March 21, 2023 • 57 mins
In episode 1445, Jack and guest co-host Jody Avirgan are joined by journalist and host of City of Tents: Veterans Row, Anna Scott, to discuss... Questions for Anna On City of Tents: Veterans Row, The Cut New Rules For Social Etiquette and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season two eighty, Episode
two of Dirty leyshy Guys Stay, a production of iHeartRadio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into America's share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, March twenty first,
twenty twenty three. Yesterday was the first day of spring.
Forgot to mention that too yesterday, but yeah, happy first
(00:22):
day of Spring to all of who celebrate. My name
is Jack O'Brien aka. But did you know when La snows,
my thighs become so white that the light that you
shine can't be seen. That is courtesy of LOCARONI a
little reference to la weather those happening a couple of
(00:43):
weeks back, and my blindingly pale thighs that I like
to talk about on this show. For some reason, I
am thrilled to be joined by a very special guest
co host who you know from the podcast This Day
in Esoteric Political History from Utopia, Good Sport from Ted
and Pushkin thirty thirty or thirty four thirty with ESPN,
(01:06):
the five thirty eight politics podcast. Way that can first
heard him. It's well, I talk about the stuff I
did in college in high school, and I don't know. Man,
that's where I heard you, That's where I fell in love.
So I have to honor it. I have to honor
my truth of the Jody Abragant experience. Thank you and
happy first day of Spring that does not feel like
(01:29):
spring and moth physically and mentally. He's turned a new leaf.
And you know sen yeah, no, yeah, you're in New
York so especially we're we're talking Stormy Daniels and you know,
potential megapro today's lineup, by the way, I mean, you're
a sure job to introduced it. Gosh. I was like, okay,
(01:51):
well we'll start heavy, and I was like, um, okay,
and I look at the second topic, I'm like okay,
and that was the third topic. Really it really lined
it up here for folk. Were that's right, well, the
news cycle lined it up for us. We are thrilled
to be joined by the host and reporter behind the
new podcast from KCYRW City of Tents Veterans Row, which
(02:12):
I highly recommend everyone go listen to. She also created
KCYRWS podcast Samaritans. The podcasting talent we have on the
show today, folks, it's it's intimidating. Get ready, hold onto
your butts. It's Anna Sky, thank you, thank you. I
love that. It's like, uh my WWE. That's right. We
(02:33):
try and bring a lot of WWE energy to the
news cycle because there's not enough of it with our
former WWE wrestler ex president, you know, it's we like
to keep it live. How's everybody doing? How are you
guys doing? How Spring treating you so far? Well? Does
(02:54):
not feel like spring in Los Angeles? It is. It's
a cloudy, it's wet, and like, I know, the the
wet is good for our client there, we need the rain, etc.
But I'm over it. I'm really over it. Yeah, I
feel you all right, well, and we're gonna get to
know you a little bit better in a moment. First,
we're gonna tell our listeners a couple of things we're
(03:15):
talking about today. We are going to talk about city
of Tense veterans Row and just the issue of homelessness
in America that you do a lot of reporting on
and just kind of get your thoughts and insights because
you have a lot of really interesting things to say
in the show and just across media. So we will
talk about that. We will talk about Trump's announcing his
(03:38):
arrests on today it's supposed to happen, and you know,
he has called for protests those The response seems to
be somewhat muted. But it feels a little strange to
be like, you know, prognosticating how people are going to react.
But that's what we're gonna do for a little bit today.
So we'll talk about that. There's conspiracy theorist dating sites.
(04:01):
See what I see what I was saying. Yeah, we
might might skip down to the new rules for social etiquette,
which is something that I like to throw too when
things get a little too dreary. All of that plenty more,
But first Anna, we do like to ask our guests,
what is something from your search history that's revealing about
who you are? Well? Yeah, so I looked. I looked
(04:22):
on my phone, and the most recent one last night.
I think this is telling enough. So I decided last
night to rewatch the old Movies Sit in Nancy, Okay,
old classic. Um, I hadn't seen it for a long time,
and and then it I So I searched Alex Cox
diad because it Watching the movie made me curious about
(04:45):
the director and I'm kind of morbid. I don't know
My first question was whether the director Alex Cox is
still alive or at so, and you you had a guess.
It sounds like you were like watching You're like the
vision on Green here. This person can't be alive. I
mean the movie came out of nineteen eighty six, so
I just thought he's probably dead, but in fact he's not,
(05:09):
and he's actually not really even that old. He's in
his sixties. But the search did turn up a big
rabbit hole. But I guess there is a Netflix true
crime documentary that has someone in it named Alex Cox
who is in fact dead and also maybe murdered someone.
So that that led me down a whole rabbit hole
and I may have to watch that documentary now. In
(05:30):
addition to Sit and Nancy, Well, this story is bringing
up a very interesting question for me, which is you
referred to this as an old movie nineteen eighty six.
I mean, you know, I wasn't aware of Sit and
Nancy when it came out in nineteen eighty six, but
I'm curious what the line is for referring to something
as an old movie. Yeah, that's a good question. I
(05:51):
mean thirty years, Yeah, that's thirty years. That's just right
on the threshold about right right. But that was what
I was thinking. It's like somewhere right in there. You're right,
you may have pinned it like like it may be
that nineteen eighty six is the year that you if
this movie come out in nineteen eighty seven, would you
have caught it in an old movie? Maybe not? Maybe not.
(06:11):
I feel like eighty six is, yeah, I don't know.
Something about the mid eighties seems like a good dividing line.
So when my son was born in twenty sixteen, so
that exactly thirty years after the Side Nancy came out,
So it like the movie that was thirty years old
when I was born, or Work came out in nineteen fifty.
(06:33):
And there are things such as Destination Moon, a sci
fi film where they're like, what if we made it
to the moon and then you know it was made
of cheese or what. I don't know what they what
their thesis was at the time, but it's very old
by comparison that those movies were extremely old. As far
(06:55):
as I can tell. There are I like that you
went to Destination Moon and not you know, Sunset Boulevard
are all about eve. Oh yeah, that came out of
nineteen fifty. Those are timeless classics. Those are timeless classics.
I was, I was trying to make a point that
we're all very old, but time is slowing down or
(07:17):
compressing in this weird way. I mean, it really is
like culture cultural time is like skewing, for sure. For sure.
Now I'm just gonna be asking you questions but actually
googling the plot for Destination Moon in the background. But yeah,
after their latest rocket fails. No, I won't read, just
read you the IMDb summary of Destination Moon. But how
(07:40):
did how did Sid Nancy hold up? Um? Well, I
fell asleep after about twenty minutes because I ambled, So
I have to Uh, I've got to finish it. But
so far, so good. Um, it's uh, I don't know what.
I don't know why this movie came to mind as
just something i'd like to rewatch, But it's I think
it's a very it's a very good about being on drugs. Yeah,
(08:02):
I was gonna say, it's very appropriate that you nodded
off during sitting names. Yes, yeah, yeah, I nodded off.
Totally sober but right, but nonetheless still appropriate reaction. Very
young Gary Oldman in this movie as Sibvicious, which is, uh,
it's kind of interesting to see. Haven't seen a yet
(08:23):
very young Gary oldman for a while. Also, Courtney Love
has a small part in the movie, which I've forgotten
it out. She is I don't know if she comes back,
I can't remember, but she's she's in it early on.
In one of the first scenes she's she has a
brief crying scene because the movie opens with discovering the
(08:46):
body of Nancy and you know, I don't know, I
don't know if people know this movie it's about the
sex pistol basically, yea, the Dune romance. Yes, Subvicious and
Nancy Sponge and so it kind of starts at the
end and then backtracks, and so Courtney Love is briefly
in the beginning sobbing and saying something like she was
(09:07):
a really nice person, kind of chewing the scenery in
her fifteen second appearance. Yeah, not know. She was like
an established movie actor when she came on the scene
and like met Kurt Cobain and all that stuff. That's interesting. Yeah,
so so far, so good. What is what something you
(09:27):
think is overrated? Bacon? Bacon, Bacon overrated overrated, overrated. I
don't get it, never liked it, don't like it, don't
understand the fuss. There have to be other people like
me out there, there's there has to be. And when
you say this, people immediately or like you've just never
had good bacon? Right, yes, more they think I'm being
(09:51):
contrarian on purpose, like I've chosen something that you know,
just because it's so great and wonderful. But I'm not.
I don't get I don't understand. I don't like it.
I don't think how did you how did you hold
up during the bacon craze of the what was that
like the mid two thousands or something, when there was
just bacon flavored everything everywhere? I just I just tuned
(10:13):
it out. I just, I mean, I there must be
other people like me, right, uh yeah, yeah. I can
imagine you're the only person on earth who has this
opinion for me, someone who enjoys bacon a lot of
the time like I enjoy. I don't enjoy all bacon.
I don't think bacon is like unfuckupable. It's very hit
(10:35):
or miss, but like when it's really done to my liking,
I really enjoy it. But I prefer Super producer Becca
came in the chat to say, sausage over bacon. I
think that is generally true in terms of like sausage
is pretty easy to prepare and replacement level sausage. Yeah,
(10:57):
replacement level sausage versus bacon. All so I don't feel
good like cleaning up bacon after the fact. I'm like, what,
people who don't like bacon are correct, this is gross,
Like this is this is not something that is meant
to be consumed by humans. And all the breakfast foods
to freak out over. I just feel like there's so
(11:18):
many better ones. Take a pancake, waffle, scrambled eggs, I
mean almost anything over bacon. There's so many wonderful breakfast foods.
I just don't get it. Yeah, so you go sweet
over savory generally at breakfast, I guess. So. I guess
I am more of a sweet tooth person than a
salty tooth person. So maybe that is a that is
(11:40):
a factor here. Tale I like that though I'm a
salty tooth for real salty tooth. It sounds like a
like an old sailor or like an old sea captain. Yeah,
which is maybe why I didn't take off the way
Sweet Tooth did, Superducer Bay coming in saying Canadian bacon better,
which is certainly an opinion I have never gotten on board,
(12:04):
but I probably haven't had good enough Canadian bacon. And
it's all it's definitely falls into that same category of like,
it always seems like it's about the same. Would you
call the movie Canadian Bacon an old movie? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
that is from nineteen ninety five. We think we have
to move our line, so twenty eight years it's ordering
(12:29):
on the old movie. Yeah, all right, all right, data point,
it's aged. Yeah. What is something you think is underrated? Baths? Baths? No,
I mean a lot of people like taking baths, but
but I just think I don't think we talk about
baths enough and how great they are. Probably my favorite
(12:51):
kind of indulgent thing to do to take a bath
in the middle of the day if I have time,
I mean having a young child, and during the work
week that's usually not possible. But if I find myself
in a pocket of time during the day when I'm
alone in the house and I can take a bath
while the sun is still out and it's midday, I mean,
it's like it's amazing. I feel like we should talk
(13:13):
about it more. And you can do so many things
to your bath. You can put bath salts in their bubbles,
right ducks, Yeah, ducks. Bath beeds like smell good. It's
like it's going to a spot. But but you know,
you don't have to pay any money and you don't
have to leave your house. I experienced a bit of
a bath renaissance when I had a kid as well,
(13:35):
just because you know, you remember, oh baths, right, is
that what happened for you? You feel like it's both
the ritual of giving him a bath, you know, every
day or every other day. That kind of reminded me
of baths and also of mister Bubble, which I advocate
for as well. And then also I think just having
(13:56):
an uninterrupted block of time alone is also at a
high premium after having a kid, so that's probably part
of it as well. I think baths are for people
who aren't me, because I like, I feel like I'm
steeping in my filth like a tea bag. Well this
(14:18):
is bath. Yeah, what's okay? Shower before bath is okay,
now we're talking. That does make sense because yeah, I
just like a little soak. See, I've always solve this
bike going shower after bath interesting. Okay, so yeah, but
(14:38):
then you're still steeping in your own filth for a
little bit. The shower before bath had never occurred to me.
Just a quick rince, you know, because also you don't
have to kind of I feel like taking a shower
right after a bath kind of washes away the bath glow.
I just want to get out to the bath and
right right, yeah, putting a little oils in there. Yeah,
(14:58):
it's just it's just the bubble bath. I need the
skim of bubbles to not see below the surface what's
happening down there when I'm in a bathtub. Personally, that's
just how I feel. Well, this is this is a
call back to the thighs thing that you They're distracting.
I'll say there, it's pretty distracting. My eyes can't see
(15:21):
the light that you shine. The lyrics to Kiss by
a Rose are really kind of they seem like a
day dream that someone like someone trying to write a
lyric as they're falling asleep. It's very strange. Anyways, all right, well,
I feel like we've gotten to know you a little
bit better. Let's take a quick break and we'll be
right back. And we're back, and and I wanted to
(15:54):
talk about City of Tents Veterans Row, which is a
series that you have been reporting out. So you start
the season off talking about like you say that homelessness
is an issue that the more you've reported on it,
the less kind of inerge to it you become, the
(16:15):
more like kind of outrage you feel. And you also
say it's a problem that you feel like we could
solve if we really wanted to. Can you can you
talk a little bit about like just that that feeling
that you get from you know, knowing more and more
about about the homelessness crisis and in America, and you
(16:37):
know where that kind of outrage comes from. Yeah, you know,
I think that there is a certain amount of numbing
out that happens almost as a defense mechanism when you
live in a city like Los Angeles where where I live,
and the homelessness crisis is so visible every day. There's
encampments under just about every freeway over past parks. So
(16:59):
I think a lot of people, I mean, the nice
way to put it is, you know, you is you
get desensitized, right, it becomes part of the landscape probably
is a necessity, because otherwise you would be upset all
the time. I think the not it's a nice way
to put it, is there's a lot of dehumanizing that
goes on, I think, on how people are really I
(17:20):
mean one group of people that a lot of folks
seem to feel very comfortable generalizing about and saying some
pretty horrendous things about just in casual company and which,
and so you know, a lot of my time is
spent talking to people who are experiencing homelessness because they're
(17:41):
the most affected by the crisis, and so I think
naturally that just chips away at that layer you know
that might otherwise develop, and you know, you get to
know people on an individual level. You see how close
a lot of us could you know, are to becoming unhoused.
(18:01):
And so that's why I say early on in the series,
just the more I cover it, the more sensitized, if
that's even a word I feel to it. And it's
you know, it's it's it's outrage because I also get
an up close look at a lot of the systemic
failures behind the crisis. But it's also sad and upsetting,
(18:23):
and yeah, all those things, all those things, it's you know,
it's it is a humanitarian crisis that's unfolding in a
lot of our big cities, and and I guess when
you are really plugged into it and talking to people
experiencing it all the time, it's it's just hard to
hard to backtrack and just kind of oh yeah, like
accepted as a regular part of the landscape. But I
(18:46):
also do say in the first episode that it's not
an intractable problem and there are solutions. I don't want
people to feel hopeless about it, because I mean, it's
it can be complicated on to one on one level,
right when you talk to individuals and get to know
their stories and all the factors that might have ledged
someone to falling out of the housing market. But really,
you know, there are a lot of things that work,
(19:08):
and we've seen them in One of the reasons with
this podcast actually that I focused on unhoused veterans specifically,
is that they've been an interesting case study in recent years,
in recent decades in this country about what works. Veterans
are generally more politically popular as a group of people
than non veterans, so they've gotten more assistance and it's worked,
(19:32):
and as the series unfolds, we unpack what that assistance
is and we look at, you know, how these things
could be applied to non veterans as well. But yeah,
I mean, I can go as far into the weeds
as you want or stay as big picture as you want,
but basically, there are things that we know work. There
are big common you know, drivers of this crisis that
we can address. But that doesn't mean they're easy to
(19:55):
do that these solutions are easy, you know, they require
a lot of resources, in some cases a whole new
social contract. So I don't want to minimize that. But
it's not like this is a mystery. This is an
issue we've been dealing with for decades in this country
that's been studied a lot, and there's a ton of
research about it. And yeah, so we do know what
the causes are and what the solutions are. Just that
(20:16):
big picture like American reaction too, and I it's probably
other countries, other Western countries too, but the reaction of
wanting to dehumanize, And it also reminds me of a
thing we run into where like billionaires are more popular
than they should be with the people who they spend
(20:39):
a lot of time whose lives they spend a lot
of time like making worse. It's like this American thing
where we want everyone to be getting what they deserve
at some level. And so they're like they want to
blame homeless people who are you know, suffering from homelessness
(21:01):
for their situation and you know, also give billionaires credit
for their circumstances. And it's I don't know, I don't
know how we get out of that, because I go
it runs deep. It feels like, but I think talking
to and like hearing reporting where you are actually speaking
to these human beings and hearing their stories and you
(21:23):
know that they are here because of like something that
they sacrificed and like gave to the country is a
pretty powerful way to do it. I guess, thanks, Yeah,
that is. I mean another reason that this story was
interesting is because it does focus on a group of
unhoused veterans, and it definitely I'm always looking for ways
(21:45):
because as a reporter, I don't I don't want to
write policy prescriptions or get into that territory. I can
certainly talk about policies that have worked in certain instances
or case studies or research, etc. Etc. But I'm not
going to advocate for this is you know, specifically exactly
what we should do. I'm going to present you with
what we know, and you know what has worked before.
(22:08):
But but something that I do try to do pretty
actively is just pierce that numbness a little bit and
hopefully present the issue to people with a fresh lens.
So that and veterans were an interesting way to do that,
because there is a kind of general goodwill that Americans
have for people who have done military service, just kind
(22:29):
of by and large, and so I think that in
some ways expanded the audience the people that would be
receptive to hearing it, and just automatically humanize the people
of the center of it. For some folks. I mean,
you know, I think I don't know, for better or worse,
that that is just true. And then also I'm always
(22:51):
trying to find ways to break the conversation out of
superpartisan political lenses because this issue, especially in a place
like where it's a real top issue for people, it's
become so political and the way people talk about it,
it's so binary and and a lot of people just
have these preconceived ideas and it's very hard to break
(23:14):
through that so I'm always looking for ways, and again
with veterans, it was it was an opportunity to break
through some of that because the politics just god all
turned upside down because of the military angle. So on
that point, I mean, I take your point about how
veterans are an entry point for a lot of people
because people tend to want to support them. But the
(23:36):
flip side of that is, you know that talking about
veterans and talking about supporting our troops is just so
is used so cynically by politicians, you know, on both sides,
And the GOP loves to talk about supporting our troops
and then very rarely backs it up with supporting veterans,
and Democrats don't seem to be doing that much better.
I'm just curious, like, do the people, the people that
you talk to that you got to know, do they
(23:57):
feel connected to that being back and forth at the
political level. Does it matter to them whether a Democratus
president or Republicans president and how they've talked about supporting
our troops. Well, the story that I follow over this series,
it focused. It focuses on one encampment that was on
a street in LA for more than a year and
(24:17):
at any given time, there were as many as almost
fifty people living there, pretty much all the military veterans,
and so they themselves were really mixed bag in terms
of their their backgrounds, their own political beliefs, you know,
how much they were following national politics. That it was
it was all over the place. It was really hard
(24:38):
to generalize the issues that they were dealing with, you know,
the kind of service they've done. I mean, it was
it was all over the map. What was interesting about
this encampment, which was nicknamed Veteran Row, I mean, one
of many things that was interesting was how it attracted
a lot of people who I've never seen at any
other encampment in Los Angeles. And there are many large
(24:59):
encampments around in LA and different ones that had become
flashpoints at different points in time, which this one eventually
did as well. But it also drew a crowd that
was really unusual people. I mean, people had political rallies there,
different candidates running for office, Like back when there was
(25:19):
a recall effort to try to recall Governor Gavin Newsom,
there were people who wanted to replace him, who had
events there that they would broadcast on YouTube. There were
you know, usually kind of fringe candidates, to be honest,
but they drew a barbecues. There were people always showing
up to do different kinds of events. There were always
(25:40):
people coming with cameras and making documentaries and doing all
sorts of projects like that. Specifically because of because it
was Sands, there was Yeah, a Walmart commercial was filming
there one day, or at least that's what the crew
told me. I have searched for this Walmart commercial online
to see if it ever saw the light of day,
and I haven't found it. But but yeah, early on
(26:01):
in the series, you hear a crew they're shooting what
they say is as a Walmart, a documentary stat Walmart commercials.
So Walmart as a filmmaker, I should just say they're
very They're like Kubrick. They will do take after take
until they can get it right. So that's why it
might not have come out. Walmart is acting filmmaker Stilby, Yes,
perfecting that. But that was one of the things that
(26:23):
drew me to it. And you know, in the middle
of it all, you had these dozens of unhoused military veterans.
We're kind of being used as a backdrop, backdrop a
lot of the time, and you know, they themselves, I
mean they were more concerned day to day with trying
to get into housing where you know, where's the next
(26:43):
meal going to come from? You know, they generally speaking,
they really did not want the encampment to be known
as a political partisan place. They didn't really want to
be affiliated with, you know, any particular candidate or party
or anything like that. But a lot of people showed
up there genuinely trying to help, but also promoting themselves
(27:05):
in different ways. And I found that really interesting. Yeah,
it's you talk about the barbecues. It is like there
is this community that's happening there. And you even speak
to one of the veterans who lives there and is like,
I wouldn't want to necessarily be in an apartment by myself.
Like there's really seems like the having other people around
(27:27):
and like having this community that has kind of come together.
They have a dress code kind of they have like
a homeowners association type role about like having your flag
facing a certain way. But like, yeah, it's I don't
know comparing it too so just to for people who
aren't familiar with Brentwood, Brentwood is like, you know, this
(27:49):
super wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles, if you saw the
people versus O. J. Simpson, like that's where OJ lived
and in like the mansions are just up the street
from where this is happening. The reason it's happening here
is because there's also the Veterans administration, like right there,
(28:10):
this massive chunk of beautiful land right in the middle
of the city that the government is just not doing
anything with for years. But yeah, it just like when
you compare the number of like Taco Tuesday parties and
barbecues and like things that we're coming together with these people,
(28:32):
there's like just so much humanity there and community that
you don't see in those surrounding neighborhoods that are like
fighting so hard to get them out of there in
a lot of cases. M that's interesting. Yeah, And you know,
encampments are generally communities. Spend time at any given one,
(28:53):
you know, anywhere in LA and most often it is
a community, you know, and people have relationships, and I
think that I think it's easy to underestimate that, and
I think you know, it's hard to understand like, well,
you know, if you hear something like oh, somebody you know,
(29:14):
turned down a particular shelter offer for example. You know,
they must be resistant to all help. You know, they
must be That just sounds like a totally illogical thing
to do. But um, but a lot of the time,
you know, people do have community where you know, they
make community at often at encampments and and most people
(29:35):
certainly do want help and they would prefer to live
in a house or in some other circumstance. But but also,
you know, you can develop ties and relationships and a
feeling of community anywhere that you live for a long
period of time. And so you know, sometimes there can
be a few steps still finding a solution for somebody
that that will work for them where you know they
(29:57):
don't necessarily have to give up that feeling. But and
all of that played out Veterans Row. Veterans Row had
its own unique flavor to its community because it was
all these unhoused veterans who were in that location for
a very specific reason. Like you said, it's because they
were right outside of this enormous, huge campus own and
(30:17):
ding dormitories. Just like, yes, it's a super weird place
if you're here in LA I mean, most people, you know,
if you don't have a reason to go there. You
just drive past it and you kind of are vaguely familiar.
But it's this huge VA campus with a hospital on
it and other medical facilities and various things you know,
that are fully functioning. And then it has all these
creepy old buildings and open space and a lot of
(30:40):
people wonder what is going on there. And there's a
long backstory that we get into, but the important part
is the reason it's a VA campus is the land
was donated more than a century ago to be a
home for veterans. This was at a time when the
United States actually had these veterans homes all over the country,
these campuses where people returning from the Civil War and
(31:02):
later conflicts could live and see doctors and get healthcare.
So this particular campus was part of that system for
a long time. But over time we abolished that system
and the VA evolved into what it does today, which
is largely healthcare, so all cemeteries benefits, and so this
campus it really reflects that because it has the medical facilities,
(31:25):
but then it has these old remnants of what it
once was, and there was they also leased parts of
it out to different entities, that have nothing to do
with veterans at all, like some schools that have athletic
facilities there, which has always been controversial and even led
to a lawsuit some years ago resulting in a plan
(31:45):
the VA, you know, because they were because the government
was given was you know, given this land or chosen
to be the stewards, I suppose of this land under
these particular stipulations that it'd be a home for veterans.
They ended up agreeing some years ago to create new
affordable housing there for specifically for homeless veterans. So one
(32:08):
of the reasons that this camp formed right outside that
property is because a lot of the vests there they
were receiving services at the VA, they maybe landed on
the street after trying to get into different VA programs.
But also they by putting up these large tents that
they had put up in these flags, they were trying
to call attention to this plan that still hasn't come
(32:28):
to fruition although it's underway to build this new housing there.
They're trying to they're trying to let kind of let
people know, hey, this is we're supposed to be living
on this land, but we're what we're on the street
and so yeah, so it was they had this you know,
this connection in common to the to the land next door.
(32:50):
You know, most of them were under the care of
doctors on that campus. They sort of brought like a
military flare to the encampment on the street with these
matching flags that they had, and they had some chore
rotations and things like that. So it was a very
unique community. Yeah. Well it's a really it's a great podcast.
Everyone should go listen. You know, we're just scratching the
(33:13):
surface here, but it's a it's a really mind blowing,
you know, snapshot of America in all its good and
really bad glory on display in like some really yeah,
just surreal ways, Like it's a it feels like, yeah,
(33:35):
the Veterans campus just it feels like an Ivy League
school that was just left to like just abandoned like
decades ago, like and and is just rotting there. Well
they're like, we don't, we don't have housing for these people.
It's it's very surreal. Yeah, very strange place and very
(33:58):
interesting dynamics with this camp next door. And then the
surrounding neighborhood, as you mentioned, is Brentwood, which is one
of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. So yeah, all
of that and how the community interacted with the encampment
and the encampment and its relationship to the VA, it
was all pretty fascinating. And you know, it was it
(34:20):
was a tragic situation and some and some all whole
things happened. But also you know, there was there was
a lot of humor in it. I mean just with
the spectacle that it was and the people that would
show up, and so yeah, I'm trying to get to
all of that. There's one veteran who's like, I need
surgery for my like badly hurt ankle, and a guy
(34:42):
shows up and like keeps trying to let him pray
over it, and he's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no
it helped, Like it definitely feels like five percent better.
Can I leave now? The guy's like, no, no, no,
let me let me keep praying over your ankle. Like
it was just like a small, yeah example, these things
that would happen all the time, where people show up
with their own very particular ideas about how to help,
(35:04):
and you know, and a lot of people were drawn
to it because it was veterans for different reasons and
wanted to help, but a lot of the time their
idea of helping wasn't necessarily connected to what the veterans
themselves wanted or needed. Yeah, and I found that very interesting.
So that was the other common thread through the whole series,
(35:24):
is just me trying to sort out who who is helping?
Who is actually helping here? Yeah. There were some really
good examples though, of the of people who were helping
by just being like, these are humans, what would make
them feel better? You know? Like what like the person
who was a former food company exec who started barbecuing
(35:47):
there and like started the regular barbecues just like brought
a weaver grill and created a regular kind of community event.
She did. Now, she also had a very large Instagram
follow that she was documenting all of this horror, which
I thought was interesting. There were a lot of people
that would come to do altruistic things but also would
(36:12):
promote themselves at the same time, which I felt was
worth pointing out. But but a lot of people, you know,
they would look they would come with like basic stuff,
you know, water, food, socks, things like that, And yeah,
I mean I think, you know, after reporting on this
issue for so many years, I feel comfortable saying homelessness
(36:34):
is a big systemic problem in this country that requires
big systemic fixes, And so people will often ask me like, well,
what should I do as an individual? How can I help?
And I just tell them, you know, we'll think about,
like what what do you want to get out of
your helping? And you know, I don't think there's a
lot of ways to go wrong unless you're doing something
(36:56):
really destructive or or harmful. You know, I don't think
there's a bad way to get engaged because you're not
you know, you're certainly not going to solve this crisis
just on an individual level, right and you know, I
don't think you're probably going to make it worse either,
But if you I mean, yes, if you just start
with connecting with people on a human level, asking them
(37:18):
what they need, what they'd like, getting to know them,
that can become hugely, hugely impactful. If I mean, if
that's something you're comfortable doing and have the opportunity that
can be transformative in somebody's life, if you can just
be an advocate and an ally for that person, because
the system around helping them is very under resourced and
(37:39):
understaffed and so so that can be a big way
to start. So can I just quickly highlight the immense
wisdom and what you just said, which I just clicked
for me, which is like, when something is so complicated
and intractable, it actually means that basically everything is worth doing.
And I mean that's like I will carry that with
(38:00):
me going forward. I mean, it's such such a brilliant
articulation of how to approach these things. Yeah, and if
and it feels like a lot of the stuff that
seems intractable and you know systemic is also the result
of under resourcing. Like in this country, there's just a
lot of things that haven't been given the resources for
(38:23):
decades now that we're seeing the consequences of. Yeah, I mean,
I can you know, one example is just I mean,
the you know, the big underlying factor in places like
La New York City, San Francisco where we have these
large homelessness crises is housing affordability and housing availability. When
you don't have much of either one, people tend to
(38:45):
fall out of the housing market. That doesn't mean that
individuals who are experiencing homelessness don't have other issues going on.
Some of the time, you know, other than financial issues
or needing next month's rent. But that's the big underlying fact.
They all fell out of the housing market at some
point in time for all different kinds of reasons, and
(39:06):
it's very hard to get back in once that happens.
And then once you're on the street, the homelessness crisis
overlaps with all these other crises that we have. You know,
there are holes in our mental health care system. Meth
is ubiquitous on the streets of la because because it
is unbelievably cheap, and so I think sometimes people conflate
homelessness with mental health crisis or you know, drug crisis,
(39:28):
math crisis, but they are not one and the same
at all. And the big thing when it comes to
homelessness is housing affordability, housing availability, And one of the
things that really helped us reduce vetteran homelessness over the
last decade and a half was putting more resources into
essentially the veteran version of Section eight, which are these
(39:49):
are vouchers that provide rental subsidies for low income people.
So if you qualify, you get a voucher, you can
take it to a landlord, pay a percentage of your
income towards rent and the federal government will pay the rest. Now,
normal Section eight is very oversubscribed. If you want to
get a voucher, even if you qualify, your chances are
like one in four maybe nationally and less than that
(40:13):
in Los Angeles. There's a there's a huge waiting list.
It's it's really hard to get. If you're a veteran
who qualifies, you have a much higher chance of getting
one of these vouchers because they have their own pool,
which which Congress has has been more generous about funding.
And so those vouchers, paired with services provided through the
(40:33):
VA are really at the heart of a big push
that resulted in a huge decline nationally in veteran homelessness
of twenty ten. So yeah, now, fully funding Section eight
for everybody would be enormously expensive. It's not politically popular, right,
But that's like one example of a big system thing
(40:57):
that you know, we can look at something that worked
at least with this one group of people that's under
resourced when you're talking about the general population. Yeah, all right, well,
thank you so much for taking the time to talk
to us about it and for doing the reporting. Everybody
should go check out the show, City of Tents Veterans Row,
(41:17):
Let's take a quick break, we'll come back and talk
about some other stuff. We'll be right back, and we're back,
and we'll probably were the Trump thing. I think we
(41:37):
all know. Trump claimed these going to be arrested probably
today and has called for supporters to protest. We talked
about it on yesterday's Trending. We'll have more updates on
this afternoon's trending. So Jack, it's almost like it's almost
like Schrodinger's podcast, Like, right, if the fact that people
are hearing this means that things didn't melt down, right,
(41:58):
because if they're truly westcast probably do an emergency episode. Yes,
of course, all right, but uh, for the rest of
the episode, I wanted to just run down. Did you
guys see the article in New York Magazine that was
like the new rules for social Etiquette. It's this like
grandiose project. It's got hundreds of rules. They are real
(42:19):
hit or miss, and we've just been kind of checking
in with the list and talking to our guest co
hosts and guests about about their thoughts on on these things.
I think there are a few that we feel like
could be canon like should be things that we adopt
into our social etiquette, like never tell someone who they
(42:41):
look like, yeah, oh yes, it never goes goes like
Miranda July. And I find it really annoying. Yeah, it's
nobody ever likes to hear that. I think that someone
is the key word there, which is like, this isn't
like fodder for small talk with a stranger. I think
(43:02):
like if you're a friend, you know, I had a
friend for a while and like, I mean a good
friend of mine actually texted me today and said what
he said. I wish I had better news to share,
but the far right Israeli finance minister is in the
news for all the wrong reasons and he looks like
a bizarre, evil version of you. Yes, and I coming
from a long time friend, I'm happy to hear that,
(43:24):
but I don't want to hear that from someone who
at no. And I always run it through the filter,
like if it's a famous person, it's like, Okay, what
you're really saying is that I look like this person's
less hot cousin. Let's be honest. It's like it's just
never good. It's one more thing on this. I know
(43:44):
this when you were doing this as a throwaway check.
But but one more thing about this, which is I
think so many of these pieces of etiquette sort of
have this through line, which is like, don't do stuff
that doesn't set someone else some set someone up to
like respond in a productive way, like you know, and
a lot and like that, just telling someone who they
look like, it's like, what am I supposed to know?
(44:05):
There's no yes and to that right, yeah, okay, And
a lot of the piece of advice kind of fall
into that category, just like don't say something where think
about think about someone's response when you say something and
whether they're going to be able to kind of pick
it up and totally Yeah. Another one that I think
is probably solid for everybody to adopt is actually, it's
great to talk about the weather. There was like this
(44:28):
unofficial agreement in the nineties. I think like there were
stand up comedy bits it was like, don't talk about
the weather. It's boring. What are you a fifty year
old man? And it's but we live in strange times.
The weather is something that should be fine to talk about,
all right, whether in the sports. So the only two
things left, yeah, just kind of you start this whole
(44:49):
conversation talking about the weather. Yeah, yeah, and that's what
I was using. This list just got exactly all right,
here's something for discussion. You get can stop me when
you hear one, but that you have some thoughts on
you want. Bobby de Niro may go way back, but
to everyone else, he's Robert. This is aimed at a
(45:09):
very specific like. So one of the overall notes I
have on this list is like, the very first item
is like you don't have to read all your friends books,
and it's like, well, that's like for a very specific
group of people are constantly yeah. But so on this one,
(45:31):
it's like their writing specifically to famous people who drop
the nicknames or people who are you know, in the
orbit of famous people. This like, I think it's hilarious
when famous people do this. I it also feels like
doing it must be the greatest feeling in the world
because of how ridiculous it makes them look and how
(45:52):
hard they insist on doing it every time. So it's like,
I don't I don't feel like I can make a
full hard judgment on this one because I don't know
any famous person well enough to try this shit. But man,
they really seem to like it. Yeah, but I mean,
but you're saying when you hear an actor refer to
(46:13):
and all my examples are basically any people in the
good felt anyway or any halfway right or like or
Marty Scoressy Marty. I feel like it's the way you
hear all the time. But if it's someone who's worked
with them and it's famous and like that's what they
get caught on set, then you're okay with that. But
if it's like me, I happen to have seen them
at a bar or even like sat next to them
(46:36):
at a random dinner, I can't. I can't switch over
to Marty. And I'm fine with it. Oh, I'm fine
with it across the board. I think it. I think
you should be willing to accept the consequences of your
actions when you do that, but I don't. I'm just like,
that's a that is a choice, but it's a choice
(46:57):
that I'm glad people are out there making. It doesn't
necessarily endear me to those people, but I don't think
that's their goal either, right, Well, yeah, it must be
kind of an awkward thing too. Like let's say you're
a celebrity that's worked with one of these people. You're
doing an interview and you want to say something about
Robert de Niro, but you know him as Bobby, Like,
it probably feels just even more pretentious to say his
(47:20):
full name if you actually know this person and have
worked with them. Well, me and Robert de Niro, you know,
there's I mean, I kind of have some empathy for
the celebrities on this one. I don't know. I don't
I recently had a sort of like inverse name dropping
awkward experience where someone was talking to me about their
friend Greta for like a long time, yes, and then
(47:43):
through context clues, I realized that it was Greta Gerwig
and they were talking like about my friend Greta's movie
and like going to that and and I was just like,
just you should have just drop that name from the
beginning and just owned it rather than trying to like
overcorrect for not being a name dropper. But it's tough.
This stuff is tough. Total, it is very high. It's
(48:07):
up there with not not reading your friends. But we're
on a podcast dissecting a list from New York Magazine.
Let's just just be up front about the air in
which we are operating here I had we we had
Robert Or, the famous NBA basketball player on our NBA show,
and I just called him Robert Or the whole time.
I was like, well, thank you, yeah. But I think
(48:29):
that's also you could also steer really hard into that
and just anytime you're referring to your friend Bobby, you
just say Robert didn't here. Get it all out there,
all the way out there, all right. Some others never
send an edible arrangement. What they're great, They're great. Fine. Um,
I don't think that this is a a hard rule.
(48:50):
This is not a never. Don't use your friends as
for play is is another one of the ones where
I felt like I was learning a lot about whoever
wrote this. What does that mean? So that's what it
then goes into like a discussion of like friends fighting
in front of their friends, and like I don't know,
(49:10):
like I had no real world experience to like put
it onto. I guess like the the assumption is that
their friends get horny from fighting with each other in
front of them, and that is so somehow, I don't know.
(49:32):
My man thought is like you got you sick little
friends of nested pathology, and yet stop using me to
get horny by yelling at each other when you got
to dinner with me and my wife. I don't know,
it sounds like I'm just trying to I'm just trying
to have a dinner and with my friends argue in
(49:52):
front of me without it being sexual. Can you just
can you just argue please and make this a normal
dinner where my friends to argue in front of me. Yeah.
The other example of like huh for for me was
always wink, always wink. It's just one of the rules.
No explanation, right. I love that rule. I can tell
(50:14):
you a story about a buddy of mine who was
applying for a job at home depot when he was
a sophomore in college, maybe junior or a sophomore high school,
maybe junior in high school. And he's going through the
interview and he's like super nervous, first ever job, and
the like, you know, the shift manager at home depots
like being a kind of like big timing him. You know,
during this interview, he's peppering him with questions, asking all
his questions, and you know, my my buddy's trying to
(50:36):
answer be earnest and so forth, and then like three
cours the way through the interview, he just there. He
looks at my buddy and goes, stop winking at me, son,
and my friend just goes okay, but like he hadn't
been winking at him. It wasn't trying to just thrown off,
and he didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself like
question the premise uh and be like no, what are
you talking about? Or I'm not He was just like okay,
(50:57):
and he continued that's like one of those Google mind
fuck interview questions, where all right, at this point we
accuse you, accuse the attendee the interviewe of winking at
us and see how they respond. You can calcely cancel
almost any plans up until two pm. Specific I don't
(51:19):
know sure, I'm fine with canceling plans. So yeah, I
won't be mad at you if you cancel plans with
me in the world I know, truly, like, oh no,
unless the plans are two thirty or something right right, yeah, exactly.
And then this one. If your friend is dating someone
you seriously object to, you have one chance to sit
them down and tell them. This seems like genuinely bad
(51:41):
advice because it feels like that like, I can't see
how this would be true for purposes other than like
you are writing as rom com screenplay and like you're
just adding like I understand the overall gist of it is,
like you don't want to just keep hammering that with criticisms,
and like you want to do it in a targeted,
(52:04):
thoughtful way. But at the same time, like being like
you only got one chance and once you do it,
it's over and you have to live with the decision
that you've made just feels like artificial and like they
wanted to they needed to fill an article full of rules.
Sounds very arbitrary. I mean, yeah, I'm more of the
(52:26):
mindset that unless someone asks, I'm not gonna just set
them down and tell them my opinion. But it also
depends on why you object to the person. I mean,
if you know something egregious about this person, or you
know or they're engaged in really abusive behavior or something
like that, then maybe it's appropriate. But if it's just
(52:46):
kind of run of the mill I don't like this person,
then I don't. I don't see any need to have
a sit down. I'm yeah, I'm not objecting to this
based on me wanting to have the conversation, Like I
do not like conversations like this. I'm not going to
be the person who's like keeps bringing this up. But
it just it does feel like sometimes you just gotta
(53:08):
help your friend, like you have to. Sounds like you're
trying to like universalize something and make it rule about
something that's kind of just very dependent on the situation. Yeah. Look,
I know this is the second time we've talked about this,
but I need you and your wife to stop trying
to get horny by arguing in front of me. I mean,
(53:28):
you know, to your to your point, and I mean,
I you know, that is the exercise I think. And
they're very like upfront. And that's why I loved this
list is they're just gonna, you know, we're gonna just
throw a bunch of very specific and sometimes very outrageous
things out there and let the internet talk about it.
And yeah, it's certainly, but but I respect that it
felt like a felt like a very ten years ago
(53:49):
kind of project. Yeah, absolutely, and it worked. And all right, well, Anna,
such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can
people find you? Follow you all that good stuff? Thank
you for having me I'm on Twitter at Anna Scott
journal for Journalist and you can find my podcast City
(54:11):
of Tense, Colon Veterans Real anywhere all the usual places Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Yeah. Yeah,
and that's a great one. Go check it out. Everyone.
Is there a tweet or a work of media that
you've been enjoying. I will say there's a work of
media that I'm really looking forward to enjoying because I've
been listening to a ton of podcasts in you know,
(54:33):
working on one, I want to get inspiration from other
good ones. And I see that The Atlantic has a
new one hosted by Van new Kirk, who and they
did the amazing Floodlines podcast some years ago about Hurricane Katrina.
And they have another one called Holy Week, which also
takes a historic event and puts new eyes on it.
And I'm super excited about it. So I don't they
(54:56):
don't need my help promoting it, but I just feel like, yeah,
I'm so excited about it that I'm just talking about
it everywhere. Amazing Jody, Such a pleasure having you as
always where can people find you? And as their work
of media you've been enjoying. I'll mostly plug this new
series that's coming out right now called good Sport, which
is an eight episode series about sports, but not really
(55:19):
mostly about kind of how sports can help us understand
some bigger things. And it's wherever you get your podcast,
good Sport. But I'm very happy with them, how it's
coming out and the reception it's gotten so far, so yeah,
go ahead and check that out. And then in terms
of media, well, mine is sort of nested. So I've
been really really just like binging this podcast called The
(55:41):
Restless History NonStop, which is you know, two historians, British historians,
and they just sort of go deep on history. It's nothing,
nothing mind blowing about the format, but it's just really
good chemistry and really sort of thoughtful and funny. But
they did a series on the Rise of Hitler and
the rise of the Nazis, and in that they kind
of shouted out a number of times a Netflix series
(56:04):
called Berlin Babylon, which is set in like thirties and
early forties Berlin. And so now I've jumped from the
podcast to this recommendation to this Netflix series Berlin Babylon,
which is a docu series or no, it's it's it's
a scripted series. Yeah, and it's it's fantastic. It means
really good. It's German, but it's you know, it's really good, awesome.
(56:26):
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien,
I'm still out here. Like in tweets Like three years ago,
trash Jones tweeted, if at first you don't succeed, think
about it for the rest of your life when you're
trying to fall asleep. You can find us on Twitter
at daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zegeist on Instagram.
We have a Facebook fan page on a website, daily
(56:46):
zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our
footnotes where we link off to the information that we
talked about in today's episode, as well as a song
that we think you might enjoy. Superproducer Justin Connor, what
is a song you think people might addressed? So I'm
not going to be here tomorrow, so it's up to
Jack or Brian or whoever takes over for me to
continue the string of hits that have been coming. The
(57:09):
pressure is on. But this track is by a composer,
singer and multi instrumentalist from Toronto who goes by the
name River Tiber. This guy can really sing and lay
down some interesting harmonies. The beat was made by Katrinada,
who I love. I'm a huge fan of his work,
but this one is an underrated top five for me.
So this song is Gravity by River Tiber and you
(57:31):
can find that song in the footnotes footnotes. The Daily
zeit Geis is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast
from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Up going
to do it for us this morning back this afternoon
to tell you what is trending and we'll touchy all
the ye
Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season two eighty, Episode
two of Dirty leyshy Guys Stay, a production of iHeartRadio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into America's share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, March twenty first,
twenty twenty three. Yesterday was the first day of spring.
Forgot to mention that too yesterday, but yeah, happy first
(00:22):
day of Spring to all of who celebrate. My name
is Jack O'Brien aka. But did you know when La snows,
my thighs become so white that the light that you
shine can't be seen. That is courtesy of LOCARONI a
little reference to la weather those happening a couple of
(00:43):
weeks back, and my blindingly pale thighs that I like
to talk about on this show. For some reason, I
am thrilled to be joined by a very special guest
co host who you know from the podcast This Day
in Esoteric Political History from Utopia, Good Sport from Ted
and Pushkin thirty thirty or thirty four thirty with ESPN,
(01:06):
the five thirty eight politics podcast. Way that can first
heard him. It's well, I talk about the stuff I
did in college in high school, and I don't know. Man,
that's where I heard you, That's where I fell in love.
So I have to honor it. I have to honor
my truth of the Jody Abragant experience. Thank you and
happy first day of Spring that does not feel like
(01:29):
spring and moth physically and mentally. He's turned a new leaf.
And you know sen yeah, no, yeah, you're in New
York so especially we're we're talking Stormy Daniels and you know,
potential megapro today's lineup, by the way, I mean, you're
a sure job to introduced it. Gosh. I was like, okay,
(01:51):
well we'll start heavy, and I was like, um, okay,
and I look at the second topic, I'm like okay,
and that was the third topic. Really it really lined
it up here for folk. Were that's right, well, the
news cycle lined it up for us. We are thrilled
to be joined by the host and reporter behind the
new podcast from KCYRW City of Tents Veterans Row, which
(02:12):
I highly recommend everyone go listen to. She also created
KCYRWS podcast Samaritans. The podcasting talent we have on the
show today, folks, it's it's intimidating. Get ready, hold onto
your butts. It's Anna Sky, thank you, thank you. I
love that. It's like, uh my WWE. That's right. We
(02:33):
try and bring a lot of WWE energy to the
news cycle because there's not enough of it with our
former WWE wrestler ex president, you know, it's we like
to keep it live. How's everybody doing? How are you
guys doing? How Spring treating you so far? Well? Does
(02:54):
not feel like spring in Los Angeles? It is. It's
a cloudy, it's wet, and like, I know, the the
wet is good for our client there, we need the rain, etc.
But I'm over it. I'm really over it. Yeah, I
feel you all right, well, and we're gonna get to
know you a little bit better in a moment. First,
we're gonna tell our listeners a couple of things we're
(03:15):
talking about today. We are going to talk about city
of Tense veterans Row and just the issue of homelessness
in America that you do a lot of reporting on
and just kind of get your thoughts and insights because
you have a lot of really interesting things to say
in the show and just across media. So we will
talk about that. We will talk about Trump's announcing his
(03:38):
arrests on today it's supposed to happen, and you know,
he has called for protests those The response seems to
be somewhat muted. But it feels a little strange to
be like, you know, prognosticating how people are going to react.
But that's what we're gonna do for a little bit today.
So we'll talk about that. There's conspiracy theorist dating sites.
(04:01):
See what I see what I was saying. Yeah, we
might might skip down to the new rules for social etiquette,
which is something that I like to throw too when
things get a little too dreary. All of that plenty more,
But first Anna, we do like to ask our guests,
what is something from your search history that's revealing about
who you are? Well? Yeah, so I looked. I looked
(04:22):
on my phone, and the most recent one last night.
I think this is telling enough. So I decided last
night to rewatch the old Movies Sit in Nancy, Okay,
old classic. Um, I hadn't seen it for a long time,
and and then it I So I searched Alex Cox
diad because it Watching the movie made me curious about
(04:45):
the director and I'm kind of morbid. I don't know
My first question was whether the director Alex Cox is
still alive or at so, and you you had a guess.
It sounds like you were like watching You're like the
vision on Green here. This person can't be alive. I
mean the movie came out of nineteen eighty six, so
I just thought he's probably dead, but in fact he's not,
(05:09):
and he's actually not really even that old. He's in
his sixties. But the search did turn up a big
rabbit hole. But I guess there is a Netflix true
crime documentary that has someone in it named Alex Cox
who is in fact dead and also maybe murdered someone.
So that that led me down a whole rabbit hole
and I may have to watch that documentary now. In
(05:30):
addition to Sit and Nancy, Well, this story is bringing
up a very interesting question for me, which is you
referred to this as an old movie nineteen eighty six.
I mean, you know, I wasn't aware of Sit and
Nancy when it came out in nineteen eighty six, but
I'm curious what the line is for referring to something
as an old movie. Yeah, that's a good question. I
(05:51):
mean thirty years, Yeah, that's thirty years. That's just right
on the threshold about right right. But that was what
I was thinking. It's like somewhere right in there. You're right,
you may have pinned it like like it may be
that nineteen eighty six is the year that you if
this movie come out in nineteen eighty seven, would you
have caught it in an old movie? Maybe not? Maybe not.
(06:11):
I feel like eighty six is, yeah, I don't know.
Something about the mid eighties seems like a good dividing line.
So when my son was born in twenty sixteen, so
that exactly thirty years after the Side Nancy came out,
So it like the movie that was thirty years old
when I was born, or Work came out in nineteen fifty.
(06:33):
And there are things such as Destination Moon, a sci
fi film where they're like, what if we made it
to the moon and then you know it was made
of cheese or what. I don't know what they what
their thesis was at the time, but it's very old
by comparison that those movies were extremely old. As far
(06:55):
as I can tell. There are I like that you
went to Destination Moon and not you know, Sunset Boulevard
are all about eve. Oh yeah, that came out of
nineteen fifty. Those are timeless classics. Those are timeless classics.
I was, I was trying to make a point that
we're all very old, but time is slowing down or
(07:17):
compressing in this weird way. I mean, it really is
like culture cultural time is like skewing, for sure. For sure.
Now I'm just gonna be asking you questions but actually
googling the plot for Destination Moon in the background. But yeah,
after their latest rocket fails. No, I won't read, just
read you the IMDb summary of Destination Moon. But how
(07:40):
did how did Sid Nancy hold up? Um? Well, I
fell asleep after about twenty minutes because I ambled, So
I have to Uh, I've got to finish it. But
so far, so good. Um, it's uh, I don't know what.
I don't know why this movie came to mind as
just something i'd like to rewatch, But it's I think
it's a very it's a very good about being on drugs. Yeah,
(08:02):
I was gonna say, it's very appropriate that you nodded
off during sitting names. Yes, yeah, yeah, I nodded off.
Totally sober but right, but nonetheless still appropriate reaction. Very
young Gary Oldman in this movie as Sibvicious, which is, uh,
it's kind of interesting to see. Haven't seen a yet
(08:23):
very young Gary oldman for a while. Also, Courtney Love
has a small part in the movie, which I've forgotten
it out. She is I don't know if she comes back,
I can't remember, but she's she's in it early on.
In one of the first scenes she's she has a
brief crying scene because the movie opens with discovering the
(08:46):
body of Nancy and you know, I don't know, I
don't know if people know this movie it's about the
sex pistol basically, yea, the Dune romance. Yes, Subvicious and
Nancy Sponge and so it kind of starts at the
end and then backtracks, and so Courtney Love is briefly
in the beginning sobbing and saying something like she was
(09:07):
a really nice person, kind of chewing the scenery in
her fifteen second appearance. Yeah, not know. She was like
an established movie actor when she came on the scene
and like met Kurt Cobain and all that stuff. That's interesting. Yeah,
so so far, so good. What is what something you
(09:27):
think is overrated? Bacon? Bacon, Bacon overrated overrated, overrated. I
don't get it, never liked it, don't like it, don't
understand the fuss. There have to be other people like
me out there, there's there has to be. And when
you say this, people immediately or like you've just never
had good bacon? Right, yes, more they think I'm being
(09:51):
contrarian on purpose, like I've chosen something that you know,
just because it's so great and wonderful. But I'm not.
I don't get I don't understand. I don't like it.
I don't think how did you how did you hold
up during the bacon craze of the what was that
like the mid two thousands or something, when there was
just bacon flavored everything everywhere? I just I just tuned
(10:13):
it out. I just, I mean, I there must be
other people like me, right, uh yeah, yeah. I can
imagine you're the only person on earth who has this
opinion for me, someone who enjoys bacon a lot of
the time like I enjoy. I don't enjoy all bacon.
I don't think bacon is like unfuckupable. It's very hit
(10:35):
or miss, but like when it's really done to my liking,
I really enjoy it. But I prefer Super producer Becca
came in the chat to say, sausage over bacon. I
think that is generally true in terms of like sausage
is pretty easy to prepare and replacement level sausage. Yeah,
(10:57):
replacement level sausage versus bacon. All so I don't feel
good like cleaning up bacon after the fact. I'm like, what,
people who don't like bacon are correct, this is gross,
Like this is this is not something that is meant
to be consumed by humans. And all the breakfast foods
to freak out over. I just feel like there's so
(11:18):
many better ones. Take a pancake, waffle, scrambled eggs, I
mean almost anything over bacon. There's so many wonderful breakfast foods.
I just don't get it. Yeah, so you go sweet
over savory generally at breakfast, I guess. So. I guess
I am more of a sweet tooth person than a
salty tooth person. So maybe that is a that is
(11:40):
a factor here. Tale I like that though I'm a
salty tooth for real salty tooth. It sounds like a
like an old sailor or like an old sea captain. Yeah,
which is maybe why I didn't take off the way
Sweet Tooth did, Superducer Bay coming in saying Canadian bacon better,
which is certainly an opinion I have never gotten on board,
(12:04):
but I probably haven't had good enough Canadian bacon. And
it's all it's definitely falls into that same category of like,
it always seems like it's about the same. Would you
call the movie Canadian Bacon an old movie? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
that is from nineteen ninety five. We think we have
to move our line, so twenty eight years it's ordering
(12:29):
on the old movie. Yeah, all right, all right, data point,
it's aged. Yeah. What is something you think is underrated? Baths? Baths? No,
I mean a lot of people like taking baths, but
but I just think I don't think we talk about
baths enough and how great they are. Probably my favorite
(12:51):
kind of indulgent thing to do to take a bath
in the middle of the day if I have time,
I mean having a young child, and during the work
week that's usually not possible. But if I find myself
in a pocket of time during the day when I'm
alone in the house and I can take a bath
while the sun is still out and it's midday, I mean,
it's like it's amazing. I feel like we should talk
(13:13):
about it more. And you can do so many things
to your bath. You can put bath salts in their bubbles,
right ducks, Yeah, ducks. Bath beeds like smell good. It's
like it's going to a spot. But but you know,
you don't have to pay any money and you don't
have to leave your house. I experienced a bit of
a bath renaissance when I had a kid as well,
(13:35):
just because you know, you remember, oh baths, right, is
that what happened for you? You feel like it's both
the ritual of giving him a bath, you know, every
day or every other day. That kind of reminded me
of baths and also of mister Bubble, which I advocate
for as well. And then also I think just having
(13:56):
an uninterrupted block of time alone is also at a
high premium after having a kid, so that's probably part
of it as well. I think baths are for people
who aren't me, because I like, I feel like I'm
steeping in my filth like a tea bag. Well this
(14:18):
is bath. Yeah, what's okay? Shower before bath is okay,
now we're talking. That does make sense because yeah, I
just like a little soak. See, I've always solve this
bike going shower after bath interesting. Okay, so yeah, but
(14:38):
then you're still steeping in your own filth for a
little bit. The shower before bath had never occurred to me.
Just a quick rince, you know, because also you don't
have to kind of I feel like taking a shower
right after a bath kind of washes away the bath glow.
I just want to get out to the bath and
right right, yeah, putting a little oils in there. Yeah,
(14:58):
it's just it's just the bubble bath. I need the
skim of bubbles to not see below the surface what's
happening down there when I'm in a bathtub. Personally, that's
just how I feel. Well, this is this is a
call back to the thighs thing that you They're distracting.
I'll say there, it's pretty distracting. My eyes can't see
(15:21):
the light that you shine. The lyrics to Kiss by
a Rose are really kind of they seem like a
day dream that someone like someone trying to write a
lyric as they're falling asleep. It's very strange. Anyways, all right, well,
I feel like we've gotten to know you a little
bit better. Let's take a quick break and we'll be
right back. And we're back, and and I wanted to
(15:54):
talk about City of Tents Veterans Row, which is a
series that you have been reporting out. So you start
the season off talking about like you say that homelessness
is an issue that the more you've reported on it,
the less kind of inerge to it you become, the
(16:15):
more like kind of outrage you feel. And you also
say it's a problem that you feel like we could
solve if we really wanted to. Can you can you
talk a little bit about like just that that feeling
that you get from you know, knowing more and more
about about the homelessness crisis and in America, and you
(16:37):
know where that kind of outrage comes from. Yeah, you know,
I think that there is a certain amount of numbing
out that happens almost as a defense mechanism when you
live in a city like Los Angeles where where I live,
and the homelessness crisis is so visible every day. There's
encampments under just about every freeway over past parks. So
(16:59):
I think a lot of people, I mean, the nice
way to put it is, you know, you is you
get desensitized, right, it becomes part of the landscape probably
is a necessity, because otherwise you would be upset all
the time. I think the not it's a nice way
to put it, is there's a lot of dehumanizing that
goes on, I think, on how people are really I
(17:20):
mean one group of people that a lot of folks
seem to feel very comfortable generalizing about and saying some
pretty horrendous things about just in casual company and which,
and so you know, a lot of my time is
spent talking to people who are experiencing homelessness because they're
(17:41):
the most affected by the crisis, and so I think
naturally that just chips away at that layer you know
that might otherwise develop, and you know, you get to
know people on an individual level. You see how close
a lot of us could you know, are to becoming unhoused.
(18:01):
And so that's why I say early on in the series,
just the more I cover it, the more sensitized, if
that's even a word I feel to it. And it's
you know, it's it's it's outrage because I also get
an up close look at a lot of the systemic
failures behind the crisis. But it's also sad and upsetting,
(18:23):
and yeah, all those things, all those things, it's you know,
it's it is a humanitarian crisis that's unfolding in a
lot of our big cities, and and I guess when
you are really plugged into it and talking to people
experiencing it all the time, it's it's just hard to
hard to backtrack and just kind of oh yeah, like
accepted as a regular part of the landscape. But I
(18:46):
also do say in the first episode that it's not
an intractable problem and there are solutions. I don't want
people to feel hopeless about it, because I mean, it's
it can be complicated on to one on one level,
right when you talk to individuals and get to know
their stories and all the factors that might have ledged
someone to falling out of the housing market. But really,
you know, there are a lot of things that work,
(19:08):
and we've seen them in One of the reasons with
this podcast actually that I focused on unhoused veterans specifically,
is that they've been an interesting case study in recent years,
in recent decades in this country about what works. Veterans
are generally more politically popular as a group of people
than non veterans, so they've gotten more assistance and it's worked,
(19:32):
and as the series unfolds, we unpack what that assistance
is and we look at, you know, how these things
could be applied to non veterans as well. But yeah,
I mean, I can go as far into the weeds
as you want or stay as big picture as you want,
but basically, there are things that we know work. There
are big common you know, drivers of this crisis that
we can address. But that doesn't mean they're easy to
(19:55):
do that these solutions are easy, you know, they require
a lot of resources, in some cases a whole new
social contract. So I don't want to minimize that. But
it's not like this is a mystery. This is an
issue we've been dealing with for decades in this country
that's been studied a lot, and there's a ton of
research about it. And yeah, so we do know what
the causes are and what the solutions are. Just that
(20:16):
big picture like American reaction too, and I it's probably
other countries, other Western countries too, but the reaction of
wanting to dehumanize, And it also reminds me of a
thing we run into where like billionaires are more popular
than they should be with the people who they spend
(20:39):
a lot of time whose lives they spend a lot
of time like making worse. It's like this American thing
where we want everyone to be getting what they deserve
at some level. And so they're like they want to
blame homeless people who are you know, suffering from homelessness
(21:01):
for their situation and you know, also give billionaires credit
for their circumstances. And it's I don't know, I don't
know how we get out of that, because I go
it runs deep. It feels like, but I think talking
to and like hearing reporting where you are actually speaking
to these human beings and hearing their stories and you
(21:23):
know that they are here because of like something that
they sacrificed and like gave to the country is a
pretty powerful way to do it. I guess, thanks, Yeah,
that is. I mean another reason that this story was
interesting is because it does focus on a group of
unhoused veterans, and it definitely I'm always looking for ways
(21:45):
because as a reporter, I don't I don't want to
write policy prescriptions or get into that territory. I can
certainly talk about policies that have worked in certain instances
or case studies or research, etc. Etc. But I'm not
going to advocate for this is you know, specifically exactly
what we should do. I'm going to present you with
what we know, and you know what has worked before.
(22:08):
But but something that I do try to do pretty
actively is just pierce that numbness a little bit and
hopefully present the issue to people with a fresh lens.
So that and veterans were an interesting way to do that,
because there is a kind of general goodwill that Americans
have for people who have done military service, just kind
(22:29):
of by and large, and so I think that in
some ways expanded the audience the people that would be
receptive to hearing it, and just automatically humanize the people
of the center of it. For some folks. I mean,
you know, I think I don't know, for better or worse,
that that is just true. And then also I'm always
(22:51):
trying to find ways to break the conversation out of
superpartisan political lenses because this issue, especially in a place
like where it's a real top issue for people, it's
become so political and the way people talk about it,
it's so binary and and a lot of people just
have these preconceived ideas and it's very hard to break
(23:14):
through that so I'm always looking for ways, and again
with veterans, it was it was an opportunity to break
through some of that because the politics just god all
turned upside down because of the military angle. So on
that point, I mean, I take your point about how
veterans are an entry point for a lot of people
because people tend to want to support them. But the
(23:36):
flip side of that is, you know that talking about
veterans and talking about supporting our troops is just so
is used so cynically by politicians, you know, on both sides,
And the GOP loves to talk about supporting our troops
and then very rarely backs it up with supporting veterans,
and Democrats don't seem to be doing that much better.
I'm just curious, like, do the people, the people that
you talk to that you got to know, do they
(23:57):
feel connected to that being back and forth at the
political level. Does it matter to them whether a Democratus
president or Republicans president and how they've talked about supporting
our troops. Well, the story that I follow over this series,
it focused. It focuses on one encampment that was on
a street in LA for more than a year and
(24:17):
at any given time, there were as many as almost
fifty people living there, pretty much all the military veterans,
and so they themselves were really mixed bag in terms
of their their backgrounds, their own political beliefs, you know,
how much they were following national politics. That it was
it was all over the place. It was really hard
(24:38):
to generalize the issues that they were dealing with, you know,
the kind of service they've done. I mean, it was
it was all over the map. What was interesting about
this encampment, which was nicknamed Veteran Row, I mean, one
of many things that was interesting was how it attracted
a lot of people who I've never seen at any
other encampment in Los Angeles. And there are many large
(24:59):
encampments around in LA and different ones that had become
flashpoints at different points in time, which this one eventually
did as well. But it also drew a crowd that
was really unusual people. I mean, people had political rallies there,
different candidates running for office, Like back when there was
(25:19):
a recall effort to try to recall Governor Gavin Newsom,
there were people who wanted to replace him, who had
events there that they would broadcast on YouTube. There were
you know, usually kind of fringe candidates, to be honest,
but they drew a barbecues. There were people always showing
up to do different kinds of events. There were always
(25:40):
people coming with cameras and making documentaries and doing all
sorts of projects like that. Specifically because of because it
was Sands, there was Yeah, a Walmart commercial was filming
there one day, or at least that's what the crew
told me. I have searched for this Walmart commercial online
to see if it ever saw the light of day,
and I haven't found it. But but yeah, early on
(26:01):
in the series, you hear a crew they're shooting what
they say is as a Walmart, a documentary stat Walmart commercials.
So Walmart as a filmmaker, I should just say they're
very They're like Kubrick. They will do take after take
until they can get it right. So that's why it
might not have come out. Walmart is acting filmmaker Stilby, Yes,
perfecting that. But that was one of the things that
(26:23):
drew me to it. And you know, in the middle
of it all, you had these dozens of unhoused military veterans.
We're kind of being used as a backdrop, backdrop a
lot of the time, and you know, they themselves, I
mean they were more concerned day to day with trying
to get into housing where you know, where's the next
(26:43):
meal going to come from? You know, they generally speaking,
they really did not want the encampment to be known
as a political partisan place. They didn't really want to
be affiliated with, you know, any particular candidate or party
or anything like that. But a lot of people showed
up there genuinely trying to help, but also promoting themselves
(27:05):
in different ways. And I found that really interesting. Yeah,
it's you talk about the barbecues. It is like there
is this community that's happening there. And you even speak
to one of the veterans who lives there and is like,
I wouldn't want to necessarily be in an apartment by myself.
Like there's really seems like the having other people around
(27:27):
and like having this community that has kind of come together.
They have a dress code kind of they have like
a homeowners association type role about like having your flag
facing a certain way. But like, yeah, it's I don't
know comparing it too so just to for people who
aren't familiar with Brentwood, Brentwood is like, you know, this
(27:49):
super wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles, if you saw the
people versus O. J. Simpson, like that's where OJ lived
and in like the mansions are just up the street
from where this is happening. The reason it's happening here
is because there's also the Veterans administration, like right there,
(28:10):
this massive chunk of beautiful land right in the middle
of the city that the government is just not doing
anything with for years. But yeah, it just like when
you compare the number of like Taco Tuesday parties and
barbecues and like things that we're coming together with these people,
(28:32):
there's like just so much humanity there and community that
you don't see in those surrounding neighborhoods that are like
fighting so hard to get them out of there in
a lot of cases. M that's interesting. Yeah, And you know,
encampments are generally communities. Spend time at any given one,
(28:53):
you know, anywhere in LA and most often it is
a community, you know, and people have relationships, and I
think that I think it's easy to underestimate that, and
I think you know, it's hard to understand like, well,
you know, if you hear something like oh, somebody you know,
(29:14):
turned down a particular shelter offer for example. You know,
they must be resistant to all help. You know, they
must be That just sounds like a totally illogical thing
to do. But um, but a lot of the time,
you know, people do have community where you know, they
make community at often at encampments and and most people
(29:35):
certainly do want help and they would prefer to live
in a house or in some other circumstance. But but also,
you know, you can develop ties and relationships and a
feeling of community anywhere that you live for a long
period of time. And so you know, sometimes there can
be a few steps still finding a solution for somebody
that that will work for them where you know they
(29:57):
don't necessarily have to give up that feeling. But and
all of that played out Veterans Row. Veterans Row had
its own unique flavor to its community because it was
all these unhoused veterans who were in that location for
a very specific reason. Like you said, it's because they
were right outside of this enormous, huge campus own and
(30:17):
ding dormitories. Just like, yes, it's a super weird place
if you're here in LA I mean, most people, you know,
if you don't have a reason to go there. You
just drive past it and you kind of are vaguely familiar.
But it's this huge VA campus with a hospital on
it and other medical facilities and various things you know,
that are fully functioning. And then it has all these
creepy old buildings and open space and a lot of
(30:40):
people wonder what is going on there. And there's a
long backstory that we get into, but the important part
is the reason it's a VA campus is the land
was donated more than a century ago to be a
home for veterans. This was at a time when the
United States actually had these veterans homes all over the country,
these campuses where people returning from the Civil War and
(31:02):
later conflicts could live and see doctors and get healthcare.
So this particular campus was part of that system for
a long time. But over time we abolished that system
and the VA evolved into what it does today, which
is largely healthcare, so all cemeteries benefits, and so this
campus it really reflects that because it has the medical facilities,
(31:25):
but then it has these old remnants of what it
once was, and there was they also leased parts of
it out to different entities, that have nothing to do
with veterans at all, like some schools that have athletic
facilities there, which has always been controversial and even led
to a lawsuit some years ago resulting in a plan
(31:45):
the VA, you know, because they were because the government
was given was you know, given this land or chosen
to be the stewards, I suppose of this land under
these particular stipulations that it'd be a home for veterans.
They ended up agreeing some years ago to create new
affordable housing there for specifically for homeless veterans. So one
(32:08):
of the reasons that this camp formed right outside that
property is because a lot of the vests there they
were receiving services at the VA, they maybe landed on
the street after trying to get into different VA programs.
But also they by putting up these large tents that
they had put up in these flags, they were trying
to call attention to this plan that still hasn't come
(32:28):
to fruition although it's underway to build this new housing there.
They're trying to they're trying to let kind of let
people know, hey, this is we're supposed to be living
on this land, but we're what we're on the street
and so yeah, so it was they had this you know,
this connection in common to the to the land next door.
(32:50):
You know, most of them were under the care of
doctors on that campus. They sort of brought like a
military flare to the encampment on the street with these
matching flags that they had, and they had some chore
rotations and things like that. So it was a very
unique community. Yeah. Well it's a really it's a great podcast.
Everyone should go listen. You know, we're just scratching the
(33:13):
surface here, but it's a it's a really mind blowing,
you know, snapshot of America in all its good and
really bad glory on display in like some really yeah,
just surreal ways, Like it's a it feels like, yeah,
(33:35):
the Veterans campus just it feels like an Ivy League
school that was just left to like just abandoned like
decades ago, like and and is just rotting there. Well
they're like, we don't, we don't have housing for these people.
It's it's very surreal. Yeah, very strange place and very
(33:58):
interesting dynamics with this camp next door. And then the
surrounding neighborhood, as you mentioned, is Brentwood, which is one
of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. So yeah, all
of that and how the community interacted with the encampment
and the encampment and its relationship to the VA, it
was all pretty fascinating. And you know, it was it
(34:20):
was a tragic situation and some and some all whole
things happened. But also you know, there was there was
a lot of humor in it. I mean just with
the spectacle that it was and the people that would
show up, and so yeah, I'm trying to get to
all of that. There's one veteran who's like, I need
surgery for my like badly hurt ankle, and a guy
(34:42):
shows up and like keeps trying to let him pray
over it, and he's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no
it helped, Like it definitely feels like five percent better.
Can I leave now? The guy's like, no, no, no,
let me let me keep praying over your ankle. Like
it was just like a small, yeah example, these things
that would happen all the time, where people show up
with their own very particular ideas about how to help,
(35:04):
and you know, and a lot of people were drawn
to it because it was veterans for different reasons and
wanted to help, but a lot of the time their
idea of helping wasn't necessarily connected to what the veterans
themselves wanted or needed. Yeah, and I found that very interesting.
So that was the other common thread through the whole series,
(35:24):
is just me trying to sort out who who is helping?
Who is actually helping here? Yeah. There were some really
good examples though, of the of people who were helping
by just being like, these are humans, what would make
them feel better? You know? Like what like the person
who was a former food company exec who started barbecuing
(35:47):
there and like started the regular barbecues just like brought
a weaver grill and created a regular kind of community event.
She did. Now, she also had a very large Instagram
follow that she was documenting all of this horror, which
I thought was interesting. There were a lot of people
that would come to do altruistic things but also would
(36:12):
promote themselves at the same time, which I felt was
worth pointing out. But but a lot of people, you know,
they would look they would come with like basic stuff,
you know, water, food, socks, things like that, And yeah,
I mean I think, you know, after reporting on this
issue for so many years, I feel comfortable saying homelessness
(36:34):
is a big systemic problem in this country that requires
big systemic fixes, And so people will often ask me like, well,
what should I do as an individual? How can I help?
And I just tell them, you know, we'll think about,
like what what do you want to get out of
your helping? And you know, I don't think there's a
lot of ways to go wrong unless you're doing something
(36:56):
really destructive or or harmful. You know, I don't think
there's a bad way to get engaged because you're not
you know, you're certainly not going to solve this crisis
just on an individual level, right and you know, I
don't think you're probably going to make it worse either,
But if you I mean, yes, if you just start
with connecting with people on a human level, asking them
(37:18):
what they need, what they'd like, getting to know them,
that can become hugely, hugely impactful. If I mean, if
that's something you're comfortable doing and have the opportunity that
can be transformative in somebody's life, if you can just
be an advocate and an ally for that person, because
the system around helping them is very under resourced and
(37:39):
understaffed and so so that can be a big way
to start. So can I just quickly highlight the immense
wisdom and what you just said, which I just clicked
for me, which is like, when something is so complicated
and intractable, it actually means that basically everything is worth doing.
And I mean that's like I will carry that with
(38:00):
me going forward. I mean, it's such such a brilliant
articulation of how to approach these things. Yeah, and if
and it feels like a lot of the stuff that
seems intractable and you know systemic is also the result
of under resourcing. Like in this country, there's just a
lot of things that haven't been given the resources for
(38:23):
decades now that we're seeing the consequences of. Yeah, I mean,
I can you know, one example is just I mean,
the you know, the big underlying factor in places like
La New York City, San Francisco where we have these
large homelessness crises is housing affordability and housing availability. When
you don't have much of either one, people tend to
(38:45):
fall out of the housing market. That doesn't mean that
individuals who are experiencing homelessness don't have other issues going on.
Some of the time, you know, other than financial issues
or needing next month's rent. But that's the big underlying fact.
They all fell out of the housing market at some
point in time for all different kinds of reasons, and
(39:06):
it's very hard to get back in once that happens.
And then once you're on the street, the homelessness crisis
overlaps with all these other crises that we have. You know,
there are holes in our mental health care system. Meth
is ubiquitous on the streets of la because because it
is unbelievably cheap, and so I think sometimes people conflate
homelessness with mental health crisis or you know, drug crisis,
(39:28):
math crisis, but they are not one and the same
at all. And the big thing when it comes to
homelessness is housing affordability, housing availability, And one of the
things that really helped us reduce vetteran homelessness over the
last decade and a half was putting more resources into
essentially the veteran version of Section eight, which are these
(39:49):
are vouchers that provide rental subsidies for low income people.
So if you qualify, you get a voucher, you can
take it to a landlord, pay a percentage of your
income towards rent and the federal government will pay the rest. Now,
normal Section eight is very oversubscribed. If you want to
get a voucher, even if you qualify, your chances are
like one in four maybe nationally and less than that
(40:13):
in Los Angeles. There's a there's a huge waiting list.
It's it's really hard to get. If you're a veteran
who qualifies, you have a much higher chance of getting
one of these vouchers because they have their own pool,
which which Congress has has been more generous about funding.
And so those vouchers, paired with services provided through the
(40:33):
VA are really at the heart of a big push
that resulted in a huge decline nationally in veteran homelessness
of twenty ten. So yeah, now, fully funding Section eight
for everybody would be enormously expensive. It's not politically popular, right,
But that's like one example of a big system thing
(40:57):
that you know, we can look at something that worked
at least with this one group of people that's under
resourced when you're talking about the general population. Yeah, all right, well,
thank you so much for taking the time to talk
to us about it and for doing the reporting. Everybody
should go check out the show, City of Tents Veterans Row,
(41:17):
Let's take a quick break, we'll come back and talk
about some other stuff. We'll be right back, and we're back,
and we'll probably were the Trump thing. I think we
(41:37):
all know. Trump claimed these going to be arrested probably
today and has called for supporters to protest. We talked
about it on yesterday's Trending. We'll have more updates on
this afternoon's trending. So Jack, it's almost like it's almost
like Schrodinger's podcast, Like, right, if the fact that people
are hearing this means that things didn't melt down, right,
(41:58):
because if they're truly westcast probably do an emergency episode. Yes,
of course, all right, but uh, for the rest of
the episode, I wanted to just run down. Did you
guys see the article in New York Magazine that was
like the new rules for social Etiquette. It's this like
grandiose project. It's got hundreds of rules. They are real
(42:19):
hit or miss, and we've just been kind of checking
in with the list and talking to our guest co
hosts and guests about about their thoughts on on these things.
I think there are a few that we feel like
could be canon like should be things that we adopt
into our social etiquette, like never tell someone who they
(42:41):
look like, yeah, oh yes, it never goes goes like
Miranda July. And I find it really annoying. Yeah, it's
nobody ever likes to hear that. I think that someone
is the key word there, which is like, this isn't
like fodder for small talk with a stranger. I think
(43:02):
like if you're a friend, you know, I had a
friend for a while and like, I mean a good
friend of mine actually texted me today and said what
he said. I wish I had better news to share,
but the far right Israeli finance minister is in the
news for all the wrong reasons and he looks like
a bizarre, evil version of you. Yes, and I coming
from a long time friend, I'm happy to hear that,
(43:24):
but I don't want to hear that from someone who
at no. And I always run it through the filter,
like if it's a famous person, it's like, Okay, what
you're really saying is that I look like this person's
less hot cousin. Let's be honest. It's like it's just
never good. It's one more thing on this. I know
(43:44):
this when you were doing this as a throwaway check.
But but one more thing about this, which is I
think so many of these pieces of etiquette sort of
have this through line, which is like, don't do stuff
that doesn't set someone else some set someone up to
like respond in a productive way, like you know, and
a lot and like that, just telling someone who they
look like, it's like, what am I supposed to know?
(44:05):
There's no yes and to that right, yeah, okay, And
a lot of the piece of advice kind of fall
into that category, just like don't say something where think
about think about someone's response when you say something and
whether they're going to be able to kind of pick
it up and totally Yeah. Another one that I think
is probably solid for everybody to adopt is actually, it's
great to talk about the weather. There was like this
(44:28):
unofficial agreement in the nineties. I think like there were
stand up comedy bits it was like, don't talk about
the weather. It's boring. What are you a fifty year
old man? And it's but we live in strange times.
The weather is something that should be fine to talk about,
all right, whether in the sports. So the only two
things left, yeah, just kind of you start this whole
(44:49):
conversation talking about the weather. Yeah, yeah, and that's what
I was using. This list just got exactly all right,
here's something for discussion. You get can stop me when
you hear one, but that you have some thoughts on
you want. Bobby de Niro may go way back, but
to everyone else, he's Robert. This is aimed at a
(45:09):
very specific like. So one of the overall notes I
have on this list is like, the very first item
is like you don't have to read all your friends books,
and it's like, well, that's like for a very specific
group of people are constantly yeah. But so on this one,
(45:31):
it's like their writing specifically to famous people who drop
the nicknames or people who are you know, in the
orbit of famous people. This like, I think it's hilarious
when famous people do this. I it also feels like
doing it must be the greatest feeling in the world
because of how ridiculous it makes them look and how
(45:52):
hard they insist on doing it every time. So it's like,
I don't I don't feel like I can make a
full hard judgment on this one because I don't know
any famous person well enough to try this shit. But man,
they really seem to like it. Yeah, but I mean,
but you're saying when you hear an actor refer to
(46:13):
and all my examples are basically any people in the
good felt anyway or any halfway right or like or
Marty Scoressy Marty. I feel like it's the way you
hear all the time. But if it's someone who's worked
with them and it's famous and like that's what they
get caught on set, then you're okay with that. But
if it's like me, I happen to have seen them
at a bar or even like sat next to them
(46:36):
at a random dinner, I can't. I can't switch over
to Marty. And I'm fine with it. Oh, I'm fine
with it across the board. I think it. I think
you should be willing to accept the consequences of your
actions when you do that, but I don't. I'm just like,
that's a that is a choice, but it's a choice
(46:57):
that I'm glad people are out there making. It doesn't
necessarily endear me to those people, but I don't think
that's their goal either, right, Well, yeah, it must be
kind of an awkward thing too. Like let's say you're
a celebrity that's worked with one of these people. You're
doing an interview and you want to say something about
Robert de Niro, but you know him as Bobby, Like,
it probably feels just even more pretentious to say his
(47:20):
full name if you actually know this person and have
worked with them. Well, me and Robert de Niro, you know,
there's I mean, I kind of have some empathy for
the celebrities on this one. I don't know. I don't
I recently had a sort of like inverse name dropping
awkward experience where someone was talking to me about their
friend Greta for like a long time, yes, and then
(47:43):
through context clues, I realized that it was Greta Gerwig
and they were talking like about my friend Greta's movie
and like going to that and and I was just like,
just you should have just drop that name from the
beginning and just owned it rather than trying to like
overcorrect for not being a name dropper. But it's tough.
This stuff is tough. Total, it is very high. It's
(48:07):
up there with not not reading your friends. But we're
on a podcast dissecting a list from New York Magazine.
Let's just just be up front about the air in
which we are operating here I had we we had
Robert Or, the famous NBA basketball player on our NBA show,
and I just called him Robert Or the whole time.
I was like, well, thank you, yeah. But I think
(48:29):
that's also you could also steer really hard into that
and just anytime you're referring to your friend Bobby, you
just say Robert didn't here. Get it all out there,
all the way out there, all right. Some others never
send an edible arrangement. What they're great, They're great. Fine. Um,
I don't think that this is a a hard rule.
(48:50):
This is not a never. Don't use your friends as
for play is is another one of the ones where
I felt like I was learning a lot about whoever
wrote this. What does that mean? So that's what it
then goes into like a discussion of like friends fighting
in front of their friends, and like I don't know,
(49:10):
like I had no real world experience to like put
it onto. I guess like the the assumption is that
their friends get horny from fighting with each other in
front of them, and that is so somehow, I don't know.
(49:32):
My man thought is like you got you sick little
friends of nested pathology, and yet stop using me to
get horny by yelling at each other when you got
to dinner with me and my wife. I don't know,
it sounds like I'm just trying to I'm just trying
to have a dinner and with my friends argue in
(49:52):
front of me without it being sexual. Can you just
can you just argue please and make this a normal
dinner where my friends to argue in front of me. Yeah.
The other example of like huh for for me was
always wink, always wink. It's just one of the rules.
No explanation, right. I love that rule. I can tell
(50:14):
you a story about a buddy of mine who was
applying for a job at home depot when he was
a sophomore in college, maybe junior or a sophomore high school,
maybe junior in high school. And he's going through the
interview and he's like super nervous, first ever job, and
the like, you know, the shift manager at home depots
like being a kind of like big timing him. You know,
during this interview, he's peppering him with questions, asking all
his questions, and you know, my my buddy's trying to
(50:36):
answer be earnest and so forth, and then like three
cours the way through the interview, he just there. He
looks at my buddy and goes, stop winking at me, son,
and my friend just goes okay, but like he hadn't
been winking at him. It wasn't trying to just thrown off,
and he didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself like
question the premise uh and be like no, what are
you talking about? Or I'm not He was just like okay,
(50:57):
and he continued that's like one of those Google mind
fuck interview questions, where all right, at this point we
accuse you, accuse the attendee the interviewe of winking at
us and see how they respond. You can calcely cancel
almost any plans up until two pm. Specific I don't
(51:19):
know sure, I'm fine with canceling plans. So yeah, I
won't be mad at you if you cancel plans with
me in the world I know, truly, like, oh no,
unless the plans are two thirty or something right right, yeah, exactly.
And then this one. If your friend is dating someone
you seriously object to, you have one chance to sit
them down and tell them. This seems like genuinely bad
(51:41):
advice because it feels like that like, I can't see
how this would be true for purposes other than like
you are writing as rom com screenplay and like you're
just adding like I understand the overall gist of it is,
like you don't want to just keep hammering that with criticisms,
and like you want to do it in a targeted,
(52:04):
thoughtful way. But at the same time, like being like
you only got one chance and once you do it,
it's over and you have to live with the decision
that you've made just feels like artificial and like they
wanted to they needed to fill an article full of rules.
Sounds very arbitrary. I mean, yeah, I'm more of the
(52:26):
mindset that unless someone asks, I'm not gonna just set
them down and tell them my opinion. But it also
depends on why you object to the person. I mean,
if you know something egregious about this person, or you
know or they're engaged in really abusive behavior or something
like that, then maybe it's appropriate. But if it's just
(52:46):
kind of run of the mill I don't like this person,
then I don't. I don't see any need to have
a sit down. I'm yeah, I'm not objecting to this
based on me wanting to have the conversation, Like I
do not like conversations like this. I'm not going to
be the person who's like keeps bringing this up. But
it just it does feel like sometimes you just gotta
(53:08):
help your friend, like you have to. Sounds like you're
trying to like universalize something and make it rule about
something that's kind of just very dependent on the situation. Yeah. Look,
I know this is the second time we've talked about this,
but I need you and your wife to stop trying
to get horny by arguing in front of me. I mean,
(53:28):
you know, to your to your point, and I mean,
I you know, that is the exercise I think. And
they're very like upfront. And that's why I loved this
list is they're just gonna, you know, we're gonna just
throw a bunch of very specific and sometimes very outrageous
things out there and let the internet talk about it.
And yeah, it's certainly, but but I respect that it
felt like a felt like a very ten years ago
(53:49):
kind of project. Yeah, absolutely, and it worked. And all right, well, Anna,
such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can
people find you? Follow you all that good stuff? Thank
you for having me I'm on Twitter at Anna Scott
journal for Journalist and you can find my podcast City
(54:11):
of Tense, Colon Veterans Real anywhere all the usual places Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Yeah. Yeah,
and that's a great one. Go check it out. Everyone.
Is there a tweet or a work of media that
you've been enjoying. I will say there's a work of
media that I'm really looking forward to enjoying because I've
been listening to a ton of podcasts in you know,
(54:33):
working on one, I want to get inspiration from other
good ones. And I see that The Atlantic has a
new one hosted by Van new Kirk, who and they
did the amazing Floodlines podcast some years ago about Hurricane Katrina.
And they have another one called Holy Week, which also
takes a historic event and puts new eyes on it.
And I'm super excited about it. So I don't they
(54:56):
don't need my help promoting it, but I just feel like, yeah,
I'm so excited about it that I'm just talking about
it everywhere. Amazing Jody, Such a pleasure having you as
always where can people find you? And as their work
of media you've been enjoying. I'll mostly plug this new
series that's coming out right now called good Sport, which
is an eight episode series about sports, but not really
(55:19):
mostly about kind of how sports can help us understand
some bigger things. And it's wherever you get your podcast,
good Sport. But I'm very happy with them, how it's
coming out and the reception it's gotten so far, so yeah,
go ahead and check that out. And then in terms
of media, well, mine is sort of nested. So I've
been really really just like binging this podcast called The
(55:41):
Restless History NonStop, which is you know, two historians, British historians,
and they just sort of go deep on history. It's nothing,
nothing mind blowing about the format, but it's just really
good chemistry and really sort of thoughtful and funny. But
they did a series on the Rise of Hitler and
the rise of the Nazis, and in that they kind
of shouted out a number of times a Netflix series
(56:04):
called Berlin Babylon, which is set in like thirties and
early forties Berlin. And so now I've jumped from the
podcast to this recommendation to this Netflix series Berlin Babylon,
which is a docu series or no, it's it's it's
a scripted series. Yeah, and it's it's fantastic. It means
really good. It's German, but it's you know, it's really good, awesome.
(56:26):
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien,
I'm still out here. Like in tweets Like three years ago,
trash Jones tweeted, if at first you don't succeed, think
about it for the rest of your life when you're
trying to fall asleep. You can find us on Twitter
at daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zegeist on Instagram.
We have a Facebook fan page on a website, daily
(56:46):
zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our
footnotes where we link off to the information that we
talked about in today's episode, as well as a song
that we think you might enjoy. Superproducer Justin Connor, what
is a song you think people might addressed? So I'm
not going to be here tomorrow, so it's up to
Jack or Brian or whoever takes over for me to
continue the string of hits that have been coming. The
(57:09):
pressure is on. But this track is by a composer,
singer and multi instrumentalist from Toronto who goes by the
name River Tiber. This guy can really sing and lay
down some interesting harmonies. The beat was made by Katrinada,
who I love. I'm a huge fan of his work,
but this one is an underrated top five for me.
So this song is Gravity by River Tiber and you
(57:31):
can find that song in the footnotes footnotes. The Daily
zeit Geis is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast
from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Up going
to do it for us this morning back this afternoon
to tell you what is trending and we'll touchy all
the ye
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