January 15, 2025 • 57 mins
Last week, fires the size of Manhattan and Chicago ripped through the City of Angels, taking out the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, among others. Prop goes through the events and talks science, misinformation and what you can do to help.
If you wanna check out Part 1:
Aid for Black families displaced by the fires: bit.ly/rebuildAD
Sources:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/debunking-social-media-fire-myths-no-the-hollywood-sign-didnt-burn https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/01/09/inmates-makes-up-nearly-a-third-of-those-fighting-la-fires/
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czj3yk90kpyo
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cao Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
By thinking so much differently, Hey, supporting me while I
burst into flames. Can you guess what this episode is about?
The Block is Literally Hot? Part two, because we did
(00:26):
a Block is Literally Hot episode about the privatization of
your water, the causes of climate change and all of those.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Various things. This was back early when I just.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Joined the Cool Zone media team the iHeartRadio podcast network,
like basically when I went from the indies to the
majors with podcasting. The Block is Literally Hot. I will
probably link that in the show notes somewhere, but yeah,
I said that. Why would I started that way? Welcome
(01:17):
to hood politics with prop What I was going to
talk about today was a memoriam. Memoriam is that the word? Yeah,
an honoring episode on the passing of Nikki Giovanni and
the way for which he changed my life. But that's
gonna have to go sit into the evergreen section. And
(01:39):
that was mainly because it was very difficult for us
to get like a jump start back into the year
as the year started again because of the quadd demic
noravias virus, the RSV virus. I got dumb sick over
the holidays, like not even funny, like dumb sick. I
got all the sicknesses, maybe not the COVID one, but
(02:02):
I got the the sinus one where the sinuses felt spicy,
like it was like I felt like somebody took they
two knuckles and punched me in the face just like this.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think I talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
That on one of the episodes that we recorded before
La Caught on Fire, which was about immigration, which at
some point is gonna have to drop probably next week,
but this week is this one man it and nobody
was like ready to really get back to work, and
then basically this episode called for a but look, it's
(02:37):
like this all wrapped in one in the sense that, yeah,
the twenty twenty five came out all gas, no breaks,
Like it was absurd, and it was crazy because I
didn't see nobody put out those you know, the meme
of the Lady. I think I talked about this too
on an episode you gonna hear later, the meme of
the Lady, the Black Lady, you know, with the backpack
(03:00):
of the good things for twenty twenty stepping over last
year into you this year, didn't nobody post that At
the end of twenty twenty four, everybody was nervous coming
into this year.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Nobody said twenty twenty five was my year.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Nobody did. Apparently we collectively knew someone was about to happen. Now,
let me acknowledge to y'all who might be listening on
the podcast app. We have also pivoted the video because
we're not dinosaurs now, which means this episode is on
(03:31):
YouTube now. If you are on my Patreon, you already
got this episode.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But if you not, we've pivoted. We're on.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We're on YouTube now. We're doing the video pod because
that's the thing. So that means that I could show
y'all my terrorform call brew Mug. I could show y'all
my stan Lee who mere terrorformed the city mug what
I'm saying, and you could see my pretty little face,
(04:05):
you know what I'm saying. You can see the pores,
and you know what I'm saying. Eventually I'm gonna get
a better camera, but you know, we just we're just
doing this anyway. So today, obviously we have to talk
about La on Fire. We are going to go through
some of the problems, some of the causes. Selling the
water I told you about that already. Why not the
(04:26):
ocean a lot of people talking about why aren't y'all
using salt water?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Why aren't y'all using the ocean?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And there is a stupid, absurd amount of misinformation going
on swirling through these streets, and we need to address
that and stop the cap because the cap is helping nobody.
And then we're gonna talk about the culture out here,
(04:52):
the ways that you can help from where you are,
and really just and the history of Altadena, which is
a a very very important thing that is really near, dear,
dear to me because your boys from the six to six,
So of course it's gonna be special. Got ready to ride. Okay,
(05:14):
let's do this. The block is literally hot Part two.
Hood politics, Hood politics, y'all. Okay, So look it's like this,
let's go ahead with that. Bull look is like this.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Bull look is like this, Yeah, unconditional discharge. You know
what that means.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That means the felon in chief President Trump is not
gonna face any consequences of repercussions, even though he's still
gonna be called a felon. Now, the sentencing we talk
about is the New York case about falsifying documents, payment
of Stormy Daniels the only one that we thought was
actually going to land a conviction, and turns out, yes,
we were right, landed a conviction thirty four counts. He's
(06:12):
getting what's called an unconditional discharge, which basically means this,
I'm going to quote it, okay. It essentially is a
resolution that allows for the conviction to stand and preserves
the sanctity of the jury's verdict, but ensures that there
are very limited consequences stemming from the conviction. This is
(06:33):
Sarah kiss Off, a formal federal prosecutor. She pointed out
that though an unconditional discharge carries some consequences depending on
the state. For example, a felon is not able to
vote or own a firearm. Trump is barred from being
able to purchase a firearm in either New York or
Florida following his conviction. So he did vote for himself
(06:56):
and his presidential election. So basically like, okay, so you guilty, No,
you did it, but that's it. So he don't have
to pay no fine, he don't have to do no
community service, and he for showing, got to do no
jail time, mainly because well, he gonna be the president
in two days. So I mean, what you go like,
(07:20):
I don't, I mean, what what.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Can we do? Like there's no time for you to
actually do the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
He was even gonna try to last stitch effort, kick
it up to the to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The Supreme Court is like, what the hell you want
me to say?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Like, there's you done already, put us in place to
make sure that you're completely immune from anything anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So just it's in. You're gonna be the president two days.
There's no reason for us to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So they kicked it back down and he's getting an
unconditional discharge, to which I have to say, like I
said earlier this year, if if Big Homie beat these charges,
the plan was to wait the clock out.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He said, that was the plan.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And I don't understand, like I told y'all before, I
don't understand why every court didn't talk to each other
and say, you know, he's just trying to stall us
out right.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
This man is making us look a lame, to which
we have.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
To just be like, salute yo, Kung Fu is greater
than America's. I like, you can't like you at some point,
you gotta respect the hustle and at this point, I like, okay,
I don't like. I don't know what you beat the charges.
He fought the law and won. Now the law didn't win.
(08:36):
He fought the law and he won. And like we
were saying before, which is a real possibility that at
this type of winning streak this man is on, I
could see him figuring out how to be able to
run a third term. If the man stay alive, I
can see him being like, oh, I'm an run a
third term. And y'all only decided because of Roosevelt to
(08:58):
only do two terms. We made that law up, so
we can change that law. I could totally see this
man doing that. In other news, there were two terrorist attacks.
One switch seemed very prophetic, which was the Tesla truck
being caught on fire inside of a Trump lobby, which
(09:22):
apparently was Arson. What's up with y'all and Arson?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
This year?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Now, I did drop a song called burn it Down,
but I met metaphorically, I ain't me literally because anyway,
then we had somebody who was born and raised in
the good old us of A in the heartland of
Texas rent a car from Touro no less, so that
(09:46):
mean that car belonged to somebody that's not even like
a rental player, that's somebody's car and drove that mug
into the French quarters, just running over people, and somehow
that's all this year? Like, how this has been? This
year has been the longest week, This week has been
the longest year?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
What like? How is it only? How is it only
the fifteenth?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
What the There's a term called hypernormalization, which I'll probably
do an episode on a little later, but I feel
like we're experiencing that. Yeah, that's another conversation. Next, Zuckerberg
basically was like slop slop gobble gobble Trump, which I
never really talked that crude, but that's really just what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I don't know what else to tell y'all.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So he basically like, now, now, y'all may or may
not remember, but there was a time that Mark was
thinking about running for president and he tried to make
the Democrat play.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But you know, when you come to the cool.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Kids table, in the same way, Drake tried to come
back to the bungalows and we was like, Nigga, you're
a weirdo, you don't belong here. Go back, go back
to the frat boys, like go just go over there.
The problem with like Zucker was like, well, frat boys
don't like you either. You a weirdo that made a
website to rate chicks Like I don't you a weirdough.
(11:08):
So he was like, I'll show all y'all and I'll
get rich.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And he did. So he was like, look, this is
what we're gonna do. We're gonna be like X, I'm
gonna stop fact checking. We gonna do community notes.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What you mean, You're gonna trust other Facebook users to
tell Facebook Facebook wrong?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
He was like, uh, we're gonna put top Republican what's
the boy's name, Joel Kaplan. He gonna put him in
charge of public policy at Meta. He unappointed Dana White,
you know, the UFC boy he dodn'nappointed him.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
To be on the board.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
And then he gonna move the content moderators, all the
mods they leaving LA and they going to Texas because,
according to him, California has too much of a political bias,
because Texas don't. My man literally was like, you know,
after the twenty sixteen election, people really got tired of
(12:14):
all the political gaslighting and rhetoric happening on the platform.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So now this is we're gonna do. We're gonna allow
the political guests at rhetoric without fact checking. Bruh, what
did you say?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
He basically removed any possibility of the rights, saying that
social media and tech companies have a left leaning like
your y'all, there's no way you can say that now.
Oh man, Amazon Bezos in them because you know billionaire's
(12:54):
gonna billionate Amazon and them. They don't already cut the
check to Milania for her to be able to make
her her own biodoc series. Yeah, they like while she'd
have I thought you wouldn't suposed to be well, ain't no.
I thought you wasn't supposed to when it comes to
this family. But like she like currently is the first lady.
I just be feeling like, maybe maybe you post to
(13:16):
wait till after well, I mean, maybe it might be
an interesting show, but what do I know?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Anyway, La on fire, let's talk about it all right
(13:59):
here go.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So, I'm sure your news outlets or social media's has
told you a space the size of Manhattan and then
another space the size of Chicago and then sprinkled with
a couple other states.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Is gone.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
There's part of me that felt like it was hard
to make Americans have a perspective as to what Gaza
must be like. Obviously, the difference is the Gaza thing
was on purpose, Like these are bombs and the death
toll is absurd, So don't let me. Don't take my
(14:39):
metaphor too far. But what I'm trying to say is
there was a neighborhood here and now there's not, and
the smoke and the smell of just that. I was
out here vacuuming like air vack, like big old like shot,
vacuing my driveway and porch from all the ash. Once
(15:00):
like the air kind of cleared up because look, checking
in as you can as you can see, I am
not did as you can see, like my home is
still standing. Who like who would have had on their
BINGO card that East Lost Boyle Heights would be a
safe area. But as I was vacuuming up the stuff,
it was hitting me that, like, man, it's somebody house.
(15:23):
I'm vacuuming somebody's dreams. Somebody worked their whole life to
get to this. Because I'll talk about this later because
contrary to what your dumb ass auntie says, everybody in
La ain't rich even everybody in the Palisades ain't rich.
Some of these people working four and five jobs, worked
their whole life. So many people just inherited the house
(15:43):
because the Palisades existed before there was the Palastades, before
the millionaires moved in. That might be their grandma house
got it in the forties.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
You don't know that.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So I'm vacuuming up somebody's dreams. You gotta remember too,
like all them people got who you think cleaning them houses?
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Who you think mowing them lawns? You think they got jobs? Now? No?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And where do they live? They live in my side
of town. So you know, it ain't just We're gonna
talk about this later. Like I said, it ain't just.
It ain't just like, oh they rich, they got insurance.
Like hold on, Jake, you ain't from here. You still
use terms like Angelino. Nobody from La says Angelino. You
still calling you call it if you call something. Look,
(16:31):
let me know how Let me again. It's supposed to
be in the culture part. But you know how, I
know you telling all yourself that you ain't from here.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
If you call it.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
South La, none of us call it that, bitch. I'm
from the land. How you hate LA if you ain't
been below the ten. Look, I know Kendrick just said that,
but you have to understand, like we all say that
you ain't been south of the ten. I'm gonna add
east of the river, because some people north of the ten,
like Lincoln Heights. There's some like some real Likeasa, like Vathos,
(17:01):
who've been here for a long time. You from the Avenues.
You ain't been to the Avenues. You've only been on
York in Highland Park. Like, Bro, you can't hate LA.
You ain't been there. You ain't been to LA. That's
one of my biggest arguments. I'm like, you've been to Crenshaw,
you ain't been in LA like you have not. I
don't care. You've been to Hollywood, big dog. That's where
(17:22):
you've been. So here's the problem. Wildfires is normal. We
have four seasons in LA. I've made this joke before.
We got hot rain, fire wind, not in that order.
It's usually hot, fire, rain wind, right, those are our seasons.
(17:44):
Right now in January's normally rainy season. We're usually experiencing
mud slides right now because the fires happened in November.
You follow me, But the dude on the Joe Rogan podcast.
I know this clip was going around like he was
talking about a firefighter.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Nigga. Every firefighter knew this.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
One of my big homies, Dax Reynosa from My Rap
Crew Tunnel Rats. His brother in law shout out Shae,
my homegirl, Shay. She's like my breatha. Shay's so cute.
Her husband, Chris. Chris is in charge of the Lejabra
fire Station. He literally fighting fires right now. My mom
(18:27):
worked at the West Covina Fire Department, retired from there,
which is La County. She was she really she worked
in the fire science and on the account and admin
side thirty years. Retired from there. They even try to
recruit her for the fire Academy in Maryland, so like,
I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
They all predicted this.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
They said, one day the wind and the fire are
gonna happen at the same time. And when it happens,
and only shit we can do. They've been saying this
my whole life, that like we've just been getting lucky.
And when it's urban it's too dense, there'll be no there.
It's just it's we don't make our roads for this,
(19:08):
which you know yay capitalism. Why do I say that,
because you could have made roads wider, You could have
set it up to where just in case. Because when
you go to places that know they're gonna flood, when
you go to places that know they get hurricanes, they
build different, you know what I'm saying. So we just
we we didn't do it right. Los Angeles ever since
(19:33):
it became urban, has been dry. It just it's a
dry area. We don't have natural We don't have a
lot of natural fresh water. We did the La River
used to not be paved. As a matter of fact,
there is a movement now to like unpaved. You know,
that would really help with a lot of our climate issues.
You didn't have to pave it once it came down here.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
But our water won.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
The San Georro Valley river that comes from the mountains
was the is the La River. So that was our
natural water. But you couldn't build a city the size
that it is unless except for Mahulland so the thing
way up in the northern in the which is the
beginning of our aqueduct. We took the water from there,
(20:15):
La which is It's a sad thing.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I know.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Through line on NPR did a whole episode on where
the aqueduct started and how we just kind of like
even maulhulland that created the Mahulland Pass and the Maholland Road,
like I mean, he stole it, but they would say
he stole it the way that America stole native land.
(20:40):
Like listen, it is what it is, So we don't
have natural water. It was already gonna be a issue,
is correct, but just for weird reasons in the sense that, yeah,
we don't take care of nobody's listening to the natives.
Nobody's listening to the folks that told y'all how to
take care of his land. And some of that is, yeah,
(21:01):
you have controlled burns, right, so that the stuff won't
be intense now copied car. You know, obviously our carbon
emisions are off the charts now. The smog that used
to cover our city is not the way it used
to be, the way that I used when I remember
growing up in which was like I mean sometimes they
would cancel school, like they're like, the air is orange.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's just a big, small layer.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And I remember flying into the city and always seeing
it and it was a part of like knowing I
was home because the sky had like an orange layer
over it. And the governator, believe it or not, he's
part of why we don't got that small problem like
we used to.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That has to do with stuff that.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
This is where like y'all huge capitalists is what y'all
don't get. It's like he started making rules about emissions.
He started talking about our cars while we gotta get
small checks. Like I mean, they're annoying, But I tell
you what. You could breathe the air and it's really helped,
you know, but our carbon footprint is so high. We're
trapping too much thing. The air is dry, we don't
(22:06):
get a lot of rain. We naturally don't get a
lot of rain. On top of that climate change.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
It was like this was the perfect storm. It was
bound to happen.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So the Palisades, I don't need to tell y'all, I'm thinking,
I don't need to tell y'all. So the Palisades is
up by Malibu. It's a incredibly wealthy area where you know, a.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Lot of celebrities live.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
But like I said, I'm gonna talk about the culture later,
Like not everybody out there is a celebrity. Some of them
people are just really hard working dentists. Some of them
people got that house from their grandma. Some of them
people you understand what I'm saying, Like it's not just
like you can't just be.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Heartless about the stuff. Like people work hard out here. Now.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
The other part that's really big is the eating fire,
and that is where the city of Altadena is now.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I have a trillion times talk about how I'm from.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
The six to six two six is an area code
in an area called the San Gabriel Valley's twenty minutes
east to South Central. That's West Kobe. If you know
my raps, you know all these these things that I'm
talking about. Now, the northern tip of that is Pasadena
in Altadena. I've always known those areas as black. Now
(23:18):
this is where Jackie Robinson's from. Now, the thought never
crossed my mind as to why it was black, because
you know, when you were a child, like before I
moved to the six to six, you know we I
was the east side of South Central. My family like,
we're black as hell. So I lived in a really
a black world. My neighbors were Latino. Like I said,
(23:41):
I lived on the borderlands between the Mexican and Latino
neighborhoods or Mexican black neighborhoods.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
But like I lived in a black world.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
My father was a black panther like, so I just
was like, I don't know, like you do, like little
city you were in, like city, you know, sports things.
I remember the RCO Jesse Owen's game. Now if you
really from the city, you remember this, Like this was
like a youth track thing and Pasadena rubbing Pasadena running rebels.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Like, so that was the little youth like sports you
know program out there. That was their little track team.
They was all black. So Pasadena at Altadena although for
us we were like these houses are bigger than ours,
Like they're really nice, they're a lot older.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But it's a black negor I've always known it as
a black neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
It was also bloods up there, big hit as in
hit Boy his daddy like they're.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
From Pasadena, you know, he moved to the Ie.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But like I've always known that area as black. Now
too much into it it. This really had to do
with the Civil Rights movement. You know, this area is
very woody. It's right at the foothills of the Angelus
Mountains and because of the Civil Rights movement, integration redlining laws.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Because historic historic Los.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Angeles was down on the east side of South Central,
east of the one ten right, which is all Latino now.
But that was very working class organizing forty fourth and Central,
like I said, where the Black Panthers thing was, where
my family was at.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
That was very working class.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
But once there was the possibility for black people to
enter the middle class where you can get a little
bigger homes, that was up in Altadena. And some of
that had to do with well, I'm going to read
this Altadena Heritage article here or the end of it. It
says Altadena's present day diversity came from came into being
(25:47):
largely during the tumult of the social age change in
the sixth nineteen sixties, and seventies. The civil rights movement,
protests against Vietnam, and the rising youth culture and other
assets of this present day played out locally in lawsuits
around school integration, neighborhoods carved apart by new freeways, redevelopments,
(26:08):
and conflicts in Pasadenas. All of these causes, along with
the thickening layer of small pillowing against the mountains prompted
half of Altadena's population to leave in a flurry of
white flight, and the new residents were mainly people of color.
(26:29):
So because of that area and white flight, we got
us a neighborhood. Now most of the people, a lot
of people I grew up with a lot of black people.
I grew upup their Gramdma on Nim just like so
a lot of our grandma on Ms was in Crenshaw.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
But the gang stuff like really made that impossible. A
lot of are our elders, a lot of our parents.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Their homes are up there, right, and they're really historic homes.
So the Altadena one like hit us really deeply. A
lot of old jazz musicians. Mad Lib the producer, he
lost his crib, DJ Severe, his parents.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
DJ Severe is the DJ for the La Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
His parents lost ay crib, his grandparents lost they crib.
The house he grew up in gone.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
It sucked a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
We were able to buy houses because of the GI
benefits after World War two, right because remember most of
the people that was drafted were people of color, so
you'd get these like housing grants after and because of
redlining and zoning laws, there were only specific areas black
people were allowed to buy in. It's same at California
(27:47):
wasn't no, you know, Utopia. So losing Altadena is a
really big blow to not only LA but the black
community period.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Okay, now let's talk about some science next. Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
One of the things people kept asking I saw on
the internet was like, why y'all not just using the ocean.
How y'all talk about there's not enough water in the
fire hydrogens when you next to the ocean. I don't understand. Well,
let me help you understand.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
First of all, the ocean is saltwater, and the salt
water you may or may not know, is corrosive. Right,
So if you spray the whole town with salt water,
this is gonna make clean up damn near impossible because
of what was of what is left standing, some of
the metal or the brick or stuff like that. The
(29:07):
chemical reactions, it's only gonna cause problems. So it makes
clean up after the fire is out almost impossible.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Secondly, believe it or not, it's heavier.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I know that's weird to say, but ocean water is
heavier than fresh water.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
It is what it is, right.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
And then Another reason, which is probably again one of
the one of the stronger ones, is like it's gonna
kill the vegetation. So because the vegetation on the land,
it comes from rain and fresh water. That's not ocean water.
That's feeding your plants. If you ever have any hope
(29:44):
for the ground to restore itself and grow, you doubts
it with salt water, like you like you're killing it,
Like you're killing the ground. So on first thought, you
would think that just use the ocean. It's really not
a good idea because it just it makes clean up impossible.
It's corrosive, and it's gonna kill the vegetation. Okay, next,
(30:07):
well why did it take so long for them to
get it contained? It was the wind now, like I said,
normally the Santa Anna winds, which is something that we've
all lived with, usually doesn't coincide with fire season, right,
So the winds is just something that like I mean,
I got for all my Cali folks, you know, like
I said, like since I grew up in the SGV,
(30:30):
I still went to high school in the Inland Empire
and out there, like I mean, they would shut down
school because it was just it would knock down trees
like the wind. The Santa Ana's is not a game
in the Inland Empire. Even in my mom's house that
there's a tree behind the retaining wall in her backyard
that knocked over. It broke the retaining wall. It didn't
(30:51):
break her window until the city came in to cut
the rest of the tree down, and then that broke
the window.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
But uh, it's absurd.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
But the wind, this is something that, like, we know
that's gonna be a problem. So it's just the combination
of them both happening at the same time is awful.
The next thing I want to talk about is a
combination of misinformation and what really went on with the government. Okay, now,
(31:24):
far be it from me to get on this camera
and defend Karen Bastard or Gavin Newsome. I don't trust
nobody slick their hair back to wait it Gavin Newsom, dude.
That being said, if you're gonna be mad at him,
be mad at him for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Okay, because some of this is just it's just incorrect.
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I hate in a situation where you make me defend
somebody I don't really mess with, Like when Elon Musk
and Mark Zuckerberg was gonna have a UFC match when
they was gonna like grapple, I was like, how dare you?
How dare you? Because who would I rather see get
that ass kicked? I mean, how It's a tough question
because at first it would have been like, oh, I
(32:10):
want to see I want to see Elon get mopped?
But how dare you make me cheer for Mark Zuckerbert?
You know, I think I may still feel like that.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I don't know anyway, So how dare you make me
defend Karen Basque and Gavit Deuce because the reality is
we've been taking care of ourselves. But we'll talk about
that in the culture section. The first question is about
(32:41):
where was Karen Bass when it started?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And what's wrong with the fire hydrants.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
First of all, that little video of her getting off
the plane after she was coming back from Ghana. Apparently
Pole lady was on her honeymoon, so she coming back
from Ghana and she ain't got nothing to say while
poor lady waiting on her back. They was like, yo,
why you ain't cut the thing? Okay, So again far
being for me to defend this woman. But I will
(33:09):
say this sometimes. I mean she and' it take a
long time to get home, like it take a long
time to get home. And you think if you put
people in charge that they could handle the situation. Ain't
nobody know all this was gonna come together the way
that it came together. And secondly, what's she supposed to say,
(33:33):
because I know what I would say is my nigga,
can you get here, have a glass of hord chot
to fuck up? Get out my way. I got shit
to take care of right now. We're clearly in a crisis.
We could talk about how much I failed a little
later right now, out to dinner, Pal says, on fire,
let me go, give them a feet up under me,
(33:56):
figure out what the hell happened, and I'll get back
to you.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Nigga, I just landed you right. I'm sorry. I ain't
no God damn it, I didn't know like I suppose.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I ain't got no crystal ball cuz I'm on my way. Shit,
there's a fire chief, why you ain't hit them up?
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:13):
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
But far being from me to put words at her mouth.
The fire hydrants. So here's the thing about the fire hydrants. Oh,
let me throw this one real quick. The la the
Hollywood sign was not on fire, y'all. Sometimes, listen, fact
checking is much more easier than you think, if you
would just stop for a second. Cause misinformation is attempting.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
To probably create a scam.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Right, They trying to hit a lick here, so they're
gonna give you something that's sensational that ain't necessarily what's
going on because they hitting a lick. So you have
to remember, like if somebody hitting a lick, they not
gonna necessarily tell you the whole truth.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Sometimes misinformation is just it's chaos happening. You just have
and to get it wrong. Especially about the looting thing. Now,
to me, that was malicious, that that was dissip That
was the problem of missings misinformation. There was this video
of these young men, these black men, carrying this stuff
out of these houses in Altadena. Somebody was like, I
(35:17):
think it was like a whole ass. Nazi was like, look,
the looting has already started. They interviewed the lady. The
lady was like, uh, that's my brother and his friends
from work. I asked him to come get the rest
of my stuff out the house. So you're talking about
this looting is like smells racist because it is racist.
So there's that and some stuff like I said, like
if you take a second, just go back through before
(35:39):
you post it and know that you're invoking an emotion
and slow down for a second. Another thing you could
do is just put something through a Google search. If
you just put it through a Google search, you could
see if an image was altered in any way. Right,
is anyone else posting these things? You know what I'm saying, Like,
there's so many other things you could look at. A
(36:01):
big thing about the fire hydrants. Did we run out
of water? The answer is.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Okay, let me get some let me get some details
for you. So one reservoir in the Santa Nez Reservoir
was closed for repairs. The sansee Inez Reservoir holds seventeen million,
one hundred and seventeen million gallons of water and is
located at the heart of the paliss But the reservoir
closure is not the main reason why the hydrants at
(36:30):
higher higher elevations ran dry.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Right. A lot of it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Has to be has to do with water pressure, right,
and the amount the intensity of the fire. Nobody, again,
nobody was prepared for that, so it didn't have enough
pressure to put the water through because again we weren't
prepared for this perfect storm that made the fire as big.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
As it was.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Even if the reservoir, the leader of the DWP said,
you know, even if the reservoir was full, we still
would have had the pressure issue because of the intensity
of the fire.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
So this again, how dare.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
You make me defend the government but at least be
mad at them for the right reasons. So did the
budget get cut by seventeen million? And the answer is
a little tricky. Now the La Times and the BBC
have reported this. It's not as simple as y'all was
understaffed and you ain't had no money. Now, we had
(37:33):
a surplus of equipment and at the time, since nobody
got a crystal ball, a lot of that surplus, the
extra that we have was sent off to Ukraine. Why
because it was extra.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You following me, So we sent it.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
But it was like, well it was the extra, Like
I ain't know who's gonna need the extra. Sometimes I
like y'all think the government really do be telling the future,
and sometimes they don't, like you be prepared, but you
have like numbers based on your best guess. Now again,
don't have me defending the government. I'm just saying sometimes
it's like that.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
So here we go.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Although southern California is currently follow me experiencing a drought,
this is about whether we had enough water. The data
shows that the reservoirs are almost all currently above historic
average at this time of year, and none were set
significant low levels.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Now let me fact check the fact check.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
What they say is we didn't set a record this time,
like every year we be setting a record on lows.
But if you remember at the beginning of twenty twenty
four and the beginning of twenty twenty three, yo, it rained.
I had to redo the freaking ground in my backyard
like it got it was bad. So our levels are
(38:58):
on average more than they have been. Now, don't get
me wrong, we're still in a drought. It's just not
as bad as it was. I mean, there was a
time when you had to, like if you went to
a restaurant, they didn't just give you water, like you
had to ask for a glass of water because they
was like, we just ain't we just ain't got it.
So our levels have been did come up a little
(39:20):
bit on average, so it wasn't necessarily that Oh Gavin.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Newsom released the water for the fishies.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Now if he had have released it, now, yeah, I mean,
I don't understand why you think that him saving that
water would have saved us from this problem. It wouldn't have.
And would it have helped. I mean, I guess, but
like not the way you think it would have helped. Right,
So that's being that.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Now.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
As far as the budget, the seventeen million, okay, so
for the last financial year the LA Fire Department was
department budget was cut by seventeen million, right, seventeen point
six million. Now, the LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told
CNN that the budget had cut cut had severely affected
(40:02):
the department's ability to respond to the disaster, right, so
that's real. She said the department was already understaffed in
the elimination of civilian positions like mechanics had meant one
hundred fire apparatuses were out of service now. So Mayor
Bass responded to this criticism. She was saying that there
(40:22):
were no reductions that were made that would have impacted
the situation that we were dealing with over the last.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Couple of days.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
So she was like look dog like, it wouldn't have
made no difference. Now that smells a little bit like
an excuse, because of course it would have made a difference.
But that's not the part I want to talk about.
I don't know why she ain't say this stuff. So
check this out. So, according to the La Times, after
the twenty twenty four twenty twenty five budget was passed,
the city council approved, so watch this, fifty three million
(40:49):
dollars in pay.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Raises for the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
And fifty eight million in new kits such as fire trucks.
So once the funding on was take it into the account,
the department's operation budget actually grew, you follow me. So
we did this budget cut as far as like a
line item that lost these things, but then brought this
(41:14):
money over here on this side, right, And the LA
Fire Department had overall budget approaching almost one billion.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
And also, isn't the only department responding to the fires, right,
So the forest fire protections all that good stuff. So
there's other people that normally take care of the forest.
Is a department different than the LA Fire Department, right,
you're following me. So, so yeah, there was a budget cut,
but there was also a budget raise. It just came
in other ways. Now that being said, I don't know
(41:45):
how they spend the money. I don't know how that
stuff break down. Sometimes I don't understand the way they
do these budgets. It don't make sense to me either.
But it's not as simple as well. If you wouldn't
have cut they budget, this wouldn't have happened. It's not
that simple. Now, did we sell the water rights to corporations? Absolutely?
Water rights being sold right. People that make these statios,
(42:09):
they own a big percentage of LA's natural water is privatized. Again,
you can refer to the block as hot the original one.
Even some of your utility bills, believe it or not,
those are private companies. But y'all love capitalism right now.
Another one we want to talk about is the incarcerated firefighters.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Now, this is a big deal. This is true.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Thirty percent of the people fighting these fires are incarcerated.
They do, in fact make five dollars and eighty cents
or up to ten twenty four cents a day. I'm
gonna say that again, that's what they make a day,
(42:57):
not five dollars an hour, five hours a day. Now,
you can earn an additional one dollar per hour responding
in emergencies. Right now, there's a great thread on threads
from a former incarcerated firefighter who was incarcerated in California
(43:17):
in two thousand and nine to twenty twelve. Now again,
you can't believe the internet. I'm gonna give you some
pointers as to how you shouldn't believe the internet a
little later.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
But like, yo, check this out. So it's voluntary.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
First of all, you get to volunteer to be able
to be a part of the incarcerated Firefighters program. Now again,
you making pennies. Now, why that's okay, I believe it
or not. As the thirteenth Amendment, which is the indentured
servitude clause inside of the thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves,
they said, but we could also make you work. If
(43:50):
you're incarcerated as a part of your punishment, we can
make you and that's why they only pay you pennies. Now,
y'all may or may not remember, but there was a
a bill on the California ballot that literally said slavery.
I can't make this stuff up, and we voted, and
(44:12):
we voted for it. Now there are in this program,
you obviously have to be well not obviously, there are
a few stipulations you have to be. You know, in
a nonviolent right you have to be a minimum security
minimum security status. You have to have no active warrants,
(44:34):
no physical medical psychiatric conditions, right. You have to have
a recent clear of disciplinary history less than eight and
you have to have eight less than eight years remaining
on your sentence. And you have to have no convictions
of serious violence, sex, arson, or escape attempts.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So there's a very particular group of people that are
allowed to do this again because it's involuntary or because
is voluntary, and you get to be off site, so
you stay on a campsite. They're twenty four hour shifts,
they give you food, right, and pending on.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Your particular.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Prison location, oftentimes your experience can be much different like anything.
You know what I'm saying, there's a human thing, right,
and the people that they choose. Obviously, you're still being
selected because it's involuntary or because it's voluntary, and they
have to approve like, Okay, you meet all these requirements,
but who do we really want to be out for
two weeks with? So hopefully the person that's working at
(45:37):
the prison is like cool, you know what I'm saying.
And of course they want it to be a good
hang like anything else. So of course we're working hard.
Of course this is voluntary. Of course it's grueling, and
of course you making pennies. But you know, I'm gonna
read this again just for y'all start just thinking. Everybody
in jail is the same again. You have to have
a minimum security at status, no active warrants, no physical,
(45:58):
medical or psychiatric condition. You have to have recent clear,
recently clear disciplinary history, less than eight years remaining on
your sentence, and no convictions of serious violent sex are
sined or escape attempts that like. Of course, like these
are like you doing what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
You serve your time.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
You made a mistake at one point, you get your
acts together, right, and you get out there.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
They said they feed you. Well.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
You stay on these things and you get to have
time knocked off of your sentence, right, you get to
have time knocked off of your parole. Now if everything
works out, yes, when you get out, you are allowed
to apply for certain fire departments, maybe not the lap
(46:42):
D LAFD.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
So while you're on the site.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
While you're on site, you get like calfired CalFire the
people that does the training, you get like physical fitness training,
You get firefighter training. And it's really because again because
these civilian firefighters, people that like actually like work for
the virus, like you putting as right, like I'm putting
my life.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
In your hands. I need to make sure you know
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
The state saves like billions of dollars by paying them pennies,
which obviously is trash, but that's what happens. But you
get trained on like chainsaws and all the things you
would need right how to work like basic hand tools.
Now you're not trained on used to how on how
to use the fire hose or run an engine right,
And you're not trained as the type of firefighter that
(47:28):
requires to go into buildings and rescuing peoples and stuff
like that. Their task is to cut a fire break
between what is burning and what is yet to burn, right,
which is a very important thing that I remember my
mama used to talk about. Right when you get out,
you are eligible, right, you are eligible to apply for
(47:49):
firefighting jobs at how fire right, which has to do
more with like the woodland sort of stuff like that. Right,
So it's not so much that you don't get on
the job training that you can't use, like you still
get training that you could use later. Now granted again
this is not a defense of that. But also I
am not incarcerated. I imagine in an incarcerated sense situation
(48:13):
where this person chose to do this, they're what they're
Most of them are saying like, yo, of all these situations,
I know it's hard, but this is like the dopest
thing you can do.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
And a lot of them people were saying like yo,
like I'm from here too, Like I see the same
news you do.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
I want to help you feel me, Like I don't
know why people in their brain think once a person
goes to jail they stop being a person, like they
still a person?
Speaker 1 (48:34):
You feel me?
Speaker 2 (48:35):
So know that, Like these are the facts and all
that good stuff. And lastly, I want to talk about
the culture.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Now.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
I need you to remember that like everybody in la
ain't rich. Some of these people have had houses passed down.
Some of these people have worked two and three jobs
their whole life. I know Jenney Aiko said she lost
her house. Everybody dissing or like bye another one. It's
like Nigga, she's from the land, like she fought or
worked her whole life to get this. Listen, I'm a
(49:06):
homeowner right now, but like y'all, I would be done,
like if I don't know what I would be. What's
the plan be? Like you start over, bro? Like have
you ever worked on something for fifteen twenty years? You
just want somebody to be like, start over, bro, Like, No,
that's not how the land works. Also, as someone who's
(49:30):
been on the ground codinating with mutual aid programs and
even with government programs, my district council member, she's from
the city. She used her powers of government. She opened
the city Hall right here in Boyle Heights and set
up a donation center. But before she could do that,
(49:51):
or while she was doing that, the city was already
in action, people already coordinating people already. The the level
of generosity that has been going across this city. Now,
if you from an area like Ashville or any other
areas that are subjected to natural disasters, you know exactly
(50:12):
what I'm talking about. Government can't get to you in time,
The fire sometimes fire department can't get you in time.
Who'll get to you first? Is your neighbors. And this
is what we're seeing out here is neighbors being neighbors, artists, rappers, businesses.
PAC's son being like, look, dm us, we'll send you
some clothes. You know what I'm saying. Airbnb being like, yo,
it's free, go ahead, it's all good. My wife, doctor
(50:33):
Ahma refer to her by her prefix, has set up
meal trains. She has within one Google doc just of
our neighborhood and the school that my daughter goes to.
Figuring out, Okay, who lost their houses, who gonna donate ventilators?
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Who won't do this?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Is? I mean, I'm even having friends who've lost everything,
still figuring out how to help. We at Club real Ones,
we did one yesterday. We did a drive yesterday to
taking food cards and stuff like that, like like you
figure it out out?
Speaker 1 (51:00):
How are we finding each other? Hell? We just are right.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I remember I was at Boyle Heiste. We took some
stuff to Egle Rock, Egle Rock, and then there was
another church over there by the uh off off off
Cyser Chavez and State. I'm talking to you like you
from here White Memorial right, So there's a church over
there too. I met the pastor passing Manny, he like,
how do I tap in with the city. I'm like
the city right over there. Matter of fact, we're doing
some on Sunday, y'all, Caul, bring some of this stuff
y'all got, We gonna take it there.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
We're gonna take it.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Up to the h By the time that the city
set up the rose Bowl, like I said before, we
already had the stuff.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
We already had it set up.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
We already knew everything, like it was already labeled in
English Spanish tigallog like toiletries. You feel me, uh you know,
ROPAs de damas, like you know what I'm saying. Like
it was already set up. We already had it. Why
because we're from the land. It was already set up.
There was water like we today. We took pallettes of
water to the fire station because.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
That's what they asked for. You know what they also
they asked for, just like food, gift cards. Sure here,
we just did it. We figured it out.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
We connected across communities, across towns, and when the government
caught up and was ready to get themselves situated, because yeah,
they moved slower than us.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
It's too many things happening right now. That's fine.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
But what you experienced if you had, if you if
somebody handed you without you having to ask, a pack
of tampons, toilet paper, and some toothbrushes, why we already
had that and why you just had it?
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Is anarchy? That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
You know why the fire department showed up? Could you
show ain't paid for it? You say, yessue, did you
paid for it by your taxes? Yes? Niggas Socialism, that's
what that is. You know who canceling your insurance? Capitalism,
that's what that This is why we say the stuff
we say. But that's the culture here, and you know
(52:54):
what we're doing while they're doing that. I got DMed
so many times people of psychologists, therapists that are like, look,
let me know. If people are going through some trauming
and experience right now, I'm ready to.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Sit with them.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
We meet people that's like, listen, let me teach you
how to read your policy. If it's we're figuring it out,
don't sign nothing. People helping people, it's just happening. You
would say, well, it's just people being good neighbors and
taking care of themselves. I would say, ah ah correct.
This is what we mean at cuzone. This, This is
(53:29):
what we mean by leftists. It's like you just you
just do the shit because it's the right shit to do.
I don't you don't wait, fam, And that's what's happening
on the ground now. Ways you can help, let me
tell you something. We need airperer fires, we need gift cards.
(53:55):
We got everything else, like and that stuff you can
see through the mail now us. We'll put in the
show notes all kinds of links and waits for which
you can help. But your best bet is if you're
gonna seeing stuff, uh, send.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
The gift cards.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
I love this city, man, We'll be all right to
live and die in l A. And I think I'm
(54:45):
gonna sum it up with something I saw on social media,
Like with all the like trash talking we're hearing around
l A.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
About l A is is.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
You know the city's literally on fire. It's because it's
because of the drug. You know, for whatever reason city's
on fire. Sometimes the wind can blow you over, Sometimes
the prices are astronomical and really unsustainable, and sometimes the
very ground shakes up under us and knocks down buildings
(55:18):
with earthquakes. But even with all that I still don't
want to live where you live La Online of Politics.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
(56:00):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed,
edited and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski Killing the
Beat Softly. Check out his website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm
a speller for you because I know M A T
(56:22):
T O S O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out The heat. Politics is
a member of Cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and
(56:42):
scoring is also by the one and nobly Mattowsowski. Still
killing the Beat Softly, So listen, don't let nobody lie
to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week. S
Cao Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
By thinking so much differently, Hey, supporting me while I
burst into flames. Can you guess what this episode is about?
The Block is Literally Hot? Part two, because we did
(00:26):
a Block is Literally Hot episode about the privatization of
your water, the causes of climate change and all of those.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Various things. This was back early when I just.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Joined the Cool Zone media team the iHeartRadio podcast network,
like basically when I went from the indies to the
majors with podcasting. The Block is Literally Hot. I will
probably link that in the show notes somewhere, but yeah,
I said that. Why would I started that way? Welcome
(01:17):
to hood politics with prop What I was going to
talk about today was a memoriam. Memoriam is that the word? Yeah,
an honoring episode on the passing of Nikki Giovanni and
the way for which he changed my life. But that's
gonna have to go sit into the evergreen section. And
(01:39):
that was mainly because it was very difficult for us
to get like a jump start back into the year
as the year started again because of the quadd demic
noravias virus, the RSV virus. I got dumb sick over
the holidays, like not even funny, like dumb sick. I
got all the sicknesses, maybe not the COVID one, but
(02:02):
I got the the sinus one where the sinuses felt spicy,
like it was like I felt like somebody took they
two knuckles and punched me in the face just like this.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think I talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
That on one of the episodes that we recorded before
La Caught on Fire, which was about immigration, which at
some point is gonna have to drop probably next week,
but this week is this one man it and nobody
was like ready to really get back to work, and
then basically this episode called for a but look, it's
(02:37):
like this all wrapped in one in the sense that, yeah,
the twenty twenty five came out all gas, no breaks,
Like it was absurd, and it was crazy because I
didn't see nobody put out those you know, the meme
of the Lady. I think I talked about this too
on an episode you gonna hear later, the meme of
the Lady, the Black Lady, you know, with the backpack
(03:00):
of the good things for twenty twenty stepping over last
year into you this year, didn't nobody post that At
the end of twenty twenty four, everybody was nervous coming
into this year.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Nobody said twenty twenty five was my year.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Nobody did. Apparently we collectively knew someone was about to happen. Now,
let me acknowledge to y'all who might be listening on
the podcast app. We have also pivoted the video because
we're not dinosaurs now, which means this episode is on
(03:31):
YouTube now. If you are on my Patreon, you already
got this episode.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
But if you not, we've pivoted. We're on.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We're on YouTube now. We're doing the video pod because
that's the thing. So that means that I could show
y'all my terrorform call brew Mug. I could show y'all
my stan Lee who mere terrorformed the city mug what
I'm saying, and you could see my pretty little face,
(04:05):
you know what I'm saying. You can see the pores,
and you know what I'm saying. Eventually I'm gonna get
a better camera, but you know, we just we're just
doing this anyway. So today, obviously we have to talk
about La on Fire. We are going to go through
some of the problems, some of the causes. Selling the
water I told you about that already. Why not the
(04:26):
ocean a lot of people talking about why aren't y'all
using salt water?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Why aren't y'all using the ocean?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And there is a stupid, absurd amount of misinformation going
on swirling through these streets, and we need to address
that and stop the cap because the cap is helping nobody.
And then we're gonna talk about the culture out here,
(04:52):
the ways that you can help from where you are,
and really just and the history of Altadena, which is
a a very very important thing that is really near, dear,
dear to me because your boys from the six to six,
So of course it's gonna be special. Got ready to ride. Okay,
(05:14):
let's do this. The block is literally hot Part two.
Hood politics, Hood politics, y'all. Okay, So look it's like this,
let's go ahead with that. Bull look is like this.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Bull look is like this, Yeah, unconditional discharge. You know
what that means.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That means the felon in chief President Trump is not
gonna face any consequences of repercussions, even though he's still
gonna be called a felon. Now, the sentencing we talk
about is the New York case about falsifying documents, payment
of Stormy Daniels the only one that we thought was
actually going to land a conviction, and turns out, yes,
we were right, landed a conviction thirty four counts. He's
(06:12):
getting what's called an unconditional discharge, which basically means this,
I'm going to quote it, okay. It essentially is a
resolution that allows for the conviction to stand and preserves
the sanctity of the jury's verdict, but ensures that there
are very limited consequences stemming from the conviction. This is
(06:33):
Sarah kiss Off, a formal federal prosecutor. She pointed out
that though an unconditional discharge carries some consequences depending on
the state. For example, a felon is not able to
vote or own a firearm. Trump is barred from being
able to purchase a firearm in either New York or
Florida following his conviction. So he did vote for himself
(06:56):
and his presidential election. So basically like, okay, so you guilty, No,
you did it, but that's it. So he don't have
to pay no fine, he don't have to do no
community service, and he for showing, got to do no
jail time, mainly because well, he gonna be the president
in two days. So I mean, what you go like,
(07:20):
I don't, I mean, what what.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Can we do? Like there's no time for you to
actually do the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
He was even gonna try to last stitch effort, kick
it up to the to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The Supreme Court is like, what the hell you want
me to say?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Like, there's you done already, put us in place to
make sure that you're completely immune from anything anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So just it's in. You're gonna be the president two days.
There's no reason for us to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So they kicked it back down and he's getting an
unconditional discharge, to which I have to say, like I
said earlier this year, if if Big Homie beat these charges,
the plan was to wait the clock out.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He said, that was the plan.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And I don't understand, like I told y'all before, I
don't understand why every court didn't talk to each other
and say, you know, he's just trying to stall us
out right.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
This man is making us look a lame, to which
we have.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
To just be like, salute yo, Kung Fu is greater
than America's. I like, you can't like you at some point,
you gotta respect the hustle and at this point, I like, okay,
I don't like. I don't know what you beat the charges.
He fought the law and won. Now the law didn't win.
(08:36):
He fought the law and he won. And like we
were saying before, which is a real possibility that at
this type of winning streak this man is on, I
could see him figuring out how to be able to
run a third term. If the man stay alive, I
can see him being like, oh, I'm an run a
third term. And y'all only decided because of Roosevelt to
(08:58):
only do two terms. We made that law up, so
we can change that law. I could totally see this
man doing that. In other news, there were two terrorist attacks.
One switch seemed very prophetic, which was the Tesla truck
being caught on fire inside of a Trump lobby, which
(09:22):
apparently was Arson. What's up with y'all and Arson?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
This year?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Now, I did drop a song called burn it Down,
but I met metaphorically, I ain't me literally because anyway,
then we had somebody who was born and raised in
the good old us of A in the heartland of
Texas rent a car from Touro no less, so that
(09:46):
mean that car belonged to somebody that's not even like
a rental player, that's somebody's car and drove that mug
into the French quarters, just running over people, and somehow
that's all this year? Like, how this has been? This
year has been the longest week, This week has been
the longest year?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
What like? How is it only? How is it only
the fifteenth?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
What the There's a term called hypernormalization, which I'll probably
do an episode on a little later, but I feel
like we're experiencing that. Yeah, that's another conversation. Next, Zuckerberg
basically was like slop slop gobble gobble Trump, which I
never really talked that crude, but that's really just what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I don't know what else to tell y'all.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So he basically like, now, now, y'all may or may
not remember, but there was a time that Mark was
thinking about running for president and he tried to make
the Democrat play.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But you know, when you come to the cool.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Kids table, in the same way, Drake tried to come
back to the bungalows and we was like, Nigga, you're
a weirdo, you don't belong here. Go back, go back
to the frat boys, like go just go over there.
The problem with like Zucker was like, well, frat boys
don't like you either. You a weirdo that made a
website to rate chicks Like I don't you a weirdough.
(11:08):
So he was like, I'll show all y'all and I'll
get rich.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And he did. So he was like, look, this is
what we're gonna do. We're gonna be like X, I'm
gonna stop fact checking. We gonna do community notes.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What you mean, You're gonna trust other Facebook users to
tell Facebook Facebook wrong?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
He was like, uh, we're gonna put top Republican what's
the boy's name, Joel Kaplan. He gonna put him in
charge of public policy at Meta. He unappointed Dana White,
you know, the UFC boy he dodn'nappointed him.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
To be on the board.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
And then he gonna move the content moderators, all the
mods they leaving LA and they going to Texas because,
according to him, California has too much of a political bias,
because Texas don't. My man literally was like, you know,
after the twenty sixteen election, people really got tired of
(12:14):
all the political gaslighting and rhetoric happening on the platform.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So now this is we're gonna do. We're gonna allow
the political guests at rhetoric without fact checking. Bruh, what
did you say?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
He basically removed any possibility of the rights, saying that
social media and tech companies have a left leaning like
your y'all, there's no way you can say that now.
Oh man, Amazon Bezos in them because you know billionaire's
(12:54):
gonna billionate Amazon and them. They don't already cut the
check to Milania for her to be able to make
her her own biodoc series. Yeah, they like while she'd
have I thought you wouldn't suposed to be well, ain't no.
I thought you wasn't supposed to when it comes to
this family. But like she like currently is the first lady.
I just be feeling like, maybe maybe you post to
(13:16):
wait till after well, I mean, maybe it might be
an interesting show, but what do I know?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Anyway, La on fire, let's talk about it all right
(13:59):
here go.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So, I'm sure your news outlets or social media's has
told you a space the size of Manhattan and then
another space the size of Chicago and then sprinkled with
a couple other states.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Is gone.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
There's part of me that felt like it was hard
to make Americans have a perspective as to what Gaza
must be like. Obviously, the difference is the Gaza thing
was on purpose, Like these are bombs and the death
toll is absurd, So don't let me. Don't take my
(14:39):
metaphor too far. But what I'm trying to say is
there was a neighborhood here and now there's not, and
the smoke and the smell of just that. I was
out here vacuuming like air vack, like big old like shot,
vacuing my driveway and porch from all the ash. Once
(15:00):
like the air kind of cleared up because look, checking
in as you can as you can see, I am
not did as you can see, like my home is
still standing. Who like who would have had on their
BINGO card that East Lost Boyle Heights would be a
safe area. But as I was vacuuming up the stuff,
it was hitting me that, like, man, it's somebody house.
(15:23):
I'm vacuuming somebody's dreams. Somebody worked their whole life to
get to this. Because I'll talk about this later because
contrary to what your dumb ass auntie says, everybody in
La ain't rich even everybody in the Palisades ain't rich.
Some of these people working four and five jobs, worked
their whole life. So many people just inherited the house
(15:43):
because the Palisades existed before there was the Palastades, before
the millionaires moved in. That might be their grandma house
got it in the forties.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
You don't know that.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So I'm vacuuming up somebody's dreams. You gotta remember too,
like all them people got who you think cleaning them houses?
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Who you think mowing them lawns? You think they got jobs? Now? No?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And where do they live? They live in my side
of town. So you know, it ain't just We're gonna
talk about this later. Like I said, it ain't just.
It ain't just like, oh they rich, they got insurance.
Like hold on, Jake, you ain't from here. You still
use terms like Angelino. Nobody from La says Angelino. You
still calling you call it if you call something. Look,
(16:31):
let me know how Let me again. It's supposed to
be in the culture part. But you know how, I
know you telling all yourself that you ain't from here.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
If you call it.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
South La, none of us call it that, bitch. I'm
from the land. How you hate LA if you ain't
been below the ten. Look, I know Kendrick just said that,
but you have to understand, like we all say that
you ain't been south of the ten. I'm gonna add
east of the river, because some people north of the ten,
like Lincoln Heights. There's some like some real Likeasa, like Vathos,
(17:01):
who've been here for a long time. You from the Avenues.
You ain't been to the Avenues. You've only been on
York in Highland Park. Like, Bro, you can't hate LA.
You ain't been there. You ain't been to LA. That's
one of my biggest arguments. I'm like, you've been to Crenshaw,
you ain't been in LA like you have not. I
don't care. You've been to Hollywood, big dog. That's where
(17:22):
you've been. So here's the problem. Wildfires is normal. We
have four seasons in LA. I've made this joke before.
We got hot rain, fire wind, not in that order.
It's usually hot, fire, rain wind, right, those are our seasons.
(17:44):
Right now in January's normally rainy season. We're usually experiencing
mud slides right now because the fires happened in November.
You follow me, But the dude on the Joe Rogan podcast.
I know this clip was going around like he was
talking about a firefighter.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Nigga. Every firefighter knew this.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
One of my big homies, Dax Reynosa from My Rap
Crew Tunnel Rats. His brother in law shout out Shae,
my homegirl, Shay. She's like my breatha. Shay's so cute.
Her husband, Chris. Chris is in charge of the Lejabra
fire Station. He literally fighting fires right now. My mom
(18:27):
worked at the West Covina Fire Department, retired from there,
which is La County. She was she really she worked
in the fire science and on the account and admin
side thirty years. Retired from there. They even try to
recruit her for the fire Academy in Maryland, so like,
I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
They all predicted this.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
They said, one day the wind and the fire are
gonna happen at the same time. And when it happens,
and only shit we can do. They've been saying this
my whole life, that like we've just been getting lucky.
And when it's urban it's too dense, there'll be no there.
It's just it's we don't make our roads for this,
(19:08):
which you know yay capitalism. Why do I say that,
because you could have made roads wider, You could have
set it up to where just in case. Because when
you go to places that know they're gonna flood, when
you go to places that know they get hurricanes, they
build different, you know what I'm saying. So we just
we we didn't do it right. Los Angeles ever since
(19:33):
it became urban, has been dry. It just it's a
dry area. We don't have natural We don't have a
lot of natural fresh water. We did the La River
used to not be paved. As a matter of fact,
there is a movement now to like unpaved. You know,
that would really help with a lot of our climate issues.
You didn't have to pave it once it came down here.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
But our water won.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
The San Georro Valley river that comes from the mountains
was the is the La River. So that was our
natural water. But you couldn't build a city the size
that it is unless except for Mahulland so the thing
way up in the northern in the which is the
beginning of our aqueduct. We took the water from there,
(20:15):
La which is It's a sad thing.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I know.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Through line on NPR did a whole episode on where
the aqueduct started and how we just kind of like
even maulhulland that created the Mahulland Pass and the Maholland Road,
like I mean, he stole it, but they would say
he stole it the way that America stole native land.
(20:40):
Like listen, it is what it is, So we don't
have natural water. It was already gonna be a issue,
is correct, but just for weird reasons in the sense that, yeah,
we don't take care of nobody's listening to the natives.
Nobody's listening to the folks that told y'all how to
take care of his land. And some of that is, yeah,
(21:01):
you have controlled burns, right, so that the stuff won't
be intense now copied car. You know, obviously our carbon
emisions are off the charts now. The smog that used
to cover our city is not the way it used
to be, the way that I used when I remember
growing up in which was like I mean sometimes they
would cancel school, like they're like, the air is orange.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's just a big, small layer.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And I remember flying into the city and always seeing
it and it was a part of like knowing I
was home because the sky had like an orange layer
over it. And the governator, believe it or not, he's
part of why we don't got that small problem like
we used to.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That has to do with stuff that.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
This is where like y'all huge capitalists is what y'all
don't get. It's like he started making rules about emissions.
He started talking about our cars while we gotta get
small checks. Like I mean, they're annoying, But I tell
you what. You could breathe the air and it's really helped,
you know, but our carbon footprint is so high. We're
trapping too much thing. The air is dry, we don't
(22:06):
get a lot of rain. We naturally don't get a
lot of rain. On top of that climate change.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
It was like this was the perfect storm. It was
bound to happen.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So the Palisades, I don't need to tell y'all, I'm thinking,
I don't need to tell y'all. So the Palisades is
up by Malibu. It's a incredibly wealthy area where you know, a.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Lot of celebrities live.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
But like I said, I'm gonna talk about the culture later,
Like not everybody out there is a celebrity. Some of them
people are just really hard working dentists. Some of them
people got that house from their grandma. Some of them
people you understand what I'm saying, Like it's not just
like you can't just be.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Heartless about the stuff. Like people work hard out here. Now.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
The other part that's really big is the eating fire,
and that is where the city of Altadena is now.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I have a trillion times talk about how I'm from.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
The six to six two six is an area code
in an area called the San Gabriel Valley's twenty minutes
east to South Central. That's West Kobe. If you know
my raps, you know all these these things that I'm
talking about. Now, the northern tip of that is Pasadena
in Altadena. I've always known those areas as black. Now
(23:18):
this is where Jackie Robinson's from. Now, the thought never
crossed my mind as to why it was black, because
you know, when you were a child, like before I
moved to the six to six, you know we I
was the east side of South Central. My family like,
we're black as hell. So I lived in a really
a black world. My neighbors were Latino. Like I said,
(23:41):
I lived on the borderlands between the Mexican and Latino
neighborhoods or Mexican black neighborhoods.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
But like I lived in a black world.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
My father was a black panther like, so I just
was like, I don't know, like you do, like little
city you were in, like city, you know, sports things.
I remember the RCO Jesse Owen's game. Now if you
really from the city, you remember this, Like this was
like a youth track thing and Pasadena rubbing Pasadena running rebels.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Like, so that was the little youth like sports you
know program out there. That was their little track team.
They was all black. So Pasadena at Altadena although for
us we were like these houses are bigger than ours,
Like they're really nice, they're a lot older.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But it's a black negor I've always known it as
a black neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
It was also bloods up there, big hit as in
hit Boy his daddy like they're.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
From Pasadena, you know, he moved to the Ie.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But like I've always known that area as black. Now
too much into it it. This really had to do
with the Civil Rights movement. You know, this area is
very woody. It's right at the foothills of the Angelus
Mountains and because of the Civil Rights movement, integration redlining laws.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Because historic historic Los.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Angeles was down on the east side of South Central,
east of the one ten right, which is all Latino now.
But that was very working class organizing forty fourth and Central,
like I said, where the Black Panthers thing was, where
my family was at.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
That was very working class.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
But once there was the possibility for black people to
enter the middle class where you can get a little
bigger homes, that was up in Altadena. And some of
that had to do with well, I'm going to read
this Altadena Heritage article here or the end of it. It
says Altadena's present day diversity came from came into being
(25:47):
largely during the tumult of the social age change in
the sixth nineteen sixties, and seventies. The civil rights movement,
protests against Vietnam, and the rising youth culture and other
assets of this present day played out locally in lawsuits
around school integration, neighborhoods carved apart by new freeways, redevelopments,
(26:08):
and conflicts in Pasadenas. All of these causes, along with
the thickening layer of small pillowing against the mountains prompted
half of Altadena's population to leave in a flurry of
white flight, and the new residents were mainly people of color.
(26:29):
So because of that area and white flight, we got
us a neighborhood. Now most of the people, a lot
of people I grew up with a lot of black people.
I grew upup their Gramdma on Nim just like so
a lot of our grandma on Ms was in Crenshaw.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
But the gang stuff like really made that impossible. A
lot of are our elders, a lot of our parents.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Their homes are up there, right, and they're really historic homes.
So the Altadena one like hit us really deeply. A
lot of old jazz musicians. Mad Lib the producer, he
lost his crib, DJ Severe, his parents.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
DJ Severe is the DJ for the La Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
His parents lost ay crib, his grandparents lost they crib.
The house he grew up in gone.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
It sucked a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
We were able to buy houses because of the GI
benefits after World War two, right because remember most of
the people that was drafted were people of color, so
you'd get these like housing grants after and because of
redlining and zoning laws, there were only specific areas black
people were allowed to buy in. It's same at California
(27:47):
wasn't no, you know, Utopia. So losing Altadena is a
really big blow to not only LA but the black
community period.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Okay, now let's talk about some science next. Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
One of the things people kept asking I saw on
the internet was like, why y'all not just using the ocean.
How y'all talk about there's not enough water in the
fire hydrogens when you next to the ocean. I don't understand. Well,
let me help you understand.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
First of all, the ocean is saltwater, and the salt
water you may or may not know, is corrosive. Right,
So if you spray the whole town with salt water,
this is gonna make clean up damn near impossible because
of what was of what is left standing, some of
the metal or the brick or stuff like that. The
(29:07):
chemical reactions, it's only gonna cause problems. So it makes
clean up after the fire is out almost impossible.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Secondly, believe it or not, it's heavier.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I know that's weird to say, but ocean water is
heavier than fresh water.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
It is what it is, right.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
And then Another reason, which is probably again one of
the one of the stronger ones, is like it's gonna
kill the vegetation. So because the vegetation on the land,
it comes from rain and fresh water. That's not ocean water.
That's feeding your plants. If you ever have any hope
(29:44):
for the ground to restore itself and grow, you doubts
it with salt water, like you like you're killing it,
Like you're killing the ground. So on first thought, you
would think that just use the ocean. It's really not
a good idea because it just it makes clean up impossible.
It's corrosive, and it's gonna kill the vegetation. Okay, next,
(30:07):
well why did it take so long for them to
get it contained? It was the wind now, like I said,
normally the Santa Anna winds, which is something that we've
all lived with, usually doesn't coincide with fire season, right,
So the winds is just something that like I mean,
I got for all my Cali folks, you know, like
I said, like since I grew up in the SGV,
(30:30):
I still went to high school in the Inland Empire
and out there, like I mean, they would shut down
school because it was just it would knock down trees
like the wind. The Santa Ana's is not a game
in the Inland Empire. Even in my mom's house that
there's a tree behind the retaining wall in her backyard
that knocked over. It broke the retaining wall. It didn't
(30:51):
break her window until the city came in to cut
the rest of the tree down, and then that broke
the window.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
But uh, it's absurd.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
But the wind, this is something that, like, we know
that's gonna be a problem. So it's just the combination
of them both happening at the same time is awful.
The next thing I want to talk about is a
combination of misinformation and what really went on with the government. Okay, now,
(31:24):
far be it from me to get on this camera
and defend Karen Bastard or Gavin Newsome. I don't trust
nobody slick their hair back to wait it Gavin Newsom, dude.
That being said, if you're gonna be mad at him,
be mad at him for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Okay, because some of this is just it's just incorrect.
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I hate in a situation where you make me defend
somebody I don't really mess with, Like when Elon Musk
and Mark Zuckerberg was gonna have a UFC match when
they was gonna like grapple, I was like, how dare you?
How dare you? Because who would I rather see get
that ass kicked? I mean, how It's a tough question
because at first it would have been like, oh, I
(32:10):
want to see I want to see Elon get mopped?
But how dare you make me cheer for Mark Zuckerbert?
You know, I think I may still feel like that.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I don't know anyway, So how dare you make me
defend Karen Basque and Gavit Deuce because the reality is
we've been taking care of ourselves. But we'll talk about
that in the culture section. The first question is about
(32:41):
where was Karen Bass when it started?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And what's wrong with the fire hydrants.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
First of all, that little video of her getting off
the plane after she was coming back from Ghana. Apparently
Pole lady was on her honeymoon, so she coming back
from Ghana and she ain't got nothing to say while
poor lady waiting on her back. They was like, yo,
why you ain't cut the thing? Okay, So again far
being for me to defend this woman. But I will
(33:09):
say this sometimes. I mean she and' it take a
long time to get home, like it take a long
time to get home. And you think if you put
people in charge that they could handle the situation. Ain't
nobody know all this was gonna come together the way
that it came together. And secondly, what's she supposed to say,
(33:33):
because I know what I would say is my nigga,
can you get here, have a glass of hord chot
to fuck up? Get out my way. I got shit
to take care of right now. We're clearly in a crisis.
We could talk about how much I failed a little
later right now, out to dinner, Pal says, on fire,
let me go, give them a feet up under me,
(33:56):
figure out what the hell happened, and I'll get back
to you.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Nigga, I just landed you right. I'm sorry. I ain't
no God damn it, I didn't know like I suppose.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I ain't got no crystal ball cuz I'm on my way. Shit,
there's a fire chief, why you ain't hit them up?
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:13):
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
But far being from me to put words at her mouth.
The fire hydrants. So here's the thing about the fire hydrants. Oh,
let me throw this one real quick. The la the
Hollywood sign was not on fire, y'all. Sometimes, listen, fact
checking is much more easier than you think, if you
would just stop for a second. Cause misinformation is attempting.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
To probably create a scam.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Right, They trying to hit a lick here, so they're
gonna give you something that's sensational that ain't necessarily what's
going on because they hitting a lick. So you have
to remember, like if somebody hitting a lick, they not
gonna necessarily tell you the whole truth.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Sometimes misinformation is just it's chaos happening. You just have
and to get it wrong. Especially about the looting thing. Now,
to me, that was malicious, that that was dissip That
was the problem of missings misinformation. There was this video
of these young men, these black men, carrying this stuff
out of these houses in Altadena. Somebody was like, I
(35:17):
think it was like a whole ass. Nazi was like, look,
the looting has already started. They interviewed the lady. The
lady was like, uh, that's my brother and his friends
from work. I asked him to come get the rest
of my stuff out the house. So you're talking about
this looting is like smells racist because it is racist.
So there's that and some stuff like I said, like
if you take a second, just go back through before
(35:39):
you post it and know that you're invoking an emotion
and slow down for a second. Another thing you could
do is just put something through a Google search. If
you just put it through a Google search, you could
see if an image was altered in any way. Right,
is anyone else posting these things? You know what I'm saying, Like,
there's so many other things you could look at. A
(36:01):
big thing about the fire hydrants. Did we run out
of water? The answer is.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Okay, let me get some let me get some details
for you. So one reservoir in the Santa Nez Reservoir
was closed for repairs. The sansee Inez Reservoir holds seventeen million,
one hundred and seventeen million gallons of water and is
located at the heart of the paliss But the reservoir
closure is not the main reason why the hydrants at
(36:30):
higher higher elevations ran dry.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Right. A lot of it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Has to be has to do with water pressure, right,
and the amount the intensity of the fire. Nobody, again,
nobody was prepared for that, so it didn't have enough
pressure to put the water through because again we weren't
prepared for this perfect storm that made the fire as big.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
As it was.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Even if the reservoir, the leader of the DWP said,
you know, even if the reservoir was full, we still
would have had the pressure issue because of the intensity
of the fire.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
So this again, how dare.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
You make me defend the government but at least be
mad at them for the right reasons. So did the
budget get cut by seventeen million? And the answer is
a little tricky. Now the La Times and the BBC
have reported this. It's not as simple as y'all was
understaffed and you ain't had no money. Now, we had
(37:33):
a surplus of equipment and at the time, since nobody
got a crystal ball, a lot of that surplus, the
extra that we have was sent off to Ukraine. Why
because it was extra.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You following me, So we sent it.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
But it was like, well it was the extra, Like
I ain't know who's gonna need the extra. Sometimes I
like y'all think the government really do be telling the future,
and sometimes they don't, like you be prepared, but you
have like numbers based on your best guess. Now again,
don't have me defending the government. I'm just saying sometimes
it's like that.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
So here we go.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Although southern California is currently follow me experiencing a drought,
this is about whether we had enough water. The data
shows that the reservoirs are almost all currently above historic
average at this time of year, and none were set
significant low levels.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Now let me fact check the fact check.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
What they say is we didn't set a record this time,
like every year we be setting a record on lows.
But if you remember at the beginning of twenty twenty
four and the beginning of twenty twenty three, yo, it rained.
I had to redo the freaking ground in my backyard
like it got it was bad. So our levels are
(38:58):
on average more than they have been. Now, don't get
me wrong, we're still in a drought. It's just not
as bad as it was. I mean, there was a
time when you had to, like if you went to
a restaurant, they didn't just give you water, like you
had to ask for a glass of water because they
was like, we just ain't we just ain't got it.
So our levels have been did come up a little
(39:20):
bit on average, so it wasn't necessarily that Oh Gavin.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Newsom released the water for the fishies.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Now if he had have released it, now, yeah, I mean,
I don't understand why you think that him saving that
water would have saved us from this problem. It wouldn't have.
And would it have helped. I mean, I guess, but
like not the way you think it would have helped. Right,
So that's being that.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Now.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
As far as the budget, the seventeen million, okay, so
for the last financial year the LA Fire Department was
department budget was cut by seventeen million, right, seventeen point
six million. Now, the LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told
CNN that the budget had cut cut had severely affected
(40:02):
the department's ability to respond to the disaster, right, so
that's real. She said the department was already understaffed in
the elimination of civilian positions like mechanics had meant one
hundred fire apparatuses were out of service now. So Mayor
Bass responded to this criticism. She was saying that there
(40:22):
were no reductions that were made that would have impacted
the situation that we were dealing with over the last.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Couple of days.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
So she was like look dog like, it wouldn't have
made no difference. Now that smells a little bit like
an excuse, because of course it would have made a difference.
But that's not the part I want to talk about.
I don't know why she ain't say this stuff. So
check this out. So, according to the La Times, after
the twenty twenty four twenty twenty five budget was passed,
the city council approved, so watch this, fifty three million
(40:49):
dollars in pay.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Raises for the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
And fifty eight million in new kits such as fire trucks.
So once the funding on was take it into the account,
the department's operation budget actually grew, you follow me. So
we did this budget cut as far as like a
line item that lost these things, but then brought this
(41:14):
money over here on this side, right, And the LA
Fire Department had overall budget approaching almost one billion.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
And also, isn't the only department responding to the fires, right,
So the forest fire protections all that good stuff. So
there's other people that normally take care of the forest.
Is a department different than the LA Fire Department, right,
you're following me. So, so yeah, there was a budget cut,
but there was also a budget raise. It just came
in other ways. Now that being said, I don't know
(41:45):
how they spend the money. I don't know how that
stuff break down. Sometimes I don't understand the way they
do these budgets. It don't make sense to me either.
But it's not as simple as well. If you wouldn't
have cut they budget, this wouldn't have happened. It's not
that simple. Now, did we sell the water rights to corporations? Absolutely?
Water rights being sold right. People that make these statios,
(42:09):
they own a big percentage of LA's natural water is privatized. Again,
you can refer to the block as hot the original one.
Even some of your utility bills, believe it or not,
those are private companies. But y'all love capitalism right now.
Another one we want to talk about is the incarcerated firefighters.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Now, this is a big deal. This is true.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Thirty percent of the people fighting these fires are incarcerated.
They do, in fact make five dollars and eighty cents
or up to ten twenty four cents a day. I'm
gonna say that again, that's what they make a day,
(42:57):
not five dollars an hour, five hours a day. Now,
you can earn an additional one dollar per hour responding
in emergencies. Right now, there's a great thread on threads
from a former incarcerated firefighter who was incarcerated in California
(43:17):
in two thousand and nine to twenty twelve. Now again,
you can't believe the internet. I'm gonna give you some
pointers as to how you shouldn't believe the internet a
little later.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
But like, yo, check this out. So it's voluntary.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
First of all, you get to volunteer to be able
to be a part of the incarcerated Firefighters program. Now again,
you making pennies. Now, why that's okay, I believe it
or not. As the thirteenth Amendment, which is the indentured
servitude clause inside of the thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves,
they said, but we could also make you work. If
(43:50):
you're incarcerated as a part of your punishment, we can
make you and that's why they only pay you pennies. Now,
y'all may or may not remember, but there was a
a bill on the California ballot that literally said slavery.
I can't make this stuff up, and we voted, and
(44:12):
we voted for it. Now there are in this program,
you obviously have to be well not obviously, there are
a few stipulations you have to be. You know, in
a nonviolent right you have to be a minimum security
minimum security status. You have to have no active warrants,
(44:34):
no physical medical psychiatric conditions, right. You have to have
a recent clear of disciplinary history less than eight and
you have to have eight less than eight years remaining
on your sentence. And you have to have no convictions
of serious violence, sex, arson, or escape attempts.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So there's a very particular group of people that are
allowed to do this again because it's involuntary or because
is voluntary, and you get to be off site, so
you stay on a campsite. They're twenty four hour shifts,
they give you food, right, and pending on.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Your particular.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Prison location, oftentimes your experience can be much different like anything.
You know what I'm saying, there's a human thing, right,
and the people that they choose. Obviously, you're still being
selected because it's involuntary or because it's voluntary, and they
have to approve like, Okay, you meet all these requirements,
but who do we really want to be out for
two weeks with? So hopefully the person that's working at
(45:37):
the prison is like cool, you know what I'm saying.
And of course they want it to be a good
hang like anything else. So of course we're working hard.
Of course this is voluntary. Of course it's grueling, and
of course you making pennies. But you know, I'm gonna
read this again just for y'all start just thinking. Everybody
in jail is the same again. You have to have
a minimum security at status, no active warrants, no physical,
(45:58):
medical or psychiatric condition. You have to have recent clear,
recently clear disciplinary history, less than eight years remaining on
your sentence, and no convictions of serious violent sex are
sined or escape attempts that like. Of course, like these
are like you doing what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
You serve your time.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
You made a mistake at one point, you get your
acts together, right, and you get out there.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
They said they feed you. Well.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
You stay on these things and you get to have
time knocked off of your sentence, right, you get to
have time knocked off of your parole. Now if everything
works out, yes, when you get out, you are allowed
to apply for certain fire departments, maybe not the lap
(46:42):
D LAFD.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
So while you're on the site.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
While you're on site, you get like calfired CalFire the
people that does the training, you get like physical fitness training,
You get firefighter training. And it's really because again because
these civilian firefighters, people that like actually like work for
the virus, like you putting as right, like I'm putting
my life.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
In your hands. I need to make sure you know
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
The state saves like billions of dollars by paying them pennies,
which obviously is trash, but that's what happens. But you
get trained on like chainsaws and all the things you
would need right how to work like basic hand tools.
Now you're not trained on used to how on how
to use the fire hose or run an engine right,
And you're not trained as the type of firefighter that
(47:28):
requires to go into buildings and rescuing peoples and stuff
like that. Their task is to cut a fire break
between what is burning and what is yet to burn, right,
which is a very important thing that I remember my
mama used to talk about. Right when you get out,
you are eligible, right, you are eligible to apply for
(47:49):
firefighting jobs at how fire right, which has to do
more with like the woodland sort of stuff like that. Right,
So it's not so much that you don't get on
the job training that you can't use, like you still
get training that you could use later. Now granted again
this is not a defense of that. But also I
am not incarcerated. I imagine in an incarcerated sense situation
(48:13):
where this person chose to do this, they're what they're
Most of them are saying like, yo, of all these situations,
I know it's hard, but this is like the dopest
thing you can do.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
And a lot of them people were saying like yo,
like I'm from here too, Like I see the same
news you do.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
I want to help you feel me, Like I don't
know why people in their brain think once a person
goes to jail they stop being a person, like they
still a person?
Speaker 1 (48:34):
You feel me?
Speaker 2 (48:35):
So know that, Like these are the facts and all
that good stuff. And lastly, I want to talk about
the culture.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Now.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
I need you to remember that like everybody in la
ain't rich. Some of these people have had houses passed down.
Some of these people have worked two and three jobs
their whole life. I know Jenney Aiko said she lost
her house. Everybody dissing or like bye another one. It's
like Nigga, she's from the land, like she fought or
worked her whole life to get this. Listen, I'm a
(49:06):
homeowner right now, but like y'all, I would be done,
like if I don't know what I would be. What's
the plan be? Like you start over, bro? Like have
you ever worked on something for fifteen twenty years? You
just want somebody to be like, start over, bro, Like, No,
that's not how the land works. Also, as someone who's
(49:30):
been on the ground codinating with mutual aid programs and
even with government programs, my district council member, she's from
the city. She used her powers of government. She opened
the city Hall right here in Boyle Heights and set
up a donation center. But before she could do that,
(49:51):
or while she was doing that, the city was already
in action, people already coordinating people already. The the level
of generosity that has been going across this city. Now,
if you from an area like Ashville or any other
areas that are subjected to natural disasters, you know exactly
(50:12):
what I'm talking about. Government can't get to you in time,
The fire sometimes fire department can't get you in time.
Who'll get to you first? Is your neighbors. And this
is what we're seeing out here is neighbors being neighbors, artists, rappers, businesses.
PAC's son being like, look, dm us, we'll send you
some clothes. You know what I'm saying. Airbnb being like, yo,
it's free, go ahead, it's all good. My wife, doctor
(50:33):
Ahma refer to her by her prefix, has set up
meal trains. She has within one Google doc just of
our neighborhood and the school that my daughter goes to.
Figuring out, Okay, who lost their houses, who gonna donate ventilators?
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Who won't do this?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Is? I mean, I'm even having friends who've lost everything,
still figuring out how to help. We at Club real Ones,
we did one yesterday. We did a drive yesterday to
taking food cards and stuff like that, like like you
figure it out out?
Speaker 1 (51:00):
How are we finding each other? Hell? We just are right.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I remember I was at Boyle Heiste. We took some
stuff to Egle Rock, Egle Rock, and then there was
another church over there by the uh off off off
Cyser Chavez and State. I'm talking to you like you
from here White Memorial right, So there's a church over
there too. I met the pastor passing Manny, he like,
how do I tap in with the city. I'm like
the city right over there. Matter of fact, we're doing
some on Sunday, y'all, Caul, bring some of this stuff
y'all got, We gonna take it there.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
We're gonna take it.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Up to the h By the time that the city
set up the rose Bowl, like I said before, we
already had the stuff.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
We already had it set up.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
We already knew everything, like it was already labeled in
English Spanish tigallog like toiletries. You feel me, uh you know,
ROPAs de damas, like you know what I'm saying. Like
it was already set up. We already had it. Why
because we're from the land. It was already set up.
There was water like we today. We took pallettes of
water to the fire station because.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
That's what they asked for. You know what they also
they asked for, just like food, gift cards. Sure here,
we just did it. We figured it out.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
We connected across communities, across towns, and when the government
caught up and was ready to get themselves situated, because yeah,
they moved slower than us.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
It's too many things happening right now. That's fine.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
But what you experienced if you had, if you if
somebody handed you without you having to ask, a pack
of tampons, toilet paper, and some toothbrushes, why we already
had that and why you just had it?
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Is anarchy? That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
You know why the fire department showed up? Could you
show ain't paid for it? You say, yessue, did you
paid for it by your taxes? Yes? Niggas Socialism, that's
what that is. You know who canceling your insurance? Capitalism,
that's what that This is why we say the stuff
we say. But that's the culture here, and you know
(52:54):
what we're doing while they're doing that. I got DMed
so many times people of psychologists, therapists that are like, look,
let me know. If people are going through some trauming
and experience right now, I'm ready to.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Sit with them.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
We meet people that's like, listen, let me teach you
how to read your policy. If it's we're figuring it out,
don't sign nothing. People helping people, it's just happening. You
would say, well, it's just people being good neighbors and
taking care of themselves. I would say, ah ah correct.
This is what we mean at cuzone. This, This is
(53:29):
what we mean by leftists. It's like you just you
just do the shit because it's the right shit to do.
I don't you don't wait, fam, And that's what's happening
on the ground now. Ways you can help, let me
tell you something. We need airperer fires, we need gift cards.
(53:55):
We got everything else, like and that stuff you can
see through the mail now us. We'll put in the
show notes all kinds of links and waits for which
you can help. But your best bet is if you're
gonna seeing stuff, uh, send.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
The gift cards.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
I love this city, man, We'll be all right to
live and die in l A. And I think I'm
(54:45):
gonna sum it up with something I saw on social media,
Like with all the like trash talking we're hearing around
l A.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
About l A is is.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
You know the city's literally on fire. It's because it's
because of the drug. You know, for whatever reason city's
on fire. Sometimes the wind can blow you over, Sometimes
the prices are astronomical and really unsustainable, and sometimes the
very ground shakes up under us and knocks down buildings
(55:18):
with earthquakes. But even with all that I still don't
want to live where you live La Online of Politics.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
(56:00):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed,
edited and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski Killing the
Beat Softly. Check out his website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm
a speller for you because I know M A T
(56:22):
T O S O W s ki dot com Matthowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out The heat. Politics is
a member of Cool Zone Media, executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and
(56:42):
scoring is also by the one and nobly Mattowsowski. Still
killing the Beat Softly, So listen, don't let nobody lie
to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week. S
Host
Prop
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com