at the checkout, it's one

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty US dollars. She's stunned.

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<v Speaker 2>Creepers.

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<v Speaker 1>The checkout guy is stunned. He's looking at her, she's

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<v Speaker 1>looking at him. Will she buy it? Won't she? Obviously

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<v Speaker 1>she doesn't know what. He says. The shadiest thing ever,

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<v Speaker 1>we have a cheaper one. Oh okay, that's the cheaper one.

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<v Speaker 1>Pulls out this generic navy blue tote that says air

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<v Speaker 1>One in collegiate font, not embroidered, just a little direct

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<v Speaker 1>to garment print, nothing special or autodestone. Eighty dollars eighty

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<v Speaker 1>US dollars? Can you believe that? And it led me

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<v Speaker 1>to do some research because I'm like, okay, I can

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<v Speaker 1>understand a bit of a gag. A gag store. You know,

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<v Speaker 1>you buy some premium novelty you call a day whatever. No,

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<v Speaker 1>it's not a gag to locals. They derive their personalities

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<v Speaker 1>and their social status from how frequently they go to

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<v Speaker 1>Air One and how much money they spend. But I

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<v Speaker 1>think it's a social experiment of some point. We all

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<v Speaker 1>know what makes capitalism as a system work is the

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<v Speaker 1>illusion that things are worth a lot of money, right, branding, marketing,

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<v Speaker 1>all of this stuff. Things are worth as much as

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<v Speaker 1>someone is willing to pay for it. So when you

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<v Speaker 1>open up a generic soupmuket and you say, hey, we're

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<v Speaker 1>gonna do tote bags branded tote bags, but charge one

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty dollars, most people will say that's ridiculous.

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<v Speaker 1>But a percentage, like you know what, that's sick, I'll

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<v Speaker 1>buy it. They're making bank off your stupidity. I did

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<v Speaker 1>some research and by that I went onto Wikipedia.

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<v Speaker 2>Hmmm.

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<v Speaker 1>I thought it was necessary because I want to figureut

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<v Speaker 1>where the name came from. Why is it called nowhere backwards?

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<v Speaker 1>What does that mean? Anyway? Apparently it's derived from the

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen seventy two satirical novel Air One by Samuel Butler.

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<v Speaker 1>In the novel, air One is a utopia in which

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<v Speaker 1>individuals are responsible for their own health. It is a sham, Babes.

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<v Speaker 1>It's a sham selling you back the illusion of health

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<v Speaker 1>and wealth at an extreme price so you can feel

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<v Speaker 1>like you're healthy. Meanwhile, your hips are calcified, your bones

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<v Speaker 1>are rotting, your liver doesn't work, and your lungs are blackened.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's giving scientology adjacent food. I went there in

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<v Speaker 2>twenty seventeen, so before you, and when I was actually

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<v Speaker 2>on a run, I was like doing a run content

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<v Speaker 2>piece with Nike. First time I ever ran, okay athlete

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<v Speaker 2>ten kilometers. Okay. Sick sent me down an interesting path

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<v Speaker 2>from my life, but we'll get to that on another Babe.

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<v Speaker 2>I went to Arawon and there was like special dog

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<v Speaker 2>food that was like one hundred dollars for a pellet

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<v Speaker 2>of dog food. There was diamond activated water. I was

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<v Speaker 2>beside myself. Actually did a skit in Erewon early Adopter

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<v Speaker 2>Eli Adopter, and I will say, you know what, if

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<v Speaker 2>I had the cash, there was just something about it.

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<v Speaker 1>But I think that's the point. The average person does

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<v Speaker 1>not have the cash. One thing about La one of

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<v Speaker 1>the most expensive places to live. One of the first

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<v Speaker 1>time I went, I was at a bar having one

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<v Speaker 1>of those really strange conversations with a tech bro who

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<v Speaker 1>was like, listen, like LA is about hustling and grinding

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<v Speaker 1>and making it in the big city whatever. But he

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<v Speaker 1>was like most people I know who are like aesthetically

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<v Speaker 1>pop in have chosen to own a car instead of

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<v Speaker 1>having a place to live. Yeah, houseless people sleeping in

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<v Speaker 1>their cars so they can flex on you. Frequently buying

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen dollars smoothies in hopes of going viral on TikTok.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, everyone always references that two thousand dollars Chanelle

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<v Speaker 1>safety pin. Do you know about that? No, So when

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<v Speaker 1>people talk about like consumerism and the value of something

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<v Speaker 1>being attributed not to the quality but what someone is

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<v Speaker 1>willing to pay for it, they often bring up the

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<v Speaker 1>fact that Chanel sells a two thousand dollars safety pin

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<v Speaker 1>or a brooch or something. It's just a safety pin,

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<v Speaker 1>and it sells out often, and it kind of reminds

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<v Speaker 1>me about value generally. I don't think we've been raised

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<v Speaker 1>or socialized to understand what things are worth, because if

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<v Speaker 1>we knew, we wouldn't consume. And above all, more than humans,

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<v Speaker 1>I think we're consumers are the big bad overlords. I

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<v Speaker 1>really do like so much of this world functions because

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<v Speaker 1>we want to buy stuff. Like let's say we decided

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<v Speaker 1>that for every meal making food at home, no cafes

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<v Speaker 1>or they just be coffee cuts. Right, how do you

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<v Speaker 1>make a whole business around dining if we all hammered

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<v Speaker 1>down on eating and cooking in.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, we're still going to see that happen with the inflation, babes.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, do you think so? But what happened with COVID,

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<v Speaker 1>like cozy living was still up then people had no

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<v Speaker 1>income and splurging was happening.

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<v Speaker 2>You know.

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<v Speaker 1>I was looking at a statistic that was talking about

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<v Speaker 1>retail e commerce sales compared to COVID and now because

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<v Speaker 1>there was this big spike and boom, and I was like,

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<v Speaker 1>how is this possible where people getting money from. So

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<v Speaker 1>online sales made up fifteen percent of all retail sales.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm pretty sure in Australia because Rag Trader said it

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<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty and now it's thirty five percent. So

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<v Speaker 1>people are spend ding.

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<v Speaker 2>That's me. I'm doing my Mecca orders a bort A, Mason,

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<v Speaker 2>pears and brush share today.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And there's something about when times are tough, quarter of.

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<v Speaker 2>One thousand dollars, I'm returning it because what's that.

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<v Speaker 1>The fact that we said a quarter of one thousand,

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<v Speaker 1>it's not even closed to one thousand. Just say to fifty.

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<v Speaker 1>She knew what she was doing with that on she

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<v Speaker 1>knew that. Being said this idea of you know, when

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<v Speaker 1>things are going well, I think that's when we do

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<v Speaker 1>that little like silly purchases like small make it like

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<v Speaker 1>the avocado because it's like it's an extra five bucks

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<v Speaker 1>on the side. But then when times are tough, people

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<v Speaker 1>start doing luxury. You know what I bought the other day,

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<v Speaker 1>insane behavior. I keep making the mistake of traveling, spending

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<v Speaker 1>a bag, then moving house and then spending a bag.

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<v Speaker 2>Crazy.

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<v Speaker 1>It's not looking good bras.

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<v Speaker 2>Anyway, you know what I think is a heart of luxury.

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<v Speaker 1>No, we're not doing that yet. I haven't finished anyway.

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<v Speaker 1>Point is times are tough, all right. You know what?

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<v Speaker 1>I saw piece of art from Ebity Russell. Who's that

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<v Speaker 1>amazing art? Seramecist. She just did a show I was away.

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<v Speaker 1>I told myself, if her things would be on sale,

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<v Speaker 1>I'd buy it. Nineteen hundred, I said, I gotta do it.

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<v Speaker 2>Is she the one that makes the religious figures?

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah?

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<v Speaker 2>True?

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<v Speaker 1>What does she bring out this time? Oh no, no, no,

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<v Speaker 1>you're talking about my childe? Yeah no, anyway, I'll show

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<v Speaker 1>you later. The point is people will spend and like

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<v Speaker 1>if we could deprogram, I wouldn't because it's nice to

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<v Speaker 1>be a hot girl. But it'd be interesting to see

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<v Speaker 1>what we would deem worthy to spend our money on

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<v Speaker 1>if we deprogrammed our understanding of what is considered worthy

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<v Speaker 1>of spending money on. Because why discretionary spending? Why do

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<v Speaker 1>I need to buy a sweet little treat when I

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<v Speaker 1>leave the house?

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<v Speaker 2>Lord me going to chemistry house buying three different types

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<v Speaker 2>of deodorantce just to feel something. I got the cucumber dove, Oh,

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<v Speaker 2>the pink pearl dull.

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<v Speaker 1>I think if you're a natural deodoran bybe.

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<v Speaker 2>Serious natural deodorant. I hate people who were natural denent.

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<v Speaker 2>Sorry controversial, Stop it just be smelly. Now you smell

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<v Speaker 2>like smelly and eucalypts.

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<v Speaker 1>It stinks. I have never seen the stadi. It stinks.

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<v Speaker 1>You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>For more, tune in Deicater on DAB or stream it

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<v Speaker 1>on iHeartRadio